A Companion to Popular Apocalypticism in the High and Late Middle Ages

Description

In this volume, we examine apocalypticism and millenarianism in the high and late medieval era in Europe as it was interpreted, expressed, and disseminated in popular culture by a variety of lay individuals, groups, and religious sects. The many crises of the high and late Middle Ages in Europe saw a resurgence of interest in apocalypticism and millenarianism. Pious Christians who feared the coming judgement day but found the established Church lacking in an adequate response, sought out leadership and direction from thinkers who appealed to their lived experience. In this volume, we examine how this eschatology was interpreted, expressed, and disseminated in popular culture by a variety of lay religious movements and individuals such as the Order of Apostles, Bianchi, Guglielmites, Wycliffites, and Hussites among others. The authors here focus on how this creative response to apocalypticism reflected the changing social and political culture of medieval Europeans and is intended to illuminate the active exchange of popular and elite religious culture in the era. Front Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Contents Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction Chapter 1 The Apocalyptic Year Thousand: Demotic Religiosity and the Birth of Europe Chapter 2 From Acceptance to Annihilation: Poverty, Apocalypticism, and the Appeal of the Order of Apostles Chapter 3 A Partial Apocalypse? Eschatology and the Bianchi Devotions of 1399 Chapter 4 The Feminine Divine: Millenarian Interpretation by the Guglielmites Chapter 5 Apocalypticism in the Age of Wyclif Chapter 6 Antichrist in Prague Chapter 7 Apocalypticism in Bohemia after 1400: Violence and the Eschaton Chapter 8 Listening to John, Rewriting the Book: a Liturgical Reading of Constança de Rabasten’s Revelations Index Back Cover