Why did Italians put bricks in the mouths of some corpses that they thought would become vampires?

Answer 1

because when desease ravaged through their cities, bodies were buried in mass graves in sacks, and when more died, they dug up the grave and threw the new bodies in. when the body decomposes, fluids are released, sometime through the mouth. and if you were a highly religious person that saw blood on the outside of a sack, what would you think. they thought that they were vampire that were sucking the blood out of the dead bodies. that why they put bricks in the mouth, you cant eat if u have a brick in your mouth.