A thousand years had passed now since an angel, parting the veil which conceals from mankind the plans of the Almighty for the future, had given to St John a revelation of the last days. And the saint, writing it down, had recorded how a great battle was destined to be fought; and how the Beast, at its end, would be captured and thrown into a lake of fire. But before that could be brought about, and the world born anew, Christ Himself, ‘clad in a robe dipped in blood’, was destined to lead out the armies of heaven. ‘From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath ofGod the Almighty.’
On 15 July, the crusaders finally broke into Jerusalem and took possession of the object of all their yearnings. The wine press was duly trodden: the streets were made to flow with blood. And at the end of it, when the slaughter was done, and the whole citv drenched in gore, the triumphant warriors of Christ, weeping with jov and disbelief, assembled before the Sepulchre of the Saviour and knelt in an ecstasy of worship.
Meanwhile, on the Temple Mount, where it had been foretold that Antichrist would materialise at the end of days enthroned in fearsome and flame-lit glory, all was stillness. The slaughter upon the rock of the Temple had been especially terrible, and not a living thing had been left there to stir. Already, in the summer heat, the corpses were starting to reek.
Antichrist did not appear.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Sources for medieval history tend to be much less freely available than their equivalents from the classical period. Not only do a majority remain untranslated, but many are accessible only in intimidating volumes of nineteenth-century scholarship. Two resources are particularly indispensable. One is the Patnlogia Latina, an immense compendium of sermons, saints’ lives and other writings on ecclesiastical themes, gathered together in no fewer than 221 volumes by a single French priest, Jacques-Paul Migne. The other is the Momimenta Germaniat Hislorica, an even more titanic anthology of sources for the study of medieval history, begun in 1826 and ongoing to this day. Its title notwithstanding, the range of texts it embraces is far from confined to Germany. It is, however, authentically monumental. The following abbreviations were unavoidable:
A ASS: Acta Sanctorum Quoiquol Orbe Qihmier, ed. Societe des Bollandistes (Antwerp, Brussels and Paris, 1643-1940)
EHD: English Historical Documents I, c. 500-1012, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (London, 1979)
MGH: Monumenta Germanise Historica AA: Auctores Antiquum Libelli: Libelli de lite imperatorum el pontificum SRG: Scriplores Renin Germanicarwn in usum scholarum sepantti editii SS: Scriptores PG: Patrologia Graeca PL: Patrologia Latina
All quotations from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version. All quotations from the Qur’an are from the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Indianapolis, 1992).
Abbo of Fleury: Apologeticus ad Hugonem et Rodbertum Reges Francorum, in PL 139 Abd Allah b. Buluggin al-Ziri al-Sanhaji: Al-Tibyan, tr. A. T. Tibi (Leiden, 1986)
Adalbero of Laon: Poeme au rot Robert, ed. C. Carozzi (Paris, 1979) Adam of Bremen: History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, tr. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002)
Ademar of Chabannes: Ademari Cibmuasis Chronica, ed. Pascal? Bouigain (Turnhout, 1999)
Adso of Montier-en-Der: ‘Letter on the Origin and Time of the Antichrist’, in Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters ofLactantius, Adso of Montier-en-Der, Joachim of Fiere, The Franciscan Spirituals, Savonarola, tr. Bernard McGinn (New York, 1979) Aelfric: Colloquy, ed. G. N. Garmonsway (London, 1947) Aelfric: Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Malcolm Godden (London, 1979) Albert of Aachen: Historia lerosolimitana, ed. Susan B. Edgington (Oxford, 2007) Albert of Metz: Fragmentum ed Deoderico primo episcopo Mettensi, in MGH SS 4 (Hanover, 1854)
Alcuin: Letters, in AlcuinofYork, c. A.D. 732 to 804: His Life and Letters, by Stephen Allott (York, 1974)
Amatus of Monte Cassino: The History of the Normans, tr. Prescott N. Dunbar
(Woodbridge, 2004) Andrew of Fleury: Miraculi Sancti Benedict!, ed. Eugene de Certain (Paris, 1858) Andrew of Fleury: Vie deGataliit, Abbe de Fleury, ed. Robert-Henri Bautier (fcris, 1969) Angilbertus: Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, in MGH Poetae Lattni aevi Kaivlini 1 (Berlin, 1881) Anna Comnena: The Alexiad, tr. E. R. A. Sewter (London, 2003) Armies Hildesheimenses. in MGH SRG 8 (Hanover, 1878) Annates Quedlmburgenses, in MGH SS 3 (Hanover, 1839) Annals of Ulster, tr. Sean Mac Airt and Gearoid Mac Niocail (Dublin, 1983) ArcAiVes d’Anjou, ed. Paul Marchegay, 3 vols. (Angers, 1843-56) Ari Thorgilsson: Book of the Icelanders, ed. Halldor Hermannsson (Ithaca, 1930) Arnold of Regensburg: Vita S. Emmerami, in MGH SS 4 (Hanover, 1841) Arnulf of Milan: Liber Gestorum Recentium, in MGH SRG 67 (Hanover, 1994) Augustine: City of God, tr. Henry Bettenson (London, 2003) Augustine: On Order, tr. Silvano Borruso (South Bend, 2006) AvitusofVienne: Epistulae, in MGH AA 6.2 (Berlin, 1888) Battle of Maldon, in BHD
Beno: Benonis et Aliorum Cardinalium Schismaticorum Contra Gregorium VII. et Urbanum II.
Scripta, in MGH Libelli 2 (Hanover, 1892) Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, ed. Martinus Marrier and Andreas Quercetanus (Macon, 1915) Bliciling Homilies, tr. Richard J. Kelly (London, 2003)
Bonizo of Sutri: To a Friend, in The Papal Reform of die Eleventh Century, tr. and ed. I. S.
Robinson (Manchester, 2004) Bruno of Merseburg: Saxonicum Bellum, in MGH Deutsches Mittelalter 2 (Leipzig, 1937) Bruno of Querfort: Passio Sancti Adalberti, in MGH SS 4 (Hanover, 1841) Bruno of Querfort: Vila Quinque Fralrum, in MGH SS 15 (Hanover, 1887) Byrhtferth: Byrhtferth’s Manual, tr. and ed. S.). Crawford (London, 1929) Carmen de Hastingae Ptvelio, in Morillo, pp. 46-52
Cartulaire de I’Abbaye de Saint-Aubin d’Angers, ed. B. de Broussillon, 2 vols. (Paris, 1903) Cartulaire du Ronceray, ed. Paul Marchegay (Angers, 1856) Charlemagne: Epistolae, in MGH Epistolae Karolini Aevi (Berlin, 1892-1925) CknnicM Mosomense: Chronique ou Livre
