The International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (ICRH) at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg brought together a group of international scholars to reflect on perceptions of “Signs of the Future” in Medieval Europe. Following 12 years of groundbreaking research in the field of “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication”, this was the final conference on Medieval History at the ICRH. Due to the pandemic, the conference was held online, with participants connected from all over Europe and South Korea. The presentations explored the textual traditions related to different potential signs of the future in a wide variety of sources. Well-known texts were thereby combined with new material. Special emphasis was placed on the method of analogy and the “rationality” of signs, as well as the role of experts and expertise.
The first two lectures focused on signs in dreams: PATRICK HENRIET (Paris) dealt with the premonitory dreams of saints’ mothers in Latin hagiography. With a specific arsenal of signs used in these dreams, such as moonlight or sunlight, the future life of the unborn child was indicated in these texts. ALBERT SCHIRRMEISTER (Paris/Bielefeld) also dealt with such narrative formulae in dream descriptions. The focus was on two dream depictions attributed to Frederick III and Pope Nicholas V in the Commentarii by Pope Pius II. They were presented as paradigmatic cases of the relationship between (prognostic) dream practices and dream theories in the late Middle Ages and their epistemological positions.
AGOSTINO PARAVICINI BAGLIANI (Fribourg) presented three examples in which cardinals and prelates consulted a fortune-teller. The commonality of these cases was divination combined with an election – be it as a bishop, a cardinal, or even a pope. The chronological proximity of these cases was explained by the more general spread of mantic disciplines, which indicates a certain fashion. This chronological intensity led to the conclusion that such practices must have been far more widespread than our sources indicate. The mantic practices seem to have evoked a fascination among curial and ecclesiastical elites. This seems a far cry from the clerical underworld that Richard Kieckhefer reconstructed in his work, Forbidden Rites.
KLAUS HERBERS (Erlangen) presented a variety of examples of dreams, visions, and politics in Carolingian Europe. The visions of the High Middle Ages developed into their own literary genre and are certainly to be interpreted differently. Herbers argued that there was a further development of the fundamental orientations of Gregory the Great during the Carolingian period. The reason was the Christianization of prophecies in the form of visions, which developed the ancient forms of prodigium and omen considerably further. Showing the hidden truth remained an objective even during the Carolingian period, but creative action, which focused on the politics of the day, and eschatology in the form of memoria, became visible.
In his talk about signs from the afterlife, MATHIAS HEIDUK (Erlangen) pointed out that, during the Middle Ages, different ways of contacting the deceased were sought and knowledge about future things was sought. In addition to magical incantation rites, mystical journeys to the hereafter and visionary apparitions of the dead come into focus as central testimonies. Certain contexts of transmission even allowed the conclusion of an instrumentalization of the visionaries by third parties, whereby visions and magical rituals show commonalities in the sense of medial communication between the living and the dead. In summary, Heiduk pleaded for a detachment from a focus solely on scholarly discourse and for a perspective on the diversity of medieval forms of communication between the living and the dead.
ANKE HOLDENRIED (Bristol) analyzed natural and spiritual signs as medieval classroom issues. At the center of her paper, she introduced the Distinctiones, a dictionary compiled by Peter the Chanter. This monumental work of 12th-century biblical scholarship displays the multiple senses of more than 1,000 biblical terms, arranged alphabetically. Surprisingly at first sight, Peter did not elaborate on signum, but included an innovative entry on signaculum.
PETRA G. SCHMIDL (Erlangen) introduced the prognostic practices included in chapter XXXIV of the Kitāb al-Tabṣira fī ilm al-nujūm (“Enlightenment in the science of the stars”) by the 13th century scholar al-Ashraf Umar. This text, whose author was to become Rasūlid sultan and ruler over the Yemen, interprets the spotting of rainbows, meteors or comets, and halos around sun and moon in order to predict future events.
CHRISTIAN ROHR (Bern) pointed out that the connection between comets, planetary/stellar constellations as well as solar and lunar eclipses, on the one hand, and (natural) disasters, diseases and other catastrophes, on the other, had been evident for pre-modern societies in Europe. This was particularly true for events that occurred suddenly and could not be explained by local knowledge. Nonetheless, this relationship was manifold. Some medieval authors used natural phenomena and disasters to serve as “markers” for a bad reign. Other events, such as locust invasions, were interpreted as divine punishment and portents of the Last Judgement. Many of the medieval treatises on nature also dealt with comets (Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Bede the Venerable, Honorius of Autun, Thomas of Cantimpré, and Konrad of Megenberg) and their meaning.
STEFANO RAPISARDA (Catania) provided an overview on medieval and early modern Western divination techniques, such as astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, scapulomancy, and avimancy. MICHAEL GRÜNBART (Münster) introduced lots as a classical tool for delivering signs of the future and therefore supporting decision-making in the Byzantine Empire.
CARINE VAN RHIJN (Utrecht) shared some observations on Dog Days in early medieval Europe. Many calendars from the Carolingian period featured not only saints’ feasts, but also the so-called Dies Caniculares, a period of time when it was dangerous to undergo bloodletting and other medical treatment. Van Rhijn argued that such references in calendars are just one small element of a much bigger story, for knowledge of the Dog Days built on traditions already recorded in Homer’s Iliad. Sirius, the Dog Star, heralded the hottest period of the year, which influenced the activity of the blood (the “hot” humur of the body) – cutting a vein during the Dog Days could result in the patient bleeding to death. Knowledge about the Dog Days, then, combined the astronomical, cosmological and medical traditions. Built into this mix was certainly a prognostic element, but van Rhijn concluded that it would be too simple to reduce the story to prognostication or calendars alone.
BARBORA KOCÁNOVÁ (Prague) introduced written evidence on weather forecasting in medieval Bohemia. She presented an astrological compilation by the Czech author Claretus. His poem includes, inter alia, a passage that allows one to foretell the weather and related phenomena for any given year based on the day of the week on which the 1st of January falls. In a second step, Kocánová provided a brief overview of the weather forecasting methods that can be encountered in other medieval sources from Bohemia. In addition to the New Year’s and thunder prognostics texts, the Czech manuscripts show cases of astrological weather forecasting; for example, rules based on the planet that has the strongest influence at the beginning of the respective astrological year; lunar mansions, or information about the changes in weather that can be deduced from the transition of comets through the individual zodiac signs; observations of momentary atmospheric conditions, and other weather signs.
MANUEL KAMENZIN (Erlangen/Bochum) presented the unique way in which the English Benedictine monk Matthaeus Parisiensis imbedded earthquakes as a sign of the future into his Chronica Majora. The final lecture came from the field of art history. ANDREA WORM (Tübingen) analysed the Liber Chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel with regard to signs, comets, monsters, and the end of History.
In his concluding remarks, Klaus Herbers offered a résumé of the variety of signs that had been reviewed during the conference. He categorized them as natural, supernatural, or “man-produced” signs. They were all embedded in a history of knowledge, with innovative combinations and contextualisation. Still, these depictions present commentaries on the time of their creation, whereas signs of the future display an ambiguous character.
Conference overview:
Michael Lackner (Erlangen) / Klaus Herbers (Erlangen): Welcome Address
Patrick Henriet (Paris): Dum illum utero gestaret. The premonitory dreams of saints’ mothers in Latin hagiography
Albert Schirrmeister (Paris): Sepe verum somiant, qui presunt populis. The dubious veracitiy of dreams
Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani (Fribourg): Popes as prophets (late Middle Ages)
Klaus Herbers (Erlangen): Reading the Signs. Dreams, visions and politics in Carolingian Europe
Matthias Heiduk (Erlangen): Signs from the afterlife. Consulting the dead about the future in medieval times
Anke Holdenried (Bristol): Natural signs and spiritual signs as medieval classroom issues
Petra Schmidl (Erlangen): Signs of the future. Rainbow, shooting stars, and halos in pre-modern Arabic sources
Christian Rohr (Bern): Between astrological divination and local knowledge. Prognostics and "epignostics" related to natural disasters in the Middle Ages
Stefano Rapisarda (Catania): Analogy at work in Medieval and Early Modern Western divination techniques. Astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, scapulomancy, avimancy
Michael Grünbart (Münster): Alternative lots – patterns of a classical tool supporting decision-making
Carine van Rhijn (Utrecht): Beware when Sirius is in the sky! Thinking about the Dog Days in early medieval Europe
Barbora Kocánová (Prague): Weather forecasting in medieval Bohemia
Manuel Kamenzin (Bochum/Erlangen): Strange events and shaky ground. On earthquakes, Matthew Paris and „solid facts“
Andrea Worm (Tübingen): Signa, cometes, monstra und das Ende der Geschichte in Hartmann Schedels Liber chronicarum
Klaus Herbers (Erlangen): Concluding Remarks