Dreams, Nature, and Practices as Signs of the Future in the Middle Ages

Dr Hans-Christian Lehner (1982) is research fellow of Medieval History at the University Erlangen-Nuernberg. His monograph Prophetie zwischen Eschatologie und Politik(Franz Steiner Verlag, 2015) was focusing on prognostics as outlined in medieval historiography. He edited, translated, and annotated the 12th century Visio Tnugdali (with Maximilian Nix, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2018) and is the editor of a fair number of volumes, e.g. The End(s) of Time(s) (Brill, 2021) and Prognostication in the Middle Ages – A Handbook (with Matthias Heiduk and Klaus Herbers, De Gruyter, 2021). Klaus Herbers, Dr. phil. (1984), University of Berlin, is Senior Professor of Medieval Histor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has published monographs, edited volumes and many articles on European Medieval Historia (Hagiography, Iberian Historia, papal History), including works on medieval prognostication.

• Figures and TablesIntroduction: Signs of the FutureKlaus Herbers and Hans-Christian LehnerPart 1 Signs and Dreams1 Dreams, Visions, and Politics in Carolingian EuropeKlaus Herbers2 Dum illum utero gestaret: The premonitory Dreams of Saints’ Mothers in Latin HagiographyPatrick Henriet3 Sepe verum somniant, qui presunt populis: The Dubious Veracity of DreamsAlbert SchirrmeisterPart 2 Signs and Nature4 The Emblematic Birth of a Monster in the High Middle AgesHans-Christian Lehner5 Strange Events and Shaky Ground: On Earthquakes, Matthew Paris and ‘Solid Facts’Manuel Kamenzin6 Between Astrological Divination, Local Knowledge and Political Intentions: Prognostics and “Epignostics” Related to Natural Disasters in the Middle AgesChristian RohrPart 3 Practices and Experts7 Analogy at Work in Western Medieval DivinationStefano Rapisarda8 Hohe Prälaten der römischen Kurie beim Wahrsager (XIII. Jahrhundert)Agostino Paravicini Bagliani9 Signs from the Afterlife: Consulting the Dead about the Future in Medieval TimesMatthias Heiduk10 Alternative Losentscheidungsverfahren oder imitationes sortium in ByzanzMichael Grünbart11 Al-Ashraf ˁUmar’s Tabṣira: Chapter xxxiv: Rainbows, Shooting Stars, and Haloes as Signs of the FuturePetra G. Schmidl