JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  July 1999

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION July 1999

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

them's fight'n words

From:

Richard Landes <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Tue, 20 Jul 1999 03:45:58 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (99 lines)

For those who saw the piece in last Saturday's NYT on millennial 1000, in
which Bernie McGinn dismisses the apocalyptic year 1000 as a "figment of my
imagination"  i offer you the draft of my letter that the Times will almost
surely not publish:  Comments welcome.	

	Peter Steinfels makes a good point in his column on "Millennial Fears in
1000" (7-17-99), when he notes that my reading of the documentation depicts
an ecclesiastical community deeply troubled by the year 1000 rather than,
as the "Romantics" had it, systematically manipulating apocalyptic fears to
milk the laity.  Any millennial date - Jewish, Christian, Muslim, even
technological secular - brings out roosters and owls.  Roosters, the
apocalyptic enthusiasts and alarmists, crow loudly to wake believers to
prepare for doom and, perhaps, enter the new age; owls, conservative
authorities, hoot that the night is still long and, with the master asleep
and the foxes afoot, we should not wake the barnyard prematurely.  For
centuries before 1000 clerical owls had been telling the roosters: "Wait
till the end of the millennium for the world of peace and fellowship,
justice and plenty."  As long as that millennium was centuries away, the
owls liked the argument fine.  But in doing so, they bequeathed to those
who greeted the mn, a balloon mortgage payment on millennial promises.
This offers eerie parallels with our early programmers leaving us with a
huge pricetag on the Y2K "bug."  Both problems arose from a long-term,
collective procrastination.
	Contrast Sylvester II, pope of 1000, who never mentioned the year 1000,
with John Paul II, who does not cease to invoke the year 2000.   The
current pope (a gentle rooster) sees in 2000 a great opportunity to arouse
faith in an age without it, sees it as a potential turning point in
history.  The pope of 1000 - an owl of the highest order - had to keep the
lid on faith in an age when, by the church's very own reckoning, the time
of the roosters had come.  Do you really think that if the pope and the
emperor of 1000 - two of the great political and religious entrepreneurs of
history - were not afraid of outbreaks of millennial fervor as a result of
1000, they would have passed up such powerful rhetoric?  Do you really
think that when Otto III secretly visited the grave of Charlemagne on the
night of Pentecost of 1000, that he had no thought of the date's
significance, just because the texts don't openly discuss that?  These are
cases where the silence of the texts is eloquent, like the dog that didn't
bark.
	Unfortunately Mr. Steinfels only made one of my points while spending most
of the article repeating old arguments - the clerics didn't know, the
peasants didn't care, there is no evidence - that don't stand up to scrutiny: 
· of course the AD calendar was set by 1000 - you couldn't figure out when
Easter was without knowing the year AD, and any commoner who wanted to,
could find it out.
· of course commoners cared - millennialism is and has been a favorite form
of religious belief among commoners the world over, including the early
Middle Ages.  Why would the peasants and townsmen of 1000 be especially
indifferent?  How bovine a peasantry must we imagine in order to tell
ourselves they didn't notice?  Certainly the peasantry that carried out the
agricultural, technological, and urban revolutions of the eleventh century
was hardly bovine.
· of course we have documents indicating powerful and widespread millennial
activities - mass penitential gatherings, peace assemblies, bizarre relic
cults, huge pilgrimages, attacks of "holy fire," popular heresies - it's
just that only a dozen or so texts are neatly labeled by their composers:
"apocalyptic year 1000." 
	The old anti-terrors position was argued by positivist historians with no
more love for millennial zeal than that of the scribes and copyists of
1000, and it was based on an almost complete lack of scholarly knowledge of
millennialism.  If they didn't find any evidence, it's because they didn't
know how to look for and didn't want to find the evidence.   
	It is, therefore, unfortunate to see a scholar of Prof. McGinn's stature,
whose contributions to the study of millennial literary traditions of later
Middle Ages are so valuable, venture into two fields where he has so little
expertise - social manifestations of millennialism and early-eleventh
century history - and be so simplistic as to dismiss the apocalyptic year
1000 as a figment of my imagination.  Aside from ignoring a growing
literature by scholars around the world, the remark is a bit like a 16th
century Ptolemeian dismissing heliocentrism as a defective mental construct.  
	I don't think it pays to ignore non-explicit evidence in cases where our
sources have every reason to play down the phenomenon: denial makes us
stupid, and so does pretending denial doesn't exist.  It's like writing a
history of American politics with the principle that if it's not "on the
record" it has no significance. My point is not that there was a conspiracy
of silence, but a consensus of denial, one that includes the historians who
overvalue the explicit meaning of texts produced within this consensus.
Indeed, I think that we, today, would do well to pay attention to such
consensus of denial and the simplistic rhetoric that accompanies them.  I
know plenty of people who already believe that we are engaged in one about
Y2K right now.  

Richard Landes, Director, Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University 
http://www.mille.org		


Richard Landes
Department of History		Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University
Boston University		Boston University
226 Bay State Road		704 Commonwealth Ave. Suite 205
Boston MA 02215		Boston MA 02215
617-353-2558 (of)		617-358-0226 (tel)
617-353-2781 (fax)		617-358-0225 (fax)
[log in to unmask]		[log in to unmask]
			http://www.mille.org



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
April 1999
March 1999
February 1999
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
February 1998
January 1998
December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
December 1996
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
August 1996
July 1996
June 1996
May 1996
April 1996


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager