In the Book of Revelation, Saint John described his vision of how the world was set to end. Two scenes from it are represented here. In the top illustration, Satan is shown being bound by an angel within a bottomless pit; below it, “the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan,” is shown breaking free after an imprisonment of a thousand years. From the socalled “Bamberg Apocalypse”: commissioned for imperial use in or just before the year 1000, the manuscript bears telling witness to the fascination with millennial themes at the very apex of Christendom.
The conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity was a defining moment in European history. In its wake, Christians would increasingly take for granted that a Caesar might rule on earth as the deputy of Christ. Nevertheless, by the time this representation of Constantine’s baptism was painted in the mid-twelfth century, people in the West had only the haziest notion as to who the first Christian emperor had actually been. (Morgan Library)
Charlemagne: Frankish warlord, and restorer of the Roman Empire in the West. Two hundred years and more after his death, when this statue was sculpted, he remained the very model of a Christian king. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux)
By the early tenth century, the empire forged by Charlemagne was splintering and crumbling away. Christendom itself appeared on the verge of ruin. Unsurprisingly, there were many, caught up in the savagery and violence of the times, who openly dreaded that “the last time of the world had dawned.” This biblical battle scene, drawn by a monk in the Low Countries, held up a fitting mirror to the anarchy of the age.
The Holy Lance: a weapon of reputedly awesome power. Believed to have been owned by Constantine, and to be adorned by the very nails that had once pierced the hands and feet of Christ, it was said to guarantee its owner “perpetual triumph.” Its purchase in 926 by Henry the Fowler, the first Saxon king of the German Reich, served as a potent symbol of his status as the dominant figure in Christendom. (Kunsthorisches Museum)