Contents

• 1. Introduction: An Apocalyptic Age
• 2. The White Horse: Religion, Revelation and Reformation
• Luther, the Reformation and the Last Days
• The millennium and radical chiliasm
• Persistent apocalypticism within European Protestantism
• Reformed Protestantism and apocalypticism
• Apocalyptic signs and portents in the sky
• The eschatological decay of nature: the world turned upside-down and witchcraft
• 3. The Red Horse: War, Weapons and Wounds
• War
• Weapons
• Wounds
• War and religion: the response of Christian humanists and Protestants
• The experience of war
• 4. The Black Horse : Food, F(e)ast and Famine
• Famines: natural or man- made?
• Food
• F(e)ast
• Famine as divine punishment
• Famine in the siege of Sancerre, 1573
• Famine in the Great Siege of Paris, 1590
• The ‘Great Famine’ of the 1590s
• Responses to famine
• Escaping peace-time famine
• 5. The Pale Horse: Disease, Disaster and Death
• Sexual disease
• Siege disease
• The English sweat
• Plague
• Contagion or corruption as cause of epidemic disease?
• Epidemics as mortality crises?
• Disaster
• Death
• 6. Epilogue