Expecting the End of the World in Medieval Europe

An Interdisciplinary Study

Israel Sanmartín, Francisco Peña

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781040115916
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Expecting the End of the World in Medieval Europe: An Interdisciplinary Study examines the phenomenon of medieval eschatology from a global perspective, both geographically and intellectually. The collected contributions analyze texts, authors, social movements, and cultural representations covering a wide period, from the 6th to the 16th century, in geographically liminal spaces where Catholic, Byzantine, Islamic, and Jewish cultures converged.

The book is organized in eleven chapters which reflect and explore the following arguments: the study of specific eschatological episodes in medieval Europe and their interpretations; the analysis of apocalyptic visionaries, apocalyptic authors, and their individual contributions; the social and political implications of eschatology in medieval society; the study of medieval apocalyptic literature from a rhetorical, narratological, and historiographical perspective; the history of the transmission of apocalyptic literature and its transformation over time; and a comparative examination of apocalypticism between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era.

This study provides a lens through which academics, specialists, and interested researchers can observe and reflect on this entire eschatological universe, dwelling both on well-known texts, authors, and events, and on others which are much less popular. In gathering different paradigms, tools, and theoretical frameworks, the book exposes readers to the complex reality of medieval anxiety regarding the end of the world.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Interpreting Daniel’s Prophecy and Other Reckonings in Medieval Iberia: Edition and Commentary of a Short Collection
• 2 Christian Time-Reckoning, the Fall of Rome, and the Coming of the Carolingian Epoch: Disorder in the Skies, saltus lunae, and the End of Times
• 3 The End of the World Happens Within: The Mystical Eschatology of the Syriac Book of Secrets (6th century)
• 4 The First Treatise on Christian Eschatology: The Prognosticon of Julian of Toledo
• 5 Medieval Eschatology and Invading Peoples in Eastern Slavic and Astur-Leonese Spheres
• 6 The Apocalyptic Drift of the Story of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the General e Grand Estoria
• 7 Eschatology as a Political Warning in the Libro de Gracián during the Reign of John II of Castile (1405–1454)
• 8 A Contextual Proposal for the Study of the Debate on the Castilian Rocaçisas
• 9 Eschatological Memories of the Reign of the Catholic Monarchs in Late Sixteenth-Century Histories of Spain
• 10 The Antichrist Critique in Jan Hus’s Letter to Christian of Prachatice from 1413 and its Inspiration from John Wyclif
• 11 Rebels and the Antichrist: The Circulation of Prophecies during the Revolt of the Comuneros
• Index