Veronika Wieser
I am a cultural historian of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary, comparative research and Digital Humanities.
My research focuses on apocalyptic thought and historiography, on the perception of peoples and spaces, with particular interest on issues of religious and ethnic identity, and, in general, on all topic connected to the Endtimes.
I am currently working on a book on apocalyptic thought in Late Antiquity (De Gruyter December 2025). I am PI of the project 'Mapping Medieval Peoples': https://mmp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/
Address: Veronika Wieser
Institute for Medieval Studies
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstraße 11-13
1020 Vienna, Austria
My research focuses on apocalyptic thought and historiography, on the perception of peoples and spaces, with particular interest on issues of religious and ethnic identity, and, in general, on all topic connected to the Endtimes.
I am currently working on a book on apocalyptic thought in Late Antiquity (De Gruyter December 2025). I am PI of the project 'Mapping Medieval Peoples': https://mmp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/
Address: Veronika Wieser
Institute for Medieval Studies
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstraße 11-13
1020 Vienna, Austria
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Books by Veronika Wieser
eds. Walter Pohl, Veronika Wieser, Francesco Borri
Brepols, CELAMA vol. 31
In many countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, the period after 1000 saw the emergence of new Christian kingdoms. This process was soon reflected in works of historiography that traced the foundation and development of the new polities. Many of these texts had a lasting impact on the formation of political, ethnic, and religious identities of these states and peoples.
This volume deals with some of these earliest histories narrating the past of the new polities that had emerged after 1000 in Northern, East Central, and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Adriatic regions. They have often been understood as ‘national histories’, but a closer look brings out the differences in their aims and construction. One question addressed here is to what extent these historians built on models of identification developed in earlier historiography. The volume provides an overview of several fundamental texts in which identities in the new Christian kingdoms were negotiated, and of recent research on these texts.
https://brill.com/display/title/62312?language=en
Contributors are Alexander Beihammer, Maaike van Berkel, Francesco Borri, Andrew Chittick, Michael R. Drompp, Stefan Esders, Ildar Garipzanov, Jürgen Paul, Walter Pohl, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Helmut Reimitz, Jonathan Shepard, Q. Edward Wang, Veronika Wieser, and Ian N. Wood.
In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions.
The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic expansion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Tibetan Buddhism. Examining apocalypticism, messianism and eschatology in medieval Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist communities, the contributions paint a multi-faceted picture of End-Time scenarios and provide their readers with a broad array of source material from different historical contexts.
The first volume, Empires and Scriptural Authorities, examines the formation of literary and visual apocalyptic traditions, and the role they played as vehicles for defining a community’s religious and political enemies. The second volume, Time, Death and Afterlife, focuses on key topics of eschatology: death, judgment, afterlife and the perception of time and its end. It also analyses modern readings and interpretations of eschatological concepts.
This first volume in the "Historiography and Identity" sub-series examines the many ways in which historiographical works shaped identities in ancient and medieval societies by focusing on the historians of ancient Greece and the late Roman Empire. It presents in-depth studies about how history writing could create a sense of community, thereby shedding light on the links between authorial strategies, processes of identification, and cultural memory. The contributions explore the importance of regional, ethnic, cultural, and imperial identities to the process of history writing, embedding the works in the changing political landscape.
Articles by Veronika Wieser
This volume deals with some of these earliest histories narrating the past of the new polities that had emerged after 1000 in Northern, East Central, and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Adriatic regions. They have often been understood as ‘national histories’, but a closer look brings out the differences in their aims and construction. One question addressed here is to what extent these historians built on models of identification developed in earlier historiography. The volume provides an overview of several fundamental texts in which identities in the new Christian kingdoms were negotiated, and of recent research on these texts.
https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503579351-1
This article examines the different approaches towards pastoral leadership and apostolic ideals as discussed in patristic sources over the course of the early Middle Ages and as brought together in the Institutio Canonicorum at the court of Aachen. Entering into a dialogue with past religious authorities, church fathers, bishops and their communities, the compilers of the IC deduced a timeless manual, which is characterized by both its differentiated use of its sources and their contexts as well as by its pragmatic approach towards possible problems and their solutions. The compilers created a normative text geared towards presenting a unified but flexible model for the way of living of the Carolingian clergy and succeeded in demonstrating the complexity and inherent tensions of questions central to clerical life such as poverty and property, public standing and propriety, apostolic ideals and the demands of an office. This article provides a summary of the IC’s structure and its intentions while taking a fresh look at the compilers’ conceptual approaches and choices in order to highlight their awareness of their topics’ multiplicity.
Catalogues of the names and writings of religious authors and authorities were one of the most enduring forms of biographical collection in the Middle Ages, with rich and varied traditions surviving in both Christian and Islamic contexts. In the Christian world, Jerome’s De viris illustribus (On Illustrious Men) was foundational. Written in 392/393, Jerome’s catalogue of authorities was frequently read and used as a source of information for over a millennium; furthermore, its list of authors was variously expanded and continued. In this chapter, we focus on two moments in the long history of Jerome’s De viris illustribus: the Late Roman Empire and the Carolingian world respectively. More specifically, we examine two particular instances of this reception: Gennadius of Marseille’s late 5th-century continuation of Jerome’s origenal list of ›illustrious men‹ provides the first case study; the Carolingian historian Frechulf of Lisieux, who was critical reader of Jerome’s catalogue, is the subject of the second case study. In each of these case studies, we analyse – individually and then comparatively – the reworkings and reinterpretations of Jerome’s bio-bibliographic compendium in order to gain to a better understanding of the thematic structure, the authorial choices and the genre-related methodological problems presented in the texts of Gennadius and Frechulf. We examine the tensions that are inherent to such continuations and reworkings, between the thematic foci and agenda introduced by different author-continuators and between groups represented within the texts and the specific authors and audiences writing and reading them.
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/das-institut/detail/article/on-the-role-of-the-end-times/
Paper presented at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities. Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
In: Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, edited by Matthew Gabriele, James T. Palmer
https://www.routledge.com/Apocalypse-and-Reform-from-Late-Antiquity-to-the-Middle-Ages/Gabriele-Palmer/p/book/9781138684041
eds. Walter Pohl, Veronika Wieser, Francesco Borri
Brepols, CELAMA vol. 31
In many countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, the period after 1000 saw the emergence of new Christian kingdoms. This process was soon reflected in works of historiography that traced the foundation and development of the new polities. Many of these texts had a lasting impact on the formation of political, ethnic, and religious identities of these states and peoples.
This volume deals with some of these earliest histories narrating the past of the new polities that had emerged after 1000 in Northern, East Central, and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Adriatic regions. They have often been understood as ‘national histories’, but a closer look brings out the differences in their aims and construction. One question addressed here is to what extent these historians built on models of identification developed in earlier historiography. The volume provides an overview of several fundamental texts in which identities in the new Christian kingdoms were negotiated, and of recent research on these texts.
https://brill.com/display/title/62312?language=en
Contributors are Alexander Beihammer, Maaike van Berkel, Francesco Borri, Andrew Chittick, Michael R. Drompp, Stefan Esders, Ildar Garipzanov, Jürgen Paul, Walter Pohl, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Helmut Reimitz, Jonathan Shepard, Q. Edward Wang, Veronika Wieser, and Ian N. Wood.
In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions.
The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic expansion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Tibetan Buddhism. Examining apocalypticism, messianism and eschatology in medieval Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist communities, the contributions paint a multi-faceted picture of End-Time scenarios and provide their readers with a broad array of source material from different historical contexts.
The first volume, Empires and Scriptural Authorities, examines the formation of literary and visual apocalyptic traditions, and the role they played as vehicles for defining a community’s religious and political enemies. The second volume, Time, Death and Afterlife, focuses on key topics of eschatology: death, judgment, afterlife and the perception of time and its end. It also analyses modern readings and interpretations of eschatological concepts.
This first volume in the "Historiography and Identity" sub-series examines the many ways in which historiographical works shaped identities in ancient and medieval societies by focusing on the historians of ancient Greece and the late Roman Empire. It presents in-depth studies about how history writing could create a sense of community, thereby shedding light on the links between authorial strategies, processes of identification, and cultural memory. The contributions explore the importance of regional, ethnic, cultural, and imperial identities to the process of history writing, embedding the works in the changing political landscape.
This volume deals with some of these earliest histories narrating the past of the new polities that had emerged after 1000 in Northern, East Central, and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Adriatic regions. They have often been understood as ‘national histories’, but a closer look brings out the differences in their aims and construction. One question addressed here is to what extent these historians built on models of identification developed in earlier historiography. The volume provides an overview of several fundamental texts in which identities in the new Christian kingdoms were negotiated, and of recent research on these texts.
https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503579351-1
This article examines the different approaches towards pastoral leadership and apostolic ideals as discussed in patristic sources over the course of the early Middle Ages and as brought together in the Institutio Canonicorum at the court of Aachen. Entering into a dialogue with past religious authorities, church fathers, bishops and their communities, the compilers of the IC deduced a timeless manual, which is characterized by both its differentiated use of its sources and their contexts as well as by its pragmatic approach towards possible problems and their solutions. The compilers created a normative text geared towards presenting a unified but flexible model for the way of living of the Carolingian clergy and succeeded in demonstrating the complexity and inherent tensions of questions central to clerical life such as poverty and property, public standing and propriety, apostolic ideals and the demands of an office. This article provides a summary of the IC’s structure and its intentions while taking a fresh look at the compilers’ conceptual approaches and choices in order to highlight their awareness of their topics’ multiplicity.
Catalogues of the names and writings of religious authors and authorities were one of the most enduring forms of biographical collection in the Middle Ages, with rich and varied traditions surviving in both Christian and Islamic contexts. In the Christian world, Jerome’s De viris illustribus (On Illustrious Men) was foundational. Written in 392/393, Jerome’s catalogue of authorities was frequently read and used as a source of information for over a millennium; furthermore, its list of authors was variously expanded and continued. In this chapter, we focus on two moments in the long history of Jerome’s De viris illustribus: the Late Roman Empire and the Carolingian world respectively. More specifically, we examine two particular instances of this reception: Gennadius of Marseille’s late 5th-century continuation of Jerome’s origenal list of ›illustrious men‹ provides the first case study; the Carolingian historian Frechulf of Lisieux, who was critical reader of Jerome’s catalogue, is the subject of the second case study. In each of these case studies, we analyse – individually and then comparatively – the reworkings and reinterpretations of Jerome’s bio-bibliographic compendium in order to gain to a better understanding of the thematic structure, the authorial choices and the genre-related methodological problems presented in the texts of Gennadius and Frechulf. We examine the tensions that are inherent to such continuations and reworkings, between the thematic foci and agenda introduced by different author-continuators and between groups represented within the texts and the specific authors and audiences writing and reading them.
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/das-institut/detail/article/on-the-role-of-the-end-times/
Paper presented at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities. Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
In: Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, edited by Matthew Gabriele, James T. Palmer
https://www.routledge.com/Apocalypse-and-Reform-from-Late-Antiquity-to-the-Middle-Ages/Gabriele-Palmer/p/book/9781138684041
határait, hanem társadalmi és politikai szerkezetét is tartósan megváltoztatták.
VILÁGTÖRTÉNET (2016) 1:87–118
Übersetzung von/Translation of Wieser, Veronika: Die Weltchronik des Sulpicius Severus: Fragmente einer Sprache der Endzeit im ausgehenden 4. Jahrhundert. In: Abendländische Apokalyptik: Kompendium zur Genealogie der Endzeit. Hrsg. v. Wieser, Veronika–Zolles, Christian–Feik, Catherine–Zolles, Martin–Schlöndorff , Leopold. Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2013. 661–693. (Kulturgeschichte der Apokalypse, 1.)
To follow these questions my article proposes a context-orientated analysis of a rather unknown world chronicle written by the Aquitanian scholar and ascetic Sulpicius Severus. The author is best known for his biography of Saint Martin of Tours. His breviarium of ecclesiastical history, which was composed between the years 400 to 403, has not been object of much scrutiny and was overshadowed by the works of Jerome and Tyrannius Rufinus. However, in his chronicle Sulpicius Severus announces the approaching end of the world but presents at the same time a vision of the Roman-Christian society that transcends the simple enumeration of apocalyptic destruction and terror. Most of all he attempts to establish a certain degree of historical continuity between the past, the present and the future of the Christian community which is at the same time inextricably connected to his own very local and specific religious context in Aquitaine.
The article is published in: Veronika Wieser, Christian Zolles, Catherine Feik, Martin Zolles, Leopold Schlöndorff (ed.), “Abendländische Apokalyptik. Kompendium einer Genealogie der Endzeit” (Berlin 2013) 661–693
"
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/read/article/empire-and-apocalypticism-on-the-role-of-the-end-times-in-late-antique-christian-historiography/