4/26/2012

April 26: Y1K in southern France

In 1018, the French monk Ademar de Chabannes wrote of a pre-dawn panic and trampling before the Abbey of St. Martial, sparked by fears of the Antichrist. Cases of heresy were reported to be widespread throughout southern France at the time. A prolific writer - and forger - Ademar produced 500 folios of speculative writings/fictions about the apocalypse before his death in 1034.

As a footnote, Ademar wrote the oldest surviving autograph musical manuscript in the western world: a mass written to support his fraudulent claim that the historical St. Martial was an apostle during Christ's life, rather than a bishop in Gaul in the third century.

No comments:

Post a Comment