Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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Fifteen Signs before DoomsdayFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday(alternatively known as the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday, Fifteen

Signs before Judgement, and in Latin Quindecim Signa ante Judicium) is a list, popular in the Middle

Ages because of millenarianism, of the events that are supposed to occur in the fortnight before the end of

the world.[1]

It may find an origin in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Thomas[2]

and is found in manypost-millennial manuscripts in Latin and in the vernacular. References to it occur in a great multitude and

variety of literary works, and via the Cursor Mundiit may have found its way even into the early modern

period, in the works of William Shakespeare.

Contents

1 Origin

2 Remaining versions

2.1 Manuscripts

3 Types

3.1 Signs

4 Influence

5 See also

6 References

6.1 Reference bibliography

7 Further reading

Origin

The Fifteen Signs derives from the Apocalypse of Thomas, an apocryphal apocalyptic text composed in

Greek (and subsequently translated in Latin) between the second and fourth century. It exists in two

versions, the second, longer one treating fifth-century events as contemporary. The first version includes a

list of seven signs announcing the end of the world. The longer version, however, has an appended section

which brings the list of signs up to fifteen. This version was taken up and reshaped by Irish, after which it

became a source for many European visions of the end of times.[3]

Remaining versions

One of its many versions can be found in the Asega-bk.[4]Another version can be found in the Saltair na

Rann.[citation needed]One of the earliest versions isDe quindecim signis(PL XCIV.555) written in the 8th

century by Pseudo-Bede.

Manuscripts

Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 36 (fragment, 125 verses in French in octosyllabic rhyming

couplets)[5]

Types

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The Fifteen Signsare organized in three general types: the Voragine type, the Pseudo-Bede type, and the

Comestor type. The Welsh prose versions edited by William Heist are each based on any of the three;[6]the

Asega-bk is based on both Pseudo-Bede and Comestor'sHistoria scholastica.[7]

Signs

The fifteen signs are shown over fifteen days, though in many different varieties. According to the Welsh

prose version:[6]

The earth's waters rise above the mountains1.

The waters sink so low they cannot be seen anymore2.

The waters return to their original position3.

All sea animals gather on the surface and bellow unintelligibly4.

The waters burn from east to west5.

Plants and trees fill with dew and blood6.

All buildings are destroyed7.

The stones fight each other8.

Great earthquakes occur9.

All mountains and valleys are leveled to a plain10.

Men come out from their hiding places but can no longer understand each other11.

The stars and constellations fall out of the sky (in the Comestor variant only stars fall[8])12.

The bones of the dead come out of their graves13.

All men die, the earth burns14.

Judgment Day15.

Influence

References to the fifteen signs are ubiquitous in medieval Western literature. In the fifteenth century, prints

detailing the life of the Antichrist usually included the fifteen signs.[9]An Anglo-Norman version was

included in the fourteenth-century Cursor Mundi, and C. H. Conley argued that William Shakespeare used a

reading knowledge of that poem or one like it for various details in Act 1 of Hamletand Act 2 ofJulius

Caesar, details he couldn't have found inHolinshed's Chronicles.[10]Harry Morris contends that those

details could have come to Shakespeare via John Daye'sA Book of Christian Prayer(1578) or the Holkham

Bible (14th century).[11]The signs also occur in the shearmen's Prophets of Antichrist, part of the fifteenth-

century Chester Mystery Plays.[12]

See also

Kildare Poems

References

^Giliberto 2007, p. 129.1.

^Dunn & 1958 189.2.

^Gatch 1964, p. 380.3.

^Giliberto 2007, p. 130.4.^Baker 1897, p. 63.5.

^ abHeist & 1948 421.6.

^Giliberto 2007, p. 130131.7.

^Heist & 1948 424.8.

^Emmerson, Herzman 1980, p. 376.9.

^Conley 1915, p. 41.10.^Morris 1985.11.

^Clopper 1978, p. 230.12.


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Reference bibliography

Baker, A. T. (1897). "Fifteen Signs of Doomsday" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/41163389).Modern Language

Quarterly1(2): 6364.

Clopper, Lawrence M. (1978). "The History and Development of the Chester Cycle" (http://www.jstor.org/stable

/436982).Modern Philology75(s): 21946.

Conley, C. H. (1915). "An Instance of the Fifteen Signs of Judgment in Shakespeare" (http://www.jstor.org/stable

/2916899).Modern Language Notes30(2): 4144.

Dunn, Charles W. (1958). "Rev. of Heist, The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday" (http://www.jstor.org/stable

/537713). The Journal of American Folklore71(280): 189.

Emmerson, Richard Kenneth; Ronald B. Herzman (1980). "Antichrist, Simon Magus, and Dante'sInfernoXIX"

(http://www.jstor.org/stable/27831081). Traditio36: 37398.

Gatch, Milton McCormick (1964). "Two Uses of Apocrypha in Old English Homilies" (http://www.jstor.org

/stable/3162832). Church History33(4): 37991.

Giliberto, Concetta (2007). "The Fifteen Signs of Doomsday of the First Riustring Manuscript". In Bremmer,

Rolf Hendrik; Laker, Stephen; Vries, Oebele.Advances in Old Frisian Philology. Rige Estrikken 80. Rodopi.

ISBN 9789042021815.

Gow, Andrew Colin (1995). The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 12001600. Studies in Medieval

and Reformation Traditions. BRILL. ISBN 9789004102552.

Heist, William Watts (October 1944). "Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs before Doomsday"(http://jstor.org/stable/2853480).Speculum19(4): 421432.

Morris, Harry (1985).Last Things in Shakespeare. Tallahassee: Florida State UP.

Further reading

de Vasconcellas, Michaelis (1870). "Quindecim Signa ante Judicium".Archiv fr das Studium der

neueren Sprachen und Literaturen46: 3360.

Heist, William Watts (1952). The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday. East Lansing.

Mantou, Reine (1967). "Le thme des "Quinze signes du jugement dernier" dans la tradition franaise"

(http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_1967_num_45_3_2693).Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire(in French) 45(3): 827842. doi:10.3406/rbph.1967.2693

(http://dx.doi.org/10.3406%2Frbph.1967.2693).

Nolle, Georg (1879). "Die Legende von den Funfzehn Zeichen vor dem Jngsten Gerichte".Beitrge

zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur(in German) 6(3): 413476.

doi:10.1515/bgsl.1879.6.3.413 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2Fbgsl.1879.6.3.413). ISSN 0005-8076

(//www.worldcat.org/issn/0005-8076).

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