Medieval Horror Fiction
Taken from the editorial to "The Devil Take You: 14 Tales of Medieval Horror"
Rome sought to impose order upon an unordered world, to still the chaos and replace it with the certainty and predictability of empire and bureaucracy. She gave us her laws and politics and preserved the learnings of the civilisation that so inspired her own—that of the Greeks. But such things cannot last. The chaos can never be vanquished, the dark corners of the world illuminated. The shadows grew darker, and over time, they consumed her until there was nothing left but bones. The glory of Rome was gone, her light extinguished.
From her bones came a new age, one formed and influenced in part by the memory of what was, but by other things, too: new threats, new religions, new fears—sometimes in the guise of old ones—new wars and diseases, cruel and unusual punishments… new ways to die. This era became known, until more recently, as the Dark Ages, a term encompassing the period from around 500 AD to 1500 AD in Europe. There is a temptation here that often proves too powerful to ignore, to view Europe through a monist lens: to see all of Europe as Christian, white, and “Western”. But this is a strange way to view a continent and a period that saw so much strife and upheaval precisely because of the differences of those living within its borders. These are the differences—the tensions—that create the opportunity for compelling storytelling.
We know now that the depravity and brutality of the Middle Ages, the grimness of the period, was, perhaps, overstated. For every horror that transpired, there was a reason for hope—art and writing, architectural marvels, the wondrous thinking and thinkers that eventually led us to the Renaissance. That is not to say that there were no horrors lurking in the shadows—infant mortality rates, sickness, violence, and war manifested themselves whenever the light had a chance to flicker. And that is to say nothing of the plague and religious persecution, witch-hunts and murder! But, the period was complicated and more nuanced than it might appear in the imaginings of amateur historians.
What truly captivates us about this era is not merely the relative grimness or contrasting ordinariness of everyday life but rather the pervasive fears that plagued its inhabitants. Fear, after all, is the essence of horror. In the minds of many who lived during this time, the spectre of damnation and sin loomed large. It was not only the act of transgression that instilled fear, but also the fear of being seen transgressing and the ensuing punishment. The Church, with its persuasive sermons, fueled these fears, ensuring that thoughts of Hell were never far away.
The medieval setting provides, in our opinion, one of the most interesting places—large as it is—to write weird fiction. It is a realm defined by upheaval—a world unravelling from the order imposed by Rome’s fall. It is a time of shifting religious sensibilities, where new faiths gain strength and momentum but struggle to displace deeply ingrained folk beliefs and superstitions—often resulting in a conjoining of beliefs, a merger or absorption of the one by the other.
Within the following pages, you will find a host of stories set in a time, at a glance, so very unlike our own. And yet, as you immerse yourself in the period, you will soon discover its echoes and resonances within our own reality. The fears, after all, have not been extinguished; they have merely been shunned away by the light.
For a time.