Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (The Middle Ages Series)

Last Things

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No less than under Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours, Augustinian sensibilities were adapted, adopted and reshaped to meet new needs — and not silently, or hidden away in impenetrable intellectual tomes, but for a range of publics and situations. Fundamentally, the major developments in apocalyptic thought responded to the need to orientate personal eschatologies within time. Collins, Visigothic Spain — Oxford, ; C. Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from to London, History was salvation history.

At a practical level, envisaging the totality of history was only so useful as a tool of moral correction because it was meditative rather than exhortative, and many historians signalled their lessons rather than explaining them directly. One read not only the story but, as with Roman historiography, also the form and the anti-language. Judgement concerned everyone, regardless of the proximity of the end of the world, because everyone would die at some point and, one way or another, be catapulted towards that last day.

The fate of the individual of the soul had to be adequately theorised, particularly for anyone who would not witness the Last Times themselves, and so who needed to know how they itted into things at a universal level.

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Scholars have often treated the fate of the individual soul and the world-in-collective separately, and sometimes for good reasons. Nevertheless, in this chapter I want to process issues of eschatology and apocalypse alongside each other because they were related bodies of thought and the same people tended to develop both, notably Julian of Toledo d. Indeed, this multi-fronted pursuit to understand the End from both per- sonal and collective perspectives is arguably the most radical contribu- tion to apocalyptic thought in the period from the Gregorys and Bede.

Now, it may dampen things to note that the wealth of liturgical material pro- duced in the period contains little to no reference to the End Times, even where Revelation was used — unglossed! Henderson, Fighting for Rome: For an attempt to see early purgatorial thought detached from its later baggage, see I. Purgatory in Late Antiquity Oxford, , although possibly too much is placed on idiosyncratic Bede. Lowe, Henry Bradshaw Society, 58 London, , pp.

Columbanus and the ends of the earth 81 that millenarian and apocalyptic thought remained on the agenda. Columbanus and the ends of the earth As we left Gregory the Great in the last chapter, his work and worldview were being ampliied by the similar ideas of the Irishman St Columbanus d. He had been a teacher at Bangor in County Down before trav- elling to the Frankish kingdoms in and embarking on a cantankerous career as monastic founder, missionary and critic of kings. Christianity in Ireland was founded strongly upon eschatological traditions.

However ignorant I am, he has heard me, so that in these last days I can dare to undertake such a holy and wonderful work. In this way I can imitate some- what those whom the Lord foretold would announce his gospel in witness to all nations before the end of the world. This is what we see has been fulilled.

Bieler, Libri epistolarum sancti Patricii episcopi Dublin, , I. Bieler, Patrician Texts, p. In a letter to Pope Boniface IV —15 , he argued that although the Irish lived in the farthest parts of the world they were orthodox and, in Gregorian spirit, despite being in a world of stormy seas.

This is another good example of apocalyp- tic intensiication, turning the indeinite into something more pressing. What alarmed Columbanus was the prominence of heresy in Lombardy, both with Arianism — although he made some headway at the Lombard court — and the Three Chapters controversy, neither of which the pope seemed to have in hand. Pope Boniface could, perhaps, have pointed to his more immediate problems with fam- ine, plague and loods as an excuse for his inactivity.

Walker, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, 2 Dublin, , p. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Epistola, ed. On Columbanus and the Three Chapters, see P. Duchesne Paris, , p. The attribution to Columbanus is defended in D. Studies on the Latin Writings Woodbridge, , pp. It also therefore meant that the ideas of a popular apocalypse-preaching charismatic had been chan- nelled into a monastic setting rather than into excitable public devotion.

On Columbanian inluence on developing ideas of universal mission see W.

Eschatological renunciation was mainstream. One of the best known facets of Columbanian monasticism was the way it was supported enthusiastically by the Frankish nobility in the seventh century. Even here, secular leaders stood to the fore where they could. Lay enthusiasm for Columbanian monasticism paved the way for embracing other eschatologically minded wanderers. The best treatment of monastic immunities is B.

Lapidge 2 vols, Rome, , II. Brown, The Life of Fursey: The text is edited by Carozzi at pp. Columbanus and the ends of the earth 85 The irst was triggered by a near-death experience, with the highlight being a vision of demons defeated by angels. The description of the ires seen by Fursey was the section of the text which most impressed Bede. Carozzi, Le voyage, pp. The date is indicated at the end with a mark of almost legal authenticity: This was but one piece in an extended lesson about the communal responsibility for individual escha- tologies, with the living and dead bound together to work for individual souls.

Liber historiae Francorum, c. Sigibert, Epistolae Desiderii, II. Gerberding, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, — Manchester, , pp. If it were otherwise, the apocalypse would only affect the last people, whereas in theological terms it was a matter for everyone regardless of when they lived or died.

Nevertheless, the way in which time was conceptualised by Isidore in particular would have far-reaching effects. Stancati, Julian of Toledo: Prognosticum futuri saeculi New York, , p. For a survey of eschatological thought in Visigothic Spain see L. See also Fructuosus, Epistolae Braulii, no. On Isidore see J. Lindsay Oxford, [unpaginated]; Sententiae, I.

Important given the uniication of Spain, conversion of the Jews and the building of the new church in Toledo, while things were going less well in the East: Chronicle of , c. Gil, in Corpus scriptorum Muzarabicorum Madrid, , p. More problematic still, Isidore accidentally gave rise to a new way to think about apocalyptic time because he was the irst person to apply the six world ages as an organisational category within a universal his- tory.

The abstract structures of the work, however, encouraged readers to pay closer attention to the clock ticking down to the Year Countdowns, or summae annorum, became a common feature of Isidorian chronicles as they entered Irish computistics and Frankish his- toriography.

Isidore had a deep interest in structure, hence etymologies and investigations into temporality and nature — all of which appealed greatly to readers in Ireland who were already working through similar 53 The different extant endings give AMII Herakleios 5 , AMII Herakleios 16 and AM Herakleios One explanation for the Era date — that it is based on backprojecting Easter tables — is given by O.

The scheme is more consistently applied in the Chronica minora: It was, therefore, a natural exten- sion of counting the years up to the present to then count up to the next big millennial marker, the Year Of course, as far as we can tell from the calculations, people may have hoped that time continued after that. Regardless, they made the calculation. Those who did so had to keep in mind that the date was arbitrary. In Bishop Julian of Toledo launched an attack on Jews who had made a two-part argument against the structure of Christian history: Indeed, as we shall see shortly, in England this is exactly what happened.

New Approaches Oxford, , pp. Warntjes, The Munich Computus: Kompendium zur Genealogie der Endzeit Berlin, , pp. See Chapter 1, p. It is perhaps therefore unsurpris- ing, rather than deeply suspicious, that Julian made nothing of these argu- ments in his popular handbook on Christian eschatology, Prognosticum futuri saeculi. At the same time, in the work as a whole, he had chosen to emphasise the practical side of individual salvation over the catastrophism of uncertain collective doom. The added ingredient here was the use of the cyclical year Easter tables of Victorius of Aquitaine as a point of historical reference, much as people would soon use Dionysiac tables and their lists of years ab incarnatione AD dates , as I shall explain below.

The note then states it is twenty-six years since the death of St Sulpicius of Bourges and that it is the th year of the Easter table of Victorius of Aquitaine. Finally the author records that 5, years have passed since Creation and that there are years left until the Year Moreover, at the end, an apocalyptic trad- ition had become a useful part of this practice of memory and temporal orientation.

Of the ifteen known to us, four date to the years — 5, which coincide with the height of the conlict between Childeric II, Leudegar of Autun and Ebroin, the mayor of the palace, although these events are otherwise not clearly related to the computations themselves. The rest of our examples seem rather diffuse.

The compilation includes, for instance, the Incarnation dated both to 68 Dialogus de computo Burgundiae, c. Liber historiae Francorum, ending at c. Dates for this period are not entirely certain but see B. A still-useful account of the problems posed by manuscripts and con- tent is provided by W. The dynamic was, however, surely only intensiied by the next signiicant editorial develop- ment: As we saw in Chapter 1, Hilarianus taught that there would be 6, years of history, to be followed by a 1,year 75 Fredegar, Chronicae, I, ed. Hell and Its Rivals.

Late Middle Ages

At the Heart of Christian Worship. The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell. The Rule of St.

Luther and the Reformation of the Later Middle Ages. The Sleep of Behemoth. The Soul in Ascent. From Judgment to Passion. Inspiration and Authority in the Middle Ages. The Donatist Church in an Apocalyptic Age. Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration. Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation. Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan.

Mary Magdalene in Medieval Culture.

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