Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages

The Pursuit Of The Millennium

'Great learning and an admirably lively style... Professor Cohn's work throws a flood of light into unexplored corners... A most stimulating book'  Christopher Hill

Important, original... Haunting and significant

It is a piece of great originality and power... It deserves study and emulation

Full of rich, fascinating scholarship... What a field he covers

Norman Cohn was born in London in 1915 and educated at Gresham's School and Christ Church, Oxford. Scholar and research scholar at Christ Church between 1933 and 1939, after the war he taught in universities in England, Scotland, Ireland, America and Canada. In 1966 he became a Professorial Fellow in the University of Sussex and director of an international research project on the preconditions for persecutions and genocides. From 1973 to 1980 he was Astor-Wolfson Professor at Sussex and is now Professor Emeritus. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the author of Warrant for Genocide, The Pursuit of the Millennium and Europe's Inner Demons. Norman Cohn died in 2007.

The Middle Ages inherited from Antiquity a tradition of prophesy and gave it fresh and exuberant life. This tradition foretold a Millennium in which humanity would enjoy a new Paradise on earth, free of suffering and sin - a Kingdom of the Saints. Generation after generation was intermittently seized by a tense expectation of some sudden, miraculous event in which the world would be utterly transformed. Often these expectations became enmeshed with social unrest and movements arose which sent tremors through the massive structure of medieval society. 
 
Drawing on a huge variety of contemporary sources, this unique and compelling book tells the story of those Millenarian fanaticisms of the Middle Ages and points to their persistence in the modern world.

Norman Cohn

The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom

In this ground-breaking book, Professor Norman Cohn traces popular beliefs about witches to their origins. He examines the fantasies that inspired the great European witch-hunt of the 16th and 17th centuries when thousands of innocent people were tortured and burned alive. It is a fascinating history of the need to imagine antihuman conspiracies and an investigation of how those fantasies made the great European witch-hunt possible. In addition, Professor Cohn's discovery that some influential sources on witch trials were forgeries has revolutionized the field of witchcraft studies, making this one of the most essential books ever written on the subject.

Norman Cohn

Europe's Inner Demons

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