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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe. By Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xiv + 360 pp. $64.95 cloth; $22.95 paper.
This richly illustrated book reimpresses on experts, and introduces to the non-specialist, the extent to which the European mentality from 1490 to 1650 was shaped by anticipation of the apocalypse. Englishmen and Italians, peasants and elites awaited the imminent end of the world, and they interpreted their experiences accordingly. During this period, 750 separate editions of the Book of Revelation and commentaries on it appeared. Albrecht DUrer's renowned woodcut bespoke the mood. This outlook informed both Martin Luther and his audience, which could often be persuaded to see abuses in the church as a sign of the end-times. Famine and plague, war and monstrous births, comets and flooding were all disasters foretold in the Book of Revelation as signals of the last days.
The authors provide a simple structure based on the four horses: white for evidence of the emergence of the Antichrist, red for war, black for famine and starvation, and pale for pestilence and death. The assertion is elemental, the argument direct and quickly taken in. What recommends this study is the...