Author : Richard Landes
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195354737
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (953 download)
Book Synopsis The Apocalyptic Year 1000 by : Richard Landes
Download or read book The Apocalyptic Year 1000 written by Richard Landes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-06-05 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this book challenge prevailing views on the way in which apocalyptic concerns contributed to larger processes of social change at the first millennium. Several basic questions unify the essays: What chronological and theological assumptions underlay apocalyptic and millennial speculations around the Year 1000? How broadly disseminated were those speculations? Can we speak of a mentality of apocalyptic hopes and anxieties on the eve of the millennium? If so, how did authorities respond to or even contribute to the formation of this mentality? What were the social ramifications of apocalyptic hopes and anxieties, and of any efforts to suppress or redirect the more radical impulses that bred them? How did contemporaries conceptualize and then historicize the passing of the millennial date of 1000? Including the work of British, French, German, Dutch, and American scholars, this book will be the definitive resource on this fascinating topic, and should at the same time provoke new interest in and debate on the nature and causes of social change in early medieval Europe.