Whereas modern societies tend to banish the dead from the world of the living, medieval men and women accorded them a vital role in the community. The saints co

In this fascinating study, Schmitt examines the significance of the widespread belief in ghosts during the Middle Ages and traces the imaginative, political, an

Simultaneously real and unreal, the dead are people, yet they are not. The society of medieval Europe developed a rich set of imaginative traditions about death

To what extent are the dead truly dead? In medieval society, corpses were assigned special functions and meanings in several different ways. They were still pre

Death was a constant, visible presence in medieval and renaissance Europe. Yet, the acknowledgement of death did not necessarily amount to an acceptance of its