Pierre de Hangest - Fear of the Living Dead, c. 1470.
For the first time, researchers have found evidence in a belief in the walking dead in medieval England, where they analyzed bones and skeletons that were decapitated, burned, and otherwise mutilated after death. The Independent says the evidence from the bones “strongly suggests” a belief among the villagers that their deceased peers would rise from the dead. The evidence apparent in the bones backs up historical documentary evidence of such beliefs and practices. The Independent says it is known that medieval people believed corpses could rise up only when the flesh was still on the bones - after death and before decomposition. They didn’t believe skeletons had such powers. The article states villagers broke dead bodies’ limbs, perhaps with hammers or stones, and they cut off heads to remove any chance of thought or sight. After all this, they burned the corpses to destroy the flesh and keep them in the grave.
Fear of the dead, or undead as the case may be, probably has roots in ancient or even prehistoric times. Medieval people thought dead people who had been evil in life could rise up and vengefully attack the living or spread disease. A Yorkshire preacher of the 12th century, William of Newburgh, wrote of an evil man who escaped justice and fled York. He died and rose up. A pack of barking dogs pursued him as he wandered through town. The townspeople stayed inside with their doors locked. They came out eventually, determined to mutilate and burn his body. They dug up his grave, and as the Independent reports of his writings: “They laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons”.
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