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Interesting that they use the word "post-medieval" instead of "modern"... And they mention 17th century, well after the middle ages ended. In fact, such supers

Interesting that they use the word "post-medieval" instead of "modern"... And they mention 17th century, well after the middle ages ended. In fact, such superstitious practices were almost non-existent during middle ages: they're one of the natural consequences of de-christianization, which happened at a faster pace after the middle ages. I know I need to assume good intentions, but "post-medieval" seems just misplaced and an attempt to associate these practices to the middle ages. I thought we were finally past the times in which we demonized the middle ages. At least in Italy, several historians are finally talking about how great and important that time was. Look for "Alessandro Barbero" on YouTube for more.

jeltz 3y ago
I feel you are overstating your point. There was belief in vampires in medieval Europe too. And the origin is likely from pagan pre-Christian beliefs in Eastern or South Eastern Europe.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  The article mentions as much, the phrase 'vampire' is only been in vogue in the past 100 or so years; the article mentions upiór, strzyga and strigoi. Which I learned about thanks to the Witcher (the video games moreso than the books / TV show); its lore feels new because it uses older and lesser known in western Europe creatures.
ajuc 3y ago
They were common in middle ages. And there was a reason for the superstition - rabies and other epidemics. > the natural consequences of de-christianization Poland in middle ages was less catholic than Poland in 17th century. If anything it was over-chrisianized not de-christianized in that period.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
The article writes: “Apotropaic graves of this sort date back to the Early Middle Ages and have also appeared in Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Romania.” So even the 17th-century phenomenon is but a late attestation of a practice found already in the medieval era. It is curious that you claim that such practices could only be a result of de-Christianization. In the Balkans, fears of vampires, incubi, and succubi have always co-existed happily with a Christianity that deeply permeated all levels of society.
- paganel 3y ago
  The Christian practices here in the Balkans had (maybe still have) a lot of Manichaeism involved in them which people further West might not call that Christian to begin with. It's a very peculiar type of Christianity, that's for sure, and even the local high-placed Christian men are quite hesitant to talk about it. Bogomilism is, of course, its most famous form, but it has circulated in one form or other for many hundreds of years, no matter the official repressions it has faced (ever since the 10th century [1], maybe even earlier). Back to the article, the strzyga and strigoi which are mentioned there are basically Romanian words, and Romanian most probably took them from the Latin strix [2]. In fact a local species of owl is called strigă. And now back to the local Manichaeism present here, a grand-father of a friend of mine (in fact, his corpse) was unearthed at some point after his death (I think it was 7 years) and a spike was put through its (the body's) chest, so that his spirit would stop wandering among the living. Granted, that was happening in a Romanian region a little bit on the more traditional side, you won't find that in Bucharest or Cluj anymore. Also, up until very recently there was a tradition at the church in my parents' village where the most "wealthy" family in the village would have to bring a black rooster on Easter inside the church, let it loose, people would catch it and then give it to one of the poor families, so that that poor family would cook it as an Easter meal. Black roosters are, of course, not that Christian to begin with. As I said, lots and lots of Manichaeism beliefs around these parts of the continent (in many, many folk tales the Devil is on the same level as God), Middle Ages or not, it's quite fascinating. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Treatise_Against_the_Bogomils https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Treatise_Against_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_(mythology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_(mythology) [3] https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strig%C4%83 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strig%C4%83
gpjanik 3y ago
Completely incorrect, the practices were in general not very present in middle-aged Poland compared to the Western Europe. The reason for emerging anti-vampiric practices in the 17th and the 18th centuries were epidemics and folktales from Balkans, and it had nothing to do with de-christianisation which never happened (Poland has been and is predominantly Christian with rate of catholic church members being >90% even today).
- ajuc 3y ago
  Yup, I'd even say in medieval period Poland was less christian than in 17th/18th century :) In 1500s at one point majority of nobility went protestant, and there was still a lot of orthodox nobles from Lithuania. Peasants were orthodox or pagan in the east, catholic in the west with some protestants, muslims and jews mixed in. In the cities there was a lot of german immigrants who were protestant or catholic depending on the city they immigrated from. Whole towns and villages were created by importing people from the west and giving them religious freedoms and tax benefits for a few years. By 1700s it was mostly gone, because the country kept fighting muslims, orthodox and protestant countries. So kings turned to catholicism and counter-reformation as uniting factor. So religion got a lot of influence.
- Tade0 3y ago
  > (Poland has been and is predominantly Christian with rate of catholic church members being >90% even today). Nowadays that's on paper mostly, especially that apostasy is difficult and not really worth the trouble for most. The pandemic especially revealed that many people were attending only because everyone else was.
yard2010 3y ago
The middle ages sucked though. I hope we're not in some middle ages today.
- redeeman 3y ago
  I sincerely hope we are
  - muzani 3y ago
    Better middle ages than late ages. Catastrophes always happen after the late ages.
- WJW 3y ago
  If we are then wouldn't that imply better times are to come? Sounds pretty nice actually.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
> de-christianization, which happened at a faster pace after the middle ages. This doesn't really agree with my understanding of things. The late medieval and early modern period was a time of increasing religious control due to the reformation and counter-reformation. This was a new kind of problem, since during most of the medieval period the biggest threat was external in the form of Islam during the crusades and reconquista, but you could send armies to deal with that problem. Heretics from within, like Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, and eventually Luther and Calvin and later the protestants were much harder to defeat with armies, since they'd crop up anywhere and erode the power of the church from within. To hold against the protestants, you needed to control what people thought, paying lip service to the church wasn't enough anymore. This is when you get the inquisition and so on. A mirror image of things were happening along the protestants since it was very important that everyone held the line when the jesuits came a'knocking. There was also a fairly strong impetus to enforce protestantism from the temporal powers-that-be, since it was basically what allowed them to cut free from the pope. Closet papists among the population was as bad thing for a protestant king as closet protestants were for a catholic pope (or catholic king).
Mistletoe 3y ago
Why is it almost any time I see someone citing a YouTube source they are wrong?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hulitu 3y ago
> Interesting that they use the word "post-medieval" instead of "modern"... And they mention 17th century, well after the middle ages ended. It depends on hystorians. In our school was thought that middle ages ended around 1848.

jeltz 3y ago

I feel you are overstating your point. There was belief in vampires in medieval Europe too. And the origin is likely from pagan pre-Christian beliefs in Eastern or South Eastern Europe.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
The article mentions as much, the phrase 'vampire' is only been in vogue in the past 100 or so years; the article mentions upiór, strzyga and strigoi. Which I learned about thanks to the Witcher (the video games moreso than the books / TV show); its lore feels new because it uses older and lesser known in western Europe creatures.

ajuc 3y ago

They were common in middle ages. And there was a reason for the superstition - rabies and other epidemics. > the natural consequences of de-christianization Poland in middle ages was less catholic than Poland in 17th century. If anything it was over-chrisianized not de-christianized in that period.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

The article writes: “Apotropaic graves of this sort date back to the Early Middle Ages and have also appeared in Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Romania.” So even the 17th-century phenomenon is but a late attestation of a practice found already in the medieval era. It is curious that you claim that such practices could only be a result of de-Christianization. In the Balkans, fears of vampires, incubi, and succubi have always co-existed happily with a Christianity that deeply permeated all levels of society.

paganel 3y ago
The Christian practices here in the Balkans had (maybe still have) a lot of Manichaeism involved in them which people further West might not call that Christian to begin with. It's a very peculiar type of Christianity, that's for sure, and even the local high-placed Christian men are quite hesitant to talk about it. Bogomilism is, of course, its most famous form, but it has circulated in one form or other for many hundreds of years, no matter the official repressions it has faced (ever since the 10th century [1], maybe even earlier). Back to the article, the strzyga and strigoi which are mentioned there are basically Romanian words, and Romanian most probably took them from the Latin strix [2]. In fact a local species of owl is called strigă. And now back to the local Manichaeism present here, a grand-father of a friend of mine (in fact, his corpse) was unearthed at some point after his death (I think it was 7 years) and a spike was put through its (the body's) chest, so that his spirit would stop wandering among the living. Granted, that was happening in a Romanian region a little bit on the more traditional side, you won't find that in Bucharest or Cluj anymore. Also, up until very recently there was a tradition at the church in my parents' village where the most "wealthy" family in the village would have to bring a black rooster on Easter inside the church, let it loose, people would catch it and then give it to one of the poor families, so that that poor family would cook it as an Easter meal. Black roosters are, of course, not that Christian to begin with. As I said, lots and lots of Manichaeism beliefs around these parts of the continent (in many, many folk tales the Devil is on the same level as God), Middle Ages or not, it's quite fascinating. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Treatise_Against_the_Bogomils https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Treatise_Against_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_(mythology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_(mythology) [3] https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strig%C4%83 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strig%C4%83

gpjanik 3y ago

Completely incorrect, the practices were in general not very present in middle-aged Poland compared to the Western Europe. The reason for emerging anti-vampiric practices in the 17th and the 18th centuries were epidemics and folktales from Balkans, and it had nothing to do with de-christianisation which never happened (Poland has been and is predominantly Christian with rate of catholic church members being >90% even today).

ajuc 3y ago
Yup, I'd even say in medieval period Poland was less christian than in 17th/18th century :) In 1500s at one point majority of nobility went protestant, and there was still a lot of orthodox nobles from Lithuania. Peasants were orthodox or pagan in the east, catholic in the west with some protestants, muslims and jews mixed in. In the cities there was a lot of german immigrants who were protestant or catholic depending on the city they immigrated from. Whole towns and villages were created by importing people from the west and giving them religious freedoms and tax benefits for a few years. By 1700s it was mostly gone, because the country kept fighting muslims, orthodox and protestant countries. So kings turned to catholicism and counter-reformation as uniting factor. So religion got a lot of influence.
Tade0 3y ago
> (Poland has been and is predominantly Christian with rate of catholic church members being >90% even today). Nowadays that's on paper mostly, especially that apostasy is difficult and not really worth the trouble for most. The pandemic especially revealed that many people were attending only because everyone else was.

yard2010 3y ago

The middle ages sucked though. I hope we're not in some middle ages today.

redeeman 3y ago
I sincerely hope we are
- muzani 3y ago
  Better middle ages than late ages. Catastrophes always happen after the late ages.
WJW 3y ago
If we are then wouldn't that imply better times are to come? Sounds pretty nice actually.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

> de-christianization, which happened at a faster pace after the middle ages. This doesn't really agree with my understanding of things. The late medieval and early modern period was a time of increasing religious control due to the reformation and counter-reformation. This was a new kind of problem, since during most of the medieval period the biggest threat was external in the form of Islam during the crusades and reconquista, but you could send armies to deal with that problem. Heretics from within, like Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, and eventually Luther and Calvin and later the protestants were much harder to defeat with armies, since they'd crop up anywhere and erode the power of the church from within. To hold against the protestants, you needed to control what people thought, paying lip service to the church wasn't enough anymore. This is when you get the inquisition and so on. A mirror image of things were happening along the protestants since it was very important that everyone held the line when the jesuits came a'knocking. There was also a fairly strong impetus to enforce protestantism from the temporal powers-that-be, since it was basically what allowed them to cut free from the pope. Closet papists among the population was as bad thing for a protestant king as closet protestants were for a catholic pope (or catholic king).

Mistletoe 3y ago

Why is it almost any time I see someone citing a YouTube source they are wrong?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hulitu 3y ago

> Interesting that they use the word "post-medieval" instead of "modern"... And they mention 17th century, well after the middle ages ended. It depends on hystorians. In our school was thought that middle ages ended around 1848.