The dead could occupy the same world as the living

Published by s.b.f on 19 May, 2009 - 14:24

Medieval records evoke the time when the dead were always with us.
The Abbot of the Monastery of Burton-on-Trent recorded an uncanny series of events that occurred around 1090.
"There were two villagers living in Stapenhill, who ran away to a neighboring village. The very next day at the third hour , they were suddenly struck down dead.
Soon after their corpses were buried, word came of two alien beings roaming the woods. Now they appeared in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders. Now in the likeness of bears or dogs."

The villagers were in were in mortal terror of the two phantom dead men who roamed the countryside at night.
The Bishop authorized the villagers to dig up the dead bodies.
" The linen cloths covering their faces were stained with blood. They cut off the men's heads and put them in the graves between their legs and tore out their hearts and burnt them."

When the hearts had been burnt up , they cracked with a great sound. Everyone there saw an evil spirit in the form of a crow fly from the flames.

Soon after this was done, both the disease and the phantom had been ceased.

The dead could occupy the same world as the living.

Professor Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind [Documentary]

Tags: 
death
story
Medieval times

Comments

Submitted by s.b.f on 19 May, 2009 - 14:42

One of the most common medieval folk tales is the story of the Three Living and the Three Dead.

Three rich young are out walking when they meet three dead men. The dead men in varying stages of decomposition have something to tell the rich young men.

"Beware," they say. "Such as you are, so were we. Such as I are, so will you be.'
They chide them for their love of the worldly things.

"Wealth, honour and power," they say 'are of no power at the hour of your death.'

Professor Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind [Documentary]

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Submitted by s.b.f on 19 May, 2009 - 14:57

In 1206, in the quiet countryside of Essex, a peasant called Thurkill, from the village of Stisted, was working in the fields.
An accident left him in a deep coma.
For two days he lay as if dead.
When he revived he had an extraordinary tale to tell.
He gave a detailed geography of the afterlife.
Thurkill describes how he first came to a church unlike any of those on Earth,
“To the North there is a wall which is 6feet high. In the middle of the church is a bright font, from which a bright flame emerged.”
Evil spirits came leaping to meet him, cackling to one another.
“This is where the souls of the dead were weighed, some to be damned and sucked into hell.’
They screamed and cursed their mother and father who bore them to eternal torment.
The saved are led straight through the jewelled gates to the church of gold.
The rest awaited in purgatory. An agonizing room where you waited for heaven. A place where the sins were purged.

Professor Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind [Documentary]

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Submitted by You on 19 May, 2009 - 17:01

If they did not properly check the pulse of the dead, would the "dead" really be dead?

This has also been said to happen in other parts of the world poisons which put people in a short term coma, but once the body is buried, others would excavate it and use the people are slaves or something.

Ofcourse if the person suffocated first, or the they cut on the body for organs...

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"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Submitted by s.b.f on 19 May, 2009 - 19:52

Not necessarily. I think at those times, people who were in comas were buried alive.

I read somewhere that some coffins found from those times that had not decayed, had scratch marks on the inner surface.

I don't understand your second paragraph, but it sounds interesting.

In ancient Egypt..(i think)...read this a long time ago. They buried live slaves with their dead masters so that they can be served in afterlife!

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Submitted by You on 19 May, 2009 - 19:59

yes they did. Poor buggers.

But what I was suggesting was that people *thought* those people were dead/had died when in actual fact they were alive.

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"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Submitted by s.b.f on 19 May, 2009 - 20:14

Okay, well I thought that would be obvious. Otherwise, assuming that they have no revenge against the 'dead' person...why would they bury them alive?

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