15 Signs of the Last Judgement and End of Days: 1450 – 1470

 

The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur is an anonymous illustrated treatise on the Antichrist, Last Judgement, Hell, Heaven, Christ and Antichrist. It features 15 illustrations that mark the End of Days.

What makes the series particularly interesting is its lack of human figures wracked in pain and horror. Elsewhere in the book, it’s all displayed: the chaos of naked bodies, the intense feeling of descent, the appetite for peculiar poses, the voracity of Hell’s mouth, the extravagant tortures – flesh being bent on the wheel, impaled by demons and toasted over volcanically hot fire. (I’ll include the best of these imaginative visions in a later post.) But here the focus is on nature’s end – rocks and trees and water speak of life and the perverting and undoing of all things on Earth.

The French text includes Latin biblical and early Christian quotations, notes and corrections. It is very much a Chrsitian text-  the book’s name is taken from The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, found in the Matthew 20:1-16, of The New Testament, which you can rad at the end of this post.

The 15 Illustrations are:

1st Sign – Sea Rises Above the Mountains.
2nd Sign: Sea Descends Out of Sight.
3rd Sign: Gathering of Fish and Sea Monsters.
4th Sign: Burning of the Waters.
5th Sign: Plants Sweat Blood.
6th Sign: Buildings and Towns Fall.
7th Sign: The Stones Fight with Each Other.
8th Sign: Earthquakes.
9th Sign: The Earth Made Flat.
10th Sign: The People Emerge Speechless from Their Hiding Places.
11th Sign: The Dead Rise from Their Tombs
12th Sign: The Stars Fall
13th Sign: The Living Die So That They May Rise Again with the Dead
14th Sign: Earth and Sky Consumed by Fire
15th Sign: Sun and Moon Await His Coming

 

The Last Judgement

The book is in four parts. the Bodleian volume treats Antichrist (fols. 1r-53v), the Last Judgment (fols. 53v-79v), the torments of hell (fol. 80r-129v), and heaven or paradise (fols. 129v-165v) preceded by a list of its 164 chapters (fols. ii-iv).  The Last Judgement is not all that quick.

As is described in the Book of Revelation:

A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat one whose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian. Around the throne was a halo as brilliant as an emerald. Surrounding the throne I saw twenty-four other thrones on which twenty-four elders sat, dressed in white garments and with gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. Seven flaming torches burned in front of the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. In front of the throne was something that resembled a sea of glass like crystal. In the centre and around the throne, there were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back. (Revelation 4:2–6)

 

 

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend.Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

 

The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur via Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Douce 134. Lead image via Facsismile Finder.