Includes bibliographical references (pages 372-399) and index.

Foreword -- Introduction: the scope of this book -- 1. The tradition of apocalyptic prophecy -- Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic -- The apocalyptic tradition in medieval Europe -- 2. The tradition of religious dissent -- The ideal of the apostolic life -- Some early messiahs -- 3. The Messianism of the disoriented poor -- The impact of rapid social change -- The poor in the first crusades -- 4. The saints against the hosts of Antichrist -- Saviours in the Last Days -- The demonic hosts -- Phantasy, anxiety, and social myth -- 5. In the backwash of the Crusades -- The Pseudo-Baldwin and the "Master of Hungary" -- The last crusades of the poor -- 6. The Emperor Frederick as messiah -- Joachite prophecy and Frederick II -- The resurrection of Frederick -- Manifestoes for a future Frederick -- 7. An elite of self-immolating redeemers -- The genesis of the flagellant movement -- Revolutionary flagellants -- The secret flagellants of Thuringia -- 8. An elite of amoral supermen (I) -- The heresy of the Free Spirit -- The Amaurians -- The sociology of the Free Spirit -- 9. An elite of amoral supermen (II) -- The spread of the movement -- The way to self-deification -- The doctrine of mystical anarchism -- 10. The egalitarian state of nature -- In the thought of antiquity -- In patristic and medieval thought -- 11. The egalitarian millennium (I) -- Marginalia to the English Peasants' Revolt -- The Taborite Apocalypse -- Anarcho-communism in Bohemia -- 12. The egalitarian millennium (II) -- The drummer of Niklashausen -- Thomas Müntzer -- 13. The egalitarian millennium (III) -- Anabaptism and social unrest -- Münster as the New Jerusalem -- The messianic reign of John of Leyden -- Conclusion -- Appendix: The "Free Spirit" in Cromwell's England: the Ranters and their literature.