University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 4-17-2017 Cultural Belief in the Supernatural from 500 to 1500: Change over Time, Significance, and Dispersion of Ideas from Augustine to Shakespeare Stephanie Victoria Violette University of New Mexico Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Violette, Stephanie Victoria. "Cultural Belief in the Supernatural from 500 to 1500: Change over Time, Significance, and Dispersion of Ideas from Augustine to Shakespeare." (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/162 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i Stephanie Victoria Violette Candidate History Department This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Thesis Committee: Michael A. Ryan, Chairperson Timothy Graham Sarah Davis-Secord ii CULTURAL BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL FROM 500 TO 1500: CHANGE OVER TIME, SIGNIFICANCE, AND DISPERSION OF IDEAS FROM AUGUSTINE TO SHAKESPEARE BY STEPHANIE VICTORIA VIOLETTE B.A., HONOURS IN HISTORY, ST. THOMAS UNIVERSITY, NB, CANADA, 2015 THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2017 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the professors I have had the pleasure of working with and under for the past two years at the University of New Mexico. Thank you to Drs. Michael A. Ryan, Timothy Graham, Sarah Davis-Secord, and Jonathan Davis-Secord, for sharing with me their expertise on various topics, as well as for helping me throughout this writing process, and for allowing me, during my coursework, to pursue research related to my interest in this thesis topic I am so passionate about. I would also like to thank my mentors at my previous institution: St. Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Thank you to Drs. Robin Vose and Andrea Schutz for all of their support and guidance during my undergraduate degree, and also for the encouragement and confidence to pursue further education in a different country. Not even a graduate student can live happily without the help of friends, and so I thank my many friends in Albuquerque for supporting and working with me as they too pursue their degrees: notably my roommate Anna Catharina Izoton (who prevents me from starving), Sarah Fairbanks-Loose, Emily Northcutt, James White, Danika Grenko and so many others. I extend a special thanks, also, to my closest friends Sarah and Richard Obenauf, who have been willing to help me with everything and anything I might need, even before my move to Albuquerque. May we stay in touch. Also, I thank my family (mother Joanne, father Richard, and sister Nadine) for supporting my academic endeavours from thousands of miles away, as well as my significant other, Leo Groenenberg, for maintaining a long-distance relationship with me through thick and thin. Lastly, although he may not be able to appreciate the gesture, I thank my majestic black cat Nathaniel Hawthorne Explosion, for tolerating me. iv CULTURAL BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL FROM 500 TO 1500: CHANGE OVER TIME, SIGNIFICANCE, AND DISPERSION OF IDEAS FROM AUGUSTINE TO SHAKESPEARE By Stephanie Victoria Violette B.A., Honours in History, St. Thomas University, 2015 M.A., History, University of New Mexico, 2017 ABSTRACT This project is an amalgamation of case studies, arguing that not only did the supernatural permeate every level of medieval society, but that its potential for analysis and interpretation is largely unexplored. These case studies include: an analysis of the Church Fathers works, including Tertullian’s De testimonio animae, Augustine of Hippo’s De cura pro mortuis gerenda, and Gregory the Great’s Dialogi, addressing the variation in these works’ theological ideas about the soul; an analysis of the works of Gregory of Tours (his Liber vitae Patrum and Historia Francorum), which reflect popular beliefs as opposed to those of the educated elite; an exploration of the genre of exempla during the high middle ages utilizing five ghost stories found in the Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum; a move into the late middle ages and beyond, examining some fifteenth-century exempla found in the margins of a manuscript from Byland Abbey, Yorkshire, their connection to the Danish ghost in Hamlet, and the oral and folkloric traditions that tie all of these sources together. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 Specters, Spirits, and the longue durée of the History of Ghosts ...................... 2 The Problem of Ambiguity ......................................................................... 5 Chapter Organization ................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER 2 HISTORIOGRAPHY ............................................................................. 15 Beyond the Veil from Late Antiquity ................................................................ 16 Taking the Supernatural Seriously ............................................................ 17 Incorporating Hagiography ....................................................................... 23 The Problem of Categorization ................................................................. 24 A Dearth of Sources .................................................................................. 27 The Interdisciplinary Turn ........................................................................ 33 CHAPTER 3 CHRISTIANIZATION OF APPARITIONS, ELITE AND POPULAR TRENDS .. 36 The Influence of the Church Fathers on Popular Belief ................................. 37 Tertullian ................................................................................................... 37 De testimonio animae .............................................................................. 41 Augustine of Hippo ................................................................................... 44 De cura pro mortuis gerenda ................................................................... 46 Gregory the Great ..................................................................................... 50 Dialogorum libri quattuor ........................................................................ 52 Gregory of Tours’s ‘Grassroots’ Perspective, Beginnings of the Popular Ghost.......................................................................................... 57 The World of Gregory of Tours ................................................................ 61 vi Gregory’s Writings ................................................................................... 65 Vita Patrum ............................................................................................... 68 Auditory Specters...................................................................................... 70 Shapeshifting............................................................................................. 72 The Righteous Wrath of Saints ................................................................. 73 Demon Alliances ....................................................................................... 76 St. Nicetius of Lyons................................................................................. 77 Historia Francorum .................................................................................. 81 The Unworthy Bishop ............................................................................... 84 The Priest and the Doves .......................................................................... 86 Gregory’s Own Visions ............................................................................ 87 A Woman’s Vision of Fire ........................................................................ 89 The Magic of the Huns ............................................................................. 90 CHAPTER 4 EXEMPLA AND DIDACTIC BORROWING FROM ORAL TRADITION ........... 93 The Restless and the Restful Dead: Spirituality, Morality, and Cultural Belief in the Exempla of Caesarius of Heisterbach .............. 94 Definition and Categorization ................................................................... 95 Caesarius’s Context and Purpose .............................................................. 97 Dialogus miraculorum ............................................................................ 102 The Planned Return................................................................................. 103 The Widow and the Warning .................................................................. 105 The Good Monk ...................................................................................... 108 The Vision of a Loved One ..................................................................... 110 vii The Unmentionable Sin .......................................................................... 111 Paranormal Fusion, Synthesis of Folklore and Orthodoxy in the Margins at Byland Abbey .................................................................................... 117 How to