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A.D. 1000: A World on the Brink of Apocalypse
It is the onej-thousandth year of Christianity. The end of the millennium is fast approaching, and with it the nightmare visions of Armageddon and the Apocalypse. Europe is wracked by war, famine, carnage,a nd pestilence. Madness plagues the continent.
Tracing the career of briliant visionary Pope Sylvester II, Richard Erdoes has composed a vivid tapestry of a century frighteningly similar to our present one. This chilling historical account holds up a darkling mirror.
284 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1988
3 people are currently reading
241 people want to read
About the author
Richard Erdoes
73 books39 followersRichard Erdoes was an artist, photographer, illustrator and author. He described himself as "equal parts Austrian, Hungarian and German, as well as equal parts Catholic, Protestant and Jew..."
He was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. He was involved in a small underground paper where he published anti-Hitler political cartoons which attracted the attention of the Nazi regime. He fled Germany with a price on his head. Back in Vienna, he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule, the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
He also wrote and illustrated children's books and worked as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, anti-Nazi newspapers. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 he fled again, first to Paris, where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then London, England before journeying to the United States.
In New York City, Erdoes enjoyed a long career as a commercial artist, and was known for his highly detailed, whimsical drawings. He created illustrations for such magazines as Stage, Fortune, Pageant, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Time, National Geographic and Life Magazine, where he met his second wife, Jean Sternbergh (d. 1995) who was an art director there. The couple married in 1951 and had three children. Erdoes also illustrated many children's books.
An assignment for Life in 1967 took Erdoes to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the first time, and marked the beginning of the work for which he would be best known. Erdoes was fascinated by Native American culture, outraged at the conditions on the reservation and deeply moved by the Civil Rights Movement that was raging at the time.
Erdoes wrote histories, collections of Native American stories and myths, and wrote about such voices of the Native American Renaissance as Leonard and Mary Crow Dog and John Fire Lame Deer. In 1975 the family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where Erdoes continued to write and remained active in the movement for Native American civil rights.
His papers are preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
He was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. He was involved in a small underground paper where he published anti-Hitler political cartoons which attracted the attention of the Nazi regime. He fled Germany with a price on his head. Back in Vienna, he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule, the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
He also wrote and illustrated children's books and worked as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, anti-Nazi newspapers. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 he fled again, first to Paris, where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then London, England before journeying to the United States.
In New York City, Erdoes enjoyed a long career as a commercial artist, and was known for his highly detailed, whimsical drawings. He created illustrations for such magazines as Stage, Fortune, Pageant, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Time, National Geographic and Life Magazine, where he met his second wife, Jean Sternbergh (d. 1995) who was an art director there. The couple married in 1951 and had three children. Erdoes also illustrated many children's books.
An assignment for Life in 1967 took Erdoes to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the first time, and marked the beginning of the work for which he would be best known. Erdoes was fascinated by Native American culture, outraged at the conditions on the reservation and deeply moved by the Civil Rights Movement that was raging at the time.
Erdoes wrote histories, collections of Native American stories and myths, and wrote about such voices of the Native American Renaissance as Leonard and Mary Crow Dog and John Fire Lame Deer. In 1975 the family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where Erdoes continued to write and remained active in the movement for Native American civil rights.
His papers are preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 7, 2013
The title is rather misleading as the book is more a biography of Gerbert of Aurillac, who became Pope Sylvester II, and a general look at the tenth century with focus on the Ottonian Dynasty whom founded the Holy Roman Empire.
Sadly it is a bit dated in that the author perpetuates the myths of spices being desired for spoiled meat and the propensity of medieval folk to relieve themselves wherever the need came upon them. People in the Middle Ages did not eat spoiled food anymore than modern people do and neither did they, or their dogs, relieve themselves inside their homes or any other living space.
He also quotes long stretches of period writing without any qualifications, more or less leaving it up to the reader to decide if these people were that horrid or if it was monkish slander at work. Overall though it is an easy read and a decent introduction to the shakers and movers of tenth century Europe.
Sadly it is a bit dated in that the author perpetuates the myths of spices being desired for spoiled meat and the propensity of medieval folk to relieve themselves wherever the need came upon them. People in the Middle Ages did not eat spoiled food anymore than modern people do and neither did they, or their dogs, relieve themselves inside their homes or any other living space.
He also quotes long stretches of period writing without any qualifications, more or less leaving it up to the reader to decide if these people were that horrid or if it was monkish slander at work. Overall though it is an easy read and a decent introduction to the shakers and movers of tenth century Europe.
April 4, 2018
An interesting topic for me is the recovery of the "lost" figures of the Church, and this sober treatment of Sylvester II is no exception, given the things written about him. However, I think this book could have been better when references were laid out as footnotes for study and consideration.
May 17, 2014
This book gave me a real sense of life in the middle ages. It made me realize that so much of what I thought I knew about the middle ages was really just interpretations, or guesses at the truth, that I had made after watching or reading fiction. Most of what I thought I knew was just myth. Here is a passage regarding the Truce of God laws (the laws that latter mythology called "chivalry"):
"Among deeds abhorrent and unlawful were listed: fighting on the sabbath and holy days, killing or maiming people who sought sanctuary inside churches, violating nuns and wounding unarmed clerics, burning cloisters, destroying crops, and cutting down olive trees. ... Thus it was considered acceptable to burn and ravage on weekdays, steal a man's livestock so long as one left him a single nag for plowing, rape women if they were not nuns, take a man's last shirt but leave him his loincloth, and mutilate a man lightly, perhaps by putting out only one of his eyes instead of two."
Richard Erdoes was a historian who was not afraid to tell the truth.
"Among deeds abhorrent and unlawful were listed: fighting on the sabbath and holy days, killing or maiming people who sought sanctuary inside churches, violating nuns and wounding unarmed clerics, burning cloisters, destroying crops, and cutting down olive trees. ... Thus it was considered acceptable to burn and ravage on weekdays, steal a man's livestock so long as one left him a single nag for plowing, rape women if they were not nuns, take a man's last shirt but leave him his loincloth, and mutilate a man lightly, perhaps by putting out only one of his eyes instead of two."
Richard Erdoes was a historian who was not afraid to tell the truth.
June 8, 2013
I love reading about insane times like this period because it reminds me that society is highly susceptible to irrationalism on a large scale and that nothing should ever replace your own mental ability to think clearly, make your own decisions, and act wisely. Even if that means separating yourself from the group and appearing to be stupid for doing so.
November 6, 2021
This would be quite a good intro to this period of history if you aren't familiar with it. If you ARE familiar with medieval history you probably won't find that much that is new. There are at least two historical figures I learned about here who really ought to have their own focused books or movies, though!
Full review: https://ajungleoftales.blogspot.com/2...
Full review: https://ajungleoftales.blogspot.com/2...
September 28, 2024
I found this very interesting when it was zoomed out and giving a 30,000 foot view of the turn of the millennium. When it was zoomed in on Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II) I found it considerably less engaging. The style of writing is nonetheless zippy and easy to parse, so if this book sounds interesting at all to you, I would say give it a shot.
July 31, 2017
Very dry
February 15, 2021
Interesting but more prose than history.
September 4, 2011
The era this book presents has become a fascination for this reader, partly because of its similarity to the era we post-year 2000 people find ourselves in, and partly because of the drama its history has given us.
Erdoes fashions his story about one Gerbert, a French peasant priest who became the brightest intellect in Post-Roman Empire Europe and who later became Pope. Erdoes welcomes us to an age fraught with superstition, violence, poverty, famine, and social conflict – an age most people of that time thought were earths “final days.” Gerbert is that age’s foil; he restores learning of the Greek and Roman ages to a mostly illiterate Europe and sets the stage for the Renaissance. As only real life to conjure it, his greatest ally in a world that saw Gerbert as a scion of Satan, was Otto III, the hyper-Christian but far-seeing Emperor of the so-called Holy Roman Empire.
Gerbert, the paragon of a newly minted reason, and Otto, who lived his life largely for a heavenly world, formed a ruling duo that, if they’d lived a decade or two longer, would have reshaped Europe in ways we can only imagine.
As a fiction writer might, Erdoes parcels out this difficult telling with great suspense and drama, and leaves us with hope for our own, similar transitional period of world history. The only failing here is in the writer’s biases – for and against – but without them, the story would been a mound of facts, not the vibrant historical telling that it is.
Erdoes fashions his story about one Gerbert, a French peasant priest who became the brightest intellect in Post-Roman Empire Europe and who later became Pope. Erdoes welcomes us to an age fraught with superstition, violence, poverty, famine, and social conflict – an age most people of that time thought were earths “final days.” Gerbert is that age’s foil; he restores learning of the Greek and Roman ages to a mostly illiterate Europe and sets the stage for the Renaissance. As only real life to conjure it, his greatest ally in a world that saw Gerbert as a scion of Satan, was Otto III, the hyper-Christian but far-seeing Emperor of the so-called Holy Roman Empire.
Gerbert, the paragon of a newly minted reason, and Otto, who lived his life largely for a heavenly world, formed a ruling duo that, if they’d lived a decade or two longer, would have reshaped Europe in ways we can only imagine.
As a fiction writer might, Erdoes parcels out this difficult telling with great suspense and drama, and leaves us with hope for our own, similar transitional period of world history. The only failing here is in the writer’s biases – for and against – but without them, the story would been a mound of facts, not the vibrant historical telling that it is.
May 11, 2010
Actually more about the life and times of Pope Silvester II, who brought Arabic numbers and algebra from Moorish Spain into Christendom, built his own astrolabes and accurate sundials, and who knew quite well that the Earth was round. He was also a great scholar of the ancient authors and generally one of the pioneers who helped the West climb from its Dark Age after the fall of the Roman Empire. An uneven read, more notes toward a book than a book. Erdoes, a Euro-transplant to New Mexico, was best known as a compiler of American Indian tales and a member of the activist Amerind establishment.
November 15, 2016
2.5 stars. I agree with Kris; this book is more a biography of Gerbert of Aurillac than an analysis of those living on the so-called "brink of Apocalypse." Unfortunately, it has little analysis at all. Though there is plenty of interesting information, it is jumbled and lacks further context. The text leaps from subject to subject without making connections...Ok, interesting anecdotes, but what do they say about the larger state of mind of a community of people who believe Judgement Day is around the corner? Had more time been spent on these types of questions (as I assumed it would), this book would have been much deeper.
Also - dozens and dozens of typos! What's up??
Also - dozens and dozens of typos! What's up??
August 18, 2009
An interesting means of describing Europe in 1000 AD. The central story is a biography of Pope Sylvester II; but the focus is on the incidental detail of his world. Clever and easy to read.
September 27, 2009
A lot of interesting "fun facts" about the barbarity of the 10th Century, but the book was ultimately rather disjointed and disappointing.
June 28, 2011
This book reminded me of James Reston Jr's "The Last Apocalypse", although it has enough original material to stand on its own merits.
April 24, 2015
Not as good as I was hoping.
October 14, 2023
odd little book about medieval period uses pope's biography to frame a story about life around 1000 a.d.
November 24, 2016
Great exposition of a horrific time.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews