From the Book - Rev. and expanded ed.
Introduction: the scope of this book
1. The tradition of apocalyptic prophecy
Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic
The apocalyptic tradition in medieval Europe
2. The tradition of religious dissent
The ideal of the apostolic life
3. The Messianism of the disoriented poor
The impact of rapid social change
The poor in the first crusades
4. The saints against the hosts of Antichrist
Saviours in the Last Days
Phantasy, anxiety, and social myth
5. In the backwash of the Crusades
The Pseudo-Baldwin and the "Master of Hungary"
The last crusades of the poor
6. The Emperor Frederick as messiah
Joachite prophecy and Frederick II
The resurrection of Frederick
Manifestoes for a future Frederick
7. An elite of self-immolating redeemers
The genesis of the flagellant movement
Revolutionary flagellants
The secret flagellants of Thuringia
8. An elite of amoral supermen (I)
The heresy of the Free Spirit
The sociology of the Free Spirit
9. An elite of amoral supermen (II)
The spread of the movement
The way to self-deification
The doctrine of mystical anarchism
10. The egalitarian state of nature
In the thought of antiquity
In patristic and medieval thought
11. The egalitarian millennium (I)
Marginalia to the English Peasants' Revolt
Anarcho-communism in Bohemia
12. The egalitarian millennium (II)
The drummer of Niklashausen
13. The egalitarian millennium (III)
Anabaptism and social unrest
Münster as the New Jerusalem
The messianic reign of John of Leyden
Appendix: The "Free Spirit" in Cromwell's England: the Ranters and their literature.
