Following the tone of the pagan oracles and Hebraic literature about the prophecy of the end of the world, St John in the Apocalypse describes the cosmic drama which would supposedly take place after the opening of the seventh seal. After a great silence, seven angels prepare themselves to sound the trumpet one after the other, and after each sounding a cataclysm is set off. After the seventh angel has sounded the trumpet, the fight between Christ and the Beast (Satan) takes place. The Beast is beaten and chained in a bottomless pit for 1000 years. Once the 1000 years are over, Satan is freed but he is beaten again: then the second resurrection of living and dead takes place preceding the Last Judgement. If the thousand-year period referred to is interpreted literally, it follows that in the year 1000, or in 1033, coinciding with the birth and death of Christ, the liberation of Satan has to take place and thus marks the beginning of the road towards the end of time.

For the defenders of ‘millennium fever’ the troubles that plagued the world around the year 1000 were nothing but a result of the liberation of Satan. As they persisted once this year had passed, consequently, they thought the second resurrection would occur shortly afterwards, on the 1000th anniversary of Christ’s resurrection. Obviously, time didn’t prove them to be right, and this was how St Augustine’s opinion began to hold sway. According to him, the 1000 years referred to in the Apocalypse were equivalent to an indefinite period of time in which the temporal reign of the Church would be imposed.

The disappearance of the psychological fear of imminent danger—if this did in fact exist—didn’t lessen the idea of the Last Judgement among the Western Christian community, which had gradually gained an increased following since the beginning of the 6th century. Absent from the beginnings of Christianity, the first images representing the Last Judgement were the result of the appearance of a belief that was optimistic for some (salvation) and threatening for others (eternal condemnation), the enormous pedagogical potential of which was quite well managed by the Church. Although from the 11th century onwards the frescos and altar pieces decorating ecclesiastic buildings began to reflect images of the Day of Judgement, in time eventually outnumbering Apocalyptic scenes, two centuries later the appearance of the first liturgical drama on an eschatological topic—the Sponsus—took place.

The Song of the Sibyl

In contrast to the rapid iconographic development of the Last Judgement, this topic was not brought to the stage earlier than the 13th century, taking into account the remarkable technical complexity it entails. And thus a much less important piece had the opportunity to develop, making its appearance in the liturgical framework just when the fear of the millennium began to affect the mood of the people. I am referring to the Song of the Sibyl, whose first testimony (text and music) is kept in a manuscript coming from the monastery of St Martial de Limoges (Paris, Bibl. Nationale, lat. 1154) and dating from the end of the 9th century or the beginning of the 10th. This manuscript is a miscellany which in addition to the Sibyl song, contains some Versus de die iudicii (Verses from the Day of Judgement) set to music and constituting, together with the said song, the exponent of a certain repertory devoted to the subject whose destinies were not to share the same fortune.