William of Newbury: the English historian who wrote about vampires?

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February 27, 2024

Last month, AIPT had the exclusive scoop on Michael Avon Oeming’s May-releasing Dark Horse series William of Newbury, a tale of anthropomorphic animals inspired by the real-life William of Newburgh. AIPT Science reached out to English literature expert Eve Siebert to see if William really did sprinkle stories of the undead into his work (yes!), and why (good question!).

In the 12th century, William of Newburgh, an Augustinian canon in the West Riding of Yorkshire, wrote a well-respected history of England. He began with the Norman Invasion, but focused primarily on events that occurred in his own lifetime (1136-1198). His multi-volume Historia rerum Anglicarum (History of English Affairs) is generally respected for “the sober nature of his commentaries and the purported lack of bias.”

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Unfortunately for William, though, the only thing most people know about him is that he wrote about vampires.

In chapters 22-24 of Book V, William tells the stories of four men who died, rose from their graves, and terrorized their communities before being dispatched in some way. Although William was writing long before the word “vampire” was known in England, the revenants that he describes are very similar to those that appear in the eastern European vampire accounts that became widely known in the early 18th century. In fact, all aspects of William’s revenants have parallels in eastern European vampire lore, which is thoroughly documented and analyzed in Paul Barbers’ Vampires, Burial, and Death.

William describes three of the four revenants as having lived sinful lives. One (Berwick revenant, Bk. V, chap 23) was a rogue. Another (Bk. V, chap 24) was a monk and chaplain to a wealthy woman. He was so devoted to hunting he was known as “Hundeprest” (dog-priest). The third (Anantis revenant, Bk. V, chap. 24) was a man “of evil conduct,” forced to flee his enemies in York.

All four revenants remained in the town where they died, and two focused their malevolence primarily on their family and friends. The Buckinghamshire revenant (Bk, V, chap. 22) visited his wife and “nearly crushed her by the insupportable weight of his body.” When she recruited people to stay with her, he harassed his brothers. The Hundeprest haunted the bedchamber of the woman he served as chaplain.

William connects both the Berwick and Anantis revenants to pestilence, a common association in vampire lore. The appearance of the exhumed bodies of the Hundeprest and the Anantis revenant also strongly resembles the descriptions of Eastern European vampires. The Hundeprest, having been attacked by an axe-wielding monk, had “a great quantity of blood” flowing from the wound (Bk. V, chap. 24). The Anantis’ body was “swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood.”

While there are many ways to deal with vampires, and staking is the most common in fictional stories, burning is the most reliable method and the last resort in folklore, since it completely destroys the body. According to William, the Berwick and Anantis revenants and the Hundeprest were all burnt. In the case of the Buckinghamshire revenant, most people advised burning as well; however, Hugh, Bishop of Lincon, considered such an action “indecent and improper in the last degree” (Bk. V, chap. 22). Instead, he wrote a letter of absolution which was placed on the dead man’s chest.

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So what are these undead monsters doing galivanting through a supposedly sober history? William took history and historiography very seriously. He spends most of his preface railing against Geoffrey of Monmouth and the “ridiculous fictions” that he “invented” in his Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). (Geoffrey greatly expanded the legend of King Arthur and largely created the character of Merlin. As William says, the work is fiction.)

To modern readers, of course, William’s stories of the walking dead seem every bit as fictional as Merlin the Magician. William himself seems to realize the stories sound unbelievable: “It would not be easy to believe the corpses of the dead should sally (I know not by what agency) from their graves … did not frequent examples … suffice to establish this fact, to the truth of which there is abundant testimony” (Bk. V, chap. 24).

To a significant extent, an understanding of history does rely on testimony — the testimony of eyewitnesses and experts, for instance. William judges the reliability of his sources for the revenant stories on their closeness to the event and what he knows of them. From his point of view, his sources are unimpeachable. William heard the story of the Hundeprest from “religious men” (Bk. V, chap 24). An “aged monk who lived in honor and authority in those parts” told William about the Anantis revenant; the monk “related this event as having occurred in his own presence” (Bk. V, chap. 24).

William heard the tale of the Buckinghamhisre revenant from Stephen de Swafeld, Archdeacon of Buckingham, who had written to Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln. Although neither Stephen nor Hugh seems to have encountered the dead man, they both, according to William, took the situation seriously, and were men whom William would have trusted. Hugh especially had an impeccable reputation — among other things, he strove to protect Lincoln’s Jewish population against persecution. He was canonized in 1220.

In addition to relying on those he considered to be reliable sources, William mentions several times how common stories of the undead were, and this does seem to be the case. His are by no means the only stories of revenants from the 12th and 13th centuries. Historian William of Malmesbury (c. 1095-c. 1143) and Walter Map (1130-c. 1210) both mention revenants in their works, and several continental authors, including the German Cistercian Caesarius von Heisterbach, also wrote about the walking dead. Revenants also appear in secular vernacular works, such as Old Norse sagas.

Historia rerum Anglicarum

William’s revenant stories may also have served a deeper purpose related to his historical mission. Monika Otter and Stephen Gordon both suggest the revenants are related to the events which William discusses immediately before and after his digression on the undead. In the two chapters immediately preceding the revenant tales, William tells the story of William Fitz Osbert, known as Long Beard, a man with an “innate insolence of disposition” (Bk. V, chap. 20).

Long Beard led a revolt of poor Londoners. After his execution, some of his followers, “sought by art to obtain for him the name and glory of a martyr” (Bk. V, chap. 21). This scheme was so successful that many “infatuated creatures” and “large bands of fools” gathered at the place of execution (Bk. V, chap. 21). Like the revenants, Long Beard continued to act as a destabilizing force even after his death.

In the two chapters that follow the revenant stories, William describes renewed warfare between the kings of England and France. He also discusses devastating famine and pestilence, which he explicitly links to the actions of the kings: “A famine, produced by unseasonable rains, had for some years vehemently afflicted the people of France and England; but by the disputes of the kings among themselves, it now increased more than ever” (Bk. V, chap. 26). Many died, “and even the healthy . . . went about with pallid and cadaverous countenances, as if on the point of death” (Bk. V, chap. 26).

William blames the kings for exacerbating the pestilence in much the same way he blamed the revenants, and the living take on the appearance of the walking dead. Although William doesn’t directly link his revenant stories to historical events, their placement suggests they mirror the actions of Long Beard and the kings.

Every February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, the Science section of AIPT cranks up the critical thinking for SKEPTICISM MONTH! Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies the tools of science. All month we’re highlighting skepticism in pop culture, and skepticism *OF* pop culture.

AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.