Medieval Ghost Stories

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 10.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special Halloween episode, Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Michael Carter and actor Mathew Baynton to learn all about ghost stories in the European Middle Ages. From the 12th century onwards, medieval Europe produced a huge number of ghost stories, often written in monasteries. But why were monks so interested in ghosts? How were ghost stories related to wider Christian beliefs about death and the afterlife? And what happened to these beliefs with the arrival of the Protestant Reformation? From creepy child ghosts to friendly apparitions via the fires of purgatory, this is a glimpse into the strange, spooky and sometimes sinister side of medieval beliefs. Research by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Jon Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Caitlin Hobbs Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Chris Ledgard

Transcript

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0:00.0	Newscast is the unscripted chat behind the headlines.
0:05.6	It's informed that in Formal we pick the day's top stories and we find experts who can
0:11.2	really dig into them.
0:12.4	We use our colleagues in the newsroom and our contacts.
0:15.2	Some people pick up the phone rather faster than others.
0:18.6	We sometimes literally run around the BBC building to grab the very best guests.
0:23.4	Join us for daily news chats.
0:25.6	To get you ready for today's conversations, newscast,
0:29.3	listen on BBC Sounds.
0:39.2	Hello and welcome to Your Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
0:43.8	My name is Greg Jenner and my public historian author and broadcaster.
0:47.2	And today we are scaring ourselves silly with a horrifying Halloween special,
0:51.7	all about medieval ghost stories.
0:54.0	And to help spook us all, we have two seriously spooky guests.
0:57.5	In History Corner, he's a senior property historian with English heritage
1:01.2	and is an expert in medieval monastic and religious history.
1:04.2	Lucky for us, he's also writing a book all about monasteries, ruins,
1:07.3	and ghost stories.
1:08.4	It's Dr Michael Carter, welcome Michael.
1:10.4	Hello, it's a real pleasure to be here to talk about three of my very favourite things,
1:14.3	amongst monasteries in the macabre.
1:16.8	Excellent. And a literative too, perfect.
	...

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