435
Messiah comes; Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (135-220) believed Messiah would come 365 years after Temple destroyed in 70 (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
470
Messiah would come; Rabbi Hanina (3rd C), though Messiah would come 400 years after Temple Destruction. (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
500
A Roman priest and theologian in the second and third centuries, predicted Christ would return in A.D. 500, based on the dimensions of Noah's ark.
500
Return of Christ; Hyppolytus (170-236) and Lactantius (250-330) said 500 would be the time for the second coming of Christ (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
950
Acrostic on the end of the world, predecessor of Celano's "Dies irae," found in a ms. from Aniane (second half of the tenth century, ed. Paulin Blanc,"Nouvelle Prose sur le Dernier Jour, Composée avec chant noté, vers l'An Mille..." Mémoires de la Société Archéologique de Montpellier, 2 (1850), 451-509, second copy located by Michel Huglo: BN lat. 1928 f.178, Fécamp c.1040).
950
"Treatise on the Antichrist" by Adso of Montier-en-Der, c.950, a response to a variety of crises at mid-century that provoked widespread apocalyptic disquiet, and rapidly become a central text in the European eschatological literature (ed. by Verhelst, CCSL, Cont. med. aeui 40; study in the context of 1000, by Verhelst, "Adso van Montier-en-Der en de angst voor het jaar Duizend," Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 90 (1977), 1-10); and C. Carozzi, La fin des temps: Terreurs et prophéties au Moyen Age (Paris: Stock, 1982), pp.186-94. See below # .
950-80:
Letter on the Hungarians that speaks of widespread apocalyptic reactions among the population, Ac primum dicendum opinionem quae innumeros tam in vestra quam in nostra regione persuasit frivolam esse et nihil veri in se habere, qua putatur Deo odibilis gens Hungrorum esse Gog et Magog ceteraeque gentes quae cum eis describuntur... Dicunt enim nunc esse novissimum saeculi tempus finemque imminere mundi, et idcirco Gog et Magog esse Hungros, qui numquam antea auditi sunt, sed modo, in novissimo temporum apparuerunt. R.B.C. Huygens, "Un témoin" [n.11], p.231, lines 94-106; letter from the bishop of Auxerre to the bishop of Verdun (commentary by Huygens, p.236f). Dated variously early tenth century, or, according to Huygens, to second half of the tenth ("Un témoin de la crainte de l'an 1000: La lettre sur les Hongrois," Latomus, 15 (1956), 224-38); considered the background of Adso's treatise (see below #3).
950
In A.D. 950 Adso of Montier-en-Der wrote a "Treatise on the Antichrist" which was a response to a number of mid-century crises that had provoked widespread alarm and fear of an end-time apocalypse.(5) Five years later, Abbo of Fleury heard a preacher in Paris who announced that the Antichrist would be unleashed in the year 1000 and that the Last Judgment would soon follow.(6) At about the same time a panic occurred in the German army of Emperor Otto I because of a solar eclipse that the soldiers mistook as a sign of the end of the world.(7) And when the last Carolingian dynasty fell with the death of King Louis V in 987, many saw this event as a precursor to the arrival of the Antichrist. King Otto II of Germany had Charlemagne's body exhumed on Pentecost in the year 1000 supposedly in order to forestall the apocalypse. Both Halley's comet in A.D. 989 and a super nova in A.D. 1006 were interpreted as signs of the end. About the same time, the Moslem caliph, Al Hakim, destroyed the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem prompting apocalyptic fear in the west as well as violent anti-Jewish outbursts.(8)
964:
"Dum saeculum transit finis mundi appropinquat..." [As the saeculum (century?) passes, the end of the world approaches.] Cartulaire de Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes, pp.1, 11, 17.
965:
Abbo hears a preacher in Paris announcing the unleashing of Antichrist for 1000 AD and the Last Judgment for shortly thereafter (see below # 7, 17).
968:
Panic in Otto's army at an eclipse the soldiers took to portend the end of the world (Gesta episcoporum Leodensium, MGH SS IX, p.202)
968-9:
Annalists note in the margin of Easter tables: mille anni a nativitate Christi, based on a "misreading" of the base year in the Easter Tables as Anno passionis. Three years earlier unusual events with apocalyptic tonality (fire from heaven, release of demons) occur. (Annales de Saint Florent de Saumur, et de Vendôme, Halphen Recueil d'annales angevines, p.58 n.2, 116 n.6.) Note that, in typical capstone style, Halphen does not include the note, with its millennial consciousness in the text of his edition, nor even in a footnote to that year, but appended to a footnote for another year, and explained away as a mistake.
969 and/or 980:
widespread apocalyptic expectation in Lotharingia at the coincidence of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion agaist which Abbo writes a letter.
979:
Igneae acies visae sunt in caelo per totam noctem 5 Kalendas Novembris. Hoc anno complentur mille anni a nativitate Christi, secundum veritatem evangelii, qui secundum cyclum Dionisii anno abhinc 21 finiuntur; sicque in anno domincae passionis veritati evangelicae contraitur. Sigebert of Gembloux, Chronicon universale c.1114, PL 160 c.194 (here using Abbo's correction of the date AD; see next item).
983-4:
Abbo redates the year 1000 four years into the past (true AD 1000 = Dionysus' 979) using the apocalyptic beliefs above (#7, see also #17) as the basis of his calculations.
987-91:
The last Carolingian dynasty (the final hindrance to the arrival of Antichrist according to Adso) falls; the capture of the last potential ruler occurs under most dastardly cirumstances. Southern charters begin to date AD, with Christ reigning, a traditional interregnal formula with apocalyptic antecedants (Kantarowicz, The King's Two Bodies, p. ).
989, August:
Halley's Comet appears, cited in Annales divionenses, MGH SS V, p. ; and Annales Quedlinburgenses MGH SS III, p.68; Thietmar of Mersebourg, Chronicon IV, 10; (also Glaber III, 3? acc. to France, p.110-11, and n.4, but see below under 1006, #29); P. Moore and J. Mason, The Return of Halley's Comet (Cambridge, 1984), p.46)
989-1000:
First wave of peace councils in the South (see below).
990s:
mention of apocalyptic beliefs leading to violent seizure of church property at St. Hilaire.
990s-1010s:
Preaching of Aelfric and Wulfistan, filled with images of Last Judgment, explicity linked at points to the year 1000 and the unleashing of Antichrist (Gatch, Milton McC., Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, U. Press, 1977).
992:
Coincidence of Crucifixion and Annunciation; Nouaillé begins its charters for the next decade with "Appropinquante finem mundi..."; Adso, an old man, leaves on a one-way pilgrimage to Jerusalem; German chronicles report light from north at dawn like the sun, rumor among many that 3 suns, 3 moons and stars were fighting, indicating heavy mortality and famine (Thietmar IV, 19; An. Quedl. ad an. 993, MGH SS III, 69; Annales Augustani, ibid. p.124).
994-1000:
Outbreaks of sacer ignis throughout France, associated in Limoges with the Peace of God.
994-5:
various signs (including a monstrous child), famines, plagues and mortality in Saxony, referred to as the biblical "tria iudicia pessima" (Annales Quedlinburgenses, MGH SS, III p.94; also Thietmar IV, 17; Annales Augustani, MGH SS III, 124).
