The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess: The Paths of Prophecy in Reformation Europe

221 Pages·2014·2.58 MB·English

by  Jonathan Green

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The Strange and Terrible Visions
of Wilhelm Friess
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The Strange and Terrible Visions
of Wilhelm Friess
The Paths of Prophecy in
Reformation Europe
  
Jonathan Green
The University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
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Copyright © Jonathan Green 2014
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
c Printed on acid- free paper
2017 2016 2015 2014 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Green, Jonathan, 1970–
The strange and terrible visions of Wilhelm Friess : the paths of prophecy in
Reformation Europe / Jonathan Green.
pages cm. (Cultures of knowledge in the early modern world)
Includes Dutch and German versions of Willem de Vriese’s prophecies
from the years 1558 and 1577 respectively, adaptation of a French version
of the Vademecum of Johannes de Rupescissa.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0 - 472- 11921- 9 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978- 0- 472-
12007- 9 (e- book)
1. Prophecy— Christianity— History. 2. Vriese, Willem de—
Appreciation. 3. Predictive astrology— Europe, German-s peaking—
History. 4. Books— Europe, German- speaking— History— 1450– 1600.
5. Apocalyptic literature— History and criticism. I. Vriese, Willem de. II.
Title.
BR115.P8G745 2014
261.5'1309409031— dc23
2013048766
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Preface

As anyone who has gone through the process can attest, the latter stages
of publishing a book involve periodic bursts of intense effort under tight
deadlines, interspersed with lengthy periods of waiting on all the things
that are not under the author’s control. During one of those waiting
periods while Printing and Prophecy was making its way toward publica-
tion, it occurred to me that I would soon have to work on something else.
Looking for the next project has always been a process of false starts as
one idea proves unworkable and another turns out to have been sitting
on the library shelves for the last decade or more, so I thought I would
start small. I had limited the scope of Printing and Prophecy to the century
following the invention of print, roughly 1450– 1550, so I decided to
find out which of the most popular prophetic pamphlets of the later
sixteenth century had the least scholarly literature devoted to them. As
it turns out, no secondary literature addressed any of them in any depth,
including what turned out to be the most popular of them: the prophe-
cies of Wilhelm Friess of Maastricht. I had touched on Wilhelm Friess in
Printing and Prophecy, but not at any length, as all its editions were pub-
lished after 1550. I resolved to write a quick, short article while I tried to
figure out what my next major project would be.
As you already know, as you are reading a book rather than a short
article, none of that worked out as planned. In the middle of leaving
one town and academic position for another, I realized that the Wilhelm
Friess pamphlets represented not one text but two (as Robin Barnes had
noticed long ago), with no obvious relationship between them. I began
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vi  •  Preface
tracking down editions and gathering facsimiles. There were many of
them.
Within a few months, I had written the article I had planned. I even
worked up a cover page and formatted the article for submission, but I
could not escape the nagging feeling that I had not yet entirely solved
the riddle of Wilhelm Friess and his strange and terrible prophecies. I
redoubled my search for new sources, and my tidy little German project
soon turned into a Dutch- German-S wiss project that was straining the
word- count limits of a journal article. I decided to start writing again to
discover if there might just be enough material for a short book, some-
thing like the scholarly equivalent of a novella. Ellen Bauerle, the editor
who had acquired Printing and Prophecy for the University of Michigan
Press (and to whom I am grateful for her early support and continual
encouragement), was willing to look at a draft that I thought was nearly
complete, and she responded positively.
As you already know, as you are not reading an academic novella, I was
actually much farther from completing my research on Wilhelm Friess
than I thought at the time. I still could not escape the nagging feeling
that I had overlooked something, so I went back to prophecies printed in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to see if I had overlooked potential
sources. Eventually I found them, but not in the century I had expected,
so my manageable Dutch- German- Swiss research project added French
and Latin sources and another century to its scope.
While Printing and Prophecy mostly examined prophecy from the
remote, bird’s- eye view that media studies often require, working on the
prophecies of Wilhelm Friess has entailed a tightly focused examination
of a few texts associated with one authorial name, so that the placement
of one letter or alteration of one word can become a highly significant
detail. The required approach falls toward the mustier side of traditional
research methods in the humanities. Yet the methods of textual history
and bibliographic inquiry were able to uncover a story that I found to be
utterly fascinating and sometimes marked by drama, tragedy, duplicity,
and stubborn resistance in the face of overwhelming force. The reader
may take comfort in knowing that I am no longer troubled by the feeling
that I have overlooked something important: while I have no doubt that
I have not discovered every significant connection or relevant contex-
tual fact, the nagging sensation that there is yet more to say is now the
responsibility of those who will read this book, uncover and improve on
its flaws, and extend— or reject— its conclusions.
As this project required me to engage with what were new areas of
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Preface  •  vii
research for me, I was only able to complete it with the generous assis-
tance of many people and institutions. My thanks go first to the libraries
that made their material available for inspection or provided facsimiles,
including the Museum Plantin- Moretus in Antwerp, the Erfgoedbiblio-
theek Hendrik Conscience in Antwerp, the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer
Kulturbesitz in Berlin, the Lehrerbibliothek des Görres- Gymnasiums in
Düsseldorf, the Eichstätt Universitätsbibliothek, the Forschungsbiblio-
thek in Gotha, the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Halle, the Uni-
versiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, the Leipzig Universitätsbibliothek, the
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the Württembergische Landes-
bibliothek in Stuttgart, the Universiteetsbibliotheek Utrecht, the Herzo-
gin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar, and the Herzog August Biblio-
thek in Wolfenbüttel. In addition to the gratitude I owe their institutions,
several librarians and archivists deserve special mention for their per-
sonal assistance in locating editions and obtaining facsimiles, including
Dr. Karl- Ferdinand Besselmann of the Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek
in Cologne, Frank Aurich of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek/Staats-
und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, Uwe Kahl of the Christian- Weise-
Bibliothek Zittau, and Prof. Dr. Christoph Eggenberger and Dr.phil.
Alexa Renggli of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Several other individu-
als deserve special thanks for answering inquiries from the other side of
the world on obscure topics, including Prof. Dr. Ulrich Seelbach of the
Universität Bielefeld, Prof. Dr. Willem Frijhoff of the Vrije Universiteit
in Amsterdam, Dr. Annelies van Gijsen of the Ruusbroecgenootschap in
Antwerp, Dr. L. Wiggers of the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg,
and Dr. Wilhelm Klare of the Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-A nhalt. I espe-
cially thank Dr. Oliver Duntze of the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke
for his repeated willingness to answer inquiries and for pulling needles
from haystacks on a number of occasions. I owe the interlibrary loan
librarians of Brigham Young University my thanks as well for their assis-
tance in locating microfilm facsimiles that would have normally been
unobtainable, in which they were rivaled only by the personal efforts
of my friend Bill Atkinson. I am grateful for the support that Brigham
Young University– Idaho provided for my research and for its providing a
place to conduct that research among friendly and supportive colleagues.
I also thank all those who read early drafts of this work, including Dr.
David Neville, Dr. Francien Markx, Dr. Wilfried Decoo, and the students
in my German literature course in fall 2011. Finally, I am grateful most of
all for my children’s enduring patience and for the unwavering support
and editorial acumen of my wife, Rose, to whom this book is dedicated.
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Contents
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Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 A Strange Prognostication 11
Chapter 2 A Seditious Prophecy 23
The Strange Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 28
Chapter 3 From Avignon to Antwerp and from
Antwerp to Nuremberg 36
From Avignon to Antwerp: Johannes de Rupescissa
and “Wilhelm Friess” 36
Why Frans Fraet Had to Die 41
From Antwerp to Nuremberg 43
Chapter 4 From Protest to Propaganda 54
The Tangled History of N 54
“Wilhelm Friess” in Nuremberg 58
The Restless Ghost of “Wilhelm Friess” 64
“Wilhelm Friess” in Antwerp and Lübeck, 1566– 68 66
Chapter 5 A Horrible and Shocking Prophecy 72
The Appalling Accuracy of “Wilhelm Friess” 72
The Horrible and Shocking Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess 76
The Textual History of Wilhelm Friess’s Second Prophecy 83
1639: The Earliest and Latest Wilhelm Freiss 84
The Second Generation 85