Jean-Claude Schmitt

Right up front I'll point out that this is a book of social history, not ghost stories. Schmitt is interested in what ghost stories tell us about developments in institutions and society in the Middle Ages. Who tells the stories, to what audience, and what aspects of the encounters are deemed important are the focus here. Schmitt is not a skeptic about the existence of ghosts. Skeptic implies a degree of uncertainty, and our author wants to be absolutely sure his readers understand that he knows that ghosts are imaginary, and that the places they are said to come from or go to, be that Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven, are equally imaginary (and this is fine with me, but he goes to wearying lengths to be sure no one misses this point). What he does believe in, though, is the value of what ghost stories can tell us about developments in the Church and its teachings, and in various types of social relationships, and his exploration of this topic, if often repetitive and excessively academic in style, is fairly interesting. Three and a half stars.… (more)