This thesis complements existing English studies on spirits and introduces a German ghostlore largely unknown to the British reader. Therefore, it justifies a closer look at how spirits operated in certain environments and experiences. A key current throughout the thesis is whereas theologians argued an overarching theory of the supernatural, popular belief, on the other hand, was held in bundle form. It shows how Protestantism not only competed with Catholic teachings on spirits but also confronted more atavistic models of spirit belief with varying degrees of success. It shows how Protestants, like Catholics before them, had attempted to appropriate and impose order upon these spirits, places and experiences. Looking at war, we see how the intense experience of conflict and its aftermath were negotiated through spirit tropes, how these lessons were applied to wider society’s morality and how war was a catalyst for ghost belief.

Emphasising the importance of place within legend telling and ghost stories, it recreates a landscape of memory whose bounds, both physical and moral, were patrolled by spirits. Stressing continuities between the medieval period and what followed, it shows how ghosts continued to embody anxieties of place, experience and morality. It reconstructs an enchanted world, one where ghosts and spirits were not tied down to simple Catholic or Protestant tropes but were more multifaceted than previous studies have shown.

This thesis focuses on themes of place and war in the development of ghostlore in Early Modern Protestant Germany and England.

Angry Ghosts by F. Allen Farnham