ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the solidification of the Western calendar from the late middle Ages into the 19th century. The new sense of arithmetic, in its various but lively manifestations, easily led to impatience with the sloppy and multiple calendars. The basis was set, in other words, both for a new round of apocalyptic thinking, using the calendar to predict the later ages of Christianity, and for a more regularized sense of time, based on uniform centuries. The Western calendar was firmly established. William Miller focused closely on apocalyptic visions in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and he portrayed the government as a wild beast "with two horns like a lamb" that "spoke like a dragon." Millennial prophecies of this sort were associated with various German rulers named Frederick and French kings named Charles in the 13th and 14th centuries. The series itself became known as the "Magdeburg Centuries."
