The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess: The Paths of Prophecy in Reformation Europe

Contents

Contents  Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 A Strange Prognostication 11 Chapter 2 A Seditious Prophecy 23 The Strange Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 28 Chapter 3 From Avignon to Antwerp and from Antwerp to Nuremberg 36 From Avignon to Antwerp: Johannes de Rupescissa and “Wilhelm Friess” 36 Why Frans Fraet Had to Die 41 From Antwerp to Nuremberg 43 Chapter 4 From Protest to Propaganda 54 The Tangled History of N 54 “Wilhelm Friess” in Nuremberg 58 The Restless Ghost of “Wilhelm Friess” 64 “Wilhelm Friess” in Antwerp and Lübeck, 1566–68 66 Chapter 5 A Horrible and Shocking Prophecy 72 The Appalling Accuracy of “Wilhelm Friess” 72 The Horrible and Shocking Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 76 The Textual History of Wilhelm Friess’s Second Prophecy 83 1639: The Earliest and Latest Wilhelm Freiss 84 The Second Generation 85 x • Contents Samuel Apiarius 86 The Stars over Strasbourg 89 Chapter 6 “Wilhelm Friess in Strasbourg 94 The Home of Wilhelm Friess’s Second Prophecy: Sources and Templates 95 Strasbourg and Sacraments: The Religious Home of “Friess II” 98 The Geopolitics of “Friess II” 101 Johann Fischart, Author of the Second Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess? 104 Chapter 7 The Last Emperor and the Beginning of Prophecy 113 “Friess I” versus “Friess II” 113 The Long Afterlife of “Wilhelm Friess” 115 The Textuality of Prophecy 121 Appendixes 131 Appendix 1 The First Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 133 Appendix 2 The Second Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 151 Appendix 3 Editions Attributed to Wilhelm Friess 157 Notes 169 Bibliography 191 index 203 ...