Ghosts reformed

The ghost had a purpose and a place in medieval society. Its purpose was generally to return to the terrene world to urge sinners to repent, to request prayers be said for the benefit of the souls of the departed, or to counsel the living against specific courses of action in both everyday mundane affairs and in ecclesiastical disputes. In this, the repertoire of the ghost as revenant had remained relatively unchanged since the classical era. Although medieval Christianity was notoriously vague in its demarcations between the natural and supernatural, it was generally supposed that ghosts came from the non-terrestrial place called purgatory, although as one later commentator added, it was conceivable that disembodied souls could endure their purgatory ‘among mountains or in waters, or in valleys, or in houses, and particularly are they attached to those spots where on earth they sinned and offended God’. The phenomenon of being haunted, therefore, was not only a normal possibility in life, but the world of ghosts was remarkably well ordered, secured and explainable both doctrinally and logically. Richard A. Bowyer has argued that: ‘While the modern “ghost” appears in a psychological vacuum, terrifyingly isolated from our normal, everyday experience, the medieval “ghost” or “spirit” appears as an integral part of an immense and ordered spiritual world.’

The Reformation led to the collapse of this cosmic hierarchy by radically separating the living from the dead.