ACADEMIC TALK
Watch the lecture by Lily Middleton-Mansell below and don’t forget to take a look at the extra resources and have a go at the activity at the end.
Medieval Ghost Stories
Lily Middleton-Mansell
Ghost stories seem to have been around for as long as humanity itself, but what role did they play in literature of the Medieval period? Developing doctrines of purgatory in the 15th century influenced the perceived relationship between the living and the dead, raising questions about the responsibility of the living towards the dead and the physicality of both the dead and living body.
Further reading
Click here to read more about the Byland Abbey ghost stories. You can read the stories themselves – in both English and Latin – here.
You can read more about purgatory and Medieval ghosts here
You can learn more about the Awntyrs off Arthure (‘Adventures of Arthur’), an Arthurian Romance that contains the story of Guinevere and Dame Gaynour, here. You can read the romance in the original Middle English here.
One of the difficulties of researching the Medieval period is getting to grips with its language – while Middle English is close enough to modern English to be comprehensible, with no standardised spelling it can sometimes be tricky to work out what is going on in a text. Julian of Norwich was an English Anchoress who wrote a religious work called The Revelations of Divine Love between the 14th and 15th centuries. It is the earliest surviving English work that is known to have been written by a woman.
Take a look at this passage from the first chapter of Revelations of Divine Love, which lists the different ways of showing or revealing Christ’s love:
Try your best to rewrite this passage in modern English. Don’t worry, it’s normal for Middle English to look intimidating at first, but it’s more logical than you might think. If in doubt, sound out the letters phonetically – remember that Julian of Norwich didn’t care about spelling!
This is a Revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless blisse, made in
sixteen Sheweings or Revelations particular. Off the which, the first is of His
pretious coroning with thornys; and therewith was comprehended and specifyed
the Trinite with the incarnation, and unite betwix God and man soule, with many
faire sheweings of endless wisedome and teacheing of love, in which all the
sheweings that follow be grounded and onyd. The second is the discolloureing of
His faire face in tokenyng of His deareworthy passion. The third is that our Lord
God, almighty wisedome, all love, right as verily as He hath made every thing
that is, also verily He doith and workeith all thing that is done. The fourth is the
scourgeing of His tender body with plentious sheddyng of His blood. The fifth is
that the fend is overcome by the pretious passion of Christe. The sixth is the
worshippfull thankeing of our Lord God, with which He rewardeth His blissed
servants in Hevyn. The seventh is often feeleing of wele and wo. Feleing of wele
is gracious touching and lightening, with trew sekirness of endless joy. The
feleing of wo is temptation be heavyness and irkehede of our fleshly liveing, with
ghostly understanding that we arn kept also sekirly in love in wo as in wele be
the godeness of God. The eighth is the last paynes of Christ and His cruelle
dyeing. The ninth is of the likeing which is in the blissefull Trinite of the herde
passion of Christe and His rewfull dyeing, in which joy and likeing He will wee
be solacid and myrthid with Him till whan we come to the fullhede in Heavyn.
The tenth is our Lord Jesus shewith in love His blissefull herte even cloven on
two enjoyand. The eleventh is an hey, ghostly sheweing of His deareworthy
moder. The twelfth is that our Lord is most worthy being. The thirteenth is that
our Lord God wil we have gret regard to all the deeds that He hath done in the
gret nobleth of all things makyng and of the excellency of man makeyng, which
is above all His workes, and of the pretious asseth that He hath made for man
synne, turneing all our blame into endlesse worshippe; where also our Lord
seith, Behold and see, for be the same mightie wisedome and goodnesse I shall
make wele all that is not wele, and thou shalt see it.
Further reading
If you’re interested in Julian of Norwich, you can read more about her here and look at the full text of Revelations of Divine Love here.
