Acknowledgements
This edited collection of primary sources originates from a major international conference on early modern prophecies, which we organised at Goldsmiths, University of London, in June 2014. The conference sought to reappraise the importance and impact of prophetic literature both across Europe and throughout the early modern period. It attracted nearly 100 speakers from 25 countries; an impressive achievement for what is usually regarded as a marginal subject.
The sheer diversity of the papers presented, together with their often transnational and interdisciplinary nature helped us demonstrate that prophets and prophecies have much to offer for the study of the early modern period. This collection therefore seeks to make rare prophetic and millenarian texts accessible to an international audience by presenting sources from all over Europe (broadly defined), and across the early modern period in English for the first time.
We are immensely grateful to our contributors who went through the trouble of transcribing and translating their primary source materials into modern, accessible English. This was no small task and we hope that the result is sufficient reward for their patience and effort. We are also greatly indebted to William Mitchell, currently PhD candidate in early modern history at the London School of Economics (LSE) for his assistance in checking and improving the quality of the English translations. Lastly, we would like to thank our publisher, Brill and especially our commissioning editor Arjan van Dijk, for believing in the value of such an unusual and indeed important project, as well as for supporting it since its inception.
Ariel Hessayon and Lionel Laborie