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.