During the period of quiet which followed a certain priest of Thuringia, Bernhardt by name, created a great sensation in central Europe by declaring that the end of the world was fast approaching; that the prophecy contained in the twentieth chapter of Revelation would be fulfilled on December 31st, in the year 1000—or possibly immediately before that time—when the devil would be unbound; and that unutterable calamity or annihilation would come upon the world. The clergy quickly followed suit, and as the fearful day approached every church and cloister in Europe resounded with the frantic appeals of the monks and priests for their flocks to prepare for the awful doom. Europe was turned upside down; business was suspended; kings, princes, senators, nobles, and peasants all alike left their occupations to seek refuge in some holy sanctuary against the coming event. As the dread moment approached there was not a church or convent in Europe that was not crowded to suffocation, the people imagining that, if they were found at the last moment in some consecrated place, their chances of being saved would be better. Hundreds and thousands of these poor wretches never had opportunity of obtaining the coveted shelter, having been bereft of their reason under the awful excitement of the hour. Amid prayer, faintings, hysterical screaming, and chanting of choirs—priests, monarchs, and beggars all huddled together anyhow—the clock struck twelve, and dead silence prevailed. Gradually the people roused themselves from their stupor to find themselves the victims of a cruel hoax. Strange to say, not any attempt was made to punish those who had produced such a melancholy state of things. Kings and nobles had endowed monasteries and churches with lands and wealth, which they believed would soon be of so little use to them, and became suddenly penitent, assuming the monk’s shirt of hair, and otherwise showing evidence of their piety and humility. William of the Long Sword, Duke of Normandy, Hugh Duke of Burgundy, Hugh Count of Arles, the Emperor Henry II., all renounced their wealth and position to become monks. Nobles had left lands and castles to the Church, the deeds being drawn up by monks and witnessed by prelates and sovereigns, as though no day of reckoning was at hand, the form being invariably as follows: “Seeing that the end of the world is now approaching, and that every day accumulates fresh miseries, I, Baron —— (or King ——), for the good of my soul, give to the monastery of ——,” etc. The Church, which before was poor, now became gorged with wealth, and the ignorance and credulity of the people secured the treasures to the now powerful prelates.