ABSTRACT
Yet, it is crucial that we bridge this gulf if we are ever to understand how late medieval Europeans pulled back from the brink of the Apocalypse. For too many of my readers, the very term medieval may still conjure up images of a backward and primitive society, compared to our own, but how many of us would dare face what our ancestors faced in the late Middle Ages? Would our modern world fare as well? I do not believe that it would because, despite all our advantages in terms of technological and scientific “progress,” I am convinced that we would be at a severe disadvantage compared to our medieval forebears. Their secret weapon is none other than their belief in the afterlife. In essence, this psychologically “inoculated” them against the terrors of whatever apocalyptic crisesfamine, war, plague, and death-unfolded in their times. It is why I believe, as I argued in the last chapter, that medieval viewers could contemplate so serenely, even hopefully, the macabre images of death that were so prevalent in the late Middle Ages, for simple logic should tell us that anyone who could gaze upon so prolific a face of death must have had some comfort level with the spectacle. However, it is for this very reason that my students are so skeptical of my optimistic take on all the skeletons and worms: they no longer believe in the assurances of an afterlife, that death is but a beginning, not an end.
