The Prophetic Sense of History in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Variorum Collected Studies Series, Cs 660)

A collection of essays written during the 1970s-1990s, focusing on ideas of the future in the imagination of medieval and Renaissance people in Western Europe. Early essays are general, attempting to portray a spectrum of beliefs about the destiny of mankind. Later essays deal more specifically with the ideas of the 12th-century Calabrian abbot Joachim and his Trinitarian interpretation of history, showing how his intricate number symbolisms, applied to an original form of Biblical exegesis, built up a compelling prophetic vision of the future "third status" of history, the Age of the Spirit. Further essays examine forms which these Joachimist hopes took in succeeding centuries. Original pagination has been retained.