Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages by Nancy Mandeville Caciola
Josh Timmermann
Reviewed by: Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in Middle Ages by Nancy Mandeville Caciola Josh Timmermann Caciola, ( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2016), 363 pp. Over past few decades, study complex relationship between living and dead Late Antiquity has proven to be an exceptionally fertile area inquiry, with vital contributions Peter Brown, Patrick Geary, Éric Rebillard, Robert Bartlett, Thomas Laqueur, among numerous other scholars. Much that work been centered around cults martyrs saints, Bartlett's magisterial study, Why Can Do Such Great Things? Saints Worshippers from Martyrs Reformation, particular note recent publications. Inevitably, saints pass through macabre mise-en-scène Caciola's Ages, but they are made blend mosaic zombies, revenants, shades, spirits—conceptions returned may trace back Europe's ancient pagan cultures. At outset her asserts she is not proposing medieval Europe was "cryptopagan." She adopts a more nuanced stance, contending traditions, customs, ideas concerning death have too often regarded as "unproblematically Christian" (14). To sure, scholars long attempted reconstruct pre-Christian cultures traditions alleged "survivals," preserved especially rural, "rustic" communities represented majority population. This approach exemplified Carlo Ginzburg's classic studies early modern witchcraft, apparent source inspiration for project. Yet, scholarship, pendulum swung mainly, if decisively, direction, toward conception having almost thoroughly "Christianized" (if different ways, following patterns missionary activity imperial "reform" efforts), perhaps [End Page 196] Carolingian era. pushes against this tendency assume near-totalizing Christianity "tak[ing] seriously earlier societies distinctively culture superseded them" Attitudes afterlife, asserts, provide revealing window onto type sustained—though no means static—syncretism. As all medievalists acutely aware, great extant texts central were written ecclesiastical figures, whether convert non-Christian peoples or "correct" beliefs practices fellow Christians. Consequently, endeavors read such grain; ostensibly isolating author's specific (Christian) perspective prerogatives, takes elements remain thereafter incidental, yet reliable, evidence contemporary winding, twisting roots primordial (pre-Christian) past. One chapter, example, attempts critical reading eleventh-century bishop Thietmar Merseburg's Chronicon, which argues "ghost stories" therein "interweave Christian promiscuously, though only partially consciously" (142). chapter then proceeds "triangulate" Thietmar's text alongside various others, Arthurian narratives, (Caciola concedes) "widely spaced times places" (144), order identify seemingly congruous data attested across broad range. Another examines "spiritist cults" southern France, extracting purported attestations typically dismissive accounts local clerics. Some demonstrations these interpretative strategies successful than even where thin theses less fully convincing, book remains engrossing read. Before moving on period ca. 1000–1500, book's primary focus, establishes basic parameters positions dead. Unsurprisingly, locates formative age thought Latin Church Fathers. After quickly surveying scriptural precedents Fathers drew, erects binary opposition "Augustinian" "Gregorian" views contact Essentially, "Augustinian model" held "the dead, once departed, are...
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies