Byland Abbey and its medieval ghost stories

Byland Abbey, located in Yorkshire, England, is a well-preserved twelfth-century Cistercian monastery. Built between the late 1160s and about 1195, the abbey was home to 36 monks and 100 lay brothers. However, it experienced disputes with other religious establishments. Despite this, it managed to establish a niche for itself and even produced a cartulary, a medieval manuscript.

One of the most notable treasures of the abbey is a twelfth to thirteenth-century manuscript now held in the British Library. In the early fifteenth century, an anonymous scribe known as a monk of Byland added a series of twelve ghost stories to the work. These stories, mostly set locally, were presumably intended for inclusion in sermons as exempla and reflect the 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. The abbey remains a significant site of heritage, with extensive remains of the vast church and monastic buildings still visible today.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons