MILLE, LEGEND OF THE YEAR 1000. — According to it, as that year approached, Christian society felt itself seized by terror of the end of the world and the consequent appearance of Jesus Christ as judge, announced for the night of St. Silvester in 999. Therefore the anguished people, neglecting earthly things, hastened to churches and convents to offer their possessions and treasures in order to obtain forgiveness for their sins. Hence the fabulous riches of the Church, which saw its power and supremacy over the world increased. Once the terror had passed, at the appearance of dawn on 1 January 1000, the same people, having escaped death, set about building cathedrals, churches, and convents.
The legend first appeared toward the end of the sixteenth century, 700 years after the supposed events, which would already suffice to make its truthfulness suspect. Anticlerical writers seized upon it, competing to embellish it with romantic and melodramatic circumstances, in homage to the deeply rooted prejudice concerning a Middle Ages steeped in darkness, ignorance, and disorder. The first to disseminate it widely was W. Robertson, in the preface to his History of the reign of the emperor Charles V (London 1769), followed in turn by J. Michelet, J. C. Sismondi, C. Flammarion, H. Martin, V. Duruy, J. F. Michaud, P. L. Cinguéné, F. Gregorovius, and, in Italy, G. Carducci, who begins with it the speeches Dello svolgimento della letteratura nazionale (Opere, ed. naz., VII, Bologna 1935, pp. 3-5). With less fervor in its descriptions, the legend is nevertheless accepted by many other modern historians, for example T. Dandolo and C. Cantù (cf. the extensive list in P. Orsi [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 3-5).
The legend, however, is devoid of any historical foundation; this is demonstrated by negative and positive arguments. It is true that, from the Jewish belief in a Messiah, a temporal king, and from the false interpretation of the Apocalypse (20:1-7), whose symbols were explained as signifying a thousand years, this erroneous opinion found here and there some resonance through the heretic Cerinthus and the theories of St. Irenaeus and Tertullian; but from the fifth century onward, there is no further discussion of our millenarianism, which had already been refuted by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. It is also certain that there was no shortage of statements by Fathers of the Church and preachers that alluded to the imminent or already existing Antichrist, forgetting the words of Jesus: “of the day and hour (of the end of the world) no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Mt. 24:35). But these were fantastic or exaggerated constructions, not a widespread and effective opinion capable of inspiring broad and profound terror. On the other hand, if the end of the world had truly been expected in the tenth century for the year 1000, some allusion to it would be found in contemporary writers or in those of the immediately succeeding years. Instead, nothing is said of it in the 150 papal bulls of the final thirty-year period, nor in the 20 councils held during the final decade before the fateful date, nor by the historians.
There is, moreover, positive evidence against the legend. A preacher, for example, at the end of the tenth century announced in a church in Paris the appearance of the Antichrist after the M., and shortly thereafter the coming of the Last Judgment; but Abbo of Fleury, who was present, rebuked him on the spot, as he himself testifies: « cui predication et Evangelis ac Apocalypse et libro Daniela, qua potui virtute, restiti » (Apologeticum: PL 139, 471). Abbo was also charged with refuting the rumor that the end of the world would occur when the feast of the Annunciation coincided with Holy Thursday, and he reassured the Lotharingians « quibus abbas meus me respondere iussit » that this coincidence occurred two or three times in every century (ibid., 472). On the other hand, the Council of Rome of 998 imposed seven years of penance on the king of France, Robert the Pious; Silvester II succeeded Gregory V in April 999 and on 31 December of the same year confirmed the privileges already granted to the monastery of Fulda and to the Church of Reims (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1907-1908); the Venetians seized Istria and Dalmatia in 998-99, and at the same time Stephen of Hungary asked the Pope for the title of king and a royal crown (1000). In 990 at Puy, and in 1000 at Poitiers, the Councils established regulations, for the years that followed, concerning the Truce and Peace of God. In short, immediately before the year 1000, life in Europe proceeded calmly and presupposed that society would continue for a long time after this date.
The arguments advanced by writers favorable to the legend offer no proof: a) the acts of the Council of Trosly speak of the imminent end of the world, but that Council dates from 999 (Hefele-Lacereq, IV, 722 ff.). The chronicler Radulfus Glaber speaks of a great fervor for the construction of churches; but this was not due to the escape from the danger of the year 1000, but rather to fear of the end of the world, provoked by rains, famine, and hunger so terrible that people ate corpses; not to mention that he speaks of many other churches that had arisen shortly before the M. (Historiarum, I, III, chap. 4: PL 142, 651; I, IV, chap. 4: ibid., 475). W. Godelle, also a chronicler, alludes to a belief in the approaching end of the world; but the allusion concerns 1010, when the destruction of the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre profoundly shook the minds of the Catholic world (Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, X, 2nd ed., Paris 1868, p. 242 ff.). The phrase, moreover, found in many documents of donations to churches and convents in the tenth century, « appropinquante fine mundi », was not used in Germany and only rarely in Italy, but very frequently in France; nevertheless, it is found as early as 534 and became more common thereafter. This means that it was merely a formula, like among Italians the expression « pro remedio animae meae »; indeed, it is found in formularies of common use (cf. Orsi [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 35-36). What remain are the frequent allusions by writers and preachers to the end of the world, but these demonstrate only the exhortatory purpose of urging people to be ready for that great day, on which all will have to give an account of their actions before the world, a belief that was and is based on Faith.