WEBVTT - The Holy Undead, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.000 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.079 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.560 we're back at you with the second part of our 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.799 series about the Holy Undead. So, in the last episode 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.760 we talked about various tales of of what you what 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.400 you might call the pious or the holy undead. These 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.879 would be ghosts, revenants, and zombies that don't seem to 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.440 be purely demonic entities of the night, but instead they 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.440 take part in activities that are considered by the people 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.600 telling the tales to be wholesome and and and good. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.720 In particular, these these are undead that love going to church, 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.080 and yet at the same time they're not usually entirely benign. 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.520 They retain this aura of menace. Sometimes they offer ill 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.920 oh ends to people, or sometimes they even uh, they 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.839 go hands on and get a little violent. So, Rob, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.319 in the last episode, you told a wonderful story that 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.480 was based on an old Swedish folk tale called the 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.440 Hooded Congregation. And this is a tale in which a 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.680 woman is awoken in the dark of night on Christmas 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.520 I think, or is it Christmas eve. I believe it's 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.960 Christmas Eve slash early Christmas morning. Yeah, yeah, and so 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.200 so their church bells and she hears them out in 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.959 the dark. And then so of course the church bells 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:32.600 are ringing. That means you need to go to church. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:34.959 So she goes to church, but she finds it full 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.240 of hooded figures who were eventually revealed to be the undead, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.000 including her own dearly departed sister. And when when she 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.800 discovers this, the attack and she narrowly escapes. Yeah, it's 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.120 a it's a fun story, and it uh it really 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.080 it relates to this um, this trend that we see 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:57.279 in um in in Nordic traditions of these revenants, these 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:02.840 these physical undead um these these corporeal and undead that 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:04.960 you can they can touch you, they can grab you, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.960 that you can wrestle and do battle with the if 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.320 need be. And uh yeah, in many cases they are 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.720 they're they're quite malevolent, but in other cases they are 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.880 they are almost benign, just attending church, going about their 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:24.400 their business doing church stuff. Um as the not quite 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.160 rested dead or want to do right. And so we 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.799 also ended up talking about a bunch of medieval ghost 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.560 stories of of the pious undead that are translated and 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.600 analyzed in a wonderful historical paper that we're going to 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.200 continue talking about in this episode and again, so the 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.760 reference on this paper is that it's called Revenants, Resurrection 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.200 and Burnt Sacrifice by a historian named Nancy Mandeville Cacciola, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.000 who is a medieval historian at University of California, San Diego. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.600 And this was published inteen in a journal called Predator 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.400 Nature Critical and Historical Studies on the pretor Natural. And 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.680 this paper focuses on stories told by a tenth to 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:07.720 eleventh century German bishop named tete Mar von Merseburg. And 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.680 so around the year ten thirteen to ten eighteen or so, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.799 uh teit Mar was writing an eight volume historical text 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.079 called the Chronic con which was supposed to be about 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.280 the glories of the Ottonian dynasty. And this was a 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.280 series of Saxon Christian kings that he served under who 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.640 were involved in conquering and Christianizing lands that previously belonged 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.040 to various Slavic pagan people's. Uh So, so this was 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:37.480 a sort of colonial frontier zone. And within recent memory, 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:42.000 the former inhabitants of one town within this zone had 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.080 been massacre during a revolt of the locals. And so 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.080 in the middle of this history, Tetemer goes into a 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.400 digression about a story of the undead from this fortified 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.440 town where there had been a massacre. This town was 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.520 called vols Laban, and the story goes that there is 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.520 a priest who arrives at church to sing Matten's. Mattins 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.760 has spelled m A T I n s. That means 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.920 like an early morning prayer. The medieval Catholics had a 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.240 lot of interesting names for like the different prayers you 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:10.920 would say at the different times of day. I don't 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.000 remember them all, but there's like Mattins, there's Laud's. I remember. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.920 These are used as sort of like a time delineation 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.080 chapter headings in in the Name of the Rose, if 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.200 I recall correctly. Um. But so he's there for Mattens, 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.520 so the morning prayer and uh. And when he shows 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.440 up at the church, he goes to the cemetery and 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.000 he sees a multitude of dead people there. These are 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.280 revenants and they are worshiping. They're making offerings to a 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.520 revenant priest. And so the living priest who has just arrived, 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.200 he makes the sign of the Cross, and then he 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.239 walks through the crowd of the undead until he sees 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.480 a woman he knows one who had died just recently, 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.839 and she asks him, Hey, what are you doing here. 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.440 He says, I'm here to sing Matins and she's like, well, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.880 you don't need to do that, because we already did it, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:58.960 and then she's like, by the way, you're going to 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.560 die soon, and then he did. That's what tete Mar 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.960 tells us. But then he also explains that the point 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.120 of him relaying the story is to prove the truth 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.880 of the Catholic doctrine of the resurrection of the dead 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.240 in Christ, which he says that the formerly pagan Slavs 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.360 do not understand very well. He thinks they need correcting 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.120 on this subject. Though I also wonder sort of if 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.920 this persuasive framing, like I'm trying to prove the truth 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.200 of the resurrection, if this persuasive, apologetic framing is really 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.640 the reason he tells these stories, because apparently after telling 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.440 this first one, he digresses from his from his history 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.440 to just tell a bunch of other ghost stories, including 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.680 an awesomely grizzly tale that we're going to get to 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.000 in just a bit. Yeah, you're right. It does make 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.159 you wonder is this about about using the ghost stories 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:53.359 to uh to support Christianity or is it about finding 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.520 an excuse to keep these ghost stories around just because 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.240 they're really cool. Yeah, maybe he just wanted to tell 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.440 them because he thought they were really fun, and then 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.560 he's like, oh, I need a good reason to say 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.800 I'm doing this. Well, actually they prove that that Christianity 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.280 is true. Yeah, And I said, I don't want to 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.640 say just fun, because I mean, certainly ghost stories can 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.080 be fun, but also ghost stories can be culturally important, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.240 and they are you know that they are part of 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.680 one's cultural background. So there's there's an added incentive to 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.040 to keep them around if it all possible, because they 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.560 are they are a part of your history. Yeah. And 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.920 I think this is very much part of something that 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.720 that Cachiola is going to argue in this paper. But 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.720 picking back up with that paper of hers, I want 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.480 to go into some of the historical, cultural, and religious 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.000 context that she explains to help us better understand what 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.840 these stories might have meant in their in their time 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.240 and place. So one thing she says is that during 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.840 this period, religion and politics were deeply linked. German rule 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.920 was self consciously formulated as Christian rule, and the Ottonian 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:59.400 dynasty mythologize themselves consciously as the so called Last World Emperors. 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.919 So they were thinking of themselves as as great kings 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.200 who would by conquest, expand Christianity to the ends of 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.040 the earth and thus bring about the Second Coming of Christ. Oh, wow, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.960 the last World Emperors. I love that that sounds sounds 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.720 positively evil. Yeah, And it's the funny thing. So this 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.360 is something that people might not realize like they think. Oh, 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.640 people in the twentieth century are always saying that the 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.640 world the end is coming soon. You know that this 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:28.400 religious apocalypticism. It says, I've I've received a revelation from God, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:30.960 and I know finally the end is happening now. People 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:32.920 in the tenth and eleventh century thought this way to 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.360 people all the time throughout every century of of Christian history, 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.320 of thought that they were living in the end times. 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.120 This is just a perennial phenomenon. But because of the 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.760 linking of religion and politics here, the military expansion of 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.840 the Ottonians was also an expansion of the Catholic Church. 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.040 So when they would go and establish fortified military outposts 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.120 along the frontier. They were also establishing new bishoprics. They 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.360 were establishing new footholds for the church, and so. In 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:05.240 the paper, Caciola makes the argument that though the Slavic 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:10.440 rebellions against the German conquest and German power were were 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:15.080 obviously they would have had many complex reasons for doing this. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.600 She does make the case that it really looks like 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.560 one of those reasons was religious resistance, resistance to the 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:26.800 Christianizing impulse of the Germans and protecting their traditional ancestral beliefs. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.080 Uh So, she writes, as one example of this quote, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.440 centers of German power, which were of course also Christian 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.439 religious centers, were targets for attack among these Slavic revolts, 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.760 uh Continuing this included the cathedral of have Alburg and 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.960 the and the Bishopric of Brandenburg, where the remains of 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.199 the last bishop, parentheses Te martells Us, he had been 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.640 assassinated by his own flock, were dragged from his tomb 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.480 and despoiled. The nunneries of Kalba and hillers Leban were 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.360 also not spared, showing that institutions with predominantly religious rather 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:05.600 than political associations were targeted as well. So this is 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.560 some evidence that the Slavic rebellions against the Altonians they 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.320 were not just trying to protect their political autonomy, but 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.880 they were also resisting the the conversion impulse. They were saying, no, 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.319 we like our religious beliefs, we'd like to keep them please. Now, 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.440 another thing that's worth clarifying is that talking about pagan 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.280 Slavs of the region is a shorthand, because of course 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.760 this is not one monolithic culture with one monolithic religion, 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.800 but rather a collection of different tribes with their own 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.120 distinct cultures and beliefs. Uh. Though, it does seem that 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.599 a general motivating factor for the tribal rebellions against the 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:45.080 saxon Autonians was defense of these pagan religious beliefs against 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.720 the Christianization mission. And of course paganism itself is not 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.840 a religion, not one's unified religion at this time. In 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.280 this context, it simply means any of the non Abrahamic religions, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.520 so this would not usually be any kind of polytheism. 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.000 And unfortunately there's a lot we don't know about these 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.479 pagan religious beliefs that there was clearly plenty of diversity 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.080 between them, though like many religions, they broadly seem to 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.880 have included some elements of ancestor worship, as well as 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.720 some common shared views about what constituted a good versus 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:25.760 a bad death, and some similar beliefs about the afterlife. Now, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.320 another interesting thing about the political and religious history that 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.560 here is that it's worth understanding that in this place 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:39.480 and time, conversion religious conversion would almost necessarily be a 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:45.200 somewhat flimsy concept. People in lands conquered by by Christians 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.480 in the Middle Ages would often get baptized as Christians 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.000 and then simply continue to practice their original pagan beliefs, 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:58.000 either exclusively or alongside Christian worship. And one way I 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.240 think to help understand this is that not all religions 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.200 have exactly the same contours, sort of that they don't 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.319 all make stake the same ground, right like the role 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.920 of Christianity versus the local paganisms was not a one 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.520 to one comparison in a number of ways. For example, 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.160 the Catholic Church had organized dogmas and a concept of 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.920 religious universality and exclusivity. So this is a religion that 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.080 conceptualizes itself as the one religion that is true, and 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.280 it should be the religion of the entire world. Uh. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.560 Sometimes people who grow up in Christian societies assumed that 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.280 all religions are like this, with this belief in universality 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.720 and exclusivity. But that's not at all true. Like most 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.559 religions in history appear to have been much looser, more 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.280 defined by ritual rather than belief, and without necessary ideas 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.280 of universality or exclusivity. You know, we were talking about 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.400 this just yesterday in the context of the Indiana Jones movies, 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:02.880 the Indiana Jones franchise, except all religions and even and 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.640 even like like fringe beliefs and ancient aliens and what 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.160 have you. Oh yeah, that's funny. That's one thing I 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.240 kind of appreciate about it. It's got a sort of 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.079 totalizing mythology and maybe one that seems sort of geographically 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.400 linked to so that it's like where maybe when you 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.280 go into a geographical area that has predominantly one religion, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:27.160 that that religion mainly applies within that geography. Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.040 So in this region, Hebrew God is real, in this region, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.600 Shiva is real. Um or was it Shiva or Kali. 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.080 It's been so long since I've seen Um the second 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.480 in I think both the second one that that movie 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.640 has got a lot of problems. But yeah, Klie is 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.840 sort of the bad guy and it and Shiva's the 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.959 good god and okay, it's more complicated than that though, folks, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.080 if so, don't don't use the second Indiana Jones movie 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:55.160 is your your guide into the world of Hinduism. Um. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.240 But uh, but still, I think it's an interesting point 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.640 about the idea. Yeah, that in the Indiana Owns world, like, 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:02.880 all these faiths are real and they don't seem to 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.320 exclude one another unless you say, well that the Egyptian gods, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.079 the Egyptian pantheon is kind of excluded from the h 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.640 all the happenings that go on in Um Indiana Jones 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.800 and the you know the raiders have lost art. Well, 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.280 do we know that for sure? We never see a 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.800 contest of the gods. They're like the Pharaoh's magicians. Never true, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.360 we don't get to see what they can do, that's right, 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.960 And maybe they're just watching on you know that they're 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.000 they're they're sleeping, who knows. I know, for one, I'm 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.840 pretty certain that there's there's bound to be some sort 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:36.080 of Indiana Jones related media from comics or TV series 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.679 or something that actually involves Egyptian gods. So if it's 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.880 out there, someone tell me about it. Well, I think 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:47.960 one consequence of the different types of groundstaking games that 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.360 are that are being played by the different religions at 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.240 this time means that, for example, so the Christians might 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.520 insist that you believe in no gods except the Christian Trinity, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.360 but many of the European a atheists at this time 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.920 could simply incorporate new gods. So it's possible that they 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.959 might well view a conversion to Christianity rather as a 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.640 kind of incorporation exercise. So like, we have our gods, 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.480 we have our rituals, and now here's this other thing 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:18.960 sort of added on top of that, and here's also 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.000 Jesus and the Catholic Church. M So it's kind of 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.160 like this. It's almost like a chemical situation where the 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.840 pre existing religion uh is more inclined to bond with 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.760 with additives, even though those additives are you know, tend 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.960 to be it tend to have exclusive ideas in them. Uh. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.120 You know, it doesn't it doesn't matter when push comes 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.720 to shove the polytheistic religion is going going to absorb 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.720 the monotheistic uh, even if to some outsiders it it 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.960 appears uh in some cases that you've set aside the 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.240 old ways, right yeah, so so. Catchiolo writes that given 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.560 these religious starting points, what you would probably expect to 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.320 see at this place in time him is not a 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.440 just sort of exchange of the old gods for the new, 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.920 but rather a sort of what she calls an untidy 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.640 syncretic admixture. You know, syncretism again is the mixing of 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.480 religious beliefs, a sort of mixing and blending and hybridization 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.160 process that would arrive at these new combinatorial beliefs. Um. 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.240 And she gives us one interesting example of this. Uh. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:28.440 She talks about a text known as the Merseburg Charms 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:34.440 uh quote short rhythmic invocations of the valkyries full Wodan 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:39.480 and Freya, composed an archaic German but carefully transcribed onto 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.440 a leaf of an otherwise entirely Christian manuscript found in 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.040 the library of the Cathedral of Merseburg. And then she 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.120 has a great comment it is pleasing to think that 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:54.520 Tetmar himself might have encountered it, and and then of 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.400 course I'm going to drive home something we've mentioned before 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.640 in the show is that, of course humans are capable 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.400 of having multiple and con with think um beliefs and ideas, 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.080 particularly as it pertains to the you know, the origins 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.000 of the world and the inner workings of the supernatural realm. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.520 So um, you know, we see that even today, and 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.120 many people who think that they are, you know, a 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.840 pure subscriber to one particular brand of faith, if if 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:20.960 they're to self analyze, they might find that they actually 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.880 have some ideas from other other faiths and sort of 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:28.600 non faith origin, sort of mixed up in their supernatural 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.640 understanding of the world or the same One person actually 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.000 quite easily switches gears between different belief systems depending on 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.960 the context. Yeah, I mean to come back to this example. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.560 Perhaps perhaps you are you know, a Christian when you 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.800 were at the Christian church or in walking among the 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.600 Christian gravestones, but then when you're in the woods or 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.480 when you were you know, walking the shore. Uh, then 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.680 perhaps it's the the older gods that call to you 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.080 and this this other way of looking at the world, 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.320 or you could look at it as a night and 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:06.680 day thing that might Yeah, Uh, thank thank So I 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.560 think we should get back to tit Mar's ghost stories. Uh. 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.359 And so the first place I guess would be to 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.119 comment a little more on that first story, the one 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.920 about the priest who arrives to sing Matten's and and 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.560 finds the congregation the multitude of dead there, and they're 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.400 making offerings to a dead priest, and then they they 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.360 and then one of them is someone he knows tells him, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.239 I think you're gonna die soon, and then he does. Uh. 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.680 So I wanted to go through a few observations about 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.280 the story that the Catchyola notes that are probably worth 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.359 logging for when we look at the other ones. Uh. First, 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.000 it's worth noting that instead of going to another plane 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.439 of existence in this story, the returned dead or the revenants, 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:48.760 they hang out here on earth. So they're not going 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.960 off to heaven. This is where they live. They're here 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.960 on earth and this is where they do their business. Second, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.679 they are bodily reanimations, not in substantial specters. This has 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.800 come up several times already, but this is apparently common, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.600 especially throughout the pagan mythology of Northern Europe, that uh, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.080 you know, it's not just like a gas like ghost 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.600 that forms an image that you could walk right through. 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.360 These are undead with mass and heft. They can grab you. Yeah, 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.760 they're the literal dead. They are you know, decaying bodies 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.240 and skeletons going about their business. Another thing, so these 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.000 dead are said to be in the version of the story, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.840 we get faithful Christians who worshiped the Christian God even 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.000 after death. Which is an interesting thing because I think 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:39.040 another common modern assumption that would be that like a 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.720 religion is something that people maybe need during life. You know, 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.920 it's it's in order specifically to prepare you for the afterlife, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.520 So there would be no need in the afterlife for 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.119 people to continue doing religious practices. But here that that 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.320 assumption is clearly not on display. The dead also need 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.720 to go to church, and of course, in thinking about this, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:05.000 our mine can easily go to Christian doctrines of of 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.720 the of the dead returning to life be at the 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:13.360 resurrection of Christ um after death or um the idea 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.040 that once we die, our bodies just kind of hang 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.760 around for a while until the physical resurrection occurs at 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.520 the end of time um, which you can imagine how 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.600 how that idea would um would come to life if 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.480 you had these pre existing concepts of revenant spirits, like 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.280 it's my body just in the ground awaiting um at 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.399 Christ's return, Well, what else is it doing? Is it 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.400 going to church? Where is it just lazy bones? This 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.720 is something we mentioned, uh, we mentioned last time. So 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.040 the Catholic teaching at the time emphasized the inertness of 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.000 the dead body until the general resurrection at the second 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.040 coming of Christ. So they they would emphasize, no, until 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.320 Jesus comes back, your body just stays there. It doesn't 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.760 do anything. And so this is clearly in contradiction with that. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:00.880 And yet this is also of something we talked about 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.720 in the previous episode. There appears to have been a 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:10.280 pretty wide uh tolerance for various beliefs about the undead, 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.320 even if they weren't If there were beliefs about the 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.639 undead that we're not strictly in line with Catholic teaching. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.600 For some reason, this is an area of belief that 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.840 the Church did not seem to police very strongly. And 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.480 we're broadly tolerant of people sort of coloring outside the 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.879 lines on beliefs about the dead. But to come back 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.800 to Titmar's first ghost, story here. There there are some 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.800 weird elements that are illuminating on top of the more 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.879 straightforward elements we just mentioned. First of all, so again 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.080 we we noticed that these dead are pious from a 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.320 Christian point of view. They're going to church, they're worshiping God, 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.520 and yet at the same time they project what Catchiola 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.520 calls a strong aura of menace that seems to be 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.080 about right. These are not like happy, nice ghosts who 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.639 are like, hey, sweet, you know, they're scary and the 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.760 priest is terrified of them. He has to do the 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.960 Sign of the Cross before he can go in, go 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.680 in among the crowd. And then here's another interesting thing. 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.879 I didn't notice this, but she points this out in 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.440 the analysis. Not only is the priest given a true 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.520 omen of his own impending death. That part's creepy enough, 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.720 but more so, his office has been usurped. They are 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.000 performing the morning Mass that he came there to do. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.280 They are doing the priest's job for him. So there's 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.560 an interesting implied interplay of ideas here when when you 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.120 look at what could have been the inputs. Number one, 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.880 you'd have okay, they're appearing in this Catholic church. And 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.679 again the Catholic doctrine emphasized the inertness of the dead body. 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.480 So this is not really totally within the you know, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.359 the central teachings of the Church. And yet obviously here's 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:52.560 here's Temur, a Catholic bishop recording this event um. And 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.160 yet it includes these elements that would seem to come 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.960 from European paganism that had these sort of common sense 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.680 ideas about what would lead somebody to get up out 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.720 of their grave and walk around. And generally this would 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.119 be associated with what would be considered a bad death, 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:13.240 people who say died of like a painful or violent death, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.440 or died young, or died with unfinished business. That these 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.159 are generally the kinds of people who were believed to 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.480 have energy still left in them because they had something unresolved, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:26.840 or they died too young, and they would be the 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.640 ones would be likely to get up out of their graves. Right. 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.720 Another area being the revenants of individuals who had not 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.240 been buried properly. Uh, and during the Christian period this 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.359 becomes had a case of had not been given a 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.119 proper Christian burial. Right, So you're you're combining these weird 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:49.080 connotations of you know, beliefs that would traditionally say these 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.000 are the kind of dead you should be worried about, 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:52.960 the ones that get up and walk around that you 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:55.520 know there's something wrong with them. These are the bad dead, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:58.760 the dangerous dead. And yet here in this story, well 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.879 they're going to church and that's nice. Um, and so 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.000 teep margin he gives this, uh, this persuasive framing where 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.359