ve post-mediaeval writers on
haunted houses we must cite Petrus Thyraeus of the Society of Jesus,
Doctor in Theology. His work, published at Cologne in 1598, is a
quarto of 352 pages, entitled, 'Loca Infesta; That is, Concerning
Places Haunted by Mischievous Spirits of Demons and of the Dead.
Thereto is added a Tract on Nocturnal Disturbances, which are wont
to bode the deaths of Men.' Thyraeus begins, 'That certain places
are haunted by spectres and spirits, is no matter of doubt,' wherein
a modern reader cannot confidently follow him.

When it comes to establishing his position Thyraeus most provokingly
says, 'we omit cases which are recent and of daily occurrence,' such
as he heard narrated, during his travels, in 'a certain haunted
castle'. A modern inquirer naturally prefers recent examples, which
may be inquired into, but the old scholars reposed more confidence
in what was written by respected authors, the more ancient the more
authoritative. However Thyraeus relies on the anthropological test
of evidence, and thinks that his belief is confirmed by the
coincident reports of hauntings, 'variis distinctissimisque locis et
temporibus,' in the most various times and places. There is
something to be said for this view, and the identity of the alleged
phenomena, in all lands and ages, does raise a presumption in favour
of some kind of abnormal occurrences, or of a common species of
hallucinations. Like most of the old authors Thyraeus quotes
Augustine's tale of a haunted house, and an exorcism in De Civitate
Dei (lib. xxii. ch. viii.). St. Gregory has also a story of one
Paschasius, a deacon, who haunted some baths, and was seen by a
bishop. {131a} There is a ghost who rode horses, and frightened the
religious in the Life of Gregory by Joannes Diaconus (iv. 89). In
the Life of Theodorus one Georgius, a disciple of his, mentions a
house haunted by stone-throwing sprites, a very common phenomenon in
the books of Glanvill, and Increase Mather, in witch trials, and in
rural disturbances. Omitting other examples Cardan {131b} is cited
for a house at Parma, in which during a hundred years the phantom of
an old woman was seen before the death of members of the family.
This is a rare case of an Italian Banshie. William of Paris, in
Bodin (iii. ch. vi.) tells of a stone-throwing fiend, very active in
1447. The bogey of Bingen, a rapping ghost of 856, is duly
chronicled; he also threw stones. The dormitory of some