Abbot Joachim of Fiore and Joachimism

Abbot Joachim of Fiore and Joachimism Synopsis

In the articles included in this collection, Professor Daniel argues that Abbot Joachim of Fiore was a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux whose tertius status was reformist, not millenialist. Like the other reformists, Gerhoch of Reichersberg and Hildegard of Bingen, Joachim looked forward to the coming of a thoroughly reformed, holy church to be achieved in the near future by reform of the episcopate and the clergy. The status of the Holy Spirit was the culmination of the preceding status, not a radically new beginning. Apocalypticism in both its reformist and in its imperialist versions was part of the mainstream, despite the efforts of the schoolmen to suppress it. The author also sheds significant new light on apocalyptic thinking in the mid-fourteenth century with a thorough analysis of Henry of Kirkstede's vade mecum, Cambridge Corpus Christi 404 and his first edition of Henry's De antichristo et de fine mundi. This study, and three others, are published here for the first time.