c. 1000
Apocalyptic expectations around the year 1000
Record disputed Historical record is disputed End TimesEarly and Medieval
Quick facts
- Predicted date
- c. 1000
- Who predicted it
- Various medieval chroniclers and preachers
- Reasoning
- A simple count of one thousand years from the birth (1000) or the death and resurrection (1033) of Christ.
- What happened
- The year 1000 passed with no documented event matching the end of the world. Historical sources record famine, social unrest and religious movements in the following decades, which some chroniclers connected to the expe…
- Historical status
- Record disputed. Historians disagree on what was actually claimed, by whom, or how widely it was believed.
- Outcome label
- Historical record is disputed
- Editorial certainty
- Low: thin or conflicting sources
- Editorial review
- Pending. This entry has not yet been checked line by line against its sources. Treat details as provisional.
Prediction
What was predicted?
Historians disagree about how widely Europeans expected the world to end in the year 1000 or 1033. Some chroniclers describe apocalyptic unrest; others suggest the idea of mass panic was exaggerated later.
Interpretation by the author
Why did they believe it?
The proposed reasoning has two parts: a thousand years since Christ's birth (or his death, which would point to 1033) read together with Revelation 20, which describes a thousand-year binding of Satan.
Whether many people reasoned this way in the tenth century is the question under dispute.
Scripture as used by the author
Biblical basis cited
Revelation 20 speaks of a thousand years. Medieval readers argued among themselves over whether the thousand years was literal, symbolic, or already under way.
Method
How the date was calculated
A simple count of one thousand years from the birth (1000) or the death and resurrection (1033) of Christ.
Historical record
Historical context
Nineteenth-century historians, notably Jules Michelet, described widespread terror at the turn of the first millennium. Many twentieth-century historians rejected this as romantic myth, noting that few sources of the time mention it and that most people did not date events by the Christian era.
More recent scholars, including Richard Landes, argue that real apocalyptic expectation existed in some circles, citing chroniclers such as Rodulfus Glaber, and that earlier skeptics underrated the evidence.
Historical record
What happened when the date passed?
The year 1000 passed with no documented event matching the end of the world. Historical sources record famine, social unrest and religious movements in the following decades, which some chroniclers connected to the expected end.
Historical record
What happened afterward
Apocalyptic reading of history continued throughout the Middle Ages, as in the twelfth-century work of Joachim of Fiore. The question of 1000 remains a live argument among medievalists.
Scripture
Passages cited
-
Revelation 20:2–3 (KJV)
The thousand-year binding. Interpretation is disputed among Christian traditions.
Excerpts are from the King James Version (public domain). Listing a verse here does not mean this site agrees with how the author used it.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- Richard Landes, Andrew Gow and David C. Van Meter (eds.). The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950 to 1050. Oxford University Press. 2003. Academic Collected essays presenting both sides of the argument.
- Rodulfus Glaber. Five Books of Histories (Historiarum libri quinque). c. 1030s. Primary source A chronicle often cited for apocalyptic mood in the years around 1000 and 1033.
Found an error or a better source? Send a correction. See also the methodology.