Concern for the fate of Christian souls inspired the ghost stories told by medieval monks, but not all of the dead who returned to the world of the living did so to petition their friends and loved ones for prayers. Others returned solely out of spite, bent on wreaking havoc in their former communities. Malevolent ghosts and walking corpses first appeared in medieval narratives in the eleventh century and the popularity of stories about their ruinous rampages remained strong until the end of the Middle Ages. These tales of the walking dead have several features in common. The people in question were almost always men of unsavory character, whether the runaway peasants described by Abbot Geoffrey of Burton, the “evil Welshman” of Walter Map’s tale, or William of Newburgh’s aptly named “Houndpriest.” Malice alone may have brought their bodies back to life, but some authors blamed the machinations of Satan for their unnatural behavior. The animated corpses of these villains were dangerous not only because of the violence they committed, but also because of the disease that their polluted presence spread through the air. Even more striking, however, is the common fund of folk wisdom from which these stories drew the practical knowledge for dealing with the restless dead. Learned prelates and uneducated villagers alike generally agreed that the only way to put a stop to rampaging corpses was decapitation, the removal of the heart, and the burning of the carcass. Bishop Hugh of Lincoln’s high-minded remedy—placing a letter of absolution on the corpse in its grave—was an exception to what seems to have been a long-standing tradition about effective remedies for laying the malevolent dead to rest.