Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work ed. by Rachel Stone, Charles West (review)

presents the debates over such thorny matters as the silence (for some deafening) surrounding the coincidence of the coronation of Charlemagne with the prophesied AM Y6K (the biblical Annus Mundi 6000 according to Eusebian calculations), and the significance of AD Y1K or the alleged terrors of the year 1000. A generous narrator throughout, Palmer deftly transcends these seemingly insoluble disagreements by offering a third way in the form of a systematic view of how apocalyptic thinking was woven into the fabric of society at all levels as a force for reform and improvement. As a motivational tool for change in the face of inevitable Judgment, apocalyptic discourse functioned differently in different contexts, yet it yielded similar results. The inevitability of Judgment (whether seemingly imminent or not) inspired a desire to improve, not just when times were bad.