The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D.
by James Reston, Jr

Publisher:  Doubleday
ISBN:  0385483260

As the year 2000 approaches, it is not at all surprising to see a surge of interest in the last turn of the millennium, and not only among historians. Those concerned about the Y2K bug -- a real problem with real consequences and real solutions -- are often reminded of doomsayers and panic as people expected the world to end in the year 1000 A.D., and how foolish everyone felt when it didn't.

Anyone who takes the time to investigate events of a thousand years ago will soon discover that this is, at best, a radical simplification. Only Christendom used the Christian calendar; for the rest of the world the year 1000 held no meaning. And a huge portion of Europe's population had no idea what year it was to begin with. The mass hysteria that has often been described never really took place.

Yet it might be said that the years surrounding the last millennial change were apocalyptic -- not in the sense of the world coming to an end, but in that of a new age beginning. Grand events and extraordinary people turned western civilization in new directions. There was among the learned elite some sense of imminent change. Europe stood on the brink of a new era: one defined by milestones of achievement and new philosophies rather than by mere dates and numbers. Such is the point of view of James Reston, Jr. in his popular history, The Last Apocalypse.

Early on, Reston issues a disclaimer: this is not, he warns us, history in "the modern sense." Such a work, with documentary or archaeological evidence supporting every assertion, he claims, is "impossible." While I'm sure there are historians who would disagree with this claim, the period of history The Last Apocalypse covers is one for which current evidence is scanty; and although a more scholarly work concerning the era could have been produced, it is unlikely it could have had the scope, the atmosphere, or the narrative flow that Reston so admirably achieves.

As an introductory survey The Last Apocalypse is marvelous. Reston has done extensive research and deftly woven oral history, myth, tradition and poetry into a rich tapestry of larger-than-life heroes, epic struggles, and villains of insidious evil. Here you will meet Gerbert "the Wizard," a scholar so brilliant he was rumored to be in league with the devil, and who as Sylvester II became one of history's most cultured popes; Al Mansor, whose rise to power as regent over the caliph brought glory and riches, but whose undermining of the rightful ruler led to the eventual downfall of the caliphate in Córdoba; and Theophano, the beautiful, accomplished widow of the weak and crude Emperor Otto II, who with wisdom and determination held the Holy Roman Empire together while her son grew to maturity.

In these pages you'll witness furious battles, papal politics, and palace intrigue. You'll also see the transformation of Iceland from a pagan society to a Christian one, by vote, virtually overnight. Admirably resisting any impulse to entitle a chapter "All My Vikings," Reston relates the complicated saga of the much-married, much-harried Olaf Trygvesson, his vengeful ex-wife Sigrid the Haughty, and her husband Swein Forkbeard, the bastard prince. There's no shortage of colorful characters, including Harald Bluetooth, Little Sancho of Córdoba, Ethelred the Unready, Henry the Quarrelsome, and the unforgtettable Ragnar Hairy Breeks.

There may be no new theories offered, but Reston does have a point to make. For whatever reasons, be it a general awareness of a new age dawning or the fading usefulness of old ways, Europe did undergo a change in the years surrounding the last millennium that could be considered, in a limited sense, an apocalypse.

In mid-tenth century Europe, only the remains of the Carolingian Empire, the south of England, and the southern two-thirds of the Balkan peninsula were under Christian leadership. In less than fifty years, with the collapse of the Moorish Caliphate, the conversion of Russia and various Scandinavian societies, and the evolution of Hungary and Poland into proto-modern states, the greater part of Europe became Christian. Most of these changes occurred in a mere handful of years surrounding 1000 A.D. Thus, in a fairly short time, a transformation occurred that would profoundly affect European society for centuries to come.

Could this qualify as an apocalypse? Read the book, and decide.

Melissa Snell, your Guide for Medieval History