millenarianism, Christian 491The death of Filippo Maria Visconti (r. 1412–47) in
1447 without male heirs opened another dynastic crisis.
After a short-lived republic (1447–50), Francesco SFORZA
(1401–66), the son-in-law of the deceased duke, took
power and obtained recognition of his ducal title. The
Sforza produced a period of peace and prosperity in most
of the last half of the 15th century. Sforza rule ended in
the last years of the 15th century, as Milan fell under
French influence in the 1490s.
Further reading:C. M. Ady, A History of Milan under
the Sforza(London: Methuen, 1907); Annamaria Ambro-
sioni, “Milan,” EMA2.950–952; E. R. Chamberlin, The
Count of Virtue: Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan
(1965; reprint, New York: Scribner, 1966); Richard
Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and
Politics(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983);
Gary Ianziti, Humanistic Historiography under the Sforzas:
Politics and Propaganda in Fifteenth-Century Milan
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Gregory Lubkin, A
Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Evelyn S.
Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995).
military orders The principal military and religious
orders were the HOSPITALLERSandTEMPLARS. The move-
ments of the PEACE ANDTRUCE OFGODhad striven to
restrain and channel the violence of KNIGHTS. When at
CLERMONTin 1095 Pope URBANII preached the First Cru-
sade to deliver JERUSALEM, he assigned value to the func-
tion of the warrior class. The success of the First Crusade
created a need to defend the conquests made in PALESTINE
and SYRIA. The military orders were then founded in the
12th century, as a regular force of knights stationed there
to defend the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other
new states. The Templars and the Hospitallers were the
principal orders in the Levant or eastern Mediterranean.
Others would follow in Iberia and in northern Europe.
In an attempt to reconcile military life with religious
life, the rulers of the new orders were inspired by the
Rule of Saint BENEDICT, which they adapted, but also by
that of AUGUSTINE. Independent of the local bishops and
other authorities, they became almost states within states
and subject only to the PAPACY. They accepted free adults,
who were required to take the three vows, of obedience,
CHASTITY, and POVERTY. In continental Europe, the orders
created incomes to pay for the brothers’ great expenses in
the East.
In the Holy Land the orders soon provided more
than half the manpower of the Latin armies, and in the
13th century they held most of the fortresses. They bore a
great deal of the blame for the ultimate collapse of the
Christian states. The orders were more successful in the
reconquest in SPAINand along the Baltic Sea. They mostly
disappeared in the 16th century, except the Hospitallers,
who remained in the Mediterranean far longer. Successor
orders are tied to the papacy to this day.
See alsoALCÁNTARA,ORDER OF;CALATRAVA,ORDER
OF;CRUSADES;JAMES OFMILAN; PHILIPIVTHEFAIR, KING
OFFRANCE;TEUTONICKNIGHTS, ORDER OF.
Further reading:Malcolm Barber, ed., The Military
Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick
(Aldershot: Variorum, 1994); Alan Forey, The Military
Orders from the Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Centuries
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); Alan Forey,
Military Orders and Crusades (Brookfield: Variorum,
1993); Helen Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers, and Teu-
tonic Knights: Images of the Military Orders, 1128–1291
(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993); Helen
Nicholson, Love, War and the Grail(Leiden: Brill, 2001).millenarianism, Christian There has always been
an idea in Christianity that the end of the world was
near and people should prepare for it, if not hasten it.
The just would receive their rewards and the evil, their
punishments.
In his City of God,AUGUSTINEof Hippo rejected the
expectation of an imminent end of the world based on
the text of the biblical book of the Apocalypse. According
to Augustine, Christ’s final kingdom coincided with the
history of the church. Influential Western authors, such
as ISIDORE OFSEVILLE,BEDE,RUPERT OFDEUTZ,OTTO OF
FREISING, and HILDEGARD OFBINGEN, followed Augus-
tine’s line of thought. In the Eastern Orthodox Empire,
the prophet Daniel’s vision of four successive kingdoms
assisted the spread of millenarian expectations tied to
succession to the imperial throne.
There was some concept of the end of the world
around the year 1000, but few really expected it. It was
always a good preaching and pastoral strategy to imply
that it could happen any time. The good Christian should
always be ready. At the turn of the 12th century, the Cal-
abrian theologian JOACHIM OFFIOREformulated an origi-
nal theology of historical development, in which the
whole history of humankind was subdivided into three
stages, each related to a person of the Trinity. The third
and last, the reign of the Holy Spirit, was to begin in the
13th century. However, such millenarianism was strongly
rejected by Thomas AQUINAS, who linked it to HERESY.
These expectations remained present within dissident
fringes and heterodox groups such as the SPIRITUAL
FRANCISCANS and the Hussite movement in BOHEMIA,
some of whom even announced the end of the world for
February 10–14, 1420.
Throughout the later Middle Ages, many dissident
groups expected the end of the world and looked for judg-
ments by God on their religious and social oppressors.
See alsoANTICHRIST; HUS, JOHN; TABORITES.
Further reading:Bernard McGinn, ed., Visions of the
End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (1979;