API tools faq
paste
Advertisement
jonstond2

Apocalypticism, Millennialism and Messianism (Medvl Studies)

jonstond2
Aug 13th, 2017
583
0
Never
Add comment
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 130.06 KB | None | 0 0
raw download clone embed print report
  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Apocalypticism is a worldview. It is a fundamental cognitive orientation that makes axiomatic claims about the nature of time, space, and human existence. In the apocalyptic pattern of thought, time is linear and history is finite. Space consists of two realities, transcendent and mundane. The transcendent reality is traditionally equated with God or heaven. Mundane or everyday reality is shaped by the historic conflict between two irreducible and antagonistic forces, typically good and evil. The eschatological resolution of this conflict is predetermined, imminent, and, for the elect, salvific, in the sense of a deliverance from this reality. The revelation of this information orients existence and gives life meaning and purpose. Together, these core axioms describe an “apocalyptic minimum,” which distinguishes apocalypticism from other types of revelatory phenomena, and by which cultural expressions and social movements may be recognized as apocalyptic. An apocalypse is a literary genre, prominent in early Judaism and ancient Christianity. The archetypal example is the New Testament Revelation of John, also known as “the Apocalypse.” One of the most influential books in history, Revelation was the lodestone (if not always the focus) of Christian apocalyptic speculation throughout the Middle Ages. This speculation was almost always expressed in oracles, testaments, political prophecies, systematic theology, vision and dream reports, commentaries and other kinds of exegetical literature, homilies, sermons, drama, and lyrics, rather than in formal apocalypses, as well as in non-literary forms (see below, Medieval Apocalyptic Art and Imagery). Eschatology, or the study or doctrine of the “last things,” comes in many varieties. Apocalyptic eschatology is the eschatology of the apocalyptic worldview, and therefore reflects its propositions. Its most distinctive feature is the anticipation for the impending post-mortem judgment of the dead. Millennialism is the expectation for a collective eschatological salvation that anticipates an earthly utopia as the abode and reward of the saved. It, too, appears in a variety of forms. Messianism is the set of ideas concerning the anticipation for an end-time agent(s) who play a positive, authoritative, and usually redemptive role. In Christianity, apocalyptic speculation is always informed by the expectation of Christ’s second coming.
  4.  
  5. Apocalypticism, Millennialism, and Messianism
  6.  
  7. Collins 1998 is the best introduction to ancient apocalyptic literature, with Rowland 2002 a close second; both may read with profit. Collins, et al. 1998 is an excellent starting point for most topics on apocalypticism, millennialism, and messianism. Collins 2014 is more thematic and analytical in its focus, yet equally valuable, with essays on aspects of apocalyptic literature. DiTommaso 2014 shifts the investigation to the worldview, investigated as a global, historical phenomenon. Wessinger 2011 is important, but weighted toward contemporary expressions. Walls 2008 is more comprehensive and better balanced, though it inclines toward the theological in its topics and scholars. Court 2008 provides a solid introduction to Christian millenarianism. See also O’Leary 1994.
  8.  
  9. Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.
  10. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  11. The best introduction to ancient apocalyptic literature. Collins headed the effort to set the study of “apocalyptic” on solid taxonomical ground, his core category being the literary genre apocalypse. Medievalists might find the stress on genre unhelpful, since formal apocalypses are rare in the post-biblical era, while new forms of apocalyptic literature (commentaries, homilies, pope prophecies, etc.) appear. But this book is essential: among other things, it should prevent the fallacy of viewing apocalyptic phenomena solely through the lens of Western medieval Christianity (or the New Testament).
  12. Find this resource:
  13. Collins, John J., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  14. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  15. The essays in this superb volume concentrate on apocalyptic literature from a literary and thematic perspective. Although it does not contain much on medieval apocalypticism, it is a benchmark reference based on its scope, the quality of its entries, and the hand of its editor.
  16. Find this resource:
  17. Collins, John J., Bernard McGinn, and Stephen J. Stein, eds. The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. 3 vols. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  18. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19. The articles in Volume 1 cover “The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity,” in Volume 2 “Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture,” and in Volume 3 “Apocalypticism in the Modern Period and Contemporary Age.” All contain useful bibliographies. Many of the articles in Volume 2 are referenced in the sections below.
  20. Find this resource:
  21. Court, John M. Approaching the Apocalypse: A Short History of Christian Millenarianism. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008.
  22. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. A balanced, well-written introduction to the subject that situates medieval millennialism in its historical and cultural contexts, with a useful glossary of terms.
  24. Find this resource:
  25. DiTommaso, Lorenzo. The Architecture of Apocalypticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  26. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27. Concentrates on apocalypticism as a historical, global phenomenon, and proposes an “apocalyptic minimum” as a way by which the worldview may be identified across the centuries and in different cultures.
  28. Find this resource:
  29. O’Leary, Stephen D. Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
  30. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  31. Outlines the major patterns of apocalyptic discourse, although its assessments are somewhat slanted by its focus on Protestant apocalyptic social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. That said, this is still the best book on a relatively underexplored subject.
  32. Find this resource:
  33. Rowland, Christopher. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Christianity. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002.
  34. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  35. Along with Collins 1998, this is a first-rate introduction to apocalyptic literature, with a greater stress on early Christian apocalypticism and messianism. Rowland’s taxonomy is different than Collins’s: Rowland views “apocalyptic” as the revelation of divine mysteries. While this definition is untenable, the book itself contains more for the medievalist in its emphasis on themes, motifs, and apocalyptic epistemology. Originally publication: New York: Crossroad, 1982.
  36. Find this resource:
  37. Walls, Jerry L., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. New York: Oxford University Press. 2008.
  38. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195301052.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  39. Thirty-nine essays on the varieties of eschatology, in three parts: “Historical Eschatology (Biblical and Patristic, and World Religions),” “Eschatology in Distinct Christian Traditions and Theological Movements,” and “Issues in Eschatology (Theological, and Philosophical and Cultural).” The volume tends toward the theological without being informed by theology.
  40. Find this resource:
  41. Wessinger, Catherine, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism. New York: Oxford University Press. 2011.
  42. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  43. Thirty-seven essays on the varieties of millennialism. Although medievalists ought to consult it, most of these essays deal with topics pertaining to modern millenarian movements and new religions, on which Wessinger is an acknowledged specialist. The taxonomy and definitions of the key categories, including “millennialism,” are informed by this bias.
  44. Find this resource:
  45. Medieval Apocalypticism, Millennialism, and Messianism
  46.  
  47. Medieval apocalypticism is the form of the apocalyptic worldview that was common to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam during the thousand years following the end of the Roman Empire in the West. Fundamental similarities in both form and function characterize expressions of medieval apocalypticism of all stripes. Beyond these similarities, however, variety abounds, reflecting the diversity of religious traditions, cultural influences, and social settings of the age. Most importantly, apocalyptic speculation in medieval Christianity in the East and the West took separate paths. For example, the rise of Islam and the Crusades had a different apocalyptic valence in the East than in the West. Significantly, there are no Eastern Christian analogues to Augustine, Joachim of Fiore, or Bonaventure.
  48.  
  49. Primary Sources and Textual Studies
  50.  
  51. The biblical books of Daniel and the Revelation of John played a cardinal role in shaping medieval apocalyptic thought; Collins 1993 and Aune 1997–1998 are standard commentaries. Charlesworth 1983 and Wilson 1992 provide translations of early Jewish and Christian texts, many of which played an important role in medieval apocalypticism. McGinn 1998 is the preeminent anthology of medieval apocalyptic texts in translation. McGinn 1979 translates extended passages from several major texts. Sackur 1898 retains a specialist utility.
  52.  
  53. Aune, David E. Revelation. Word Biblical Commentary 52 A-C. 3 vols. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997–1998.
  54. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  55. An excellent, exhaustive commentary on the Revelation of John, with special attention to its literary contexts. Its eschatological timetable and vivid images (the four horsemen, the seven seals, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, the 144,000 elect, the New Jerusalem) underwrote apocalyptic speculation throughout the Middle Ages in the West, although less so in the Byzantine East.
  56. Find this resource:
  57. Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.
  58. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  59. The standard volume of translations in English, with detailed introductions. The “OT Pseudepigrapha” are ancient Jewish writings not included in the Hebrew Bible and most Western Christian biblical canons. Nearly all were preserved in Christian circles. Thus 2 Baruch, 2 Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, and other texts became part of the medieval apocalyptic heritage, as demonstrated by their manuscript evidence. See also Wilson 1992.
  60. Find this resource:
  61. Collins, John J. Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.
  62. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  63. A superb commentary on the book of Daniel, which is the only apocalypse in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the source of many classic apocalyptic motifs, including the four world-kingdoms of history (chapters 2 and 7), the Ancient of Days and “one like a son of man” (chapter 7, whom Christians identified with Jesus), the seventy “weeks of years” (chapter 9), and the last revelation, resurrection, and final judgment (chapters 10–12).
  64. Find this resource:
  65. McGinn, Bernard, ed. Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters of Lactantius, Adso of Montier-en Der, Joachim of Fiore, the Spiritual Franciscans, Savonarola. Classics of Western Sprituality. Mahway, NJ: Paulist, 1979.
  66. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  67. A selection of writings representative of Christian apocalyptic speculation from late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages in the West, translated and introduced by McGinn.
  68. Find this resource:
  69. McGinn, Bernard, ed. Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
  70. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  71. Translations of excerpts from a wide variety of medieval apocalyptic texts, with excellent introductions and notes. The anthology includes selections from Pseudo-Methodius, Adso, Joachim of Fiore, Bonaventure, the pope prophecies, and the Franciscan spirituals.
  72. Find this resource:
  73. Sackur, Ernst. Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen: Pseudomethodius, Adso und die tiburtinische Sibylle. Halle, Germany: Max Niemeyer, 1898.
  74. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  75. A learned study of the Revelation of Pseudo-Methodius, the De Antichristo of Ado of Montier-en-Der (Adso Dervensis), and the Sibylla Tiburtina, with Latin texts. Although newer and better editions now exist (see sections below), Sackur’s study remains informative for all three texts, and contains much for the specialist scholar.
  76. Find this resource:
  77. Wilson, R. McL., ed. New Testament Apocrypha. Volume Two: Writings Related to the Apostles; Apocalypses and Related Subjects. Cambridge, UK: Westminster John Knox, 1992.
  78. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  79. The standard volume of translations in English, from the German, with detailed introductions. The “NT Apocrypha” are Christian texts dating from the late 1st to the 5th centuries that are not included in the New Testament canon as it has been received. However, texts such as the Visio Pauli and the Apocalypse of Peter were as much a part of the medieval apocalyptic tradition as was the Revelation of John. See also Charlesworth 1983.
  80. Find this resource:
  81. Secondary Studies
  82.  
  83. The collections of essays in Verbeke, et al. 1988; Emmerson and McGinn 1992; McGinn 1994, Bynum and Freedman 2000; and Guglielmetti 2011 are indispensable. Many of the essays are also cited in the sections below. Kovacs and Rowland 2004 examines the reception history of each chapter of Revelation over the centuries.
  84.  
  85. Bynum, Caroline Walker, and Paul Freedman, eds. Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
  86. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  87. Includes papers on Christian martyrs (C. Straw), amnesty, penance, and the afterlife (P. Brown), Englebert of Cologne (J. E. Jung), De la Riva’s Book of the Three Scriptures (M. Gragnolati), the Gaelic Church (B. Hudson), Joachim (E. R. Daniel). Arnau de Vilanova (C. R. Backman), signs of the Apocalypse (L. A. Smoller), Bernard of Clairvaux (A. Harrison), an illuminated Book of Hours (H. Stahl), and the Commedia and Piers Ploughman (C. R. Papka).
  88. Find this resource:
  89. Emmerson, Richard K., and Bernard McGinn, eds. The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
  90. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  91. Seventeen contributions, arranged in three parts: “The Apocalypse in Medieval Thought,” (including papers on Tyconius and Augustine, early medieval exegesis, chronography, and Joachim), “The Apocalypse in Medieval Art” (see also below, Medieval Apocalyptic Art and Imagery)), and “The Apocalypse in Medieval Culture” (including papers on the liturgy, German historical writings, medieval English literary culture, and Dante). See now Guglielmetti 2011.
  92. Find this resource:
  93. Guglielmetti, Rossana E., ed. L’Apocalisse nel medioevo: Atti del Convegno internazionale dell’Università degli Studi di Milano e della Società internazionale per lo studio del medioevo latino, gargnano sul garda, 18–20 maggio 2009. Millennio Medievale 90; Atti di Convegni 27. Florence: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011.
  94. DOI: 10.1002/9780470773512Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  95. A superb volume of twenty-three essays (mostly in Italian) on the influence of the Revelation of John in medieval theology, exegesis, and art. Supplements rather than supplants Emmerson and McGinn 1992, and equally essential.
  96. Find this resource:
  97. Kovacs, Judith, and Christopher Rowland. Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
  98. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  99. A readable, learned commentary that discusses the cultural influences of each chapter of the Revelation of John through the full range of the history of its reception and interpretation. A highly useful reference tool for medievalists.
  100. Find this resource:
  101. McGinn, Bernard. Apocalypticism in the Western Tradition. Variorum Collected Series 430. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994.
  102. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  103. Collection of previously published papers on Joachim of Fiore, the Angelic Pope, and the Sibylline literature. Together they form a chorus of voices that proclaim the centrality of apocalypticism in the Middle Ages in the West.
  104. Find this resource:
  105. Verbeke, Werner, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen, eds. The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  106. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  107. An essential collection of essays (many of which are cited in sections below) on the Antichrist, Sulpicius Severus, Pseudo-Methodius, apocalyptic chronography, hagiography, the Last Judgment, the Liber Floridus, apocalypticism in the 12th century, Frederick II, Careno’s History of the Franciscans, Franciscan eschatology, the Canterbury Tales, the Boec van der Wraken, and late medieval Italian prophecy.
  108. Find this resource:
  109. Early Medieval Apocalypticism and Messianism
  110.  
  111. Apocalyptic literature focused on the end of history—as opposed to apocalypses featuring journeys to heaven or hell (see the section on Otherworldly Journeys below)—reappeared in Christianity in the late 4th and 5th centuries, and for the next 700 years remained the dominant mode of apocalyptic speculation in both the East and the West. As important as it was in the West, the influence of Augustine’s “spiritualized” appreciation of the Apocalypse has been somewhat overstated by authorities who focus on theologians. The Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius was the key text of the age. Also important were the medieval Alexander legenda, texts featuring the Antichrist, and apocalyptic oracles associated with figures such as Daniel the prophet, the Sibyls, and Leo the Wise, as well as commentaries on John’s Apocalypse.
  112.  
  113. Primary Sources and Textual Studies
  114.  
  115. All the sources in this section present editions and/or translations of the central apocalyptic texts of the early medieval period. Alexander 1967 discusses the Greek antecedents of the Sibylla Tiburtina. Martinez 1985, Reinink 1993, Aerts and Kortekaas 1998, and Garstad 2012 deal with the recensions and translations of Pseudo-Methodius. Verhelst 1976 edits Adso’s De Antichristo, while Silverstein and Hilhorst 1997 covers the Visio Pauli. Gunnell and Lassen 2013 contains studies on the Vǫluspá. For late medieval versions of Pseudo-Methodius and other texts, see Apocalypticism, Messianism, and Millenarianism in the High and Late Middle Ages: Primary Sources and Textual Studies.
  116.  
  117. Aerts, Wilbert J., and G. A. A. Kortekaas. Die Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius: Die ältesten griechischen und lateinischen Übersetzungen. 2 vols. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1998.
  118. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  119. The standard critical edition of the first Greek recension and first Latin recension of this most important medieval apocalyptic text, presented in parallel columns with commentary. Prefaced by a thorough introduction.
  120. Find this resource:
  121. Alexander, Paul J. The Oracle of Baalbek: The Tiburtine Sibyl in Greek Dress. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967.
  122. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  123. An examination of the antecedents of the Latin Sibylla Tiburtina, with a critical edition of the Greek text. A groundbreaking study that helped to identify the resurgence of historical-type apocalyptic speculation in Christianity at the end of the 4th century.
  124. Find this resource:
  125. Garstad, Benjamin. Apocalypse, Pseudo-Methodius. An Alexandrine World Chronicle. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
  126. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  127. The Greek and Latin text of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, based on the recensions presented in Aerts and Kortekaas 1998, with facing-page translations, plus notes to the text and translations. Good resource for upper-level undergraduate classes and graduate seminars.
  128. Find this resource:
  129. Gunnell, Terry, and Annette Lassen, eds. The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic Days of Judgement. Acta Scandinavica 2. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013.
  130. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131. A volume of twelve essays dedicated to this short and enigmatic text, arranged in four parts: “The Reception of Vǫluspá;” “Vǫluspá and the Pre-Christian World: The Oral Tradition,” “Vǫluspá and Christianity: The Written Tradition,” and “The Hólar Judgement Day Images: The Visual Tradition.”
  132. Find this resource:
  133. Martinez, Francisco Javier. “Early Christian Apocalyptic in the Muslim Period: Pseudo-Methodius and Pseudo-Athanasius.” PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1985.
  134. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  135. One of the first in-depth studies on these two key early Christian apocalyptica, with editions of the Coptic and Syriac texts from manuscript.
  136. Find this resource:
  137. Reinink, Gerrit Jan. Die syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius. 2 vols. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1993.
  138. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  139. The standard critical edition and study of the Syriac original of this important and influential medieval apocalypse, with a German translation of the text.
  140. Find this resource:
  141. Silverstein, Theodore, and Anthony Hilhorst. Apocalypse of Paul: A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions, with Fifty-four Plates. Cahiers d’orientalisme 21. Geneva, Switzerland: Patrick Cramer, 1997.
  142. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  143. The product of late antiquity, the Visio Pauli is one of the central Christian apocalypses of the Middle Ages, with multiple versions and vernacular translations. This volume offers a critical edition with introductory chapters on the text in the Western tradition, a description of the manuscripts, and an exhaustive bibliography.
  144. Find this resource:
  145. Verhelst, Daniel. Adso Dervensis, De ortu et tempore Antichristi, necnon et tractatus qui ab eo dependunt. Corpus christianorum, continuatio mediaeualis 45. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1976.
  146. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. A critical edition of the popular De Antichristo of Ado of Montier-en-Der (Adso Dervensis). It includes texts of other eight other versions and re-workings, some of which are unattributed or attributed to other figures (Methodius, Anselm).
  148. Find this resource:
  149. Secondary Studies
  150.  
  151. Landes, et al. 2003 centers on the “apocalyptic year” 1000. Landes 1988, Gouguenheim 1999, Heil 2000, and Palmer 2011 also address issues of time, chronology, and apocalyptic eschatology in the early medieval West. Kamlah 1935 is a systematic and detailed study of pre-Joachim Apocalypse-exegesis. Kampers 1901, Flori 2007, and Skjærvø 2011 treat important themes or topics that are not covered in other sections.
  152.  
  153. Flori, Jean. L’Islam et la fin des temps: L’interpretation prophétique des invasions musulmanes dans la chrétienté médiévale. Paris: Seuil, 2007.
  154. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155. A study of the effect of the rise and spread of Islam on medieval Christianity as reflected in apocalyptic speculation.
  156. Find this resource:
  157. Gouguenheim, Sylvain. Les fausses terreurs de l’an mil: Attente de la fin des temps ou approfondissement de la foi? Paris: Picard, 1999.
  158. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  159. A reply to the arguments of Landes (among others) concerning the extent and motivation of eschatological speculation in the West around the year 1000. Contends that concerns with the signs of the end were motivated more by exhortations to repentance, and 11th-century peace councils ought to be understood primarily in the context of episcopal reform.
  160. Find this resource:
  161. Heil, Johannes. “‘Nos nescientes de hoc velle manere’—‘We Wish to Remain Ignorant about This’: Timeless End, or: Approaches to Reconceptualizing Eschatology after A.D. 800.” Traditio 55 (2000): 73–100.
  162. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163. An essay on early medieval chronology arguing that, after the “eschatological crisis” involving the year 800 [anno mundi 6000], there was a shift from counting time to the formulation of a philosophy of time.
  164. Find this resource:
  165. Kamlah, Wilhelm. Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie: Die mittelälterliche Auslegung der Apokalypse vor Joachim von Fiore. Historische Studien 285. Berlin: Ebering, 1935.
  166. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  167. Still remarkably useful for its meticulous and extensive examination of the exegesis of the Revelation of John before Joachim of Fiore.
  168. Find this resource:
  169. Kampers, Fritz. Alexander der Grosse und die Idee des Weltimperiums in Prophetie und Sage: Grundlinien, Materialien und Forschungen. Freiburg, Germany: Herder, 1901.
  170. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. An older study that remains valuable for its citations, scholarship, and the way it traces the threads of the medieval Alexander legend in apocalyptic tapestries.
  172. Find this resource:
  173. Landes, Richard. “Lest the Millennium Be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography 100–800 CE.” In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Edited by Werner Verbeke, 137–211. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  174. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161625.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  175. A seminal survey of apocalyptic chronography, which seeks to demonstrate that millenarian speculation did not disappear in Western Christendom in the period from Augustine of Hippo to Joachim of Fiore, contrary to the accepted wisdom of theological historians and secular scholars.
  176. Find this resource:
  177. Landes, Richard, Andrew Gow, and David C. van Meter, eds. The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  178. DOI: 10.1093/ehr/cer325Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  179. Several of the papers in this important volume are highlighted in the sections below. Others include Apocalypse commentaries, Adso of Montier-en-Der, Thietland on 2 Thessalonians, the millennium, the Last Judgment, the cult of St. Michael the Archangel, eschatological rhetoric; Augustinian historiography, eschatology and civic and ecclesiastic renewal, and St. Vaast.
  180. Find this resource:
  181. Palmer, James. “Calculating Time and the End of Time in the Carolingian World, c. 740–820.” English Historical Review 126 (2011): 1307–1331.
  182. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183. Palmer contends that “a more vigorous mainstream apocalypticism” was at work during this period, during which supposedly significant dates (specifically the annus mundi 6000, by some calculations 800 CE) were of subordinate importance, contra Landes 1988 and Heil 2000, among others.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. “Zoroastrian Dualism.” In Light against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World. Edited by Armin Lange, et al., 55–91. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 2. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2011.
  186. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  187. Scholars of apocalypticism and dualism tend to be most interested in the question as to whether the classical Zoroastrian scriptures, which are medieval, preserve ancient Iranian traditions. Yet the subject of apocalypticism in early medieval Persia is important in its own right. Skjærvø’s essay provides an excellent introduction.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Regional Trajectories: Syriac and Coptic
  190.  
  191. The Syriac apocalyptic tradition is extraordinarily ancient, the Coptic only marginally less so. Both informed the development of early medieval apocalypticism, yet are relatively unknown to medieval scholars. Further work on the manuscript evidence is much needed. The essays in Reinink 2005 engage with most topics on the Syriac side, with Witakowski 2014 providing a good overview. Van Lent 2000 and Henze 2001 are specialist studies.
  192.  
  193. Henze, Matthias. The Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel. Texts and Studies in Ancient Christianity 11. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2001.
  194. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. A learned commentary on and study of an important early Daniel apocalypse, one of at least two dozen that populated the Byzantine world from the late 4th century to the final fall of Constantinople.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Reinink, G. J. Syriac Christianity under Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule. Variorum Collected Series 831. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199. Seventeen reprinted papers, including “Pseudo-Ephraems ‘Rede über das Ende’ und syrische eschatologische Literatur des siebten Jahrhunderts,” “Alexander the Great in Seventh-Century Syriac ‘Apocalyptic’ Texts,” “Pseudo-Methodius und die Legende vom römischen Endkaiser,” “Ps.-Methodius: A Concept of History in Response to the Rise of Islam,” and “Der edessenische ‘Pseudo-Methodius’.”
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Van Lent, Jos M. J. M. “The Nineteen Muslim Kings in Coptic Apocalypses.” Parole de l’Orient 25 (2000): 643–693.
  202. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203. Examines the variations on the theme in the Apocalypse of Shenute II and in other Coptic apocalyptica, with text and translation of section IV the Apocalypse as it is preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France ar. 6147, and Cairo, Franciscan Centre of Christian Oriental Studies Mouski 324.
  204. Find this resource:
  205. Witakowski, Witold. “Syriac Apocalyptic Literature.” In The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective. Edited by Kevork B. Bardakjian and Sergio La Porta. Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014.
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. A fresh and much-needed overview of the subject.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Regional Trajectories: Anglo-Saxon
  210.  
  211. Apocalypticism crossed the Channel into England on the ship of Christianity, and came to inform Anglo-Saxon culture profoundly. The entries in Biggs 2007 and the essays in Powell and Scragg 2003 are the places to start. Caie 1976 and Kabir 2001 overlap somewhat in their subject matter but are complementary: the same holds true for Godden 2003 and Prideaux-Collins 2003. Gatch 2000 reprints several good articles on apocalyptic texts and themes. Healey 1978 is a solid study of one of the apocalyptic texts inherited by Anglo-Saxon culture.
  212.  
  213. Biggs, Frederick M., ed. Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture. The Apocrypha. Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia 1. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2007.
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215. A useful handbook on biblical apocrypha in the context of broader Anglo-Saxon literary culture. Entries on twenty-plus early Jewish and early and medieval Christian apocalyptica, e.g., 1 Enoch, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Apocalypse of Thomas, and the Fifteen Signs.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Caie, Graham D. The Judgment Theme in Old English Poetry. Copenhagen: Nova, 1976.
  218. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219. Study of the eschatological poetry of Anglo-Saxon England, which was informed by the importance of the word-symbol dom and the central theme of an individual’s daily struggle to battle and overcome domgeorn in view of the final judgment.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Gatch, Milton. Eschatology and Christian Nurture: Themes in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Religious Life. Variorum Collected Studies Series C681. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.
  222. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161625.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. Volume of collected studies, including “Eschatology in the Anonymous Old English Homilies,” “The Harrowing of Hell,” “Perceptions of Eternity,” and “Two Uses of Apocrypha in Old English Homilies.”
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Godden, Malcolm. “The Millennium, Time, and History for the Anglo-Saxons.” In The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050. Edited by Richard Landes, et al., 155–180. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  226. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  227. A study of the waxing and waning of the apocalyptic expectations for the year 1000 in the writings of Ælfric and Wulfstan.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Healey, Antonette diPaulo. The Old English Vision of Saint Paul. Speculum Anniversary Monographs 2. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1978.
  230. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511483332Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. Includes text, glossary, and word-index of the Old English version of the ever-popular Visio Pauli. Prefaced by a study of the manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Junius 85–86) and the language of the text, plus an overview of the Latin and Old English versions.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Kabir, Ananya Jahanara. Paradise, Death and Doomsday in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 32. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. A discussion of the development of the theme of the “interim paradise” (the location of the soul between corporeal death and the time of the final judgment and paradise thereafter) in apocalypses, theological tracts, prayers, poetry, and liturgy.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Powell, Kathryn, and Donald Scragg, eds. Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England. Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 2; Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2003.
  238. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161625.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. A collection of essays, many of which are on apocalyptic texts and issues, including an overview of recent work (F. M. Biggs), the Apocalypse of Thomas (C. D. Wright), the Sibylline acrostic (P. Lendinara), the fall of the angels in Solomon and Saturn (D. Anlezerk), Enoch and art, (E. Coatsworth), and judgment and salvation in Liber vitae (C. E. Karkov).
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Prideaux-Collins, William. “‘Satan’s Bonds are Extremely Loose’: Apocalyptic Expectation in Anglo-Saxon England during the Millennial Era.” In The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050. Edited by Richard Landes, et al., 298–310. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  242. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. A survey of apocalyptic expectations for the year 1000 in the writings of Ælfric, Wulfstan, and Byrhtferth of Ramsey, and in Blickling Homily 11.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition
  246.  
  247. The Byzantine apocalyptic tradition spans the period from the late 4th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Where apocalyptic speculation in the medieval West was dominated by one language, Latin, and one religion, Christianity, in the Byzantine East it embraced many other languages besides Greek, and the religions of Judaism and Islam in addition to Christianity. A focus on theologians and high theology can mask this fact. It can also obscure the considerable influence of the East on the shape of apocalypticism in the West, whether through the transmission of Eastern apocalyptic literature to the West (Pseudo-Methodius, the Oracles of Leo the Wise) or, especially after the Crusades, close cultural interaction.
  248.  
  249. Primary Sources and Textual Studies
  250.  
  251. Apocalyptic speculation in Byzantium was driven by a combination of external factors (recurrent Arab Muslim invasions, the Crusades) and internal factors (iconoclasm, chrono-eschatological computation, meditations on the future of the soul). The number of Byzantine apocalyptica is staggering, and the manuscript evidence is only partially known. Alexander 1985 remains a foundational study. DiTommaso 2005 organizes the Daniel apocalyptica. Maisano 1975, Berger 1976, Lolos 1976–1978, Pertusi 1988, Brokkaar 2002, and Baun 2007 offer editions, translations and/or commentaries on key texts.
  252.  
  253. Alexander, Paul J. The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
  254. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. A path-breaking study of several key writings of the age, including the Pseudo-Methodian apocalypse and several Daniel apocalyptica (Greek and Slavonic), with many translations. It is particularly notable for the way it illustrates how Byzantine apocalypticists recycled individual oracles from older apocalyptic texts to compose new texts.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Baun, Jane. Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local Community in the Medieval Greek Apocrypha. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  258. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. A full-length study of otherworldly journeys and the moral dimension of apocalypticism in Byzantium, as represented by the Apocalypse of the Theotokos and the Apocalypse of Anastasia, which are translated in the Appendixes. Baun discusses issues of transmission, reception, and redaction in the Byzantine contexts, as well as the theological and social functions of these texts.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Berger, Klaus. Die griechische Daniel-Diegesis: Eine altkirchliche Apokalypse. Studia Post-Biblica 27. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1976.
  262. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. This monograph is still the best study of this apocalyptic oracle, which was manufactured (the terminology is apt) in the late 8th or early 9th century, although Berger’s understanding of the manuscript evidence is now out of date. The volume also includes a superb survey of apocalyptic motifs in the texts of the early medieval period.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Brokkaar, Walter Gerard. Sapientissimi imperatoris Leonis oracula and Anonymi narratio de uero imperatore – The Oracles of the Most Wise Emperor Leo & The Tale of the True Emperor (Amstelodamensis graecus VI E 8): Text, Translation and Introduction. Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2002.
  266. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. Text and translation of the Oracles of Leo the Wise, with introduction and notes. One of several recent editions: see also Maisano 1975, among others. The Oracles later migrated to the West, where they were reworked into the Latin Genus nequam pope prophecies and from there the Vaticinia de summis pontifibus.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. DiTommaso, Lorenzo. The Book of Daniel and the Apocryphal Daniel Literature. Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 20. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
  270. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. Chapter 3 (pp. 96–216) of this book identifies and discusses twenty-four apocalypses and apocalyptic oracles attributed to Daniel, dating from the end of the 4th century through the late Byzantine period, clarifying the results of a century of research, with special attention to the manuscript evidence and bibliographic record.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Lolos, Anastasios. Die Apokalypse des Ps. Methodius. 2 vols. Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 83 + 94. Meisenheim am Glan, Germany: Anton Hain, 1976–1978.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. A critical edition of the four Greek redactions of the text, based on the full range of the manuscript evidence. See also Aerts and Kortekaas 1998, cited under Early Medieval Apocalypticism and Messianism: Primary Sources and Textual Studies.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Maisano, Riccardo. L’Apocalisse apocrifa di Leone di Costantinopoli. Naples, Italy: Morano, 1975.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. An edition, translation, and commentary of this key Byzantine apocalyptic text, with a thorough introduction. See now Brokkaar 2002.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Pertusi, Agostino. Fine di Bisanzio e fine del mondo: Significato e ruolo storico delle profezie sulla caduta di Costantinopoli in oriente e in occidente. Edited by Enrico Morini. Rome: Istituto storico per il medio evo, 1988.
  282. DOI: 10.2307/1847386Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. A massive, textually oriented monograph that centers on the “Visio Norsei” and the apocalyptic visions attributed to the prophet Daniel, in their Byzantine and Islamic contexts, with specific attention to the theme of the “blonde-haired race.”
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Secondary Studies
  286.  
  287. Brandes 1990 and Magdalino 2003 are superb introductory studies; Timotin 2006 is a response to the latter. Vasiliev 1942–1943 and Alexander 1968 are equally fine introductions of a different sort. Podskalsky 1972 (the translatio imperii) and Piron 2008 (the Sibylline writings) are more specialized. Lellouch and Yerasimos 1999 engages with late Byzantine apocalypticism.
  288.  
  289. Alexander, Paul J. “Mediaeval Apocalypses as Historical Sources.” American Historical Review 73 (1968): 997–1018.
  290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. A pioneering paper on the utility of Byzantine apocalyptic writings as historical sources and chronological mileposts, in light of the Greek and Slavonic evidence and in view of the methodological difficulties.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Brandes, Wolfram. “Die apokalyptische Literatur.” In Quellen zur Geschichte des frühen Byzanz (4.-9. Jahrhundert): Bestand und Probleme. Edited by Friedhelm Winkelmann and Wolfram Brandes, 304–322. Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten 55. Amsterdam: Gieben, 1990.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. A solid overview. Wolfram Brandes and Paul Magdalino (below) are the preeminent scholars of Byzantine apocalypticism today.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Lellouch, Benjamin, and Stéphanie Yerasimos. Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople: Actes de la Table Ronde d’Istanbul (13–14 avril 1996). Varia Turcica 33. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. A collection of articles and textual studies, including “Textes de fin d’empire, récits de fin du monde” (M. Balivet), “Péchés, calamités et salut par le triomphe de l’Islam” (I. Beldiceanu), and “Byzance et la fin du monde” (M.H. Congourdeau).
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Magdalino, Paul. “The Year 1000 in Byzantium.” In Byzantium in the Year 1000. Edited by Paul Magdalino, 233–270. The Medieval Mediterranean 45. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
  302. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. A definitive analysis of the cardinal importance of apocalyptic speculation in Byzantine culture, focusing on chronological efforts correlating the seventh Byzantine millennium with the first Christian one. It is one of several excellent article-length studies by Magdalino.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Piron, Sylvain. “Anciennes sibylles et nouveaux oracles: Remarques sur la diffusion des textes prophétiques en Occident, VIIe – XIVe siècles.” In L’Antiquité tardive dans les collections médiévales: Textes et représentations, VIe-XIVe siècles. Edited by Stéphane Gioanni and Benoît Grévin, 261–304. Collections de l’École française de Rome 405. Rome: École française de Rome, 2008.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Examines the transmission of Sibylline prophecies throughout the Middle Ages in the context of Pseudo-Methodius and in view of the composition of prophetic-apocalyptic anthologies in the 13th century.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Podskalsky, Gerhard. Byzantinische Reichseschatologie. Die Periodisierung der Weltgeschichte in den 4. Grossreichen (Daniel 2 und 7) und dem tausendjährigen Friedensreiche (Apok. 20). Munich: Fink, 1972.
  310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. A rich study of the interpretation and use of Daniel 2 and 7 (the schema of four world-kingdoms) and Revelation 20 (the expectation for the millennium) in Byzantine apocalyptic speculation. Although its structural organization leaves something to be desired, the book contains a treasure trove of information on the Greek (and some Slavonic) sources.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Timotin, Andrei. “Byzantine Visionary Accounts of the Other World: A Reconsideration.” In Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott. Edited by John Burke, et al., 404–420. Australian Association for Byzantine Studies/Byzantina Australiensia 16. Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2006.
  314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. A response to Magdalino 2003 on the eschatological focus of Byzantine apocalyptic texts around the turn of the millennium. Along with Baun 2007 (cited under the Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition: Primary Sources and Textual Studies) and other studies, Timotin’s paper is part of a recent attempt to explore other types of apocalyptic speculation, including the so-called moral apocalypses (the term is inapt) and otherworldly visions.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Vasiliev, Alexander. “Medieval Ideas of the End of the World: West and East.” Byzantion 16 (1942–1943): 462–502.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. Despite its title, this article deals mostly with Byzantium. An easy familiarity with a breathtakingly wide range of primary sources ensures its ongoing utility, as does its citations of older yet still-valuable scholarly literature that is sometimes overlooked by contemporary academics.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Regional Trajectories: Slavonic and Armenian
  322.  
  323. Byzantine apocalypticism influenced the early development of the Slavonic apocalyptic tradition, which in addition to producing its own corpus of writings and developing along distinctive paths (e.g., Bogomilism), also preserved (and frequently reworked) ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses such as 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. The same can be said, mutatis mutandis, for the Armenian apocalyptic tradition. For the Slavonic, Istrin 1897–1898 and Tăpkova-Zaimova and Miltenova 2011 are advanced textual studies. The papers in Orlov 2007, DiTommaso, et al. 2011, and Orlov and Boccaccini 2012 taken together cover all the major issues. For the Armenian, Stone 2006 and Bardakjian and La Porta 2014 do the same, while Pogossian 2012 is a fine specialist paper.
  324.  
  325. Bardakjian, Kevork B., and Sergio La Porta, eds. The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective. 2 vols. Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. The new benchmark collection. Thirty essays, divided into two volumes, each containing several parts. Volume 1: “Jewish and Iranian Currents,” “Biblical and Parabiblical Traditions,” “The Visions of Sts. Grigor Lusaworič and Sahak Part‘ew,” “The Rise of Islam,” “The Mysticism of Grigor Narekac‘i.” Volume 2: “Medieval Reception of Apocalyptic Narratives,” “The Apocalypse in Art,” and “Comparative Perspectives” (Manichaean, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Bulgarian).
  328. Find this resource:
  329. DiTommaso, Lorenzo, Christfried Böttrich, and Marina Swoboda, eds. The Old Testament Apocrypha in the Slavonic Tradition: Continuity and Diversity. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 140. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2011.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. Papers on apocryphal writings in the Slavonic tradition, including the History of Melchizedek (C. Böttrich), 3 Baruch (A. Kulik), Apocalypse of Abraham (B. Lourié), 2 Enoch (A. Orlov), the Sibyllines (M. Pesenson), Apocalypse of Abraham (A. de Santos Otero), and Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (C. Soldat), as well as writings that are the product of the tradition itself.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Istrin, V. M. Откровение Мефодия Патарского и апокрифические Видения Даниила в Византийской и Славяно-Русской литературах. Изследование и Тексты. Чтения в Императорском Обществе Истории и Древностей Российских при Московском Университете 181–184. Moscow: Universitetskai︠a︡ tipografīi︠a︡, 1897–1898.
  334. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004154391.i-488Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. These specialist studies can be difficult to locate, but are necessary for any serious study of the apocalyptic texts ascribed to Methodius and Daniel in the Slavonic tradition. See Tăpkova-Zaimova and Miltenova 2011.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Orlov, Andrei A. Studies in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha: From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 114. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. This volume presents reprinted articles, mainly on early Jewish apocalypses as they were preserved (and changed) in the Slavonic tradition: e.g., 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, and the Ladder of Jacob. It is prefaced by a complete bibliography of over three dozen texts and fragments of texts. Orlov has done excellent work here.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Orlov, Andrei, and Gabriele Boccaccini, eds. New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only. Studia Judaeoslavica 4. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. An up-to-date collection of specialist essays, by members of the Enoch Seminar, on 2 Enoch and other apocalyptic texts and traditions, as they were received and often transformed within the Slavonic tradition.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Pogossian, Zaroui. “Armenian, Mongols, and the End of Times: An Overview of 13th Century Sources.” In Caucasus during the Mongol Period – Der Kaukasus in der Mongolenzeit. Edited by Jürgen Turbach, et al., 169–198. Wiesbaden, Germany: Reichert, 2012.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. Concludes that the upswing in the incidence of apocalyptic speculation in the first half of the 13th century (The Vision of St. Nersēs, The Prophecies of Agaton, the identification of Mongols as the eschatological “Nation of Archers”) diminished in the second half of the century.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Stone, Michael E. Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Armenian Studies: Collected Papers, Volumes I and II. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 144–145. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2006.
  350. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. Collection of reprinted articles and chapters by the scholar who more or less initiated the scientific study of apocryphal literature and traditions in Armenian, much of which is apocalyptic.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Tăpkova-Zaimova, Vassilka, and Anissava Miltenova. Historical and Apocalyptic Literature in Byzantium and Medieval Bulgaria. Sofia: East-West, 2011.
  354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. An outstanding volume of Slavonic texts, with critical apparatus, plus English translations of the texts and English translations of the authors’ methodological and thematic studies. It includes the Revelation of Pseudo-Methodius, Oracles of Leo the Wise, the Vision of the Prophet Isaiah, two Daniel apocalyptica, and more. Originally published in Bulgarian in 1996.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Early Islamic Apocalypticism and Messianism
  358.  
  359. Many of the essential sources on medieval Islamic apocalypticism are composed in Arabic. Of those written in Western languages, Bashear 1991, Arjomand 1998, and Filiu 2011 are good surveys, while the articles in McAuliffe 2001–2006 are useful introductions to the major themes and motifs. Cook 2002 is more for the advanced scholar. The monographs of Sachedina 1981, Rustomji 2009, and Van Donzel and Schmidt 2010 provide in-depth coverage of various topics. Crone 2012 is particularly excellent. It is important to differentiate apocalyptic features that are typical to Sunni Islam from those that are characteristic of Shi’ite Islam.
  360.  
  361. Arjomand, Saïd Amir. “Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classical Period.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 238–283. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  362. DOI: 10.1017/S1356186300000572Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. A chronological survey of apocalypticism in early Islam, from its origins through the 14th and 15th centuries, with attention to role of “political astrology.” With a helpful bibliography.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Bashear, Suliman. “Apocalyptic and Other Materials on Early Muslim-Byzantine Relations.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1.2 (1991): 173–207.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. A solid overview of the thematic contours of early Islamic apocalypticism: the expectation for future “truce and treachery,” the malāḥim over Syria, defensive faḍā’il traditions, and the historiographic contexts.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Cook, David. Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 21. Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 2002.
  370. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139088459Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. In-depth survey that covers historical apocalypses, “metahistorical” apocalypses (a term that the author employs to describe apocalyptic texts concerned solely with the eschatological future), messianism and messianic cycles, and Shī’ī apocalypticism.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Crone, Patricia. The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. A dense, groundbreaking study of the revolts precipitated by the Muslim penetration of the Iranian countryside, tracing the sources and contexts of the complex of apocalyptic beliefs and martial patterns of the rebel communities.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Filiu, Jean-Pierre. Apocalypse in Islam. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. The first part of this book on apocalypticism in contemporary Islam deals with its historical roots, in three chapters: “Archeology and the End of the World,” “Grand Masters of the Medieval Apocalypse,” and “Avatars of the Mahdi.” Originally published in French in 2008.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. 6 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001–2006.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Includes articles on “Antichrist,” “Apocalypse,” “Eschatology,” Gog and Magog,” Hell and Hellfire,” and “Paradise.” A helpful resource for the scholar or student who wants an introduction to the topic.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Rustomji, Nerina. The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. In this book Rustomji contends that while Christian eschatology looks forward to an after-life, Islamic eschatology focuses on an after-world, either heaven (al-janna) or hell (al-nar), terms which, dissimilar to the Christian analogues, are understood predominantly through their material dimension (the presence of rivers, houris, etc.).
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein. Islamic Messianism: the Idea of Mahdī in Twelver Shī’ism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Gives a solid, readable survey of the messianism in Islam, with a background introduction to Shī’ī apocalypticism.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Van Donzel, Emeri, and Andrea Schmidt. Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources. Sallam’s Quest for Alexander’s Wall. Brill’s Inner Asian Library 22. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. The first part of this monograph investigates the development of the motif of Gog and Magog as it was received and transmitted within the contexts of early Eastern Christianity and early Islam. The second part describes and analyzes the account of “Sallam the Interpreter,” whom Caliph al-Wathiq commissioned in 842 to locate Alexander’s fabulous wall.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Medieval Jewish Apocalypticism and Messianism
  398.  
  399. On the one hand, apocalyptic and messianic speculation in medieval Judaism is part of an unbroken tradition that began in the late biblical era and continued into the early modern age. On the other hand, it shares more in the way of form and content with its medieval Christian and Islamic counterparts than it does with either its biblical ancestors or its early modern descendants. Medievalists should begin with the steady introductions and translations in Reeves 2005. Scholem 1946 is a foundational study, as is now Idel 1998a. Alexander 1990 and Schäfer 2009 are fine introductions (though in their other works the authors do not agree on several major points). Saperstein 1992 reprints some of the best short studies on the topic. Jellinek 1938 is meant for advanced study. For a full bibliography on the topic, see the Lorenzo DiTommaso’s Oxford Bibliographies article Apocalypticism and Messianism.
  400.  
  401. Alexander, Philip S. “Late Hebrew Apocalyptic: A Preliminary Survey.” Apocrypha 1 (1990): 197–217.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. This survey essay discusses the topic from various angles: content (end-time scenarios, throne visions, cosmology, and tours of Hell and Paradise), major (apocalypse, midrash, and treatise) and minor genres, historical events, and social setting.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Idel, Moshe. “Jewish Apocalypticism, 670–1670.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 203–237. New York: Continuum, 1998a.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Moshe Idel is this generation’s Gershom Scholem, although he extends and frequently diverges from Scholem’s central theses. This essay demonstrates that the sources and conduits of apocalyptic thought in Judaism of these centuries were more widespread than Kabbalah (e.g., in the thought of Abraham Abulafia and in the Zohar). With a good bibliography.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Idel, Moshe. Messianic Mystics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998b.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. Investigates the messianic dimension of Jewish mysticism from the 12th to the 18th centuries. It argues, contra Scholem, that the sources and conduits of apocalyptic thought in Judaism of these centuries were more widespread than Kabbalah (e.g., in the thought of Abraham Abulafia and in the Zohar).
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Jellinek, Adolph. Bet ha-Midrasch: Sammlung kleiner Midraschim und vermischter Abhandlungen aus der jüdischen Literatur. 6 vols. Jerusalem: Bamberger and Wahrmann, 1938.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. The comprehensive collection of the texts of much of the Jewish medieval apocalyptic literature. In many ways it is still the starting point for advanced scholarship. Leipzig, 1853–1857.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Reeves, John C. Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalyptic Reader. Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study 45. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. An outstanding English-language anthology of translations of Sefer Elijah, Sefer Zerubbabel, and other medieval Jewish apocalyptica, based on the manuscript evidence, and accompanied by helpful introductions and copious notes.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Saperstein, M., ed. Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History. New York: New York University Press, 1992.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. A superb volume of reprinted short studies and essays, half of which deal with Jewish messianism in the medieval centuries. The “essential” in the title is warranted.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Schäfer, Peter. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2009.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. This work brilliantly summarizes the results of Schäfer’s earlier textual and literary studies and includes his views on the relationship of apocalypticism and mysticism. Not all its conclusions hold water, but it is highly recommended as the starting point for all serious study.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. 2d ed. New York: Schocken, 1946.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. This foundational study describes “the essential continuity of thought” regarding the Merkabah from the ancient apocalyptic writers to the post-Talmudic period.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Apocalypticism, Messianism, and Millenarianism in the High and Late Middle Ages
  434.  
  435. The incidence of apocalypticism in a society, it may be argued, is a bellwether of its temper. If true, the expressions of the apocalyptic worldview in the High and Late Middle Ages reflect the tenor and tensions of these centuries. These include the creation of many new apocalyptic texts, including “pope prophecies” and apocalyptic pamphlets, in the service of sectarian conflicts and political contests; a resurgence of otherworldly visions in the 12th and 13th centuries; the development of apocalyptic mystery plays and a literary focus on the coming of the Antichrist and the signs of doomsday; the blending of apocalyptic speculation and “scientific” investigation; the emergence of apocalyptic traditions in the vernacular and their role in the development of national identities; and radical millenarian movements generated in large part by social change and apocalyptic expectation.
  436.  
  437. Primary Sources and Textual Studies
  438.  
  439. Only a representative sampling of the apocalyptic writings of the period can be listed in the sections below. Many of the stand-alone texts were new creations, such as the Columbinus Prophecy, the Toledo Letter, and a group of prophecies associated with Merlin. Others were older texts, whether translated (the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius), re-worked (the Oracle of Baalbek), or rebooted (the Oracles of Leo the Wise). Apocalyptic speculation also underwrote countless commentaries, expositions, homilies, and sermons. Holder-Egger 1890 is still a good resource. Lerner 1983, Fleming 1999, Holdenried 2006, Jiroušková 2006, and Jostmann 2006 each examine one of the many apocalyptic texts from this era. Lerner and Mesler 2009 is a valuable checklist of recent work.
  440.  
  441. Fleming, Martha. The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies: The Genus nequam Group. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. In or shortly before the year 1304, some Leo oracles were reworked into Latin “pope prophecies,” the so-called Genus nequam group, which is the subject of this excellent monograph. Another set of prophecies, the Ascende calve group, appeared thereafter, followed by an amalgam of both sets, the Vaticinia de summis pontifibus, the title often given to all pope prophecies of this type.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Holdenried, Anke. The Sibyl and Her Scribes. Manuscripts and Interpretation of the Latin Sibylla Tiburtina c. 1050–1500: Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. An excellent volume that examines the medieval Latin versions of the Sibylla Tiburtina, with special attention to the contexts of its transmission and the impact of the Christological tradition of the Sibylline prophecy. It also includes a conspectus of the manuscripts.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Holder-Egger, Oswald. “Italienische Propheteen des 13. Jahrhunderts” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 15 (1890): 143–178.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. Represents the first serious study of the full range of the manuscripts and texts of the many apocalyptic oracles of the period, including those attributed to Merlin and various Sibyls, and the political prophecies associated with the leading historical figures of the age. Remains useful for its manuscript research and transcriptions of texts. This study extends over three issues, including also 30 (1905): 323–386, and 33 (1908): 97–187.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Jiroušková, Lenka. Die Visio Pauli: Wege und Wandlungen einer orientalischen Apokryphe im lateinischen Mittelalter, unter Einschluß der alttschechischen und deutschsprachigen Textzeugen. Mittellateinische Studien und Text 34. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. An exhaustive study of the text of the Visio Pauli, based on the Latin, German, and Old Czech manuscripts, and of the dissemination and transformation of the text throughout the medieval west.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Jostmann, Christian. Sibilla Erithea Babilonica: Papsttum und Prophetie im 13. Jahrhundert. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften 54. Hanover, Germany: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2006.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. A thorough study of the Sibylla Erythraea (the spelling varies), in its historical context and with full attention to the manuscript evidence. Editions of the versions of the text are included, as well as an excellent survey of the manuscripts.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Lerner, Robert E. The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedars of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of Enlightenment. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. A fascinating investigation of an apocalyptic prophecy composed around 1240 and its Nachleben in various different contexts over the next four centuries.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Lerner, Robert E., and Katelyn Mesler. “Selective Bibliography of Studies and Editions of High and Late Medieval Latin Eschatological Prophecies.” Oliviana 3 (2009).
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. A checklist of early-21st-century scholarly work on several dozen Latin apocalyptic texts and political prophecies from the era.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Secondary Studies
  470.  
  471. The majority of the sources selected for inclusion in this section are collections of papers (Emmerson and Herzman 1992, Reeves 1999) or volumes of edited contributions (Williams 1980, Potestà 1991) that are intended to provide students and scholars with maximum coverage of the subject. Housley 1998 and Potestà 1998 attend to apocalypticism, messianism, and cataclysmic social change, whether directed outward and inward. Lerner 1976 targets the shift in attitudes regarding a small but significant eschatological theme. McGinn 1998 examines change in the form of Church reform.
  472.  
  473. Emmerson, Richard K., and Ronald B. Herzman. The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. An excellent set of studies, including: “The Apocalypse and Joachim of Fiore,” “The Legenda Maior: Bonaventure’s Apocalyptic Francis,” “The Roman de Rose: Jean de Meun’s Apocalyptic Age of Hypocrisy,” “The Commedia: Apocalypse, Church, and Dante’s Conversion,” and “The Canterbury Tales: Apocalypticism and Chaucer’s Pilgrimage.”
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Housley, Norman. “The Eschatological Imperative: Messianism and Holy War in Europe, 1260–1556.” In Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco. Edited by Peter Schäfer and Mark Cohen, 123–150. Studies in the History of Religions 77. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. A fascinating study that examines how historical figures with messianic overtones translated their programs into military action (in crusading and non-crusading forms), and whether this made more than a passing impact on the religious and political landscape of Europe.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Lerner, Robert E. “Refreshment of the Saints: The Time after Antichrist as a Station for Earthly Progress in Medieval Thought.” Traditio 32 (1976): 97–144.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Seminal study of the “Joachimite” theme of the hope for a beneficial period between the destruction of the Antichrist and the Last Judgment. It was rooted in the eschatological calculations of Jerome, and from the 12th century onward was propounded in a variety of positive formulations.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. McGinn, Bernard M. “Apocalypticism and Church Reform, 1100–1500.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 74–109. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. An examination of four models of apocalyptic reform (Gregorian, Joachite, imperial, and “angelic”) and their expressions and applications from the 12th to 15th centuries, with a good bibliography.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Potestà, Gian Luca. “Radical Apocalyptic Movements in the Late Middle Ages.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 110–142. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. A thematic survey, covering the Apostolics and Fra Dolcino, the Franciscan Spirituals, the Beguins, the Fraticelli, the Lollards, millenarian social movements in Bohemia and the German states, and apocalypticism in the Italian states during the time of Savonarola.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Potestà, Gian Luca, ed. Il profestismo gioachimita tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento: Atti del III Congresso internazionale di studi Gioachimiti, S. Giovanni in Fiore, 17–21 settembre 1989. Genoa, Italy: Marietti, 1991.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. A rich, comprehensive volume of twenty-nine studies, in Italian, English, French, and German. This is a fine source on the influence of Joachim in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the diversity in which this manifested itself.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Reeves, Marjorie. The Prophetic Sense of History in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Variorum Collected Series 660. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Volume reprints twelve article-length studies, including “The Development of Apocalyptic Thought,” “Pattern and Purpose in History,” The Originality and Influence of Joachim of Fiore,” “Some Popular Prophecies from the Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries,” “The Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus,” and two essays on prophecy and Dante.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Williams, Ann, ed. Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1980.
  502. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. A first-class collection of papers that contains essays on Joachim and Joachimism by M. W. Bloomfield, E. R. Daniel, H. Lee, B. McGinn, F. Siebt, and D. C. West Jr., plus important papers on the conceptual antecedent of the figurae in the Revelation of John (R. Bauckham), the diffusion of Byzantine apocalypses in the west (P. J. Alexander) and the eschatological expectations of Bohemian Jews (R. Gladstein), among other topics.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Regional Trajectories: Italy, France, Spain
  506.  
  507. The studies listed in this section are meant to serve as a gateway for further research on apocalypticism and millennialism in Italy, France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Burr 1993 is essential to understanding Olivi. Rusconi 1979, Vauchez 1990, Vicaire 1992, Vaca Lorenzo 2000, and Trachsler, et al. 2007 focus on specific regions. Blumenfeld-Kosinski 2006 is thematic, although its focus is also mainly regional.
  508.  
  509. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate. Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2006.
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. Examines the main currents of the reactions to the Great Schism in visionary, prophetic, and allegorical tracts, as well as in letters and images, mostly in Italy and France. Includes a chapter on how responses to the earlier schism of 1159 (John of Salisbury, Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau) informed these currents.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Burr, David. Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom: A Reading of the Apocalypse Commentary. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. A magisterial analysis of the Apocalypse Commentary that demonstrates Olivi’s dependence on the ideas of Joachim and especially Bonaventure.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Rusconi, Roberto. L’attesa della fine: crisi della società, profezia ed Apocalisse in Italia al tempo del grande Scisma d’Occidente (1378–1417). Studi storici 115–118. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1979.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Specialist work on a well-defined period in a specific region, with individual authors and texts scrutinized in considerable detail. Good study of later and radical apocalypticism.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Trachsler, Richard, Julien Abed, and David Expert. Moult obscures paroles: études sur la prophétie médiévale. Cultures et civilisations médiévales 39. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2007.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. Contains papers on charlatanism in French, Italian, and Spanish traditions (A. V. Brovarone), the Livre de Sydrac (E. Ruhe), the Prophetia Merlini of BnF n.a. fr. 4166 (J. Abed), French prose translations of the Historia regum Britanniae (G. Veysseyre), and the Prophesies de Merlin of pseudo-Richard of Ireland (N. Koble). An extensive bibliography is appended.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Vaca Lorenzo, Ángel, ed. En pos del tercer milenio: apocalíptica, mesianismo, milenarismo e historia. Acta salamanticensia. Estudios históricos & geográficos 109. Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Universidad, 2000.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. Half the essays in this recent collection deal with medieval apocalypticism and messianism in Spain or cultures under Spanish control, sometimes in their wider European setting (e.g., A. Rucquoi, “Medida y fin de los tiempos. Mesianismo y milenarismo en el Edad Media,” pp. 13–41).
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Vauchez, André, ed. Les textes prophétiques et la prophétie en Occident (XIIe-XVIe siècles). Rome: École française de Rome, 1990.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. This collection includes twenty-one papers arranged in three parts: “Figures de prophètes aux derniers siècles du mȏyen age: autour de Jean de Roquetaillade,” “Diffusion et réception des textes prophétiques,” and “Le statut et l’influence des prophéties dans l’Église et al société.”
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Vicaire, M. -H. Fin du monde et signes des temps: Visionnaires et prophètes en France méridionale (fin XIIIe - début XVe siècle). Cahiers de Fanjeaux 27. Toulouse, France: Centre d’études historiques de Fanjeaux, 1992.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. A wide-ranging volume of papers on apocalypticism in late medieval France, including Joachim of Fiore in southern France (Rusconi), Roger de Provence (Carozzi), Arnaud de Villeneuve (Santi), the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus (Millet), Jean de Roquetaillade (Barnay), and Merlin and the Hundred Years’ War (Beaune), and the cosmic visions of Opicinius of Canistris.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Regional Trajectories: Northern Europe (Continental and Insular)
  538.  
  539. Cohn 1970 marks the beginning of the modern study of medieval apocalypticism and especially millennial and messianic social movements. Morgan 2004 is an outstanding volume of essays. Kampers 1895, Töpfer 1964, Rauh 1973, and Bostick 1998 are monographs on specific studies. Coote 2000 and Green 2012 are two (of many) examples of scholarship on new topics and fresh approaches to the field.
  540.  
  541. Bostick, Curtis V. The Antichrist and the Lollards: Apocalypticism in Late Medieval and Reformation England. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 70. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. A fine investigation of a pre-Reformation apocalyptic movement. Proposes a tripartite taxonomy of apocalypticism that seeks to present Lollardism in more than secessionist terms, and that in some ways anticipates the nuanced taxonomies of recent studies of millennialism.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. 3d rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. Deals with radical movements in northern Europe from the 11th to 16th centuries. Arguably the most culturally important book published on apocalypticism and millennialism, even if many of its conclusions have since been found wanting. The book revolutionized the study of millenarian speculation in medieval Christianity and, perhaps as importantly, brought it squarely into the public eye. Originally published in 1957 by London: Secker & Warburg.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Coote, Lesley A. Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England. Woodbridge, UK: York Medieval, 2000.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. Despite some flaws, this book is currently the best study of the nature and use of political prophecy in England from the 12th to 15th centuries.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Green, Jonathan. Printing and Prophecy: Prognostication and Media Change, 1450–1550. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. Examines the place of prophetic texts during the early decades of moveable-type print books, their impact on the new medium, and their effect on late medieval society, particularly in the German states.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Kampers, Fritz. Kaiserprophetieen und Kaisersagen im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Kaiseridee. Historische Abhandlungen 8. Munich: H. Lüneburg, 1895.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. This monograph is devoted to the theme of kingly eschatological figures in northern Europe during the late medieval era, particularly the literature surrounding Friedrich II. Although it is an older study, and in many ways has been superseded by modern research, it remains extraordinarily valuable.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Morgan, Nigel, ed., Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom: Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium. Harlaxton Medieval Studies 12. Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas, 2004.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. This volume presents twenty-one studies on apocalypticism in late medieval England, including texts (Pearl, Book of Hours, Insurgent gentes), themes (astrology, the punishments of hell), movements (social disorder, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the Revolution of 1399), and apocalyticism and the arts (tapestries, stonework, stained glass, brasses, and incised slabs, and pavements).
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Rauh, Horst Dieter. Das Bild des Antichrist im Mittelalter: Vom Tyconius zum deutschen Symbolismus. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1973.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. A truly exhaustive examination of apocalyptic thought in the German states, particularly in the 12th century.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Töpfer, Bernhard. Das kommende Reich des Friedens: Zur Entwicklung chiliastischer Zukunftshoffnungen im Hochmittelalter. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1964.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. This study gives a brilliant overview of the radical millenarian movements of the era, and in many ways a necessary counterweight to some of the claims made in Cohn 1970.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Joachim of Fiore
  574.  
  575. Joachim of Fiore is the most influential apocalyptic thinker after John of Patmos, at least in the West. His tripartite historiography exerted an enormous influence on apocalyptic speculation for 500 years. The literature on Joachim is immense and must be approached with some caution, since not every secondary study is informed by primary manuscript research, which remains ongoing. McGinn 1985 is the port of entry for almost every inquiry. Reeves and Hirsch-Reich 1972 and Reeves 1993 are equally significant. Grundman 1927 and Mottu 1977 are older works but still valuable. The collected papers included in the volumes of Crocco 1986 and Daniel 2011 round out the coverage.
  576.  
  577. Crocco, Antonio, ed. L’età dello Spirito e la fine dei tempi in Gioacchino da Fiore e nel gioachimismo medievale: Atti del II Congresso internazionale di studi Gioachimiti, 1984. S. Giovanni in Fiore, Italy: Centro internazionale di studi gioachimiti, 1986.
  578. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. This collection contains twenty studies, in several languages and designed for specialists, on the history of scholarship, Joachim’s writings, the manuscript tradition, and Joachim’s influence on later writers.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Daniel, E. Randolph. Abbot Joachim of Fiore and Joachimism. Variorum Collected Series 985. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.
  582. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-663-15807-3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. A volume of reprinted essays on (among other things): new editions and studies, De ultimis tribulationibus, patterns of history, the conversion of the Jews, double Antichrist or antichrists, the origins of Franciscan Joachimism, manuscripts of the Liber de concordia; apocalyptic conversion, the Friars Minor, English Joachimism, Henry of Kirkstede’s De antichristo et de fine mundi, and medieval apocalypticism, millennialism, and violence.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Grundman, Herbert. Studien über Joachim von Fiore. Leipzig: Teubner, 1927.
  586. DOI: 10.2307/2848175Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. The first major study of the apocalyptic thought of Joachim of Fiore, and in many ways the foundation of subsequent scholarship. It is indispensable for its many insights, though it has now been superseded by newer studies.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Lerner, Robert E. “Antichrists and Antichrist in Joachim of Fiore.” Speculum 60 (1985): 553–570.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. The best discussion of Joachim’s notion of double Antichrists and how it deviated from earlier medieval traditions.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. McGinn, Bernard. The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought. London: Macmillan, 1985.
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. This readable, erudite book remains the best introduction to the life, thought, and influence of Joachim of Fiore. It is highly recommended for students and scholars alike.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Mottu, Henry. La manisfestation de l’Espirit selon Joachim de Fiore. Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1977.
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. An original if controversial understanding of the theology of Joachim of Fiore that sees the Abbot as the progenitor of many late revolutionary social movements.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Reeves, Marjorie. The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachism. 2d ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993.
  602. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this book, which persuasively traces the influence of the thought of Joachim for five centuries, and overflows with references to other apocalyptic texts.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Reeves, Marjorie, and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich. The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. A well-grounded study of the figurae (diagrams) of Joachim, which serve as the conceptual framework for his apocalyptic historiography.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Major Eschatological Motifs
  610.  
  611. One of the features that distinguish medieval apocalypticism from forms of the apocalyptic worldview in other eras is a shared set of eschatological motifs that either developed or reached their full-blown form after the 4th century. These include the figure of the Last Roman Emperor, the signs (or tokens) of doomsday, the anticipation for the imminent arrival of the Antichrist (Armilus in Judaism, the al-Masīh ad-Dajjāl in Islam) and the two witnesses Enoch and Elijah, and the complex of expectations involving Gog and Magog and the great gates of the north, which were constructed by Alexander the Great to hold back the end-time hordes until the appointed hour. Many of the volumes that are listed in the sections above also contain papers on these motifs.
  612.  
  613. The Antichrist
  614.  
  615. The Antichrist is ubiquitous in medieval apocalyptic speculation. Particular attention is devoted to the physiology of the figure and its identification with a historical person, from the Emperor Nero rediuiuus to Martin Luther, depending on the apocalypticist and his time and place. Although its conceptual antecedents are located in early Jewish literature, the Antichrist attained its full-blown form only in the early medieval centuries. McGinn 1993 remains the best single volume on the subject. Rusconi 1998 expertly appraises the field. Hughes 2005 examines the early medieval exegesis of a critical biblical passage. Bousset 1895, Rauh 1973, and Emmerson 1981 should still be consulted. McGinn 1988 investigates the widespread interest in the Antichrist’s physical appearance. Brandes and Schmieder 2010 and Delgado and Leppin 2011 are now essential.
  616.  
  617. Bousset, Wilhelm. Der Antichrist in der Überlieferung des Judentums, des Neuen Testaments und der Alten Kirche: Ein Beitrag zur Auslegung der Apokalypse. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1895. Translated by A. H. Keane, introduction by David Frankfurter. American Academy of Religion Texts and Translations Series 24. Atlanta: Scholars, 1999.
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. The classic study of the Antichrist legend, conducted in the Religionsgeschichte mode. Though outmoded in its methodology and outpaced by a century of manuscript discoveries, its utility as a sourcebook of common themes and motifs of the post-classical apocalyptic literature remains virtually unparalleled.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Brandes, Wolfram, and Felicitas Schmieder, eds. Antichrist: Konstruktionen von Feindbildern. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010.
  622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. An excellent new volume of fourteen essays; topics include the late-antique contexts (M. Rizzi), Armilos (L. Greisiger), Niffarī (A. Akasoy), the First Crusade (K. Skottki), Sufism (H. Möhring), Saladin (D. Jäckel), Nikolaos of Otranto (L. Hoffmann), late medieval Judaism (M. Oberweis), Bohemia (P. Cermanová), medieval drama (K. Ridder + U. Barton), Jewish messianism (R. Voss), and Theodorus Graminaeus (R.-P. Fuchs).
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Delgado, Mariano, and Volker Leppin, eds. Der Antichrist: Historische und systematische Zugänge. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 2011.
  626. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. This is now the standard study. Twenty-nine contributions, divided into six sections. Together they provide the most chronologically and thematically comprehensive coverage of the subject.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Emmerson, Richard K. Antichrist in the Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Apocalypticism, Art, and Literature. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981.
  630. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. A solid, well-grounded survey arguing that there was a core sense of the figure of the Antichrist that underwrote expressions in both Roman Catholic and Protestant circles.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Hughes, Kevin L. Constructing Antichrist: Paul, Biblical Commentary, and the Development of Doctrine in the Early Middle Ages. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005.
  634. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  635. Focused investigation of the exegetical history of the “Son of Perdition” of 2 Thessalonians from late Antiquity to Peter Lombard, and particularly in the early medieval commentaries.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. McGinn, Bernard M. “Portraying Antichrist in the Middle Ages.” In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Edited by Werner Verbeke, 1–48. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  638. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. Presents a thorough investigation of the fascinating topic of the physiognomy and imagery of the Antichrist figure in the medieval apocalyptic tradition. Also an important study of an apocalyptic theme in art (see the section Medieval Apocalyptic Art and Imagery).
  640. Find this resource:
  641. McGinn, Bernard. Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. Written for a non-specialist audience, this is the best book on the subject and a reference for students and scholars alike.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Rauh, Horst Dieter. Das Bild des Antichrist im Mittelalter: Von Tyconius zum deutschen Symbolismus. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters n.F. 9. Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1973.
  646. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  647. Though flawed in its comprehension of the historical antecedents of the Antichrist figure, this book contains valuable material on the 12th-century German Symbolists.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Rusconi, Roberto. “Antichrist and Antichrists.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 287–325). New York: Continuum, 1998.
  650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. A historical survey of the figure, from the Augustine to the Protestant Reformation, with attention to its uses in church reform, end-time speculation, and devotional settings, and accompanied by a good bibliography.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Other Eschatological Expectations
  654.  
  655. Emmerson 1998 surveys the typical eschatological expectations in medieval apocalyptic literature. Alexander 1971, Alexander 1978, Möhring 2000, and Leadbetter 2006 discuss the motif of the Last Roman Emperor. Anderson 1932 and Gow 1995 cover Gog and Magog and associated motifs. Lerner 1998 addresses millennialism, while Heist 1952 investigates the signs of doomsday in the Latin and vernacular sources.
  656.  
  657. Alexander, Paul J. “Byzantium and the Migration of Literary Works and Motifs: The Legend of the Last Roman Emperor.” Medievalia et humanistica n.s. 41 (1971): 47–68.
  658. DOI: 10.2307/750860Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  659. An engaging survey of the origin and literary transmission of the eschatological figure of the Last Roman Emperor, from Pseudo-Methodius to western Europe, prefaced by a history of the early scholarly investigation.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Alexander, Paul J. “The Medieval Legend of the Last Roman Emperor and Its Messianic Origin.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Institutes 41 (1978): 1–15.
  662. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. An investigation of the figure of the Last Roman Emperor in the Syriac original of the Revelation of Pseudo-Methodius, with special attention to its antecedents in the messianic traditions of early Judaism.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Anderson, Andrew Runni. Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations. Medieval Academy of America Publication 12. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1932.
  666. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  667. An older yet learned and still-valuable monograph on the topic, replete with many of the relevant Greek and Latin passages, many in translation.
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Emmerson, Richard K. “Apocalyptic Themes and Imagery in Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 402–441. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  670. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  671. A brisk survey of some of the major elements of apocalyptic literature of western Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and of certain genres, including medieval drama, with a helpful bibliography. The author’s point is to demonstrate the extent to which apocalypticism thoroughly permeated these centuries.
  672. Find this resource:
  673. Gow, Andrew Colin. Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 55. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
  674. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675. A monograph on the legend of the Jews as the eschatological henchmen of the Antichrist in late medieval apocalyptic speculation, principally in German-speaking lands, tied into the motifs of Gog and Magog and the enclosed nations.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Heist, W. W. The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday. East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1952.
  678. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  679. This is still the finest study of the textual tradition and literary history of the Fifteen Signs in its Latin and vernacular versions, although more recent research has added significantly to our knowledge of these versions, and challenged several of Heist’s conclusions, including the presumption of an Irish origin of the text.
  680. Find this resource:
  681. Leadbetter, Bill. “A Byzantine Narrative of the Future and the Antecedents of the Last World Emperor.” In Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott. Edited by John Burke, et al., 368–382. Australian Association for Byzantine Studies/Byzantina Australiensia 16. Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2006.
  682. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  683. Contra Alexander 1978, Leadbetter argues the origins of the figure of the Last Roman Emperor and not to be located in ancient Judaism, but in late antique Christianity.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Lerner, Robert. “Millenialism.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 326–360. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  687. A crisp overview of the subject, from the biblical and patristic background through the millenarian agendas of resistance movements of the late Middle Ages, with a bibliography. It is a learned introduction by a scholar who has read the primary sources spanning virtually the full range of the apocalyptic imagination in the medieval west.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Möhring, Hannes. Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit. Entstehung, Wandel und Wirkung einer tausendjährigen Weissagung. Mittelalter-Forschungen 3. Stuttgart: Jan Thorbecke, 2000.
  690. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521811064Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  691. This volume is less a critical investigation of the theme than a truly exhaustive reference work (and a highly useful checklist) that covers the sources in which the Last Emperor plays a role or is otherwise mentioned.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. The Final Judgment, Hell, and Heaven
  694.  
  695. The expectation for the post-mortem judgment of individuals is central to the apocalyptic worldview. Visions of heaven and hell (as places of eschatological reward and punishment) are part of the corpus of ancient apocalyptic literature, but both motifs developed greatly during late Antique Christianity, when ascent and descent apocalypses were prevalent and prominent. Angelologies and demonologies also tended toward greater complexity. McGinn 1998 and Bernstein 2009 provide broad surveys. Viola 1988 and Bynum 1995 are topical studies. See also the sources cited in the sections on Otherworldly Journeys, Medieval Apocalyptic Literature and Drama, and Medieval Apocalyptic Art and Imagery.
  696.  
  697. Bernstein, Alan E. “Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, 1100–1500.” In Christianity in Western Europe, c. 1100–c. 1500. Vol. 4 of The Cambridge History of Christianity. Edited by Miri Rubin and Walter Simons, 200–216. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  698. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  699. A good, current panorama of the subject.
  700. Find this resource:
  701. Bynum, Caroline Walker. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
  702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703. Both a survey and a close engagement with the texts, this study shows how the body remained central to the medieval Christian idea of the self, and demonstrates that a concern for the post-mortem continuity of the physical body showed remarkable persistence across the centuries.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. McGinn, Bernard M. “The Last Judgment in Christian Tradition.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 361–401. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  706. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  707. An overview of the expectation for the Final Judgment from its biblical roots through its development in late antiquity, with special attention to its central role in medieval Christian thought and life in the West.
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Viola, Coloman. “Jugements de Dieu et jugement dernier: Saint Augustin et la scolastique naissante (fin XIe- milieu XIIIe siècles.” In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Edited by Werner Verbeke, et al., 242–298. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  710. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  711. Discusses the vocabulary of “judgment” and the effect of Augustine’s views on the final judgment during the era of the great theological synthesizers, including Abelard, Hugo de Saint-Victor, Jean de la Rochelle, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Otherworldly Journeys
  714.  
  715. There are two main types of apocalypses: “historical” and “otherworldly” (see Collins 1998, in the section Apocalypticism, Millennialism, and Messianism), a taxonomy that can be extended to apocalyptic literature as a whole. Historical apocalyptic literature such as the biblical book of Daniel, the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius, and the writings of Joachim of Fiore focus on the meaning of history and often contain an ex euentu review of past events. Medieval apocalyptic writings are almost always of the historical type, as are all the classic motifs of the age (see the section Major Eschatological Motifs). By contrast, otherworldly apocalyptic literature such as 2 Enoch and the Visio Pauli devote comparatively more attention to visionary descriptions of journeys to heaven, hell, or terrestrial places beyond everyday experience, even though a basic eschatological orientation is always present. Not every otherworldly vision is apocalyptic (e.g., the voyage of St. Brendan), but many are. The composition of otherworldly journeys in the form of ascent or descent apocalypses, which typified Christian apocalyptic speculation in late antiquity, almost completely vanished during the early Middle Ages. However, the 12th and 13th centuries witnessed a resurgence of the form and the creation of a remarkable range of Christian visions of the other world, including the Vision of Tundale (Visio Tnugdali) and the Vision of Thurkill (Visio Thurkilli).
  716.  
  717. Primary Sources and Resources
  718.  
  719. The immense number of late medieval otherworldly visions—and the equally vast number of their editions, translations, commentaries, and studies—preclude the inclusion in this section of anything but anthologies and tools for study. Dinzelbacher 1989 and Foster 2004 are first-class resources. Fros 1988 is a convenient checklist, as is Gardiner 1989 in its own way. Petroff 1986 and Easting 1997 are more limited in their scope but excellent. To reiterate—not all visions (or dream-visions) are eschatological in their outlook, nor is every visionary text necessarily apocalyptic in its worldview—the categories overlap, but they are not identical.
  720.  
  721. Dinzelbacher, Peter. Mittelalterliche Visionsliteratur. Eine Anthologie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989.
  722. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  723. This is the standard anthology of Latin texts, with facing German translations.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Easting, Robert. Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English. III: Visions of the Other World in Middle English. Cambridge, MA: D. S. Brewer, 1997.
  726. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  727. This useful bibliography covers the Visio Pauli, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, the Vision of Tundale, a “Revelation of Purgatory,” the Revelation of the Monk of Eynsham (Visio monachi de Eynsham), the Vision of Fursey, and the Vision of Edmund Leversedge.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Foster, Edward E. Three Purgatory Poems: The Gast of Gy, Sir Oswain, The Vision of Tundale. Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2004.
  730. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  731. Presents the texts of three purgatory poems, with introduction, notes, and glossary. It is both an excellent student resource and useful for specialist consultation.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Fros, Henricus. “Visionum medii aevi latini repertorium.” In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Edited by Werner Verbeke, et al., 481–498. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  734. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  735. Checklist of 112 medieval visionary texts in Latin, each accompanied by brief bibliography, correlated to BHL, Dinzelbacher 1989 and other surveys.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. Gardiner, Eileen. Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante. New York: Italica, 1989.
  738. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  739. A student-level collection of translations of twelve visions, with minimal notes, including the Apocalypse of Peter, Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli), St. Brendan’s Voyage, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, and the Visions of Furseus, Drythelm, Wetti, Charles the Fat, Tundale, the Monk of Evesham, and Thurkill. Note the author’s website Hell Online contains good bibliographies.
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda, ed. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
  742. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  743. A wide-ranging anthology of translations, from St. Perpetua and St. Macrina to Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg and Mary of Nijmegen. Most of its texts are not apocalyptic per se, yet still are part of the larger class of visionary literature that otherworldly journeys overlapped thematically and conceptually, if not eschatologically.
  744. Find this resource:
  745. Secondary Studies
  746.  
  747. Dinzelbacher 1981 remains a bedrock volume. Haas 1998 provides survey coverage of the topic. Read Patch 1950, Owen 1970, Benz 1969, Smith 1986 in concert for a good, overall grasp of the field. The essays in Dinzelbacher and Bauer 1985 and McFadden 1999 also cover the subject well. Newman 2005 explores the phenomenon of otherworldly journeys from a novel direction.
  748.  
  749. Benz, Ernst. Die Vision. Erfahrungsformen und Bilderwelt. Stuttgart: Klett, 1969.
  750. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  751. Although nearly fifty years old, this remains an essential study of the phenomenon of revelatory visions in Western medieval literature.
  752. Find this resource:
  753. Dinzelbacher, Peter. Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter. Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 23. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1981.
  754. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  755. A valuable study of the topic, particularly for its introductory material, which includes definitions and several rosters of texts. It makes the useful heuristic distinction between visions and apparitions, and also distinguishes between the “ascent/descent” visions of the 6th to 12th centuries and the more “mystical” visions of the 12th century onward.
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Dinzelbacher, Peter, and Dieter R. Bauer, ed. Frauenmystik im Mittelalter. Ostfildern bei Stuttgart: Schwabenverlag, 1985.
  758. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  759. This collection presents eighteen entries on the subject, and is notable for its concentration on individual mystics (Hildegard of Bingen, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena) and their visionary experiences.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. Haas, Alois M. “Otherworld Journeys in the Middle Ages.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 442–466. Translated by Patricia Z. Beckman. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  762. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  763. Provides a historical survey of the topic, with a useful bibliography.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. McFadden, Brian, ed. Visions of the Other World in Medieval Literature. Special issue: Religion and Literature 31.1 (1999).
  766. DOI: 10.1017/S0038713400006643Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  767. Issue contains an introduction by the editor, plus articles on the Anglo-Saxons and the 1st millennium (E. Duncan), apocalyptic history (J. W. Earl), Dante’s Commedia (one paper by C. Kleinhenz, another by T. Kenney), holy trinity and holy family (B. Newman), Piers Plowman (D. F. Pigg), and soul and self (D. Williams).
  768. Find this resource:
  769. Newman, Barbara. “What Did It Mean To Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture.” Speculum 80 (2005): 1–43.
  770. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  771. With special attention to female visionaries of the period, this article examines the contemporary debates about the nature of religious experience, the role of the imagination, and the degree of lay involvement in what were often understood to be elite spiritual practices and whose clerics most frequently adjudicated the authenticity of visions.
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Owen, D. D. R. The Vision of Hell: Infernal Journeys in Medieval French Literature. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic, 1970.
  774. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674183841Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  775. An overview of medieval French accounts of Hell and its visitors, in both the vernacular treatments of older works and original creations (especially romances and other forms of secular literature). It also examines principal sources of the trope (Scripture, classical mythology, and Celtic tradition and mythology), and traces it through earlier examples such as the Visio Pauli.
  776. Find this resource:
  777. Patch, Howard Rollin. The Other World According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.
  778. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  779. An older study, beginning with a history of visionary journeys (classical and oriental mythology, Celtic and Germanic mythologies), and proceeding to a systematic discussion of the texts, divided by chapter into “Literature of the Visions,” “Journeys to Paradise,” “Allegory,” and “Romances.”
  780. Find this resource:
  781. Smith, Forrest S. Secular and Sacred Visionaries in the Late Middle Ages. New York: Garland, 1986.
  782. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  783. A discussion of the topic in the literature in the 12th and 13th centuries, with special reference to Raoul de Houdenc, Rutebeuf, the Cour de Paradis, Brunetto Latini, and Dante.
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Medieval Apocalyptic Literature and Drama
  786.  
  787. The medieval apocalyptic imagination also extended to the poetic, prosaic, and dramatic literature of the age. Many of the edited volumes inventoried and annotated in the sections above also include important essays on apocalyptic literature and drama.
  788.  
  789. Poetry and Prose
  790.  
  791. Langland’s Piers Plowman, Dante’s Commedia, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are among the best known of the variety of literary works whose composition was integrally informed by the apocalyptic worldview during the High and Late Middle Ages. The essays in Emmerson and Herzman 1992 and in Emmerson and McGinn 1992 are particularly valuable. Bloomfield 1962 and Manselli 1976 are older studies that retain much value. Costa 1981 is dense and idiosyncratic; it will reward careful reading, even if one does not agree with its basic premise. Kerby-Fulton 1990 and Emmerson 1993 are essential for Piers Plowman, Pinchard and Trottmann 2001 for Dante.
  792.  
  793. Bloomfield, Morton. W. Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962.
  794. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  795. Although somewhat dated in its views, especially on Joachimism, this study remains important as the first to take seriously the apocalyptic nature of the poem.
  796. Find this resource:
  797. Costa, Dennis. Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais. Stanford French and Italian Studies 21. Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1981.
  798. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  799. An important study examining the use of irenic thought and elements in apocalyptic dress in some key texts, especially Dante’s Commedia. Somewhat apologetic in its view regarding this dimension of apocalyptic literature, but full of insight nonetheless.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. Emmerson, Richard K. “‘Or Yernen to Rede Redels?’ Piers Plowman and Prophecy.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 7 (1993): 27–76.
  802. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  803. An extensive critique of scholarship studying Langland’s use of apocalyptic, prophetic, and millenarian themes, with careful attention to definitions.
  804. Find this resource:
  805. Emmerson, Richard K., and Ronald B. Herzman. The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
  806. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  807. Includes essays on “The Roman de Rose: Jean de Meun’s Apocalyptic Age of Hypocrisy,” “The Commedia: Apocalypse, Church, and Dante’s Conversion,” and “The Canterbury Tales; Apocalypticism and Chaucer’s Pilgrimage.”
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Emmerson, Richard K., and Bernard McGinn, eds. The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
  810. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511552960Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  811. The third part of this volume contains essays by Penn Szittya on “Domesday Bokes: the Apocalypse in Mediaeval Literary Culture” (pp. 374–397) and Ronald B. Herzman on “Dante and the Apocalypse” (pp. 398–413).
  812. Find this resource:
  813. Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  814. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  815. Contends that the visions of Hildegard of Bingen and Piers Plowman are representative of “reformist apocalypticism,” which instead of looking pessimistically toward an incipient, otherworldly day of doom, is concerned rather with clerical, “this-worldly” reform.
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Manselli, Raoul. “A proposito del cristianesimo di Dante: Gioacchino da Fiore, gioachimismo, spiritualismo francescano.” In Letteratura e critica: Studi in onore di Natalino Sapegno. Vol. 3. Edited by Walter Binni, et al., 163–192. Rome: Bulzoni, 1976.
  818. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  819. A short yet foundational study of apocalyptic themes in the writings of Dante Alighieri.
  820. Find this resource:
  821. Pinchard, Bruno, and Christian Trottmann, eds. Pour Dante. Dante et l’Apocalypse. Lectures humanistes de dante. Le savoir de Mantice 7. Paris: Honoré Champion/CESR, 2001.
  822. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  823. The first section of this volume contains seven essays on the theme: two essays on De Monarchia (by J. Quillet and by R. Lambartini), “Dante et les joachimismes” (A. Calvet), “Gli spirituali francescani e l’‘Apocalisse’ di Dante” (N. Mineo), “La première vision de la Vita Nuova” (Ch. Libaude), “Concept et image dutemps dans la Divine Comédie” (J. Hein), and “Communion des saints et jugement dernier des les chants XIX–XX du Paradis” (Ch. Trottmann).
  824. Find this resource:
  825. Drama
  826.  
  827. Mystery plays (cycle and non-cycle) were important expressions of the apocalyptic impulse in England, France, and other parts of Europe in the late Middle Ages. The literature on medieval drama is quite extensive. The studies referenced below have been selected as gateways to further research, with the subjects of apocalypticism and messianism in view. Woolf 1972 and Aichele 1977 are fine introductions to the topic. Leigh 1970 is more of a comparative study. Evitt 2003, Hodapp 2004, and the essays in Bevington 1985 are geared for more advanced investigation.
  828.  
  829. Aichele, Klaus. Das Antichristdrama des Mittelalters, der Reformation und Gegenreformation. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
  830. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  831. Sweeping analysis of the medieval Antichrist plays. Although no one play is covered in any great depth, the book is an indispensable resource for any scholar first approaching Antichrist drama.
  832. Find this resource:
  833. Bevington, David M. Homo, memento finis: The Iconography of Just Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama. Early Drama, Art and Music Monograph 6. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1985.
  834. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  835. Contains essays on the Last Judgment (Sheingorn), judgment in 12th-century art and drama (Herzman), Enoch and Elias, Antichrist and the Chester Cycle (R. K. Emmerson), the Corpus Christi cycles and late Gothic art (Sheingorn and D. M. Bevington), just judgment in The Castle of Perseverance (Bevington), and Protestant transformation of images of judgment (Bevington).
  836. Find this resource:
  837. Emmerson, Richard. “Antichrist on Stage and Page.” In Spectacle and Public Performance in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Edited by Robert E. Stillman, 1–31. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 113. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
  838. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161625.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  839. Focuses on the most important vernacular Antichrist play, the 14th-century Jour de jugement (Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale 579); observes how the text and miniatures narrate the episodes of the life of the Antichrist.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Evitt, Regula Meyer. “Eschatology, Millenarian Apocalypticism, and the Liturgical Anti-Judaism of the Medieval Prophet Plays.” In The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050. Edited by Richard Landes, et al., 205–229. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  842. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  843. Examines Augustine’s and Quodvultdeus’s constructions of Jews, eschatology, and mysteriology in Amalarius of Metz and the Saint-Martial de Limoges liturgists, and the Limoges Ordo prophetarum.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Hodapp, William F. “Performing Prophecy: The Advents of Christ in Medieval Drama.” In Prophet Margins: The Medieval Vatic Impulse and Social Stability. Edited by Edward L. Risden, et al., 101–122. Studies in the Humanities 67. New York: Peter Lang, 2004.
  846. DOI: 10.1086/390168Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  847. Contends that through performance prophecy of the nativity and the eschaton, the Ordo prophetarum, the Ludus de Antichristo, and other mystery dramas permitted medieval communities to engage the prophetic tradition while simultaneously affirming their social stability.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Leigh, David J. “The Doomsday Mystery Play: An Eschatological Morality.” Modern Philology 67 (1970): 211–223.
  850. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  851. An attempt to outline five features that are distinctive to English Doomsday plays of the mystery cycles, examined with reference to the sources and presumptions of the early morality plays.
  852. Find this resource:
  853. Woolf, Rosemary. “Triumphal and Eschatological Plays.” In The English Mystery Plays. By Rosemary Woolf, 271–299. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972.
  854. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  855. An older, balanced overview of the cycle and non-cycle plays: The Harrowing of Hell, The Resurrection and Resurrection Appearances, The Ascension, The Coming of the Holy Ghost, The Death and Assumption of the Virgin, The Antichrist, and The Last Judgment.
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Medieval Apocalyptic Art and Imagery
  858.  
  859. The apocalyptic worldview is expressed not only in apocalyptic literature, but also in non-literary vehicles. This truism is sometimes overlooked by historians, philologists, and scholars of religions, who tend to focus on history, the history of ideas, and textual and literary criticism. In the Middle Ages, non-literary forms of apocalyptic expression included manuscript illumination, block-book illustration, painting, sculpture and other plastic arts, architectural stonework, mosaics, even stained-glass. Of course many such forms also contained literary elements (e.g., manuscript illumination; block-book illustrations of the coming of the Antichrist or the signs of doomsday; paintings and stained-glass windows of the Sibyls and their prophecies). The modern era continues the tradition of apocalyptic expression in other formats, including film/anime, manga/graphic narratives, popular music, role-playing video games, and above all the multi-media platform of the Internet, which has provided ever-increasing access to digitalized medieval manuscripts and other forms of medieval apocalyptic art.
  860.  
  861. General and Thematic Studies
  862.  
  863. Reference sections in good libraries typically contain a dozen or more surveys of Christian iconography; art historians generally begin with Schiller 1990–1991. Emmerson and McGinn 1992, Morgan 2004, and Hourihane 2010 contain papers on a wide range of topics. Christe 1996 concentrates specifically on the Last Judgment in Christian art, a theme on which Brenk 1966 is foundational. McGinn 1988 and Wright 1995 address the subject of the Antichrist in art.
  864.  
  865. Brenk, Beat. Tradition und Neuerung in der christlichen Kunst des ersten Jahrtausends: Studien zur Geschichte des Weltgerichtsbildes. Wiener byzantinische Studien 3. Vienna: Böhlau in Kommission, 1966.
  866. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  867. The essential study of the theme of the Last Judgment in Christian art during the late Antique and early medieval periods.
  868. Find this resource:
  869. Christe, Yves, ed. De l’art comme mystagogie: Iconographie du Jugement dernier et des fins dernières à l’époque gothique. Actes du Colloque de la Fondation Hardt tenu à Genève du 13 au 16 février 1994. Civilisation médiévale 3. Poitiers, France: Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale, 1996.
  870. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871. Edited volume of thirteen papers that deals with the theme of the Last Judgment primarily but not exclusively in sculpture.
  872. Find this resource:
  873. Emmerson, Richard K., and Bernard McGinn, eds. The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
  874. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  875. The second part of this volume contains essays on the Revelation of John in medieval art (P. Klein), early Christian monumental decoration (D. Kinney), the Apocalypse commentary of Beatus of Liébana (J. Williams), monumental art of the 11th through 13th centuries (Y. Christe), 13th-century English apocalypses (S. Lewis), and the later Middle Ages (M. Camille).
  876. Find this resource:
  877. Hourihane, Colum, ed. Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History. Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers 11. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.
  878. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  879. A first-class volume of papers on visions and liturgy (E. Palazzo), visions and commemoration (A. M. Yasin), picturing death in late antiquity (G. Frank), the Vision of the Forty Martyrs Oratory (G. Peers), St. Apollonaris (P. Jeffery), John in his Apocalypse (R. Emmerson), 13th-century English apocalypses (P. Klein), and sculpture and the religious imagination (J. E. Jung), among other things.
  880. Find this resource:
  881. McGinn, Bernard M. “Portraying Antichrist in the Middle Ages.” In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Edited by Werner Verbeke, et al., 1–48. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1.15. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988.
  882. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  883. A thorough investigation of the fascinating topic of the physiognomy and imagery of the Antichrist figure in the medieval apocalyptic tradition.
  884. Find this resource:
  885. Morgan, Nigel, ed. Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom. Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium. Harlaxton Medieval Studies 12. Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas, 2004.
  886. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  887. This edited volume includes papers on the Westminster Abbey sanctuary pavement (Richard Foster), English brasses and incised slabs (Nicholas Rogers), the Wells Cathedral west front (Pamela Tudor-Craig); the Angers tapestries (Margaret Manion), the Angevin Apocalypse panels in Stuttgart (Rosemary Muir Wright), and the Pricke of Conscience window in All Saints’ Church, North Street, York (Sue Powell).
  888. Find this resource:
  889. Schiller, Gertrud. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst. 5.1–2: Die Apokalypse des Johannes. Gütersloh, Germany: Mohn, 1990–1991.
  890. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  891. The basic research tool on apocalyptic art in Christianity. The fifth volume, in two parts, covers the Revelation of John; but the first three volumes, which detail the life and ministry, passion and death, and the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus (all of which fundamentally oriented by the apocalyptic worldview) are also valuable.
  892. Find this resource:
  893. Wright, Rosemary Muir. Art and Antichrist in Medieval Europe. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895. Includes six essays, each of which represents a substantive contribution to scholarship: the Beatus tradition, illustrated encyclopedia of the 12th century, the “moralised Bibles,” the English illustrated Apocalypse, adventure narrative and pictured reality in later medieval cycles, and the Great Whore (Revelation 17–18) in illustrated Apocalypse cycles.
  896. Find this resource:
  897. Manuscript and Block-Book Illustration
  898.  
  899. Alexander 1999 is an introductory survey, while Emmerson and Lewis 1984 offers a three-part survey of manuscripts. Williams 1994–2003 and Seidel 1998 examine the illuminated Beatus commentaries, Klein 1983 focuses on the Douce Apocalypse. Volan 2005 is excellent for those interested in Byzantine apocalyptic art. The reproduction and essays in Boveland, et al. 1979 address two important apocalyptic texts and the medium of the late medieval block-book.
  900.  
  901. Alexander, Jonathan. “The Last Things: Representing the Unrepresentable. The Medieval Tradition.” In The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come. Edited by Frances Carey, 43–98. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
  902. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  903. A brisk survey of the topic, followed by twenty-six images of manuscript folia, from the Tiberius Psalter of the mid-11th century (London, BL Cotton Tiberius C VI) to an early-16th-century prayer-book (Oxford, Keble College 35), each accompanied by a substantive commentary.
  904. Find this resource:
  905. Boveland, Karin, Christoph Peter Burger, and Ruth Steffen. Der Antichrist: Faksimile der ersten typographischen Ausgabe, Inkunabel der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main Inc. fol. 116 and Der Antichrist und die Fünfzehn Zeichen vor dem Jüngsten Gericht: Kommentarband zum Faksimile der ersten typographischen Ausgabe eines unbekannten Strassburger Druckers, um 1480. 2 vols. Hamburg, Germany: Friedrich Wittig, 1979.
  906. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  907. One volume reproduces the first typographic version of these texts, printed in Strasbourg in 1480, from the copy held in the Stadt- und Universitätsbiblithek, Frankfurt-am-Main. The second volume includes translations and valuable essays by the editors, plus illustrations from manuscript copies and other early printed versions of the Antichrist and the Fifteen Signs of Doom.
  908. Find this resource:
  909. Emmerson, Richard K., and Suzanne Lewis. “Census and Bibliography of Medieval Manuscripts Containing Apocalypse Illustrations, ca. 800–1500.” Traditio 40 (1984): 337–379.
  910. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  911. Essential research tool for 174 illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts, with comprehensive bibliographies of the pre-1980 scholarship. This study extends over three issues, including also 41 (1985): 367–409, and 42 (1986): 443–472.
  912. Find this resource:
  913. Klein, Peter K. Endzeiterwartung und Ritterideologie: Die englischen Bilderapokalypsen der Fruhgotik und MS Douce 180. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1983.
  914. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  915. Focusing on the Douce Apocalypse (Oxford, Bodleian MS Douce 180), Klein makes a convincing case for the romance and chivalric features of illustrated Apocalypses in general.
  916. Find this resource:
  917. Seidel, Linda. “Apocalypse and Apocalypticism in Western Medieval Art.” In Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. Vol. 2 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Edited by Bernard M. McGinn, 467–506. New York: Continuum, 1998.
  918. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  919. Focuses on the Beatus Apocalypse Commentary (see Williams 1994–2003), the friezes of the church at Aulnay and the abbey church at Moissac, and the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck.
  920. Find this resource:
  921. Volan, Angela M. “Last Judgments and Last Emperors. Illustrating Apocalyptic History in Late- and Post-Byzantine Art.” 2 vols. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2005.
  922. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  923. A superb study, in four chapters: “Apocalyptic Histories and the Byzantine Tradition of Historical Chronicling,” “The Politics of Apocalyptic Prophecy,” “Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22,” and “Rewriting Byzantine History in the Post-Byzantine Seicento.” With over 150 pages of images.
  924. Find this resource:
  925. Williams, John. The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse. 5 vols. London: Harvey Miller, 1994–2003.
  926. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  927. This comprehensive study of the illuminated manuscript copies of Beatus of Liébana’s Apocalypse Commentary spans five volumes: (1) “Introduction”; (2) “The Ninth and Tenth Centuries”; (3) “The Tenth and Eleventh Centuries”; (4) “The Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries”; and (5) “The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.”
  928. Find this resource:
  929. Apocalypticism, Alchemy, Astrology, and Esotericism in the Late Middle Ages
  930.  
  931. Scholarly attention in several disciplines has (re)turned to the subjects of esotericism, astrology, alchemy, hermetic thought, and other “scientific” endeavours of pre-modern cultures. In the field of medieval apocalypticism, this attention has translated into a focus on the late medieval investigation of nature and the heavens, as well as alchemical exploration, and their correlation to apocalyptic eschatology. Lerner and Morerod-Fattebert 1994 and Vauchez, et al. 2005 offer two key edited texts of John of Rupescissa, with DeVun 2009 offering a critical study of the man. Talkenberger 1990, Smoller 1994, Carey 2003, Mentgen 2005, and Smoller 2007 address different aspects of astrology and apocalypticism.
  932.  
  933. Carey, Hillary M. “Astrology and Antichrist in the Later Middle Ages.” In Time and Eternity: The Medieval Discourse. Edited by Gerhard Jaritz and Gerson Moreno-Riaño, 515–535. International Medieval Research 9. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003.
  934. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  935. An important study of astrology and especially “conjunctionism” (the astrological theory that admits the influence of the period conjunctions of the major planets on human history) as a tool for eschatological prediction by Roger Bacon and others with scientific training.
  936. Find this resource:
  937. DeVun, Leah. Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late Middle Ages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
  938. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  939. The complex interplay among apocalyptic speculation, esoteric knowledge, and scientific investigation during the late medieval era remains to be explored fully. This book is a fine start, employing the figure of John of Rupescissa as an entry point into the subject. See also Carey 2003.
  940. Find this resource:
  941. Lerner, Robert E., and Christine Morerod-Fattebert. Johannes de Rupescissa, Liber secretorum eventuum. Édition critique, traduction et introduction historique. Spicilegium Friburgense 36. Fribourg, Switzerland: Éditions universitaires, 1994.
  942. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  943. Includes a historical introduction by Lerner, in English, with excellent sections on millennialism and John of Rupescissa’s defense of literal millennialism, and a critical edition and translation of the text by Morerod-Fattebert, in French.
  944. Find this resource:
  945. Mentgen, Gerd. Astrologie und Öffentlichkeit im Mittelalter. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 2005.
  946. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  947. The first part of this book investigates the Toledo Letter and its role in the 1524 crisis. The second part discusses court astrologers from the 12th to 16th centuries, and is a valuable source in this regard.
  948. Find this resource:
  949. Smoller, Laura. History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly, 1350–1420. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
  950. DOI: 10.1017/S0269889707001378Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  951. A study of Pierre d’Ailly’s astrological and apocalyptic writings, the relationship among astrology, science, and theology in the late Middle Ages, and the appeal of astrology as a way to interpret biblical prophecy and historical events.
  952. Find this resource:
  953. Smoller, Laura Ackerman. “Astrology and the Sibyls: John of Legnano’s De adventu Christi and the Natural Theology of the Later Middle Ages.” Science in Context 20 (2007): 423–450.
  954. DOI: 10.1515/9783110962000Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  955. A discussion of the writings of 14th-century Bolognese jurist John of Legnano as an illustration of the intersection of astrological, prophetic, and apocalyptic material in late medieval natural theology, and a model of natural vaticination that demonstrated the capacity of reason to arrive at religious truths.
  956. Find this resource:
  957. Talkenberger, Heike. Sintflut: Prophetie und Zeitgeschichte in Texten und Holzschnitten astrologischer Flugschriften 1488–1528. Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer, 1990.
  958. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  959. A superb investigation of the origin and contexts to the apocalyptic prediction of a great flood, based on the planetary conjunction expected in 1524.
  960. Find this resource:
  961. Vauchez, André, Clémence Thévenaz Modestin, and Christine Morerod-Fattebert. Jean de Roquetaillade, Liber ostensor quod adesse festinat tempora. Rome: École française de Rome, 2005.
  962. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  963. A critical edition of this long, important work of Jean de Roquetaillade (John of Rupescissa) that contains a detailed introduction and a superb section on his prophetic sources.
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement
Public Pastes
Advertisement
We use cookies for various purposes including analytics. By continuing to use Pastebin, you agree to our use of cookies as described in the Cookies Policy.  OK, I Understand
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!