Abstract

Since the end of the nineteenth century it has been known that the year 1000 passed without any particular notice in Europe; only one writer is known to have claimed that the reign of Christ would begin then, and there is no basis for tales of widespread public panic. Only around 1600 did it assume millenarian significance; it is thus a problem in modern, not medieval, historiography. The origin of the myth is Volume XI of the Annales ecclesiastici of Baronius , elaborating on a reference by the Burgundian monk Raoul Glaber. Different passages of Glaber were cited, however: some authors referred to the alleged terror inspired by this year as an illustration of medieval mentalité; others saw in them a remote cause of the Crusades; still others believed that when the anticipated millennium failed to materialize, the result was a decisive change in medieval attitudes. Only in France was the myth of the year 1000 widespread, and only from 1830 to 1870. Michelet was its most important advocate, and it is related to his conception of the epoch-making nature of the French Revolutions of 1789 and especially 1830