The Byland Abbey ghost stories

Record summary

A manuscript associated with Byland Abbey preserves a group of short Latin ghost stories, including accounts of revenants, nocturnal disturbances, and corpses returning or appearing to living witnesses. The collection is a particularly clear medieval textual lead because manuscript location, language, and approximate date are identifiable, while the stories show how monastic readers organized and transmitted haunting narratives. It matters for comparison with later ghostlore and ecclesiastical explanations. The tales’ original performance context, sources, and relationship to local events remain uncertain.