The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (review)

In every age of the Christian world there have been some who believed that the Last Days prophesied by Christ had arrived. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that feeling was intense and shared by many. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse foretold in the Book of Revelation seemed to be already unleashed: "and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth" (Rev. 6:8). In their excellent book Andrew Cunningham and Ole Grell show how many different episodes in the history of early modern Europe were interpreted in such apocalyptic terms. The Reformation was linked by Protestants to the purity of the white horse in the Book of Revelation, while the horseman who sat on it would punish with his bow the corruption of the Catholic Church and so prepare for the Second Coming of Christ and the Day of Judgment. Wars and the Apocalypse often went together. The Ottoman incursions into Europe and the wars of religion that culminated in the Thirty Years War were seen as the work of the rider on the red horse who was given "power. . . to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword" (Rev. 6:4). Similarly, Europe's recurring famines were ascribed to the horseman on the black horse. Death and disease, especially the new disease of the pox and the devastating presence of plague, issued from the fourth horseman: "and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" (Rev. 6:8).

Cunningham and Grell make a powerful case for the pervasiveness of the belief in an imminent apocalypse in religious commentaries on events—that is, in the dominant ideological thought of the time. Protestant writers, especially, saw political and natural events as heralding the Last Days. For instance, Gustavus Adolphus was believed by Protestants to be the savior-king who would bring about the Protestant millennium and slay the beast having "seven heads and ten horns" (Rev. 12:3) that was identified as the Pope. Catholics, on the other hand, viewed Gustavus Adolphus as the Antichrist prophesied by St. John the Divine.

What has all this to do with the history of medicine? The Apocalypse was about death, the center point of health and illness. In their sections on war, famine, and illness, which form the major part of the book, Cunningham and Grell provide lengthy, interesting, and sound accounts of military surgery; of the social causes and consequences of famine; and of disease, especially the pox and the plague. In their case examples, for instance, when discussing particular military campaigns they also provide an enlightening narrative framework of events that is often missing from today's academic history. They have wisely kept some parts of their sections free from reference to the Apocalypse, so the treatment of war wounds or the medical understanding of the pox are seen at times on their own terms. On other pages, the human cost of war and the meaning of the pox are shown as having apocalyptic interpretations.

Sometimes, as in the case of plague, it is not always clear whether the religious meaning involved is that of a general providentialism, or is specifically apocalyptic. However, the authors make a convincing case that the apocalyptic view of the world in early modern Europe was applied in significant ways to issues of health and illness. Their careful references to the popular broadsheets and prints that transmitted such interpretations indicate how pervasive this was...