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

Chapter 3. From Avignon to Antwerp and from Antwerp to Nuremberg

36 Chapter 3 From Avignon to Antwerp and from Antwerp to Nuremberg  The ways in which the text attributed to Wilhelm Friess changed from edition to edition run parallel to changes in who was reading it and where it was being printed. Those who published and redacted the prophecy left their marks on the text. By piecing together the history of the text (which will be referred to in quotation marks as “Wilhelm Friess” to distinguish the text from Wilhelm Friess, its alleged author), we will be able to trace how the prophecy entered Germany and understand how a text that was suppressed with the severest penalties in Antwerp could become a popular and openly printed pamphlet in Nuremberg. The textual history of “Wilhelm Friess” provides an example of how texts changed in the context of censorship, in the genre of early modern prophecy, and in the medium of print. By focusing on the details of textual history, we will later be able to attempt an answer to more fundamental questions : where do prophecies come from, and more broadly, how were texts made in the late Middle Ages and early modern period? From Avignon to Antwerp: Johannes de Rupescissa and “Wilhelm Friess” That Frans Fraet was printing something incendiary should have been apparent from the fact that the text he printed was first written by an From Avignon to Antwerp and from Antwerp to Nuremberg • 37 author who spent most of his adult life in prison.1 In the 1330s, Johannes de Rupescissa, a young man of knightly heritage in southern France, began to have visions. Rupescissa described his visions as sudden illuminations of his mind that helped him understand scripture and extrabiblical prophecies, informed him of the Antichrist’s birth and impending appearance, and inspired him to become a Franciscan. Prophesying of things to come was a hazardous undertaking at that time in southern France, which had recently seen several lay and clerical prophesying religious enthusiasts denounced—and, in some cases, burned—as heretics. Rupescissa denied that he was a prophet in the same way that Jeremiah or Isaiah had been, but he did so by quoting the biblical prophet Amos.2 Rupescissa’s disavowal of the title of prophet did not prevent him from claiming that part of one of his works had been revealed to him by the Virgin Mary.3 Rupescissa was arrested in late 1344 and imprisoned until his trial in 1346. The inquiry found Rupescissa to be not a heretic but a fantast, and he remained confined for most of the remainder of his life. In 1349, during the Great Schism, Rupescissa was allowed to make his case before the papal court in Avignon. While Rupescissa’s imprisonment prevented him from preaching openly, his superiors respected his prophetic claims enough that he was allowed access to books and writing materials and allowed to work, although often under appalling conditions , and some interested observers began copying and circulating Rupescissa’s writings. Despite his imprisonment, Rupescissa read widely and composed an impressive list of his own prophetic commentaries and interpretations before his death in 1366. In 1356, Rupescissa summarized his prior prophetic work in a short tract entitled Vademecum in tribulatione (Walk with me in tribulation). The Vademecum was soon known to readers in and beyond Avignon, and it eventually dispersed throughout Europe in various forms and in both Latin and several vernacular languages. Rupescissa divided his work into twenty sections or “intentions” that sketch out the primary events and actors of the end-time, including the rise of false prophets and Antichrists of the east and west, the purification of the clergy through poverty, and then the overthrow of heresy and other diabolical powers through the actions of righteous preachers and a final virtuous emperor. The Vademecum is unusually specific in its predictions: Rupescissa foresaw all these events occurring between 1356 and 1370. The prophecy of “Wilhelm Friess” is considerably shorter than the Vademecum, and the material is treated in a somewhat different order, with many sections being omitted entirely. Comparing the two texts is 38 • the strange and terrible visions of wilhelm friess made more difficult by the lack of a modern edition of the Vademecum. Considering the numerous manuscripts of the original version and many later adaptations in Latin and other languages, preparing a critical edition would be an enormously difficult undertaking. Yet without a critical edition of the Vademecum, one...