Contenu du sommaire : Retour des morts

The Ghost of Samuel and the Witch of En Dor. The Historical Becoming of a Biblical Tale : I Kings 28 How to resolve the problem of ghosts in medieval culture and how to portray them in iconography ? To both questions, the high culture of the Middle Ages tried to find answers in the Bible, whose most famous ghost story concerns the spirit of Samuel raised at the request of King Saul by the witch of En Dor. The article studies the different commentaries of this tale from the patristic ages up to the 18th century and shows how Christian iconography, from the 12th century onwards, brought its own contribution to the evolution of exegesis. Throughout a very long period iconography did not reproduce the fantastic atmosphere of apparitions that was emphasised on the contrary by written texts. In modern times however, the witchhunt has led to a decisive transformation of the image of Samuel's evocation : the story has become the pattern of the witches' sabbath, and the witch of En Dor - placed in the center of the image - is thought of as the prototype of all modern witches.

Between Animals and Saints When his death is near, the spirit of the vaqueiro, a cow raiser in the Asturian mountains, comes to haunt his relatives. When he is still alive, he announces to them his impending death, when he is dead, he comes back to sollicit them. In both cases, he appears in the form of noises, voices, lamentations, or strange natural phenomena provoking intense fright. He more seldom appears in the form of his own human body. Unlike living spirits, dead ones harass their relatives, demand the fulfilment of old promises or the sacrifice of an animal in their favor. The qualities, powers and appearances of these spirits and of the strange beings that dialogue with them cannot be understood outside of references to the animal world such as it is ordered by the vaqueiros. Frightening and nocturnal animals are pitted against domestic animals, especially against cows who feel hauntings better than man himself. A key animal in the vaqueiro 's life, the cow, born wild, is the object of a process of domestication which serves for reflections not only on the education of living men, but also on the long voyage of the wrathful soul toward the holy places of its eternal rest.

Purgatory Priests in the 14th and 15th Centuries Jacques Fournier, the bishop of Pamiers, and future Benoît XII, took Arnaud de Monesple into the nets of the Inquisition. This priest from Pamiers had been tied to an armier, a man who received messages from the dead, since 1310. In order to placate these ghosts Arnaud used to say mass ; this practice was condemned at first when the beneficiaries were suspicious spirits, however, it was officially accepted in the 14th century in the Toulouse region. It was reserved for souls in Purgatory. In the 15th century, the "Purgatory Souls' Basins" administred property received by charity and could pay large numbers of priests. Bishops strongly reacted to this parallel clergy : they set the calendar for mass for souls, they restored pre-eminence in dealing with the dead to parish priests who were in danger of losing it in this region. Purgatory priests, popular metaphysical intermediaries, were thus the agents of an ambiguous c legalization of wishes destined to the dead in transit.

Godparent, Godchild and Afterlife In some regions of France, it was customary to bury those who had never been godparents with their hands crossed behind their backs. Why was such a punishment meted out to these dead people ? What is expressed as an intrinsic quality of an individual, being a godparent, means in fact a relationship - no godparent without a godchild - which imposes reciprocal obligations. These duties are fully expressed at the moment of passage from life to death. Funeral rituals, tales and legends reveal the intensity of the tie between godparent and godchild, reciprocal mediators in the search for a peaceful life after death. Those who dodge this necessary relationship are irremediably doomed to a bad fate in the next world. Thus was the lot not only of children who died without godparents as it has always been taught by the Church, but also of adults who died without godchildren.

Juvenile Ghosts The body of oral tales staging the relationship between a boy and afterlife forms a "Great Story" in which he who is vowed to the Devil or to Death ends up by dominating them and becomes a "Ghost passer". This exemplary plot - established from Occitanian versions - becomes significant only when related to the whole web of links with the next world with which all young boys must live. They can flirt with death without danger when they have learned to play on the value of things and on the meaning of words. Listening to tales at night plays a central part in acquiring this skill : do they not picture themselves as instruments of transition between this world and the next ?

Destiny's Number Far from being the insignificant game constantly denounced by moralists of all kinds, lotteries arouse eternally renewed passions, especially in Southern Europe. To attempt to understand the stakes of such an infatuation leads one to question the practices and beliefs which accompany the decisive moment of the bet. At this time appear divanatory techniques, the turning to specialists and to intercessors whose common denominator is the opening of a communication to the next world. The numbered messages that come from there underline an essential link between the living and the dead which is established through games of chance. The existence of ritual lotteries during customary times of intense relationships with the deceased is a complementary trait of this exchange between the two worlds that make up the thread of each human destiny.

Pig for the Dead In Andorra, on January 17th, Saint Anthony is celebrated by the Encants, the putting up for auction of morsels of pig, the proceeds of which are converted into mass meant for souls in Purgatory. This kind of ceremony is widely known in Southern Europe and is based on the mediating qualities of the Saint and of the pig who move about between this world and the next. That day, one particular morsel - the foot - gains in value : this part is dedicated to the Saint and to the Dead, all the more so as young boys choose a bone in order to make a bull-roarer, an explicit receptacle of the voices of the dead. However, this little bone, which must be kept, is also a seed for Resurrection. This belief stems from and is justified by the life of Saint Anthony the Hermit, the mythical founder of Christian burial.