Revenant

A revenant is a person believed to return from the grave in bodily form. Medieval European chronicles describe walking corpses that frightened relatives, spread sickness, or had to be restrained through exhumation and destruction. Unlike an insubstantial apparition, the revenant is usually physical. The term is now sometimes applied broadly, but its historical use should remain distinct from every culture’s beliefs about returning dead.

Twelfth-century writers William of Newburgh and Walter Map recorded English revenant stories within religious and social arguments about improper death, sin, and burial. Archaeological evidence of unusual corpse treatment can suggest fear of return, though interpreting a burial requires caution.

Modern fiction often uses revenant as a stylish synonym for zombie or resurrected warrior. Medieval accounts emphasize a particular dead person returning to a known community.

• William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, late twelfth century, Book V revenant accounts.
• Nancy Caciola, Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages, Cornell University Press, 2016.