User blog comment:Enriquearreguin777/Vampire/Vampirism cure/@comment-25762071-20180515044753

I based vampires in my world on pre-1850's folktales I've read of revenants, which are kind of a cross between zombies and vampires. Revenant legends explained stuff like epidemic disease like Tuberculosis before modern medicine, so the spread of "vampirism" was along a disease-like model. Revenants were assumed to be people who were unbelievers or who were wicked in life, and so there was no "head" vampire, you could stop them on a case by case basis. One Medieval English account involved having a Christian clergyman write a letter of absolution for a revenant, who had become "like serious nuisance" in his town. (Gotta love how nonchalant they were about an animated corpse on the loose back then!) The letter was placed on the man's chest in his tomb, and that was enough to stop him, with no gore or non-Christian ceremonies. Just look up the non-film entry on revenants for all the (grave) dirt.