Documentary overview

About Did People In The Medieval World Believe in Ghosts?| Medieval Afterlife

Ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night! Dr Eleanor Janega delves into the medieval phantasmic to find out what their restless dead can tell us about the worries of the living. Because if we want to understand what makes another society tick, it helps to take a look at what makes them scared. In this show, Eleanor visits the ruins of Byland Abbey to explore some of the most terrifying stories to survive the medieval period. The 12 ghostly tales written by a monk on the blank back pages of a religious manuscript, share traits with our own modern ghost stories but we learn that medieval perceptions of ghosts may be very different to our own. Then at one of the most important religious sites in medieval England, Canterbury Cathedral, Eleanor investigates how the church uses ghost stories for political gain and reinforcing religious values. Archivist Cressida Williams shows us some of the memento mori tropes implemented by the church, like Cadaver tombs and the ‘Three Living and Three Dead’ Illustrations, which acted as warnings against sin

Did People In The Medieval World Believe in Ghosts?| Medieval Afterlife is presented by History Hit. Its listed runtime is 37 minutes. The source link and publisher attribution are provided with the embedded film.

As a history documentary, Did People In The Medieval World Believe in Ghosts?| Medieval Afterlife uses people, medieval, believe as its central frame. Historical documentaries interpret surviving evidence rather than simply replaying the past. Watch how archives, archaeology, expert interpretation and first-hand records are used, and note where uncertainty or competing explanations remain.

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Documentary details and original source

Title
Did People In The Medieval World Believe in Ghosts?| Medieval Afterlife
Category
History
Runtime
37 minutes
Language
English
Publisher
History Hit

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