Lecture | Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History
Is this the End? Late medieval attitudes towards a future that might already have been written
- Klaus Oschema (Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris)
- Date
- Friday 7 February 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Research Seminars Medieval and Early Modern History academic year 2024 - 2025
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
While studies on the perception of time in the Middle Ages have become relatively widespread since the 1980s, medieval perceptions of the future remained relatively unexplored until quite recently. One major reason is the role of apocalyptic thinking: how could one even think in terms of a "real" future, when the end of times seems already to have been written? Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern history tend to identify later periods as the moment when the future has been "invented", when the motif of a universal end had lost its importance. But was medieval thinking about the future really exclusively dominated by the orientation towards eschatological thinking? And was the Apocalypse perceived as a total endpoint? This seminar proposes to reflect about medieval material that envisages secular futures and a perspective beyond the Last Judgment. In doing so, it will also seek to include elements of extra-European perspectives.
About the speaker
Klaus Oschema is a historian working on late medieval France and neighboring regions. His research interests include chivalric and courtly culture as well as medieval world views, geographical concepts, cultures of knowledge and astrology.
Research Seminars Medieval and Early Modern History
The seminars are informal and intended to foster discussion. There are drinks afterwards. Everyone is welcome to join.
If you would like to join a session, and/or receive invitations for the upcoming sessions, you can send an e-mail to: ngassistent@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Further information can be obtained from the organizers Marlisa den Hartog, Judith Pollmann, Jeroen Duindam and Philippe Buc.