Fifteen Signs before Doomsday

The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday (alternatively known as the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday, Fifteen Signs before Judgement, in Latin Quindecim Signa ante Judicium, and in German 15 Vorzeichen des Jüngsten Gerichts^[1]) 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.^[2] It may find an origin in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Thomas^[3] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 the Irish, after which it became a source for many European visions of the "end of days".^[4]

Remaining versions

One of its many versions can be found in the Asega-bôk.^[5] Another version can be found in the Saltair na Rann.^{[citation needed]} One of the earliest versions is De 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)^[6]
Bodleian Library, Oxford MS. Douce 134 (Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, with miniatures of all fifteen signs): fully digitized
Kildare Poems (British Library Harley MS 913) contains a version in Middle English.^[7]^[8]

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;^[9] the Asega-bôk is based on both Pseudo-Bede and Comestor's Historia scholastica.^[10]

Signs

The fifteen signs are shown over fifteen days, though in many different varieties. According to the Welsh prose version:^[9]

The earth's waters rise above the mountains
The waters sink so low they cannot be seen anymore
The waters return to their original position
All sea animals gather on the surface and bellow unintelligibly
The waters burn from east to west
Plants and trees fill with dew and blood
Earth is divided into two parts
All buildings are destroyed
The stones fight each other
Great earthquakes occur
All mountains and valleys are leveled to a plain
Men come out from their hiding places but can no longer understand each other
The stars and constellations fall out of the sky (in the Comestor variant only stars fall^[11])
The bones of the dead come out of their graves
All men die, the earth burns with water
Judgment Day

In the Middle English version of the Kildare Poems:

The stars shall be thrown down to earth
The dead will rise and sit upon their tombs
The sun will turn black
The sun will turn red
Every beast will tremble and look to heaven
The mountains will fall and fill up the valleys, castles, towers and trees will fall
Trees will grow upside down, with their roots above ground; they will bleed
The sea will draw together to stand upright like a wall, and then return to its place
A voice will speak from the sky, begging God for mercy
The angels will tremble and the demons will lament
Four winds will rise and then the rain bow will fall, driving the demons back to Hell
The four elements will cry in strong voice: "Mercy, Jesus, son of Mary, as you are God and King of heaven!" (Merci Iesus, fiȝ Mari, As þou ert god and king of heuene)

The poem breaks off at this point, leaving the final signs unknown.^[7]

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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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).^[14] The signs also occur in the shearmen's Prophets of Antichrist, part of the fifteenth-century Chester Mystery Plays.^[15]

References

^ Palmer, Nigel F. (1 January 2002). "15 Vorzeichen des Jüngsten Gerichts". Katalog. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
^ Giliberto 2007, p. 129.
^ Dunn 1958, p. 189.
^ Gatch 1964, p. 380.
^ Giliberto 2007, p. 130.
^ Baker 1897, p. 63.
^ ^a ^b "Anglo-Irish poems of the Middle Ages". celt.ucc.ie.
^ Heuser, Wilhelm (March 31, 2006). Die Kildare-gedichte; die ältesten mittelenglischen denkmäler in anglo-irischer überlieferung von Dr. W. Heuser ...
^ ^a ^b Heist 1944, p. 421.
^ Giliberto 2007, p. 130–131.
^ Heist 1944, p. 424.
^ Emmerson & Herzman 1980, p. 376.
^ Conley 1915, p. 41.
^ Morris 1985.
^ Clopper 1978, p. 230.

Reference bibliography

Baker, A. T. (1897). "Fifteen Signs of Doomsday". Modern Language Quarterly. 1 (2): 63–64. JSTOR 41163389.
Clopper, Lawrence M. (1978). "The History and Development of the Chester Cycle". Modern Philology. 75 (s): 219–46. doi:10.1086/390788. JSTOR 436982. S2CID 161359966.
Conley, C. H. (1915). "An Instance of the Fifteen Signs of Judgment in Shakespeare". Modern Language Notes. 30 (2): 41–44. doi:10.2307/2916899. JSTOR 2916899.
Dunn, Charles W. (1958). "Rev. of Heist, The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday". The Journal of American Folklore. 71 (280): 189. doi:10.2307/537713. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010721762. JSTOR 537713.
Emmerson, Richard Kenneth; Herzman, Ronald B. (1980). "Antichrist, Simon Magus, and Dante's Inferno XIX". Traditio. 36: 373–98. doi:10.1017/S0362152900009296. JSTOR 27831081. S2CID 152106902.
Gatch, Milton McCormick (1964). "Two Uses of Apocrypha in Old English Homilies". Church History. 33 (4): 379–91. doi:10.2307/3162832. JSTOR 3162832. S2CID 161641954.
Heist, William W. (1944). "Welsh Prose Versions of the Fifteen Signs before Doomsday". Speculum. 19 (4): 421–32. doi:10.2307/2853480. JSTOR 2853480. S2CID 162649268.
Giliberto, Concetta (2007). "The Fifteen Signs of Doomsday of the First Riustring Manuscript". In Bremmer, Rolf Hendrik; Laker, Stephen; Vries, Oebele (eds.). Advances in Old Frisian Philology. Rige Estrikken. Vol. 80. Rodopi. ISBN 9789042021815.
Morris, Harry (1985). Last Things in Shakespeare. Tallahassee: Florida State UP.