The walking dead who crawled out of the graves (or never got there) inexplicably became an integral part of mass culture.
Objectively, if we compare different types of walking dead, then vampires, of course, are much more pleasant, if only because they exist as a whole and do not decompose right on the go. But zombies of all kinds and stripes for some reason have bypassed bloodsuckers in popularity.
At the same time, the dead men wandering through the valleys and scales are not at all a product of the somewhat painful imagination of directors and screenwriters, as well as a modern phenomenon. Stories about the restless dead have existed in European culture for a long time. True, they were called not zombies, but "revenants".
Translated from French (as well as from Latin) it means "those who returned." For simplicity, I will refer to them as "returnees."
"Revenant" is not exactly a zombie, although it looks like
Actually, there is a lot in common between "returnees" and zombies. However, they occupy a special place in the catalogs of any unpleasant evil spirits.
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The main difference lies in the freedom to choose the buried body. The "returnees" themselves decide to return to their former flesh in order to somehow do something wrong, or take revenge on the living, while zombies become such by someone's evil will, or because of an unknown and very dangerous virus.
Accordingly, zombies (if we mean the classic copy) unconditionally obey the one who pulled them out of the grave, while the "returnees" have their own agenda, plus full control over their actions.
And if zombies in European culture were nevertheless an alien element, then “returnees” have the most local roots.
William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum and real life examples
The English chronicler William of a monastery in north Yorkshire, whose work Historia rerum Anglicarum (History of England) is still considered one of the main sources on the history of 12th century England, describes several cases when the dead for some reason decided to get out of their graves.
A sexually preoccupied "revenant" or just a great family man?
“A man in a village in Buckinghamshire died and, according to tradition, and thanks to the dignified actions of his wife and relatives, was put in the grave … and almost crushed her to death with the unbearable weight of his dead body. And the next night, he again did the same with the shocked woman, who was scared to death, and in anticipation of the next night of the same, not only tried not to sleep herself, but also surrounded herself with guards from friends and relatives.
In short, the poor dead man, who wanted nothing else but to return to a normal family life with his widow, was expelled from his own (in the past) home and went offended to frighten his surviving brothers.
The chronicler, unfortunately, does not explain for what purpose the recent deceased climbed into the houses of his male relatives, and whether he tried to enter into an intimate relationship with them.
However, the dead guest was not limited to relatives and continued to frighten fellow villagers at night. And when the whole village, instead of sleeping peacefully, was awake with a pitchfork in hand, and he could no longer get into the houses, he set to work on cows with sheep, and cats and dogs, as evidenced by “their wild behavior and unjustified body movements.
The case ended with the fact that the archbishop personally inscribed with his own hand a letter of absolution, which they put on the chest of an overly spirited deceased, after breaking the grave and opening the coffin.
After which he suddenly calmed down and no longer disturbed anyone.
"Returnees" as a mirror of moral decline
Many modern historians are inclined to believe that William of Newburgh took on the living dead solely in order to condemn contemporary outrages in the personal and public life of English and Scottish citizens.
Having told readers about a terrible story from a Buckinghamshire village, and another, from the city of Berick, which is now in England, and in the XII century was Scottish, he sadly notes that there were no such outrages before, because, probably, the morals were more pious …
“It is hard to believe that the corpses of the dead get out of their graves and wander, inspiring horror and sowing destruction in the world of the living … It would be strange to assume that such things happened before, since there is no evidence of this in the works of ancient chroniclers who were never lazy tell about events of not even too great importance. And they would not fail to tell about a fact so incredible and terrible. But if I wanted to tell about all such events, it would be an immeasurably difficult and extensive work, so I will tell only about some … as a warning to posterity."
And here is another story from the Historia rerum Anglicarum, confirming the moral aspect of the appearance of the "returnees".
Loving monk
The fact that the legal husband after death decided to return to his wife's bed is a terrible situation, but morally not too reprehensible.
It is a completely different matter when it comes to a monk who during his lifetime did not observe the vow of chastity. After his death, he never managed to calm down, and, apparently, devoured by the burden of sins, he got into the habit of getting out of the grave.
However, he was buried on the territory of the monastery, and his former associates successfully resisted him. Nevertheless, the sinner in tonsure in the grave did not lie in any way, and he somehow began to climb over the fence and stagger around the bedroom of his former mistress. In fact, in this place the chronicler writes somewhat indistinctly, so it could well be that an overly spirited dead body was walking not around the bedroom, but under its windows.
This, however, does not change matters, since the poor woman was worn out to the extreme, but she sincerely repented, repented and donated a large sum to the monastery.
But then it became interesting. Two young, strong-minded monks, plus two young, strong-bodied squires decided to put an end to these outrages.
At night, stroking, they gathered at the grave and began to wait for the appearance of the deceased. For some reason he was in no hurry, the night, meanwhile, was long and cold. And the three guards decided that they had waited in vain and went home. And only one of them was strong and remained. It was then that the monk got out of the grave and went, as they say, to a ram and with very bad intentions.
The young man froze at first in horror, but quickly came to his senses and rushed to the evil spirits with an ax in his hand, which he thrust into the dead body somewhere in the lower back.
Theoretically, the dead man shouldn't care, but he, nevertheless, gasped, and quickly jumped back into the coffin, and the earth opened by itself, and then closed behind him.
Here other guards came running, and, although it was a classic case, that after a fight they didn't wave their fists, they dug up the corpse and burned it, and scattered the ashes in the wind. It is clear that after that the dead man no longer bothered anyone, because he had nothing else to bother him: neither the body, nor the grave.
"Revenants" as defenders of feudal law
Less than 100 years after William the Conqueror's Normans settled in England, there were two main landowners in Staffordshire.
On the one hand, it was the Bertin Abbey (monastery of St. Modvenna), headed by Abbot Geoffrey, on the other, Count Roger of Poatevinets. And it so happened that two peasants from the possessions of the abbot decided that he was taking too many taxes from them and fled to the possession of the count.
A small digression should be made here: this story is described in the essay "The Life and Miracles of St. Modvenna", the author of which was … Abbot Geoffrey.
And both of these peasants completely unfairly (how else) accused the abbot of violating their rights and freedoms, which led to the conflict between Geoffrey and Roger.
But nothing came of the fugitive peasants, because exactly the day after the escape they sat down to supper and then suddenly fell where they sat, completely dead. They were buried, as expected, but at their previous place of residence.
But then, as the abbot wrote, the events "incredible and truly outstanding" began.
“On the evening of the very day they were buried, and while the sun had not yet set, they suddenly appeared in the village, carrying on their shoulders the wooden coffins in which they were buried. And all night they wandered along the roads and fields … talking with other villagers, and also knocking on their doors, shouting: "Faster, faster, move, it's time, it's time to go!"
Then everything became somehow completely sad, because soon the villagers began to die like flies from some unknown disease. And they died so quickly that soon only three remained alive, and even those lay dying.
And in neighboring villages, people lived in constant fear of the two dead, who staggered wherever they got, for some reason dragging their coffins behind them.
In the end, the situation went so far that the villagers turned directly to the bishop (what have they been waiting for so long?), Who allowed the graves to be dug up and the dead to be reached. And their bodies were surprisingly intact, but the shrouds covering their faces were stained with blood.
It is better to show excessive zeal than to bite your elbows later
It was possible to fight against "returnees", but it was believed that the night hours were completely unsuitable for this. The process should have been carried out in the light of day, when the restless dead man rested in a coffin from walks by the moon. To begin with, one had to dig up the body, then chop off the head, then take out the heart and either pierce it with a stake, or burn it. As a precaution, both the first and the second could have been done.
The body, too, had to be either burned or properly sprinkled with holy water, and then sent back to the grave. There were no special rules regarding the severed head, although it was believed that it was out of harm's way, it would also be nice to burn it. A logical question: why burn all these parts of the body separately, isn't it easier at once in bulk?
I don’t know, but, probably, in this situation the logic no longer worked, and the frightened residents believed that you couldn’t spoil the porridge with butter. Sorry, I understand that culinary associations are not very relevant here.
But options are also possible
By the way, if we consider the above-mentioned common practice, then the fugitive peasant returnees were not treated too harshly.
First, they chopped off the heads of the corpses, then put these heads between their legs, after which they dissected the dead chests and pulled out the dead hearts from them.
The heartless and headless dead were again covered with earth, and they decided to burn the torn out hearts, and burned from morning to evening. In this place, Abbot Geoffrey for some reason does not provide additional details, so we do not know whether these hearts burned for so long because they were bewitched, or whether they, as it should be, of organic matter, burned out rather quickly, but the villagers simply they were afraid to approach the fire.
True, the first option is more probable, because in the evening the hearts nevertheless cracked, and evil spirits flew out of them in the form of black crows.
The main question is: why?
And immediately after that, the sick villagers recovered, gathered their wives, children and livestock, and left the cursed village, fearing the wrath of God, which clearly overtook them, because their brothers decided to get out of the hands of the abbot and go to the count.
"(The village) was abandoned, and for a long time no one dared to live there, fearing God's wrath, and praising the miracles that God Almighty performed through the holy virgin!"
What is it that the Lord arranged all these miracles and misfortunes, and the corpses walking with coffins only to punish two fugitive peasants? This reaction seems to be somewhat excessive, although I fully admit that from the point of view of medieval consciousness, all this was quite reasonable.
Appearance
This is where the "returnees" are not too different from the zombies and are far behind both vampires and ghosts.
They say that they almost always moved into their own buried body, when it had already begun to decompose, but had not yet decomposed beyond recognition.
However, this terrible body lacked pieces of flesh, often exposing bones and internal organs, the skin hung in rags, and in all the voids grave worms and their larvae swarmed.
Unpleasant, but quite useful, since such a state of the bodies served as an excellent alarm signal, because the unbearable smell of rotting appeared long before the afterlife visitor.
And, as if the stench was not enough, the "revenants" were also distinguished by rotten teeth and sunken eyes, burning with a red otherworldly light. Like? No, and it's not over yet. In addition to decay and rotten teeth, the returnee's nails were bloody and fractured as he used his hands to break a passage from the grave into the fresh air. So the clothes, for the same reason, were dirty, torn and bloody.
The bodies of these cute creatures, according to eyewitnesses, were overflowing with the blood of the victims they had ruined, although it is completely unclear why they needed it (blood)?
It is believed, however, that they drank it simply because of a bad temper and bad inclinations. The vampires, at least, had a good reason: without blood they would have simply disappeared, while the "returnees" have no excuse at all.
Halloween
I think everyone will agree that prevention is better than cure, especially when it comes to restless visitors from the nearby cemetery.
All Saints' Eve, Halloween was perfect for that. First, prayers helped to guide the not-dead dead to a better world.
Secondly, it was possible to leave them a little food so that they were satisfied with it, felt that they were remembered, and would not be nasty to living friends and relatives.
Thirdly, it was still worth changing into clothes of the opposite sex or some other suit in order to deflect the eyes of the "returnees".
If none of this worked, then no one canceled digging graves, chopping off heads and burning hearts.
If you are interested in the fate of the "revenants", then you can turn to the original medieval texts, which, fortunately, have been translated into modern English.
And in general, I hope that you personally have not done anything wrong to anyone, and the hostile dead will not bother you. But, if anything, you now have a guide to action.
Author: Yana Litvinova