Author(s): Jean Flori

Publisher: Ediciones AKAL

Publication Date: 2010-11-08

Binding: Hardcover

Pages: 384

Language: es

Contrary to what has often been written, in the Middle Ages the expectation of the end of the world was not only very present in the minds of Christians but also in those of Jews and Muslims. Among Christians, this expectation aroused a feeling of hope rather than terror. Indeed, the prophecies announced that after the collapse of the last great world power, initially identified with the Roman Empire, the time of the end would begin, marked by the appearance of the Antichrist, who would be defeated by the Messiah and his followers. It would then be when the Kingdom of God would be definitively established. In the West, and even more so in the East, an attempt was made to equate the power of the Antichrist with that of the Muslims, who, in a few years, had managed to take control of most of the territories belonging to the former Roman Empire. From that moment on, the crusades undertaken by Christians to free those lands, previously considered Christian, from such domination could assume an eschatological dimension.