Editing Byland Abbey (section)

=== Medieval ghost stories ===
Numerous [[Latin]] manuscripts were produced at and owned by Byland Abbey, of which twenty-seven are known to have survived.<ref>Clarck Drieshen, '[https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2021/04/newly-discovered-ms-from-byland-abbey.html A newly discovered manuscript from Byland Abbey]' (15 April 2021).</ref> The abbey notably produced a 15th century [[cartulary]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Burton |first=Janet E. |url=http://opac.regesta-imperii.de/lang_en/anzeige.php?sammelwerk=The+cartulary+of+Byland+Abbey&pk=1371454 |title=The cartulary of Byland Abbey |date=2004 |series=The publications of the Surtees Society |volume=208 |location=Woodbridge}}</ref> now [[British Library]] Egerton MS 2823. One of the manuscripts owned by Byland Abbey in the [[Middle Ages]] is noted for containing a collection of twelve ghost stories. The manuscript is now London, [[British Library]] Royal MS 15 A xx, produced in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, primarily containing a copy of the ''[[Elucidarium]]'' and some tracts by [[Cicero]]. However, in the early fifteenth century, an anonymous scribe, known in scholarship simply as 'a monk of Byland', added some extra texts, also in Latin, on previously blank pages (folios 140-43, in the body of the manuscript, and folio 163 b at the end).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=7506&CollID=16&NStart=150120|title=Details of an item from the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts|first=C.|last=Wight|website=www.bl.uk}}</ref><ref name="james">M. R. James, 'Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories', ''The English Historical Review'', 37 (1922)'','' 413–422 (p. 414) {{doi|10.1093/ehr/XXXVII.CXLVII.413}}, {{JSTOR|551711}}.</ref> These are a series of twelve ghost stories, mostly set locally, which were presumably intended for inclusion in sermons as ''[[Exemplum|exempla]]'' and which reflect orally circulating folklore in Yorkshire at the time. While not a major literary production in their own time, these stories have since come to be regarded as important evidence for popular belief regarding ghosts in medieval north-west Europe.<ref>Jacqueline Simpson, 'Repentant Soul or Walking Corpse? Debatable Apparitions in Medieval England', ''Folklore'', 114 (2003), 389–402, {{doi|10.1080/0015587032000145397}}.</ref><ref>R. N. Swanson, 'Defaming the Dead: A Contested Ghost Story from Fifteenth-Century Yorkshire', ''Yorkshire Archaeological Journal: A Review of History and Archaeology in the County'', 82 (2010), 263–68, {{doi|10.1179/yaj.2010.82.1.263}}.</ref><ref>Stephen R. Gordon, '[https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/58517836/FULL_TEXT.PDF The Walking Dead in Medieval England: Literary and Archaeological Perspectives]' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 2013).</ref><ref>Maik Hildebrandt, '[https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2t4d7f.5 Medieval Ghosts: the Stories of the Monk of Byland]', in ''Ghosts – or the (Nearly) Invisible: Spectral Phenomena in Literature and the Media'', ed. by Maria Fleischhack and Elmar Schenkel (Peter Lang AG, 2016), pp. 13–24.</ref>

A facsimile of the manuscript is available online,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_2_A_XX|title=Digitised Manuscripts|website=www.bl.uk}}</ref> the texts were edited by [[M. R. James]],<ref name="james"/> and they were translated by [[Arthur James Grant|A. J. Grant]]<ref>[[Arthur James Grant|A. J. Grant]], 'Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories', ''The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal'', 27 (1924), 363–79.</ref> (while seven are also paraphrased in English by Andrew Joynes).<ref>''Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies'', ed. by Andrew Joynes (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 120–25; {{ISBN|085115817X}}.</ref>

An example, the third story, runs in English translation as follows:

<blockquote>III. Regarding the spirit of Robert son of Robert de Boltebi from Killeburne, confined in a cemetery.

Remembered because the aforesaid younger Robert died and was interred in a cemetery but was wont to depart from the tomb at night and to disturb and frighten off the villagers, and the dogs of the village would follow him and bark loudly. At last the young men of the village spoke together, proposing to capture him if by any means they were able, and convening at the cemetery. But having seen him, all fled except two of them. One, called Robert Foxton, caught him as he emerged from the cemetery and laid him over the church gate, loudly and courageously shouting "You hold fast until I come to you". The other replied, "You dash quickly to the minister so that he may be [[Wiktionary: conjure|conjured]], since, God willing, because I have him fast, I will hang on until the arrival of the priest". The priest of the parish indeed hurried quickly and conjured him the holy name of the Trinity and by the virtue of Jesus Christ until he responded to his questions.

At that conjuration, he spoke in his guts (and not with his tongue, but as if in a large empty jar) and confessed his many crimes. When he knew these, the priest absolved him but he insisted that the aforesaid capturers would not reveal in any way his confession, and otherwise he rested in peace, having been set in order with God.</blockquote>