The Year 1000

The World in the Year 1000 -- Go West, Young Viking -- The Pan-American Highways of 1000 -- European Slaves -- The World's Richest Man -- Central Asia Splits in Two -- Surprising Journeys -- The Most Globalized Place on Earth.

THE YEAR 1000 is a vivid evocation of how English people lived a thousand years ago - no spinach, sugar or Caesarean operations in which the mother had any chance of survival, but a world that knew brain surgeons, property developers and, yes, even the occasional gossip columnist. In the spirit of modern investigative journalism, Lacey and Danziger interviewed the leading historians and archaeologists in their field. In the year 1000 the changing seasons shaped a life that was, by our standards, both soothingly quiet and frighteningly hazardous - and if you survived, you could expect to grow to just about the same height and stature as anyone living today. This exuberant and informative book concludes as the shadow of the millennium descends across England and Christendom, with prophets of doom invoking the spectre of the Anti-Christ. Here comes the abacus - the medieval calculating machine - along with bewildering new concepts like infinity and zero. These are portents of the future, and THE YEAR 1000 finishes by examining the human and social ingredients that were to make for survival and success in the next thousand years.

A survey of life in England in 1000 AD reveals how various people viewed the end of the millennium and what their daily lives were like

This collection of new essays examines the long-standing question of apocalyptic expectations around the turn of the first millennium. Including works by scholars of medieval history, literature, and religion, this book argues that apocalyptic expectations did exist around the year 1000. It provides a more balanced and nuanced approach to the issue than the traditional views that either identify a time of fear, the 'terrors of the year 1000', or deny that awareness of the millennium existed. This book, instead, recognizes that there were a variety of responses to the eschatological years 1000 and 1033 and that these responses contributed to the broader social and religious developments associated with the birth of European civilization.

Accomplished historical author James Reston, Jr., presents the enthralling saga of how the Christian kingdoms converted, conquered, and slaughtered their way to dominance in Europe as the year 1000 approached. Through Reston's brilliant narrative and engaging portraits of the unforgettable historical characters who embodied the struggle for the soul of Europe, students are introduced to a pivotal period in history during which an old order was crumbling, and terrifying, confusing new ideas were gaining hold in the populace. From the righteous fury of the Viking queen Sigrid the Strong-Minded, who burned unwanted suitors alive; to the brilliant but too-cunning Moor, al-Mansur the Illustrious Victor; to the aptly named English king Ethelred the Unready; to the abiding genius of the age, Pope Sylvester II—warrior kings and concubine empresses, maniacal warriors and religious zealots bring this stirring period to life.

One thousand years ago, the Byzantine Empire was reaching the height of its revival as a medieval state. The ten contributions to this volume by scholars from six European countries re-assess key aspects of the empire's politics and culture in the long reign of the emperor Basil II, whose name has come to symbolise the greatness of Byzantium in the age before the crusades. The first five chapters deal with international diplomacy, the emperor's power, and government in Asia Minor and the frontier provinces of the Balkans and southern Italy. The second half of the volume covers aspects of law, history-writing, poetry and hagiography, and concludes with a discussion of Byzantine attitudes to the Millennium.

This study of Burchard's 'Decretum', a popular book of Catholic canon law compiled just after the year 1000, sheds new light on the development of law and theology long before the Gregorian Reform, normally considered as a watershed in the history of the Latin Church. Practical episcopal concerns and an appreciation of new scholarly methods led Burchard to be dissatisfied with the quality of contemporary jurisprudence and particularly with the teaching texts available to local bishops. Drawing upon new manuscript discoveries, the author shows how Burchard tried to create a new text that would address these problems. He carefully selected and compiled canons from earlier collections and then went on to tamper systematically with the texts he had chosen. By doing so, he created a book of church law that appeared to be based on indisputable authority, that was internally consistent and that was easy to apply through logical extrapolation to new cases. The present study thus provides a window into the development of legal and theological reasoning in the medieval West, and suggests that, thanks to the work of ambitious bishops, the flowering of law and theology began far earlier, and for different reasons, than scholars have heretofore supposed.

Alarmed by a prophecy that the world will end with the arrival of the year 1000, the students of Dragon Slayers' Academy get some advice from Zack, a boy who has traveled back from 1999.