Gordon, Stephen  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7778-2555
2025.
The revenant in Europe: Medieval England.
Bacon, S., ed.
The Palgrave Handbook of the Zombie,
Cham:
Palgrave,
pp. 61-77.
(10.1007/978-3-032-05696-2_2)
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Abstract
In medieval society, the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead was altogether blurred. The need to prepare for a “good” death was a central concern. Dying suddenly, violently, and/or in a state of unresolved sin, was one of the main factors that caused the dead to rise. While the influence of the doctrine of Purgatory led, as the centuries progressed, to the general disembodiment of the dead in popular discourse, the belief in embodied ghosts never completely disappeared. Whether mobilized by a demon, a purgatorial spirit, or some sort of inherent mechanical vitality, the walking corpse needed to be dealt with at all costs. The method of containment depended on the identity of the body’s agent. Purgatorial spirits were granted absolution, while bodies that were ambulated by the devil (or through other, unknown means) were usually staked, dismembered, or cremated. The aim of this chapter, then, will be to evaluate the written evidence for revenant belief in medieval England. Following a brief overview of the key English-language secondary literature on the medieval undead, the remainder of the chapter will explore how the figure of the revenant was understood, articulated, and critically deployed across a wide variety of textual genres. Ultimately, it will be seen how the English iteration of the walking corpse was no less feared—and occasionally no less deadly—than its more famous historical cousins, the Scandinavian draugr and Slavic vampire.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy |
| Publisher: | Palgrave |
| ISBN: | 9783032056955 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Jan 2026 10:18 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177160 |
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