Folklore

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Sensible Proof of Spirits: Ghost Belief during the

Later Seventeenth Century
Jo Bath & John Newton
To cite this article: Jo Bath & John Newton (2006) Sensible Proof of Spirits: Ghost Belief
during the Later Seventeenth Century, Folklore, 117:1, 1-14, DOI: 10.1080/00155870500479851
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00155870500479851

Published online: 19 Aug 2006.

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Sensible Proof of Spirits: Ghost Belief during

the Later Seventeenth Century
Jo Bath and John Newton
Abstract
This paper examines beliefs about ghosts from 1650 to 1700 as an area in its own
right, as distinct from, albeit related to, earlier post-reformation beliefs. It
particularly considers the approach of anti-sadducean writers to ghosts and
spirits, and seeks to explore the historical context for such beliefs.

Introduction
Historians and folklorists alike have tended to treat the body of material
concerning ghosts from the Reformation to the early eighteenth century as
displaying a homogeneous set of beliefs. Many studies fail to note that by the
Restoration the demonological interpretations, which had previously predominated in England, were losing popularity at the hands of the neoplatonic view of
ghosts. Although efforts are taken by scholars to divide elite belief from popular
belief, they frequently end up lumping the material together without any regard
for the chronology or shifts in belief. Keith Thomas jumps back and forth through
the period in his magisterial work, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971),
suggesting a degree of conformity in post-Reformation beliefs that is not justified
by a sustained examination of the material he uses. A similar approach to the
material was also taken in another significant study by Theo Brown, The Fate of the
Dead (1979), who described it as an unexpectedly consistent body of belief: her
generalisations were seriously called into question by Ronald Hutton (Brown
1979, 1; Hutton 1995, 94). It is, however, perhaps too easy to forget that these are
the giants on whose shoulders we stand, and many of these works represent the
first serious treatments of beliefs about ghosts. More recent examinations have
begun to differentiate the shifts that occur throughout the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Ronald Finucanes Appearances of the Dead (1982) paid more
attention to the distinctions in the seventeenth century, treating post-Reformation
beliefs as separate from those of the Baroque. Even Finucane, however, implies a
degree of harmony between the different theories that were prevalent during the
Restoration without significantly stressing the differences between the neoplatonic theories of Henry More, and the quasi-paracelsan notion of astral spirits,
which More attacked (Finucane 1982, 121).
Furthermore, Finucane was one of the first writers to assign a cultural role to the
ghost, arguing that ghosts represent mans inner universe just as his art and
poetry do. And as in the case of literary and aesthetic invention, the results cannot
be divorced from their social milieu (Finucane 1982, 1). This perspective has been
embraced, to a greater or lesser extent, by recent historians, such as Jean-Claude
ISSN 0015-587X print; 1469-8315 online/06/010001-14; Routledge Journals; Taylor & Francis
q 2006 The Folklore Society
DOI: 10.1080/00155870500479851

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Jo Bath and John Newton

Schmitt (1998) in his examination of medieval spectres. These authors seem to

share the perception that the ghost fulfils a social function, seeing the ghost as
reflecting societal attitudes of anxiety, which are personified in the figure of the
ghost. While traditions and stories may be shaped to fulfil such functions, as we
will argue they were, this is very different from these positions, which deny any
source of material separate from what they regard as the dominant cultural trends.
There is almost an effective writing out of any form of folk tradition.
Certainly, the material was mediated in many cases, even if this was just a case
of being prefaced by the editors remarks, or positioned within a collection, but
their analyses seem to be working on a crude version of David Huffords cultural
source theory, stripping it from any tradition, or continuum of lore, and seeing it as
a product of its immediate age (Hufford 1982, 13 14). There are more measured
variations of the view of ghosts as an embodiment of the concerns of the living.
Peter Marshall, while seeing ghosts as a manifestation of popular culture,
nevertheless still admits that the meanings of ghostly apparitions were open,
hazardous, and uncertain, both at the level of official theology, and among those
who actually found themselves confronted in the night with a questionable
shape(Marshall 2002, 234 and 262). At the other end of the spectrum we have
Annekatrin Puhle, who has worked on poltergeist and apparitions in the
eighteenth century (Puhle 1999). She has attempted to sheer away all cultural
accretions to identify the essential function of ghosts. In strongly Structuralist
analysis of the various traditions, which we believe risks severe oversimplification, she suggests that:
Apparitions carry important information relevant to the here and now, and they connect the
reality of time and space with a wider reality which is neither bound to these categories nor
does it follow the law of cause and effect. The core of the ghost is this: the messenger-ghost
(Puhle 2005, 148).

This present study sets out to examine ideas about ghosts in the later
seventeenth century as a distinct set of beliefs, albeit one that drew upon earlier
theories about apparitions. It will concentrate on elite attitudes to the phenomena,
and changes in these attitudes, since it is largely through such sources that
accounts of ghosts have filtered through to us. Gillian Bennetts warning about the
writers of the Restoration must, however, be borne in mind:
The stories were collected from self-selected informants drawn from a limited group of
educated, upper-class people known to the collectors and may not have been representative of
the folk at large . . . scholars should be wary of using data from Glanvil, Bovet and Sinclair as
evidence of a continuing tradition of ghosts (Bennett 1986, 11).

This is partly true, as testified to by James Collins in the publishers Preface to

Saducismus Triumphatus (Glanvill 1681) where he states that the only accounts
included in the third part were those that seemed very well attested and highly
credible [to More] . . . and such, as rightly understood, contain nothing but what is
consonant to right Reason and sound Philosophy (Glanvill 1681, sig. A3v). It is
only through such authors, however, that we have any access to the vast majority
of ghost lore from the late seventeenth century, whatever its faults may be; and,
however it may have been marshalled to its authors ends, it remains the only
significant corpus of such literature. Moreover, it is possible to overstate the case

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Ghost Belief during the Later Seventeenth Century

against this fact. Certainly, it was selected in its ability to serve a function, but
frequently it appears that the stories are preserved independently of any
substantial editorial matter, which features only in the prologue or conclusion,
especially in the case of the pamphlet material of this period. For examples of cases
that do seem to consist of unedited narratives within an editorial framework, see
both A True Relation of the Horrid Ghost of a Woman (Anonymous 1673) and A True
and Perfect Account of a Strange and Dreadful Apparition (Pye 1672). It must be
stressed, however, that the same stories frequently turn up in collections of such
material in a substantially identical form. Pyes narrative was reprinted in Richard
Burthogges An Essay Upon Reason several years later (Burthogge 1694, 216 22).
The Decline of Demons
In the century following the Reformation, ghost belief, at least among the elite, was
divided along strictly confessional lines. Belief on the subject was caught up in a
doctrinal web, intimately entwined with the denial or acceptance of Purgatory,
and, therefore, of Roman Catholicism. Among the learned within the Reformed
Churches, ghosts had largely become absorbed by demonology, even if
ambiguities of interpretation persisted. [1] Yet by the end of the seventeenth
century, this surety seems to have become radically altered, such that belief in
ghosts as something other than devils in human shape was entirely respectable
among committed Protestants. James Boswell, in his Life of Johnson (1971),
considers that the issue of ghosts was one that had never been decided (Thomas
1971, 703) and a number of books were published between 1650 and 1700most
notably the works of Henry Morewhich argued for the existence of ghosts and
largely rejected demonological explanations.
By the early seventeenth century there were signs that the confessional divide
upon this issue was becoming increasingly blurred as scholars and clerics,
reluctant to discard visible spirits altogether, admitted the possibility of ghostly
visitation (Thomas 1971, 705). John Aubrey records that as early as the 1590s,
when [William Twisse] was a School-boy at Winchester, [he] saw the Phantome of a
School fellow of his deceased . . . who said to him, I am damnd. This was the
occasion of Dr. Twisses Conversion, who had been before that time . . . a very
wicked Boy (Aubrey 1696, 73). Thus he became a puritan divine following the
sighting of a ghost, a somewhat unique event on two counts: firstly, as the spirit
was the agent of conversion; and, secondly, because it was an encounter with a
damned soul. The surety of demonic theories, which had been stated with such
force by protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century, began to be questioned in
the reign of Charles I. Oxford dons discussed whether spirits really and
substantially appeare, i.e. the ghosts of the deceasedand these speculations
were to provide a foretaste of the intellectual debates that were to follow (Crosfield
1935, 17).
Continued belief that the dead could return is notable in the fact that it was
considered worth attempting to make a pact with a friendthat whoever died
first should report back from the afterlife. This is notable not only for its view of
ghosts as souls of the dead and not demons in human form, but also for the
underlying notion that such experiential data might verify post-mortem existence.
Aubrey records the appearance of Lord Bacconi to Lord Middleton while he was

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Jo Bath and John Newton

in the Tower after his capture at Worcester during the Civil War. Such pacts
continued after the Restoration, and Joseph Glanvill, among others, recounts how
Captain William Dyke was disappointed when his friend, Major George
Sydenham, failed to make an arranged rendezvous in Dykes garden three nights
after his death. Sydenham appeared to Dyke soon afterwards, however, and
apologised that he was unable to keep his earlier appointment, thus vindicating
the formers arguments for the immortality of the soul and the existence of God,
which they had vigorously debated while both were living. [2] Not all pacts were
fulfilled, however: the failure of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochesters friend,
Montague, to manifest after death was a great snare to him during his life
(Burnet 1787, 27).
Yet the works that argued the traditional Protestant credo after the Civil Wars,
(1642 49), like Thomas Bromhalls A Treatise of Specters (1658), seem increasingly
ambiguous. Although many of Bromhalls tales used the accepted motif of the
ghost as demonic, stories from Catholic sources sat side by side with tales from
Luther and Melanchcthon without comment or qualification. Part of the reason for
this may have been the perceived need to prove the existence of spirits over and
above the need to argue a particular interpretation (Bromhall 1658, sig. A2). This
came about because of the persistence of sceptical writers, such as Thomas White,
who argued that most of our stories . . . if they were examined to the bottom . . .
would be found to proceed from the frequent cogitation and passionate affection
of the living towards their departed friends (Thomas 1971, 705). As we shall see,
the middle of the century witnessed a rise of attitudes that challenged the
established tenets of religious thought, calling into question notions of spirits, and
in extreme cases even of God. Whites scepticism towards spirits was one facet of
the atmosphere of radical questioning that pervaded western Europe at the time.
As the century progressed, works from John Wagstaffe and John Webster
challenged certain supernatural tenets, while Reginald Scots well-known tome,
The Discovery of Witchcraft (1972 [1584]), continued to be read when it was
republished in 1654 and again in 1665, despite being first published during the
reign of Elizabeth I, and burnt by the public Hangman under her successor
(Spalding 1880, 40; Cf. Sharpe 1996, 55).
It would be wrong, however, to suggest that demonic interpretations of
apparitions completely died out, and there are tales recorded where this is still
clearly the case after 1660. What does disappear is the surety among the elite that
all ghosts are, or at least should be, demonic, and this becomes a way of
interpreting ghosts that is only used rarely and sparingly. This diagnosis is
offered, by and large, by authors who also advance the theory that, in most cases,
ghosts are (by whichever mode or theory to which they subscribe) related to a
deceased person (see Baxter 1691, 59).
Defence against Sadduceeism
It is, perhaps, unsurprising that works expressing such radical doubts elicited a
reaction designed to prove the existence of spirits. Indeed, the Restoration saw
several substantial books (as well as many shorter treatises and pamphlets) on the
same themes emerge, notably those written by Joseph Glanvill, Henry More,
George Sinclair, Richard Baxter, Richard Bovet, and, in a slightly different fashion,

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Ghost Belief during the Later Seventeenth Century

Aubrey. Several writers boldly stated their reason for undertaking the task
essentially to combat the threat from sceptics and other modern-day sadducees.
The third edition of Glanvills pamphlet on witchcraft and ghosts was retitled
A Blow Against Modern Sadducism (1668; see Glanvill 1681)thus firmly indicating
where he had his sights setand the subtitle of Bovets Pandaemonium (1951
[1684]), A Further Blow to Modern Saducism, Proving the Existence of Witches and
Spirits, shows that he was self-consciously following in the formers footsteps. [3]
The denial of the existence of spirits was seen as the thin end of a wedge that led
ultimately to atheism, an idea that found forceful expression in Mores dictum
No Spirits, No God (More 1653, 64). This argument was taken up even by
moderate AnglicansBenjamin Camfield wrote that denying the existence of
spirits had dangerous consequences: tis to be observed, among our modern
Atheists and Sadducees especially, that their antipathy and aversion, as to the
notion and being of Spirits universally, hath carried them on (and naturally doth
so) to the dethroning of God, the Supreme Spirit and the Father of Spirits
(Camfield 1678, 172).
Glanvil similarly spoke of a chain of connexion, where disbelief in ghosts and
witchesas the lowest and most tangible section of the supernatural chain
ultimately resulted in disbelief in the resurrection and the immortality of the soul
(Glanvill 1681, part IV, 4). Crucially, these writers believed that just as the denial of
spirits endangered the whole system of the supernatural, so did the bolstering of
belief in any supernatural force support other elements of the system. As
Cudworth, another of the Cambridge Platonists, argued, if there be once any
visible ghosts or spirits acknowledged as things permanent, it will not be easy for
any to give reason why there might not be one supreme ghost also (Almond 1994,
34 5). These writers were, in Gillian Bennetts phrase, fighting a rearguard action
against the atheistic materialism of philosophers like Hobbes, and so the ghost
was marshalled in order to provide proofs of a wider religious system (Bennett
1985, 10). Sadduceeism was also thought to pose a material threatSinclair
observed that it could result in dangerous libertinism, since scepticism over spirits
was used by some as an excuse to live as they list (Almond 1994, 34).
John Wagstaffe refuted the idea of a chain of connexion in The Question of
Witchcraft Debated (1669), where he argued that the idea of the denial of the
existence of spirits leading to atheism is An errour so gross, that it doth not
deserve a confutation (Wagstaffe 1669, ii). Peter Elmer suggests that the sceptical
attitudes presented in Wagstaffes work may be one of the few tangible traces of
another side of a much wider oral debate about the supernatural in Restoration
society (Elmer 2003, vol. 4, 1). One might draw parallels with Bennetts notion of a
submerged tradition, and suggest we may be dealing here with something similar,
albeit more temporally localised. Elmer proposes that even if it is representative of
a more significant questioning of the attitudes found in the anti-sadducees, we
may never be able to fully appreciate the significance of Wagstaffes work as
representative of a much wider body of opinion. Certainly, if this is the case, The
Question of Witchcraft Debated may be a much more momentous work than it has
previously been taken to be. This remains speculative, however, in the absence of
any other evidence to support this case. What we can bear in mind is that, while
the bulk of our material comes from anti-sadducean sources, it does not
necessarily prove that such ideas were accepted by most people; but merely that

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Jo Bath and John Newton

they had the opportunity to more widely circulate. That publishers were prepared
to print such material may only indicate that the public were willing to purchase
stories of this nature, and not that they necessarily subscribed to any fixed and
firm position in the debate.
The inspiration for many authors was Henry Mores 1652 tome An Antidote
Against Atheisme. This text backed up rational argument with stories of the
supernatural, of which More said it is not to be imputed to any vain credulity of
mine, or that I take a pleasure in telling strange stories, but that I thought fit to
fortify and strengthen the faith of others (Kroll 1992, 98). More wrote to Glanvill
that it was the work of providence that examples of ghosts and other phenomena
kept appearing, in order to awaken peoples minds to the possibility of the
existence of the supernatural (Bennett 1985, 79). The use of stories for this purpose
can be seen to accord well with the Restoration mind. Montague Summers points
to the reaction of Samuel Pepys to Glanvills first work on the Tedworth Drummer,
which was thought to be well writ, in good style, but methinks, not very
convincing, as opposed to his collection of case histories in Saducismus
Triumphatus (1681), which was judged worth reading indeed (Cope 1956, 62;
Summers 1972, xxxvi). An argument illustrated with one case was unconvincing;
whether the collection of a number of stories was convincing or not, it appealed to
educated tastes in literature, such as Pepyss.
Intellectual Changes
A significant paradigm shift must have occurred, however, to allow writers like
Glanvill to adopt the position they did, and we cannot entirely attribute this to the
fear of incipient atheism. After all, when faced with the scepticism of Scot, labelled
sadduceeism by James I, writers of the previous century had supported some
supernatural phenomena, especially devils, but still vehemently denied ghosts as
the returned spirits of the dead. Wider changes in the intellectual atmosphere were
needed before the ghostly revenant could be used on the side of the religious. One
factor may have been the sheer scale of the dissent from orthodox teaching, which
was a feature of increased discussion of radical ideas during the Commonwealth
period. Scot had been one lone voice, but the Interregnum facilitated a clamour of
voices. This period engendered a large number of new, and sometimes outlandish,
sects. While few of the sectarys ideas found their way into mainstream thinking, it
may be a sign of changing times than some sectaries were readily disposed to
accept the existence of ghosts. Spiritual speculations were quite common and the
Radical, George Foster, turned conventional Protestant teaching on its head by
arguing that, rather than all ghosts being devils, all devils were merely the
spirits of wicked men and women (Foster 1650, 51). Others, however, were
disposed in an opposite direction, and promoted materialist and mortalist
theories. Indeed, it was against such opinions that Meric Casaubon took up his
pen to write when he edited for publication A True and Faithful Relation of What
passed for many Yeers Between D r John Dee . . . and Some Spirits (1659). Like More in
An Antidote Against Atheisme published six years earlier, Casaubon was concerned
to refute the sadducean trends of the Interregnum where, although individuals
did not deny the authority of the Scriptures, they will not easily, however, admit
of any thing that they think contrary to reason, and also the more overly mystical

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impulses of the sectaries with their Supposed Inspiration and imaginary

Revelations (Casaubon 1659, 1).
The neoplatonism of the mid to late seventeenth century also lent itself to
further consideration of ghosts, by providing a new set of classical models and
possibilities that could be drawn upon to reinvigorate Anglican theology. The
neoplatonic impulse was not separated from the debates referred to earlier, and
More was employing his philosophical armoury to counter sadducean theories
about the soul and its fate after death, particularly the newly advanced position of
Thomas Hobbes. The theories of Hobbes had included mortalismwhich
implicitly denied the basis for not only Catholic beliefs as Hobbes suggested, but
also for traditional Christian thought on the subject, by contending that the soul
slept or died between death and the last judgement and was aware of nothing.
This idea was old enough to have been originally condemned in the 42 Articles of
1553 [4] but robust enough to have been also been included in the teachings of
several commonwealth sects. Partly in answer to this, More envisaged an
elaborate journey made by a conscious soul, and the consequent theory of
vehicles of the soul allowed for the possibility of some post-mortem existence on
this plane (More 1659, 272 3). The exact nature of the ghost was much debated
among certain circles. More postulated that the soul comprised two parts, a
celestial vehicle and an aerial vehicle, and that while the former returned to the
celestial plain, the latter might be left to wander the earth. Webster rejected this as
savouring of Catholicism and argued for an astral spirit, the figure or idea of a
person that could exist apart from both the physical body and the soul, but this
argument reduced spiritual phenomena . . . to pseudo-physical explanations
that went contrary to the more spiritual emphasis of More (Cope 1956, 100). Such
views were not strictly orthodox, but neither were they particularly unorthodox;
rather, they reflected the atmosphere of questioning and speculation that was
characteristic of the age. Glanvill had his own take on the question, but ultimately
saw that this speculative approach had its limits. He admitted that we could never
really know such things for certain in this life, and many other authors appear to
have been content to follow his lead, saying that they did not know how such
things existed, merely that they were so, and were, therefore, proof against
atheism, or else reverted to the populist idea that an omnipotent God could order
ghosts as He chose (Glanvill 1661, 17).
Restoration Trends
The Restoration brought with it a more inclusive view of Christianity, and while the
beliefs of the sectaries were regarded as unacceptably extreme, there was a move
towards the social inclusion of shades of Protestantism that had been seen as
problematic before the Civil Wars. The trend towards toleration in belief may have
engendered an atmosphere of speculation and debate that led to some idiosyncratic
theological ideas, many of which increased the plausibility of apparitions of the
departed. A few Protestant philosophers were even tentatively reintroducing the
idea of a middle state for souls, perhaps finding Calvinistic tendencies in a doctrine,
in which far more were irrevocably damned than saved, hard to bear. [5] Some
argued that the mercy and justice of God could cure even the worst if He chose, and
so no soul was irretrievable. Lady Anne Conway proposed that the pains of the

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Jo Bath and John Newton

afterlife were reformative: Punishments (the worst not excepted) do tend to their
Good and Restoration, and so are medicinal, that by them these diseased Creatures
may be cured and restored to a better condition than before they enjoyed ([Conway]
1692, 76). Such views were reinforced by writings from other parts of the worldthe
ambassador Paul Rycaut, for example, described how, in Greek Orthodox belief,
there was a traditional mechanism for post-death purification that circumvented
Roman Catholic concepts, since he wrote that the Repository of longing Souls is not
locally different from hell itself (Rycaut 1679, 303). Others went so far as to allow free
will to continue beyond the grave, such that souls reaching a middle state could hope
to improve themselves (thus allowing hope for those who had lived in ignorance of
the salvation of Christ). The possibility of the ability of the living to aid the dead was
even raised, although discussion of this sort was on a highly rarefied level.
One important factor that seems to have fuelled the increasing interest in ghosts
was the nascent scientific revolution in which, arguably, the investigative
tendency had been produced but science had not yet been confined to its modern
borders. Thus the entire scientific community could see supernatural phenomena
as a suitable and acceptable area for research, and several thinkers did indeed
approach their investigations in this way. Indeed, the perceived boundaries of
natural science, strictly speaking, make our word supernatural inappropriate
within the context of this debate. Robert Kirks questionnaire on the subject of
second sight, for instance, bears the marks of the nascent scientific investigation
(Kirk 1976, 94ff). Glanvill believed natural science could verify the existence of
spirits, which had a physical presence through the idea of the vehicle of souls,
and therefore saw it as the key to the defence against materialism; and in this he
had many followers. The idea that you could obtain sensible proof of spirits and
another life had its roots in the quest for empirical evidence that fuelled the new
scientific endeavours (Glanvill 1681, part III, 2). This era of broadly-based
scientific curiosity has been regarded by Briggs as a fashion for credulity (Briggs
1976, 348). [6] While the Royal Society, however, which headed this trend, did
open its doors to debate about many subjects, this was in general tempered with a
desire to investigate and establish the truth of the mattereven though the truth
they might have wished to find was also influenced by religious factors. Glanvill
was an active member of the Royal Society, and it says something for the
atmosphere of the age that Aubrey, Glanvill and Sinclair managed to combine,
without any contradiction, interest in science with areas that we might
retrospectively label as folklore and psychical research.
Writers of anti-sadducean literature, therefore, combined a desire to bolster
religious faith through the dissemination of ghost stories with an interest in
determining the truth of the matterit was important for them to unmask frauds,
which were giving genuine manifestations a bad name. The prime example of the
desire to investigate is, perhaps, Glanvills personal delving into the mysteries at
Tedworth. During the disturbance, he visited the house to inquire the truth of the
passages, of which there was so loud a report, interviewed all those concerned
and, following an incident he witnessed of scratching coming from the walls,
made all the search that possible I could to find if there were any trick,
contrivance or common cause if it; the like did my friend [an unnamed
gentleman], but we could discover nothing. So that I was then verily perswaded,

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Ghost Belief during the Later Seventeenth Century

and am so still, that the noise was made by some Dmon or Spirit (Glanvill 1681,
part IV, 100 and 102).
An account of the haunting appeared in Glanvills tracts on witchcraft and
spirits before becoming part of the collection in Saducismus Triumphatus (although
it is noticeable that each version of the story contains slightly more detail,
especially the one published in 1680/1 that contains Glanvills first-hand account).
This sort of activity is often regarded as a precursor to the interest in psychical
research, which only began in earnest in the Victorian era, and Theo Brown,
perhaps a little optimistically, considers Tedworth to have been a perfectly
genuine case which [Glanvill] described with remarkable objectivity (Brown
1979, 20). Bovet also included a personal experience of an apparition, although his
vision of five very fine and lovely women at his bedside elicits a somewhat more
guarded response from the reader (Bovet 1951, 122 3). Bovet also holds the
distinction of giving the first known account of a phantom hitch-hiker, who
accepts a shared horse-ride and then disappears.
One might speculate that while the material found in these writers is selective,
the tenor of belief may well have been close to that found in the folk belief of the
period; indeed, it may have needed to be in order to have communicated with its
intended audience and achieved its purpose. We would suggest that the material
found in these texts can be used, if cautiously, in many cases as representing
authentic ghost lore. We would be on firmer ground, however, in instances where
other sources can provide corroboration; such corroboration could come from legal
records, ballads, or miscellaneous sources. Unfortunately, all of these sources do
have difficulties of their own when used as evidence as a pure source of folk belief.
This must be borne in mind, since all of them may have been filtered just as much as
the material found in the collections of Glanvill and others. In Reading Witchcraft,
Marion Gibson highlights the difficulties involved in interpreting witchcraft cases
as found in legal records, and these problems would equally apply to any accounts
of ghosts found there as well. Admittedly, very little information on spectres has
been found in the legal records so far, but many of Gibsons observations about trial
evidence could usefully be turned to in considering other sources (Gibson 1999).
Unbiased Collectors?
Not all writers had the overtly religious motivation of More or Glanvill; and this has
an effect upon the content. Aubrey, in particular, appears to have appreciated his
stories for their own sake, rather than as exempla to bolster an argument. Gillian
Bennett has suggested that his work does not suffer from many of the same problems
as other collections, a judgement shared by Ronald Finucane and Buchanan-Brown
(Buchanan-Brown 1972, xxix; Finucane 1982, 121 and 124; Bennett 1985, 64). The latter
suggested that Aubreys Miscellanies should be judged, in contradiction to other
contemporary writings on the occult, as disinterested evidence of the existence of
phenomena fit for investigation, rather than as arguments adduced to support a
particular case. Aubrey clearly believed in the existence of ghosts and the like, and
he was reproached for credulity by some of his contemporaries, since he
indiscriminately hoarded reports of any and all phenomena. It can be argued,
however, that Aubrey merely saw everything as worthy of investigation, after all he
suggested that there have been such apparitions, but where one is true, a hundred

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10

are figments (Buchanan-Brown 1972, xxx). It may be significant in this context that
Aubrey considered Glanvills favourite proof, the events surrounding the Drummer
of Tedworth, to have been a hoax (although he did include some material in his
collections from the anti-sadducean authors; for example, Bovets account of the
Demon of Spreyton). Bennett therefore argues that, along with Kirk (whose primary
interest was fairies rather than ghosts), Aubrey is the best guide to the folklore of the
ghost of the period (Bennett 1985, 64). Aubrey certainly does include mention of
several types of ghost that appear to have been popular but unsuitable for use in the
more polemical tractsfor instance, the purposeless ghost and the spirit of the dying
or newly dead. These different purposesthe scientific, folkloric and polemical
clearly were not exclusive, and as the seventeenth century drew to a close, new
combinations and emphases came to the fore.
It may be significant that Aubrey was writing closer to the end of the
seventeenth century than many of the other writers. Certainly, another writer who
is also seen as having many of the traits attributed to Aubrey is Richard Baxter,
who was writing in the same period. In some ways he echoes the work of Glanvill
and others, and remains a part of the seventeenth-century milieu, but, at the same
time, one can argue that there are differences of perspective in his work. Baxters
The Certainty of the World of Spirits is a collection of accounts, many of them firsthand (Baxter 1691, sig. A5). These do not seem to have the same anti-sadducean
bias that we sometimes find in the othersfor example, he reports without any
significant comment or contextualisation the letter of a Welsh correspondent who
describes corpse candles, phantom fire and the knockers of the mines (Baxter 1691,
128 46). This does not mean a lack of engagement in the religious debate,
howeverin fact there is a particularly pastoral tone, since Baxter considered such
tales as confirming helps that could provide a firm foundation for belief. It
was on his recommendation that Cotton Mathers Late Memorable Providences
Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions was published in England in 1691, probably
in part because of its ability to convince men of the existence of the spiritual realm,
and he affirmed at the beginning of The Certainty of the World of Spirits that:
I have written this collection only as an Addition to sufficient Proofs of invisible Powers or Spirits,
and their Actions towards Men, which many in full Treatises have already given the World; because
how convincing soever those Discourses be, Multitudes bred up in Idleness and sensuality, and
thereby drowned in Sadduceism and Bestiality, never see those Books (Baxter 1691, 1).

Seeking the Supernatural?

Changes in belief are inseparable from attitudes, as physical manifestations both
inspire and are suggested by the emotions attached to the concept of the ghost. One
possible change across the period is in the desire to get involved. One possible
interpretation of this might be that the numinous was no longer felt as keenly as it had
once been, and so a lack of experience of the transcendent in terms of both ritual and
religion drove people to seek it elsewhere. By the turn of the eighteenth century,
people seem to have been sufficiently intrigued by the ghostly as to want to
experience it for themselves. Michael Hunters recent research into the Tedworth
haunting has highlighted John Mompessons grievance about the incessant visitors
to his house. However, most of these were persons of great quality that seem to

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Ghost Belief during the Later Seventeenth Century

11

have been intellectuals of some sort; but, by the time of Baxters writing, it seems that
a party could choose to visit a haunted house as a form of entertainment, and that the
same house could be host to large numbers of spectating townspeople. [7] People
were more proactive in seeking evidence of a supernatural world. Hence the
child(ren)s bones, the discovery of which is the crux of the spectral visitation in Great
News from Middle-Row in Holbourn, were on display at the Cheddar Cheese Pub to be
viewed, despite the ghosts request they should be buried (Anonymous [1679], 3).
These are merely tentative notes, however, about how there seems to have been a shift
in the later half of the seventeenth century from visits to haunted places being the
preserve of the elite to a more democratised attempt to experience the supernatural.
This is an area that requires further research, and could tell us much about the shifts in
what John Kent refers to as primary religion, and the way that people sought to
experience it (Kent 2002, 12).
Conclusion: The Role of the Ghost
The late-seventeenth-century ghost fulfilled a wide variety of roles within English
culture, as a vehicle of miracles, the propagandist of religious laws, spectral
evidence against witches, and empirical evidence for the existence of God, to
name but a few (Bennett 1985, 8). But to speak of the role of the ghost is to use a
metaphor taken from the theatre, and in theatrical terms roles do not exist as
independent entitiesan individual is always cast in a role. If we talk of ghosts
playing roles, we must also talk of them being cast in roles. It was down to those
who wrote and compiled accounts to do the castingand in examining the roles
of ghosts we are ultimately gaining knowledge of the casters, and not of the cast.
(Indeed, we could say that the same still holds true of academics in our own time.)
Even those such as Beaumont, who did not take up the role of a casting director
themselves, still served to promulgate the roles assigned by others by passively recycling stories. Earlier in the seventeenth century, John Gee had used the theatrical
metaphor in a case of an alleged haunting and, having decided that the whole
thing was a Jesuit trick, named both the role and the casting directors (Gee 1624, 2
ff). For Gee, ghosts were part of a theatre of the spectral, but ultimately this theatre
never closed, nor did its audience stop trying to judge and assess the
performances. Even in the Restoration, Wagstaffe and Webster were not content
to passively watch the show that unfolded, and disputed the casting decisions of
More and Glanvill. The drama examined the highest of themesthe existence of
God and the forces of the supernatural paraded on the stage were testimony to
this. They believed that they were merely deducing the role and nature of spectres
from empirical observations, resting on the established principles of philosophy
and theology. Ghosts had been cast in the role of supporting the whole
superstructure of the immaterial world, and the whole edifice of religion seemed
to rest on the success of the performance.
Notes
[1] For an examination of the ambiguities of interpretation among those who subscribed to demonic
theories in the period 1530 1640, see Bath (2002, 70 8).

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[2] The tale of Bacconi came from Sir William Dugdale, and reached Aubrey via the Bishop
of Edinburgh (Aubrey 1696, 66 7). The tale of Dyke and Sydenham is found in Saducismus
Triumphatus (Glanvill 1681, part II, 111 16; note that there are seven parts to this volume,
denoted by different titles and separate pagination), and also in Satans Invisible World Discovered
(Sinclair 1685, 40 5).
[3] The material in A Blow Against Modern Sadducism was incorporated into Saducismus Triumphatus
in 1681. Although spirit can refer to a much wider number of phenomena than ghosts, in the
period the two tend to be synonymous in anti-sadducean literature.
[4] A set of doctrinal propositions, published in May 1553 by Edward VIs royal mandate. They
were revoked upon the accession of Mary I in July of the same year. These formed the basis for
the 39 Articles adopted by Elizabeth I.
[5] This has parity with Catholic circles earlier in the century, when certain Catholics, in the
interests of reconciliation, appeared to denyor, at least, radically reconfiguretheir
understanding of Purgatory. Sir Kenhelm Digby posited this in his Two Treatises (1644). In The
Middle State of Souls, White (1659) was re-defining purgatory in minimalist terms.
[6] The comment is made in reference to the 1665 edition of Scot and the somewhat credulous
additions to it.
[7] Michael Hunter publishes in full the manuscript correspondence for Tedworth for the first time in
his article New light on the Drummer of Tedworth: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in
Restoration England in Historical Research 78 (2005): 31153. Baxter was convalescing at Lady
Cooks house when this outing occurred. A letter from Charles Hatt quoted by Baxter mentions a
large number of townspeople visiting the place (Bennett 1985, 956).

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Biographical Note
Dr Bath is a researcher on the North East Oral History project at Beamish Museum, UK. Her academic
interests include violent crime, local history, and elite and popular interpretations of the supernatural. She was
associate editor of Early Modern Ghosts (2002), and her history of witchcraft in the north-east of England,
Dancing with the Devil, appeared under the imprint of Tyne Bridge Publishing in 2002. She is currently
finishing a popular history of medicine in Newcastle.
Dr Newton is currently carrying out research, writing and editing work for the charitable funds of the
Methodist Church. His academic interests include ghost belief, popular religion, ephemeral literature and
reader-response theories. He was editor of Early Modern Ghosts (2002). He has organised two one-day
conferencesone on ghosts, and another on witchcraft and the Act of 1604. He is currently preparing a
collection of essays based on the latter conference.