The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds...A serious account of some of the most extraordinary occurrences of European and North American history and explains how they made sense to people living at the time. From grisly anecdotes about ghosts to tales of witches and werewolves, the book uses case studies from the Middle Ages and the early modern period and provides fascinating insights into the world-view of a vanished age. It shows how such occurrences fitted in quite naturally with the "common sense" of the time and offers explanations of these riveting and ultimately rational phenomena. What made reasonable, educated men and women behave in ways that seem utterly nonsensical to us today? This question and many more are answered herein.