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Illustration of Revenant (medieval England)
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
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Revenant (medieval England)

Also called: revenant, walking dead
Folklore and mythUndeadVariesA bad death or burialMiddle Ages

Twelfth-century English chroniclers, among them Geoffrey of Burton, Walter Map and William of Newburgh, record a cluster of cases in which a buried corpse walked at night and brought death to its neighbours. The stories are told as recent local news, with named bishops and archdeacons called in to rule on them. The remedies, digging up the body and beheading, burning or absolving it, are the same ones later used against vampires in central Europe. Scholars read these revenants as the product of a failed death, a person stuck between the living and the dead who has to be forcibly moved on.12

⚔️ Battle it
First recorded
1100
Geoffrey of Burton's account of events around 1090, written in the early 12th century
Origin
Medieval English
United Kingdom
What causes it
A bad death or burial
Clerical writers tie the return to a 'bad death': a sinful or excommunicate life, or dying suddenly without confession and last rites.
How you become one
A person of bad reputation dies unshriven or excommunicate and is buried, but the body does not stay down.
How it moves
Varies
The corpse leaves its grave at night, roams streets and houses, often with dogs barking after it, and is back in the tomb by dawn.
Intelligence
Some intelligence
Weak spots
  • decapitation
  • removing and burning the heart
  • dismembering and cremating the body
  • a bishop's written absolution laid on the corpse
  • holy water

When did it first appear?

Ancient world
Middle Ages
1500 to 1899
1900 to 1967
1968 to 1999
2000 to 2009
2010 to today
1100

Geoffrey of Burton's account of events around 1090, written in the early 12th century

field notes

What the sources say

1

The chroniclers describe intact, sometimes blood-filled bodies, not apparitions12

2

Its presence corrupts the air and is blamed for epidemics12

3

William of Newburgh thought the cases were a recent phenomenon and too numerous to list12

4

Bishops disagreed over the cure: Hugh of Lincoln preferred absolution to burning12

5

Later accounts, such as a Clydesdale case in the Lanercost chronicle, show the belief persisting unevenly12

Could you outrun it?

Speed class from how the sources describe it (varies), not a measurement.

You, walking about 5 km/h
You, jogging about 10 km/h
Revenant (medieval England) about 10 km/h
A fit adult sprinting about 24 km/h
A fast cyclist about 37 km/h

Sources

  1. Revenant - Wikipedia
  2. Elif Boyacıoğlu, 'The Revenant on the Threshold', Folklore 62 (2015)

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at hello@zombiewiki.app.

Folklore from the same lands

AbhartachIrish, 1870Berwick revenantMedieval English / Scottish borders, 1198Buckinghamshire revenantMedieval English, 1198Byland Abbey revenantsMedieval English, 1400Drakelow revenantsMedieval English, 1090HaugbúiNorse, 1250

Same era: Middle Ages

DraugrNorse, 1250VetalaHindu (Indian), 1070GlámrNorse (Icelandic saga), 1300UpiórSlavic, 1100AsvithNorse (Danish chronicle and Icelandic saga), 1200HrapprNorse (Icelandic saga), 1245