Apocalypticism, Millenarianism, and Prophecy: Eschatological Expectations between East-Central and Western Europe, 1560–1670 International workshop of the project Intellectual Networks in Central and Western Europe, 1560–1670 15–16 January 2009, Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Jilská 1, Prague 1 1st floor, Conference room (No 124a) Apocalypticism, Millenarianism, and Prophecy: Eschatological Expectations between East-Central and Western Europe, 1560–1670 International workshop of the project Intellectual Networks in Central and Western Europe, 1560–1670 15–16 January 2009, Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Jilská 1, Prague 1 1st floor, Conference room (No 124a) Thursday, 15 January 9:00–9:15 Introduction 9:15–12:30 Chair: Prof. Nicolette Mout 9:15–10:15 Prof. Howard HOTSON (Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Oxford): Intellectual Networks, Universal Reformation, and Early Modern Millenarianism: The status quaestionis 10:15–10:30 Coffee break 10:30–11:30 Dr. Pál ÁCS (Institute of Literary Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest): Humanist Historical Research and Apocalypticism: Hungarian Relations in Johannes Löwenklau’s Historia Musulmanae Turcorum (1591) 11:30–12:30 PhDr. Lucie STORCHOVÁ (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague): Eschatological Discourses and Humanism at the University of Prague The time devoted to each paper will include a half-hour presentation and a half-hour discussion. 12:30–14:00 Lunch 14:00–18:15 Chair: Dr. Pál Ács 14:00–15:00 Prof. Mihály BALÁZS (Department of Early Hungarian Literature, University of Szeged, Szeged): Unitarian Millenarianism in Transylvania 15:00–16:00 Ms Pavlína CERMANOVÁ (Centre for Medieval Studies, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, and University of Konstanz, Konstanz): "Un édifice déja construit?": Medieval Prophecy in Reformed Apocalyptic Discourse in the 17th Century 16:00–16:15 Coffee break 16:15–17:15 Dr. Peter FORSHAW (School of English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, London): Paracelsian Apocalypse: Alchemy and Prophecy in Early Modern Central Europe 17:15–18:15 Dr. Rafał PRINKE (Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego, Poznań): "Heliocantharus Borealis": The Alchemist Michael Sendivogius and Fourth Monarchy Millenarianism The time devoted to each paper will include a half-hour presentation and a half-hour discussion. Friday, 16 January 9:00–12:15 Chair: Dr. Vladimír Urbánek 9:00–10:00 Dr. Jana HUBKOVÁ (Municipal Museum, Ústí nad Labem): The Early Versions of Christoph Kotter’s Prophecies: Their Sources, Symbols and Relationship to pro-Palatine Pamphlets 10:00–11:00 Mr Pavel HEŘMÁNEK (Evangelical Theological Faculty, Charles University, Prague): J. A. Comenius and Christina Poniatowska: Prophetic Revelations and Theology 11:00–11:15 Coffee break 11:15–12:15 Ms Martina LISÁ (Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas, Leipzig): The Perception of Prophecies in Bohemian Emigré Circles: The Case of Pirna The time devoted to each paper will include a half-hour presentation and a half-hour discussion. Lunch 12:15–14:00 14:00–18:45 Chair: Prof. Howard Hotson 14:00–15:00 Dr. Vladimír URBÁNEK (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague): The Reception of Alsted’s Eschatology among Bohemian Exiles: Partlicius, Skála and Comenius 15:00–16:00 Dr. Noémi VISKOLCZ (University of Szeged, Szeged): Millenarianism in Theory and Practice in Mid-17th Century: Johann Permeier’s Circle 16:00–16:15 Coffee break 16:15–17:15 Dr. Leigh PENMAN (University of Melbourne, Melbourne): Schola Spiritus Sancti: The Chiliastic Underground in the Holy Roman Empire, 1600–1630 17:15–18:15 Mr Brandon MARRIOTT (University of Oxford, Oxford): Jewish Mercantile Networks as Intermediaries in the Communication of Apocalyptic Expectations between England and the Levant 18:15–18:45 Prof. Nicolette MOUT (Research Institute for History, University of Leiden, Leiden): Closing remarks The time devoted to each paper will include a half-hour presentation and a half-hour discussion. ABSTRACTS Howard HOTSON Intellectual Networks, Universal Reformation, and Early Modern Millenarianism: The status quaestionis The paper is designed to provide a two-fold introduction, both to the topic of this workshop in particular and to the broader series which it inaugurates. Its point of departure will be the failure of past scholarship adequately to account for the universal reform movement of the mid-seventeenth century in narrowly national or confessional terms. The first part of the paper will indicate this failure with reference to two important components of that movement. First, the pansophic component of the universal reform programme will briefly be shown to originate, in large measure, in a repeatedly transplanted and disseminated tradition which derived crucial stimuli, at one period or other, from virtually every major Protestant community in Europe. Second, the current state of research on early modern apocalypticism and millenarianism will be explored in somewhat greater depth in a manner designed to show the failure to account for its significance and impact within narrowly British terms in particular. Neither pansophia nor millenarianism, it will then be argued, can be adequately accounted for in narrow national or confessional terms because both were generated by and developed within intellectual networks, centred in central Europe, which were international, multi-ethnic, and also often multi-confessional in scope. It follows from this, that the national orientation of scholarship on millenarianism in particular and the broader universal reform programme more generally needs to be supplemented by a new breed of scholarship more explicitly international in scope. The second and briefer part of the paper will be devoted to showing how the concrete conditions for such international coordination have steadily improved in the two decades since 1989 and how the structure of this current workshop and the series of which it is a part are designed to help advance this fresh wave of international scholarship on the universal reform agenda and the international networks which generated and sustained it. 5 Pál ÁCS Humanist Historical Research and Apocalypticism: Hungarian Relations in Johannes Löwenklau’s Historia Musulmanae Turcorum (1591) The present paper is about the Turkish Histories (Annales Sultanorum Othmanidarum 1588; Neuwer musulmanischer Histori türckischer Nation, 1590; Historiae Musulmanae Turcorum, 1591) written by Hans Löwenklau (Joannes Leunclavius). The German humanist was one of the best orientalists of the 16th century. Firstly he gave a good Ottoman History for the western audience on the basis of the original Turkish histories. He had a number of Hungarian relations. He took a part in the war against the Turks in Hungary in 1594. Then he died some weeks later in Vienna. He was a Calvinist (or Crypto-Calvinist) having good connections with the freethinkers of the contemporary Republic of Letters. All his writings were put on the Roman Index. He used for his works Hungarian sources: the so called codex Verantius and the codex Hanivaldanus. First of these manuscripts belonged to the famous Hungarian humanist Antal Verancsics (Antonius Verantius), the other one was more striking: it had been translated to Latin by Tarjuman Murad alias Balázs Somlyai, a Hungarian born chief interpreter at the Ottoman Porte. On one hand Löwenklau was a typical 16th century intellectual, on the other hand he was close to the scholarly and religious movements of the 17th century. His works are infiltrated by apocalyptic expectations, prophecies about the end of the Ottoman Empire, the reunion of the Roman Empire as well. At the same time Löwanklau had very deep and serious scholarly aims. The ordinary Hungarian audience had aversion against this combination of apocalypticism and scholarly research, so it is not amazing that Hungarian historiography is silent about this great historian of the time. 6 Lucie STORCHOVÁ Eschatological Discourses and Humanism at the University of Prague In my paper I focus on ways how one of the most important eschatological discourses (Melanchthon´s concept of the so-called fatal periods, anni fatales) was modified by humanists at the University of Prague during the second half of the 16th century. While recent scholarly literature stresses a “pandemic character” of eschatological thought after the outbreak of the Reformation, I would like to analyse how the eschatological discourses were rewritten and how they functioned in individual texts produced within the school humanism that concentrated primarily on “writing in excerpts”. Historical narratives on fatal periods were applied by the Prague university humanists mostly entirely without explicitly eschatological connotation; they became a part of a university curriculum and one of “rhetorical training” topics for students as well. Fatal periods can be thus interpreted as a tool of shaping scholarly community, which also should be understood in this sense as a textual effect. They further legitimized the scholarly institution and enabled to acquire a patronage in the literary field. In the concluding part of my paper I compare the university historical narratives on fatal periods with Czech vernacular humanism, where beside the vague transmission of the fatal period’s concept also a rare apocalyptical vision could be thematised (in the texts by the so-called Veleslavín’s