Contents

ABBREVIATIONS

Introduction

Chapter 1     A Strange Prognostication

Chapter 2     A Seditious Prophecy

The Strange Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess

Chapter 3     From Avignon to Antwerp and from Antwerp to Nuremberg

From Avignon to Antwerp: Johannes de Rupescissa and “Wilhelm Friess”

Why Frans Fraet Had to Die

From Antwerp to Nuremberg

Chapter 4     From Protest to Propaganda

The Tangled History of N

“Wilhelm Friess” in Nuremberg

The Restless Ghost of “Wilhelm Friess”

“Wilhelm Friess” in Antwerp and Lübeck, 1566–68

Chapter 5     A Horrible and Shocking Prophecy

The Appalling Accuracy of “Wilhelm Friess”

The Horrible and Shocking Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess

The Textual History of Wilhelm Friess’s Second Prophecy

1639: The Earliest and Latest Wilhelm Freiss

The Second Generation

Samuel Apiarius

The Stars over Strasbourg

Chapter 6     “Wilhelm Friess in Strasbourg

The Home of Wilhelm Friess’s Second Prophecy: Sources and Templates

Strasbourg and Sacraments: The Religious Home of “Friess II”

The Geopolitics of “Friess II”

Johann Fischart, Author of the Second Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess?

Chapter 7     The Last Emperor and the Beginning of Prophecy

“Friess I” versus “Friess II”

The Long Afterlife of “Wilhelm Friess”

The Textuality of Prophecy

Appendixes

Appendix 1   The First Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess

Appendix 2   The Second Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess

Appendix 3   Editions Attributed to Wilhelm Friess

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX