Here is a slightly long, but interesting excerpt from the book, "Funeral Customs" by Bernard S. Puckle that leads us to think that even in the 14th Century, those who believed in ghosts and such things were the object of amusement and derision by those who did not. "Watchers" refers to people who were employed to watch the body for signs of life, since not everyone who looks dead actually is. "Jusserand" was a French ambassador and scholar of the late 19th and early 20th Century, who wrote essays on English history.

"Jusserand tells us that in the fourteenth century the watchers sought to enliven the tedious hours of duty by what was known as "rousing the ghost." This performance seems to have consisted of playing practical jokes to frighten the superstitious relatives, and in taking various liberties with the corpse. It may have originated in attempts to "raise" the dead, as it is suggestively called; in other words to call back the spirit of the departed by certain forms of witchcraft or "black magic", such as were frequently attempted in the Middle Ages. This abuse must have been very common, and the occasion of great scandal, for at
the Council of York (held in the year 1367), "Those guilty games and follies, and all those
perverse customs which transformed a house of tears and prayers into a house of laughing
and excess," were expressly forbidden.
The Guild of Palmers of Ludlow permitted its members to perform the duties of the night-
watching of the dead only on the understanding that they should "abstain from raising
apparitions, and from indecent games."
In the South of Ireland this folly, in course of time, developed into a recognized form of
play or pantomime, acted at night by the watchers in the chamber of death. Here a sham
battle took place between two of the younger men, one of whom was supposed to be
eventually killed by the other, and then restored to life by a person taking the character of
a "Sorcerer."
In addition to the play, the more nervous of the relatives were scared by the actor, who
would mimic the voice and gestures of the dead."