The Influence of Joachim in the 13th Century

Abstract

The end of the 12th century was one of the periods of great eschatological potential in the medieval Latin west. In October 1187 Jerusalem was lost to a Kurdish sultan, Saladin, and the Crusade campaigns which followed were catastrophic. Tensions between the English and French crowns were at a peak, and in June 1190 the western Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa, drowned in the river Göksu (Saleph) on his way to the Holy Land. Things were no better in the Iberian peninsula: in July 1195 the Almohad Muslim prince Ya 'qub I al-Mansur (the victorious) defeated the Christian King Alfonso VIII of Castille at the Battle of Alarcos. It was against this unstable background that Joachim, in the preface to his Liber de Concordia, wrote of his self-chosen role in preparing the Church in the face of the enemy: 1 Our [task] is to foresee wars, yours is to hasten to arms. It is for us to go up to the watchtower on the mountain and, having seen the enemy, to give warning; yours, having heard the signal, is to take refuge in safer places. We, although unworthy scouts, witnessed long ago that the said wars would come. Would that you were worthy soldiers of Christ! "Let 1 For a chronology of his works as then known, see Kurt-Victor Selge, "L'origine delle opere di