Fifteen Signs before Doomsday

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 many post-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 Mundi it may have found its way even into the early modern period, in the works of William Shakespeare.

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-bôk.[4] Another version can be found in the Saltair na Rann. One of the earliest versions is De quindecim signis (PL XCIV.555) written in the 8th century by Pseudo-Bede.

Manuscripts

Types

The Fifteen Signs are 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-bôk is based on both Pseudo-Bede and Comestor's Historia scholastica.[7]

Signs

The fifteen signs are shown over fifteen days, though in many different varieties. According to the Welsh prose version:[6]

  1. The earth's waters rise above the mountains
  2. The waters sink so low they cannot be seen anymore
  3. The waters return to their original position
  4. All sea animals gather on the surface and bellow unintelligibly
  5. The waters burn from east to west
  6. Plants and trees fill with dew and blood
  7. All buildings are destroyed
  8. The stones fight each other
  9. Great earthquakes occur
  10. All mountains and valleys are leveled to a plain
  11. Men come out from their hiding places but can no longer understand each other
  12. The stars and constellations fall out of the sky (in the Comestor variant only stars fall[8])
  13. The bones of the dead come out of their graves
  14. All men die, the earth burns
  15. Judgment Day

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 Hamlet and Act 2 of Julius Caesar, details he couldn't have found in Holinshed's Chronicles.[10] Harry Morris contends that those details could have come to Shakespeare via John Daye's A 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

References

Reference bibliography

Further reading

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