Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the analysis of the efflorescence of apocalyptic beliefs and practices among Moriscos. The last Spanish Muslims to be forcibly converted to Catholicism in sixteenth-century Spain, Moriscos and their descendants were also referred to as New Christians. The chapter describes how Moriscos were not impervious to the apocalyptic excitement of their Old Christian counterparts, such as reading the same prophecies of St. Isidore of Seville and John of Rupescissa. It also explains how Morisco political culture and practice were transformed, amd it highlights events in which Moriscos met such powerful Mediterranean actors like the Ottomans, the French monarch Henry IV, and the Saʿdī sultans of Morocco.

HILDEGARDIAN PROPHECY AND FRENCH PROPHECY COLLECTIONS, 1378–1455: A STUDY AND CRITICAL EDITION OF THE “SCHISM EXTRACTS”

This article offers a study and critical edition of a group of passages (here called the “Schism Extracts”) that were compiled from the apocalyptic prophecies of Hildegard of Bingen and heavily annotated in response to the Great Western Schism (1378–1417). The article argues that the Extracts were created by someone with ties to the University of Paris to illuminate a French perspective on the Schism and that they circulated primarily within a Parisian milieu—both among masters at the university and among members of religious houses in and around Paris. The article outlines the main contents and themes of the Extracts and the manuscript contexts in which they are found, including five prophecy collections. While one prophecy collection is known to have been compiled by the Parisian master Simon du Bosc, it is here argued that three of the other collections were produced by Pierre d'Ailly or someone within his circle of associates. Many of the prophetic writings selected for these collections thematically concern the eschatological and reformist role of France and a future holy angelic pope (the pastor angelicus). These include the writings of John of Rupescissa, and parallels between the Extracts and John's reading of Hildegard suggest that the compiler of the text was well-versed in John's apocalyptic thought.