Precursors of

Nostradamus?:
Various Prophecies From
The Mirabilis Liber
Organized and Translated Into English By The
Nostradamus Research Group

Translation copyright 2001, 2002 by participating members of the

Nostradamus Research Group
Last Updated: 03/01/02
Based on the Latin/French 1523 edition and the 1831 French translation by E.
Bricon, as kindly supplied by Michel Chomarat of Lyon.
Introductory notes are based on 'The Mirabilis Liber: its Compilation and
Influence' by Jennifer Britnell and Derek Stubbs (Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, Volume 49, 1986)

Introduction
It is well known by now that many of Nostradamus's prophecies are
projections into the future of known historical events, as the
researches of Pierre Brind'Amour, Georges Dumzil, Gilles Polizzi,
Roger Prvost and others have long since demonstrated beyond all
reasonable doubt. It is common knowledge that some of the prophecies
contain quite specific historical name-references, for example, such
as Nero or Hannibal...
What is less well known is that many of Nostradamus's other
predictions in his 'Propheties' and accompanying letters are clearly
based directly on ancient collections of prophecies (most of them
biblically based) that were similarly known and available long before
he started writing. Numerous such collections were being made at the
time, mainly because there was a general conviction that the End of
the World was at hand. Even Columbus compiled his own anthology:
indeed, to it he may have owed some of his ideas about a possible New
World...
The first and best known of these anthologies to be published in
France was the celebrated Mirabilis liber, an early 16th-century collection
of prophecies mainly in Latin, though partly in French . The first edition of
it was published in 1522, the second by Jehan Besson of Lyon in 1523
(though it in fact bears the date '1524'), and many other editions followed. It
may even (in the view of some) have been compiled by Jaume de
Nostredame, Nostradamus's own father. and, given its slight pro-French
editings, may have been originally designed with a view to boosting
Franois I's chances of election as Holy Roman Emperor (in the event, he
lost to Charles V).
This series will present each of the prophecies in the Mirabilis
liber in turn, translated into English by members of the Nostradamus
Research Group on the basis of:
(a) the Latin/French 1523 edition, and
(b) the1831 French translation by E. Bricon, as kindly supplied by

Michel Chomarat of Lyon.

Introductory notes are based on 'The Mirabilis Liber: its Compilation
and Influence' by Jennifer Britnell and Derek Stubbs (Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Volume 49, 1986), as kindly supplied
by Dr Britnell.
It is easy for the reader, after reading the following prophecies, to conclude
that Nostradamus seems to have based many of his prophecies from the
celebrated 'Mirabilis liber', (including those in his accompanying letters)
before setting them so memorably to verse (which is no doubt an important
reason why they are nowadays associated with him, rather than with it!).

Gee -- but for the fact that Nostradamus was directly inspired by God,
you'd almost think he had used it, wouldn't you? Or perhaps what God
*really* inspired him to do was ... er ... read the book?! - Peter Lemesurier

1. The prophecy of Bishop Bemechobus

(better known as Pseudo-Methodius, 7th century, Syrian)
The original text is a shortened Latin version of the 'Revelationes'
of Pseudo-Methodius (7th century, Syrian). The strange name
'Bemechobus' may be a corruption of 'beati Methodii' ('of the blessed
Methodius'). This translation omits its initial recapitulation of
biblical history...

The Book of Bemechobus, bishop and martyr of Christ, translated

through his efforts from Hebrew and Greek into Latin; treating of
the beginning of the world, with kingdoms, with nations, and with the
end of the ages, and praised by the most illustrious and blessed
Jerome in his works.
[Biblical history omitted]
...So God delivered the sons of Israel from the slavery of the
children of Ishmael. These [i.e. the Arabs] shall, however, renew
their enterprise, they shall destroy the land, shall invade the globe
from the East unto the West, from the South to the North, as far as
Rome. Their yoke shall weigh heavy on the heads of the people. There
shall be no nation or realm that can fight against them, until the
Times shall be accomplished. Only then shall they be defeated by the
Christians; and the Roman empire, in its turn, shall take captive the
children of Ishmael.
The Roman empire shall rule proudly over all the nations, once it
has finally broken these profane ones. Were not the Hebrews, after
reigning a number of years, vanquished by the Romans? For four
thousand years the Babylonians reigned, and Rome defeated them.
Victorious over Macedonia, and subjugating the Scythians by force of
arms, Rome saw Africans, Spaniards, French, Germans, Swiss and
Bretons in turn all fall at its feet.
Then the sons of Ishmael, leaving their deserts again, shall confront
the Roman empire; that is what Scripture means by these words: "the
arms of the south", of which Daniel spoke foreseeing these events.

This new invasion of the Ishmaelites shall be a punishment without

measure or mercy. The Lord shall deliver all the nations into their
hands because of the transgressions that we have committed against his
laws. That is why God delivered us into the arms of the barbarians,
because we have forgotten his divine precepts.
For the Christians shall give themselves up to a host of unlawful acts
and shall defile themselves with the most disgraceful depravities, and
that is why the Lord has delivered them [in advance] into the hands of
the Saracens. Cappadocia, Licilia, the land of Syria, once subjected
to the devastation, shall become a desert; their inhabitants shall be
dragged off into captivity, while others shall perish by the sword.
Massacre and captivity await the Greeks. [North] Africa shall be made
desolate, the Egyptians, the Orientals and the Asians shall be made to
offer tribute in gold and silver. The Spanish shall perish by the
sword. France, Germany and the land of the Goths, eaten up by a
thousand scourges, shall see a host of their inhabitants carried off.
The Romans shall be killed or put to flight; and pursuing their
enemies as far as the islands of the sea, the sons of Ishmael shall
invade at one and the same time the North and the East, the South and
the West.
Jerusalem shall spew out again the captives from all the nations who
shall be under their yoke, and their tributaries. All the treasures
and ornaments of the churches made of gold, silver and precious stones
shall become their property; the desolation shall be
great, the churches burnt, and the corpses of the faithful shall be
thrown where no one shall be able to find them to bury them.
The way of the Saracens shall spread from sea to sea: but for the
nations, there shall be no more way at all. Their only way shall be
called the 'via dolorosa', which they shall follow with the same
affliction -- groaning, poor and rich alike. Blessed are those who
have given us lights to follow. Saint Paul had foreseen it perfectly!
Thus it is that all the earth shall be delivered to the children of
Ishmael, who shall bring dissolution in their wake. That is why the
Lord called Ishmael, their father, the Instrument of War; and many

cities shall be made desolate, for the sons of the desert shall come,
and they are not men, but beings odious to men. They shall even be
seen putting pregnant women to the sword-point and immolating the
priests in the sanctuary. They shall desecrate their churches,
cohabiting there with women, and they shall bedeck themselves, both
themsleves and their spouses, with sacred ornaments. They shall attach
their horses to the tombs of the faithful as though to a bush. There
shall be a general tribulation among the Christians who inhabit the
earth.
It is then that those who believe firmly in the Lord shall be clearly
distinguishable. For the Lord shall not send these tribulations upon
the Christians in order to cause the just and the believers to perish;
but in order to see with certainty who the most faithful believers
are: for Truth itself said it: "Blessed shall you be when you are
persecuted for my name"; and indeed the prophets who preceded us were
likewise persecuted, yet whoever shall persevere to the end shall be
saved.
But after these days of tribulation, when the sons of Ishmael, clad in
resplendent clothes of crimson and gold like bridegrooms, shall boast
of the victories that they have everywhere achieved over the
Christians who have been unable to escape their clutches, and
shall say: "Behold how by our own might we have conquered the earth
and all who live in it"; then the Lord God shall remember, in his
mercy, his promise to those who worship him, to those who believe in
Christ, and he shall deliver them from the yoke of the Saracens.
There shall emerge from Gaul [interpolation by the 16th century French
editor!] a race of Christians who shall make war on them and shall
pierce them with the sword, shall take away their women captive and
shall slaughter their children. In their turn, the sons of Ishmael
shall encounter both sword and tribulation. And the Lord shall return
to them the evil that they shall have done in sevenfold measure. The
Lord shall deliver them into the clutches of the Christians, whose
empire shall be elevated above all empires. The yoke that the
Christians shall impose on them shall be hard, and those that shall
remain shall be slaves. The land, previously laid waste by them, shall
then be pacified. The prisoners they had taken shall once again see

their homelands, and the population shall grow and multiply.

The king of the Romans shall show great indignation against those who
shall have denied Christ in Egypt or in Arabia. Peace and tranquillity
shall be reborn on earth, a peace such as there has never been, and
such as there shall never be: happiness and rejoicing shall be
everywhere. The world shall rest from its tribulations. That shall be
the peace of which the Apostle said: "When tranquillity shall be
achieved there shall be a sudden mortality: men shall be as they were
in the days of Noah, eating and drinking, and becoming betrothed: fear
shall be banished from their hearts."
In the very midst of this calm, there shall suddenly emerge from the
north with Gog and Magog a nation which shall make the whole world
tremble. Horrified, all men shall hide themselves in the mountains and
among the rocks in order to flee their presence. They are not of the
race of Japheth. Plague of the North, they shall devour human flesh
and snakes, women and little children. No one shall be able to stand
up against them. Seven years later, when they shall have taken the
city of Joseph, the Lord shall send one of his princes against them,
and, in a trice, shall strike them with the fire of the thunderbolt:
the emperor of Greece shall come and shall rule over Jerusalem for
seven years.
It is then that the Son of Perdition shall appear, the Antichrist. He
shall be born in Chorazin, shall be brought up at Bethsaida, and shall
reign in Capernaum, as the Lord said in the Gospel: "Woe to you,
Chorazin; woe to you, Bethsaida; woe to you, Capernaum, if you are
exalted to the skies, for you shall descend into hell."
Next the king of the Romans and Greeks shall go up to Golgotha, where
the Lord condescended to suffer the torment of the cross for us. The
king of the Romans shall take off his crown, then he shall place it on
the head of Christ, shall raise his hands to Heaven, and shall give up
his soul to the Lord, the king of the Christians; then shall appear
the sign of the cross in Heaven; the child of perdition shall come in
his turn, thinking that he is God. He shall perform a thousand
miracles on earth. Through him the blind shall see, the lame shall
walk, the deaf shall hear, the dead shall revive, such that, if it is

possible, the elect themselves shall be deceived. He shall enter into

Jerusalem, and shall seat himself in the temple as if he were the Son
of God, and his heart, drunk with pride, shall forget that he is the
son of a man and a woman of the tribe of Dan; deceiver and forger, he
shall seduce through his miracles many credulous folk.
Then God shall send two of his most faithful servants, Enoch and
Elias, preserved so that they may bear witness for him against his
enemy. Then the first who shall believe in Judah shall be last. Elias
and Enoch shall attack him in the face of all the people, and shall
convict him of imposture and falsity. The Jews of all the tribes of
Israel shall then believe and shall be killed for Christ. The
Antichrist, seized with rage, shall order the death of the saints of
God, and of those that shall have added faith to their words. Then
shall come the Son of God in person, our Lord Christ, carried on the
clouds of heaven, surrounded by legions of angels and by celestial
glory: immediately they shall put to death the Antichrist, the beast,
the enemy, the seducer, and those that shall have lent him their
support.
This shall be the consummation of the ages, and the Judgement shall
commence before thousands of angels and hundreds of thousands of
archangels and seraphim. The saints, the patriarchs, the prophets, the
martyrs, the confessors, the virgins and all the saints together shall
be grouped around Christ. Then both the just and the sinners shall
give an account, in the presence of the Lord, of their actions.
The righteous shall be separated from the wicked. The righteous,
radiant as the sun, shall follow the lamb of life and the King of
heaven, whose radiance shall always be visible to them, and in whose
company they shall remain for ever. The wicked shall descend into hell
with the beast. The righteous shall live in eternity, and shall be
endlessly glorified with the King of Heaven, while the wicked shall
suffer without end. May the Lord save us from a like fate! The Lord
who liveth for ever and ever. Amen.
[Note by 16th century editor] You will find this prophecy under the
three letters 0,0,0 in the Library of divine Victor, academy of Paris,
in the very noble realm of France.

2. The prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl (Syrian, 9th

century)
One of a number of Byzantine apocalypses, this version is based partly
on texts still in the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris, and partly on an
unknown source. Translation commences:

The word Sibyl is used to describe those Greek women who, by

prophesying and interpreting the divine will, used to announce future
events to men. The most learned authors say that there were ten
Sibyls. The first was the Sibyl of Persia; the second that of Libya;
the third, that of Delphi, who used to predict the future before the
Trojan War; the fourth, of Cumae in Italy; the fifth, of Erithrea in
Babylonia, called Erithres, from the name of the island where her
chants were to be heard; the sixth was the Samian Sibyl, from the
island of Samos; the seventh, of Amalthea. She had been born in
Syria; her father was Manasse and her mother Papilia: she came from
there to Cumae. The eighth was that of the Hellespont; the ninth, of
Phrygia; the tenth, of Tibur in Greek or, as the Latins say, of
Abulnia.
The prophecies of this last contain a great many things about the Lord
and his Christ. This Sibyl, whose name we have just given in twofold
form, Greek and Latin, owed her birth to King Priam and to Hecuba: she
was Cassandra, whom Aeneas brought from Troy. She travelled through
various parts of the east, and delivered her oracles in Asia, in
Macedonia, in Licilia, in Pamphylia, in Galicia; then, after
announcing the future to this part of the world, she passed through
Egypt, Ethiopia, Babylonia, Africa, Libya, Pentapolis and Mauritania.
In all these places, inspired by a prophetic spirit, she announced
good things to the good and woes to the bad. We know that through her
words she spoke the truth, and announced what must happen in the most
remote of future times.
The Roman princes, hearing of this prophetess, spoke of her in turn in
the presence of Tarquin, the Roman and Trojan emperor. This Tarquin,

seventh of the name, lived at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The emperor

sent representatives to the Sibyl and had her brought to Rome with the
greatest honors.
One night a hundred members of the Roman senate had the same dream. It
seemed to them that they could see as it were nine suns in the sky
that each contained a different formation. The first sun, brilliant,
enlightened the earth with its flames; the second, more resplendent,
spread abroad an aerial brilliance; the third, blood-red in colour,
sent forth terrifying flames; the fourth seemed all gory; the fifth,
also red, was somewhat darkened -- it was like a lamp amidst the
darkness; the sixth was completely dark, and one could almost make out
within it a scorpions sting; the seventh, crimson like the foregoing,
had a sword in the middle of its terrifying disk; on the eighth a red
band seemed to be forming; the ninth was dark, and only feeble rays
emanated from it.
When the Sibyl made her entrance into Rome, the citizens admired her
rare beauty. Her charming face, her graceful figure, her easy speech,
the beauty spread all over her person, registered with her listeners
in her favour. The senators who had had the vision approached her and
said to her:
"Princess, O you who, in your person, unite more charms
than we have ever admired in any creature, we ask you to tell us what
the dream foretells that appeared simultaneously to all of us on the
same night."
Smiling, the Sibyl answered them:
"It is not proper to explain mens visions in a place full of filth and
contaminated by various battles; but come, let us climb a mountain, and
there I shall tell you what must happen to the Romans."
They did as she asked, and when they were on the mountain, she asked them
to tell her what they had seen. Then she said to them:
The nine suns that you saw signify all the generations that are to
come. Just as these suns differed from each other, in the same way

also these generations shall follow without resembling each other.

[The Sibyl now explains the characteristic developments and events of
the first five suns, in the process predicting -- with an accuracy
that stretches credibility somewhat (!) -- the principal events of the
Old and New testaments. She then goes on...]
Sixth sun, sixth generation. This city [Rome] shall be assaulted for
three years and six months. Seventh sun, seventh generation. Two kings
shall raise numerous persecutions in the land of the Hebrews. Eighth
sun, eighth generation. Rome shall be forsaken, pregnant women shall
utter screams in their labours and shall say: Believe you, we shall
perish! Ninth sun, ninth generation. The Roman princes shall cause
the ruin of much of the world.
Then there shall come from Syria two kings whose armies shall be as
innumerable as the grains of sand on the seashore. They shall conquer
cities and the Roman provinces up to Chalcedonia. In those days there
shall be great bloodshed.
The cities and nations shall tremble when there shall appear two kings
from Egypt who shall fight four kings and shall kill them, as well as
all their army. They shall reign three years and six months. After
them shall come another king, C. by name, powerful in battles, who
shall reign thirty years, shall raise a temple to God, shall execute
the law and shall perform justice in the land in the name of the Lord.
After him another prince shall reign for a short time. He shall be
killed in battle and replaced by a king whose name begins with H. From
H. shall come King Audon, from Audon shall come A., and from A., A.,
and from this last, A. The second A. shall be extremely bellicose.
From him shall be born a prince named R., from R., T., who shall count
nineteen monarchs under his power. After these shall appear a king of
France named R. He shall be great, powerful and merciful, and shall
render justice to the wretched. No King of the Romans so great shall
ever have been seen before, nor shall be seen again.
After him shall come a king named L., then B., then B., and from B.
shall be born A., a bellicose prince who shall travel the earth and
the seas. He shall die in exile far from his kingdom, and his soul

shall pass into the hand of the Lord. Then shall appear a prince named
V. He shall have superiority over all his enemies, and then shall come
one named O., who shall be powerful, courageous and good, who shall
judge with justice, then another O. just as powerful as he was. Under
this last there shall be wars between the Christians and the pagans.
The blood of the Greeks shall be shed, and this prince shall surrender
his heart and soul to God after reigning for seven years. There shall
be born from him a prince O., bloodthirsty and cruel, without faith,
without good works. He shall be the cause of the shedding of much
blood, and the churches shall be overthrown in his domains. In other
countries there shall be great tribulations and numerous wars. Nation
shall rise against nation in Cappadocia. He shall reign for four
years. After him shall come a Prince H., under whom there shall be
many wars. He shall make war in Samaria and in Syria and shall take
Pentapolis. He shall be a king from the race of the Lombards and
shall be replaced by a Salic [i.e. Frankish] monarch, called L. who
shall fight the Lombards; courageous, strong and powerful, this
prince, so long as he shall live, shall be at war. His reign shall be
of short duration.
Then shall emerge from Babylon a king, a supporter of Satan who, in
his infernal power, shall put the saints to death, and shall destroy
the churches. There shall be many wars and tribulations. The
children of Agar shall seize Tarento, and spreading through Apulia,
shall sack a host of towns. They shall be determined to enter Rome,
and nobody in the world shall be able to resist them, unless it be the
Lord God himself.
The Armenians, pursuing their depredations, shall advance from the
East, shall fight the Romans, and shall achieve peace for a short
time. Then shall appear a king of Greek blood, who shall reign in
Jerusalem. Forty altars shall be prepared in honour of the name of
God. Plague shall spread through all the pagan nations, and a Greek
monarch, a bellicose man, shall enter Hierapolis and shall destroy the
temples of the idols. Swarms of grasshoppers and an immense host of
caterpillars shall devour all the trees and their fruits in Cappadocia
and Sicily, and the people shall starve to death, without a doubt.
Then shall appear another Salic [i.e. Frankish] monarch named L, a
strong and bellicose man, against whom many of his neighbours shall

rise. In that time sons shall disown their fathers, and fathers their
sons: brother shall deliver brother to death, and fathers their sons;
brother shall be sexually united with sister, and the earth shall see
the greatest excesses committed. Priests shall preach, as the apostle
said, but not by example, and shall die in iniquity. Bishops who are
accomplices of the wrongdoers shall sell their benefices, and once
again blood shall flow on the earth, and the sacred temples shall be
desecrated. The people shall commit shameful fornications and even
the crime of sodomy.
The men of those days shall be rapists, liars, shameful, proud,
enemies of justice, and even the Roman judges shall be corrupt;
depending on the day of the week, their judgements shall be changed
for money; if one of their eyes is good, the other shall be evil: and
for money there is nothing that the magistrates shall not be prepared
to do. While swearing to do good, they shall do ill; falsity shall
preside over their utterances. Men shall be greedy and false, and
truth shall disappear. They shall send away their wives in order to
get others, and shall even have sex with their own kin. There shall be
earthquakes in divers places. The cities and provinces of the
Islanders shall be swallowed up by floods. To the plague which shall
devastate some places shall be joined the fury of enemies, and nothing
shall be able to comfort them.
Then shall come a king called B., under whose reign there shall be
many wars. He shall reign for two years, and after him shall come a
prince A., who shall remain a long time on the throne. He shall march
against Rome and shall seize it. The Lord shall not deliver it into
the hands of his enemies during his lifetime. He shall be good and
great, and shall render justice to the poor. He shall be from the race
of the Lombards.
After him there shall be another prince, named B, from whom twelve
other B.s shall spring. Himself a Lombard, he shall reign a hundred
years. Then shall appear, after him, a Salic [i.e. Frankish] prince,
named L., a frightful prince, under whom shall begin a series of
sufferings whose like has never been since the beginning of the world:
battles, tribulations, bloodshed, earthquakes, cities in captivity.
The Lord in his wrath shall send a man whose yoke nobody shall be able

to shake off, other than the Lord himself. The Romans shall be beaten,
and the Roman city shall be destroyed. The earth shall be covered in
ruins: never shall monarch have done such a thing. This city [i.e.
Rome] shall be called Babylon; this kingdom shall be of iron, and Rome
shall be prey to persecution and the sword. Men shall be greedy,
despots, hard on paupers, oppressors, unjust, wicked. Resistance
shall be impossible at the time, but the Persians, Macedonians and
Turks, hearing of this tyrant, shall form an alliance, shall come to
Rome, and shall seize the Salic prince, whom they shall cause to
undergo a cruel death, and the burning of Rome shall be avenged.
Then shall emerge in Gaul a king of the Greeks, Francs and Romans, of
lofty stature and handsome appearance; his body and limbs shall have
the most beautiful proportions; he shall reign a hundred and twelve
years; he shall carry written on his forehead: "This man, verily, is
destined to avenge Christendom, snatch it away from the yoke of
Ishmael [i.e. the Arabs], conquer it from the Saracens; none of the
Saracens shall thereafter be able to reign."
Seven times over, he shall cause them the greatest ill, shall ruin
their whole empire, shall strike them; after that, peace shall reign
for Christians up until the time of the Antichrist.
In those days, riches shall be abundant, the earth shall produce
fruits in quantity, so that three bushels shall sell for only a penny.
The king of the Franks, Greeks and Romans, reclaiming for himself the
whole empire of Christendom, shall devastate all the pagan islands and
cities, shall overthrow the temples of idolatry, and shall summon all
the pagans to baptism.
The cross shall be raised in all the temples, and whoever shall not
adore it shall be punished with the sword; and when a hundred and
twenty years shall be accomplished, the Jews shall convert to God, and
his sepulchre shall be glorified by all. In those days Judah shall be
saved, and Israel shall resume its faith.
Then a prince of iniquity shall emerge from the tribe of Dan; he shall
be called the Antichrist. The child of perdition, full of pride and of
insane malice, he shall perform a host of prodigies on the earth, in
order to reinforce the errors that he shall teach: through his magic

arts he shall shake the good faith of many who shall see in his voice
fire descending from heaven. Years shall be shortened like months,
months like weeks, weeks like days, and days like hours.
From the north shall issue the most ferocious people whom King
Alexander had held in check, namely Gog and Magog. These people shall
form twenty-two kingdoms whose population is as numerous as the sand
of the sea. The king of the Romans, when he shall see these people
advance, summoning his troops together, shall fight them to the utmost
and cut them to pieces. Next he shall come to Jerusalem, and climbing
Golgotha shall lay down his diadem and all his royal pomp, and shall
give over his throne to God the Father and to Christ his Son. He
shall put his crown on the holy Cross, and shall raise his hands:
immediately they shall ascend into heaven, together with the holy
cross and the royal crown. Then the Lord Jesus Christ shall come to
judge the world, and the Roman Empire shall have ceased to exist.
Then the Antichrist shall reveal himself publicly; he shall seat
himself in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. During his reign, there
shall appear two illustrious men, Elias and Enoch, to announce the
coming of the Lord. The Antichrist shall put them to death, and two
days latter the Lord shall revive them. Then shall be seen a great
persecution, such as there has never been and shall never be again.
God shall shorten not the measure, but the number of those terrible
days -- the same God of whom it is written: "The day is fulfilled by
your command." For the sake of the elect, through the power of the
Lord, the Antichrist shall be killed on the Mount of Olives by
Michael: suddenly the dead shall be born again.
Thus it was that the Sibyl predicted to the Romans what must happen;
when she came to the signs that must accompany the judgment of God, in
a thunderous voice she pronounced these prophetic lines:
On the day of judgement, the earth shall be covered with sweat; the
king shall come from heaven through the spheres. He shall come in
flesh and in person to judge the world. Believers or unbelievers, all
shall then see the Lord in the midst of the legions of his saints who
have already completed their race. All shall appear, body and soul,
to be judged. Fire shall devour the land, the sea, and the sky at a
single stroke. The doors of dark Avernus [Hell] shall burst. Everyone

shall appear in the full light of day. Every people shall tell of
deeds until then unknown; and the Lord shall bring to light the
secrets of every conscience. Then shall commence the desolation and
the anguish. The sun and the stars shall lose their brightness, and
the moon its light. The hills shall be laid low, and the valleys
raised up. There shall no longer be on earth any eminence or
unevenness, for the azure waters of the sea shall roll in level with
the mountaintops. All shall cease to be; the shattered earth shall
perish. The waves and flames shall descend in destructive torrents,
and from heaven shall suddenly come the gloomy sound of trumpets. The
shattered globe, the gaping earth shall be no more than a horrible
chaos, and the face of the Lord shall appear to all the kings of the
earth. A rain of fire and sulphur shall descend from heaven.
Then God shall judge everyone according to his works: the impious
shall go to eternal torment, condemned forever to the flames. The just
shall receive eternal life; there shall be a new heaven and a new
earth that shall exist forever. The sea shall cease to be, God shall
reign over the saints, and the saints shall reign with God for ever
and ever, amen.
It is said that the Sibyl lived for 362 years. Such, truly, are the
revelations that she made, concerning the birth, passion and
resurrection of Christ, as well as concerning his second coming. If
anybody wishes to verify and read these lines in the Greek, he will
find them in the words [Greek quotation]-- that is to say, Christ, son
of God, saviour.
You will find this prophecy in the case labeled with the two letters
PP. in the library of Divine Victor, in the town of Paris, in the
noble realm of the French.

3. The prophecy of St Augustine of Hippo

(actually an extract from the'De ortu et tempore Antichristi' of
around 950 AD by Adso ofMontier-en-Der):
The time when the Antichrist shall come, and when the Judgement shall
take place, was indicated by Paul in the epistle to the Thessalonians,
in which he said: The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be
revealed to men by the birth and appearance of a child of sin and
perdition; for we know that this last shall appear after the kingdom
of the Greeks or even of the Persians, when a monarch who in his own
day is raised above all by his strength and glory shall spread wide
the bounds of the Roman empire. Before him all the subject nations,
all the tributary people, shall bend: and Rome shall be at the apogee
of its power.
However the Antichrist, said Paul the apostle, shall come only at the
moment when there shall have been a schism -- that is to say, when all
the people who were formerly under the yoke of Rome shall have freed
and separated themselves from it. And although now the Roman Empire
has, in great part, been destroyed, the time has not yet come, and
shall not come, all the while there shall exist those kings of the
French who have still to reign in Rome.
The dignity of Rome shall not completely perish until the time when a
French king shall govern the whole Roman Empire. The greatest monarch
who has ever existed, he shall come unto Jerusalem after a happy
reign, and on the Mount of Olives he shall lay down his sceptre and
crown: it shall be the end and consummation of the Roman and Christian
empires.
(This passage is to be found on the last page of the 9th book of the
divine Augustine, Doctor of the Holy Church.)

4. The prophecy of Saint Severus (4th century) -- actually

a French 15th century composition:
TEXT OF THE PROPHECY OF ARCHBISHOP SEVERUS
Schism shall revive again in the Lords Church. There shall be two
consorts, one of them true and the other adulterous. The adulterous
one shall be the Church that shall be called diabolical.
There shall be a shedding of blood the like of which such shall not
have been seen, even in the time of the giants. The legitimate consort
shall take flight. Now the lion shall arise, and the black eagle,
flapping its shining wings above its eyrie, shall take to the air:
then shall commence the tribulations and battles by land and sea.
In vain shall the earth call for peace: but peace shall be deaf and
shall not come.
The name of The Lord shall be blasphemed. Woe unto you for having
scorned his power, O city of the peoples and of riches! You shall not
rejoice in the end.
Woe unto you, city of philosophers, built by the children of Noah, who
shall possess all the territory of Ravenna! Woe unto you! The city of
the philosophers shall be subjugated.
Woe unto you, Lombard people! The towers that are your joy shall fall
into the dust.
The great Gallic lion shall go to meet the eagle, and shall strike it
on the head; a terrible struggle shall ensue. And the country of
Ravenna, which shall then be queen of Italy, shall receive the crown.
There shall be battles, and mortality such as has not been seen since
the beginning of world, nor shall ever be seen again.
Among the kings of the nations, there shall be one who shall triumph.
He shall be borne on an elephant and shall come to establish his
empire in these places. From those days onwards there shall be only
one shepherd in the Lords Church, by whose efforts peace and unity of
doctrine shall be reborn in Ravenna.

The king in question shall reign for a long time.

All the tyrants who oppressed the Church shall be suddenly put down;
all the sceptres shall be collected into the hand of the pastor
announced by the predictions.
And there shall be no more schism until the days of the Antichrist:
and there shall then be as it were a general conversion to the faith
of Christ proclaimed to the country of Ravenna, thanks to the great
lion, where the people shall rejoice in perpetual amity.
(From Ravenna, on the first day of March, under Gregory 1st)

5. The Prophecy of the Abbot Joachim.

This is one of a series of chapters from a 44-page reprint [!!] of
Johann Lichtenberger's 'Prognosticatio' of 1488: Lichtenberger was
astrologer to Frederick III. It's a whole compendium of prophecies, so
a selection of them will be posted here in turn.

First, one or two quotes from the introduction:

Ptolemy: 'The wise man will examine the stars, whose inclinations and
configurations can instruct him. He will gain counsels from them.'
Aristotle: 'It has been given to the stars and meteors (for the stars
cannot have been created in vain) to exert an influence on things here
below.'
The Sibyl: 'We are at the end of the ages; good is close to evil:
choose what is good, push far from you what is evil.'
St Brigid: 'Have faith in God and do good, so that the Lord in His
mercy may keep far from you the ills that He has revealed.'
[Interesting sidelight on Nostradamus's possible motivations?]
Lolbardus: 'A piece of wisdom: mingle with many people; but when you
want others to keep silence, first of all keep silence yourself.'

Introductory Comment by Peter Lemesurier:

After five chapters on divination generally, and particularly
astrology, the original Latin text heads chapter VI of Part I with the
statement:
'Certitudo preteritorum & presentium fidem facit futurorum' ['The certainty
of the past and present gives faith in things to come']

.. which, of course, Nostradamus take up word-for-word in the

introductory remarks for October in his Almanach for 1565:
'Sed certitudo praeteritorum & praesentium fidem facit futurorum,
*euentum certa indicia*.'
["But the certainty of things past and present gives us confidence in
things to come, *as definite indications of events*."]
... which is a clear indication that Nostradamus had indeed read and
studied the book. Indeed, it obviously struck him as an excellent
summary of what was to be his general approach -- namely that the past
could be projected into the future on the basis of the 'Janus
hypothesis'. Hence, presumably his addition of the final phrase that I
have marked above, which could scarcely be more specific.
Part 2 starts with an exposition of the apocalyptic significance of
the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Scorpio that occurred on 25th
November 1484 -- which, which given that the dire events predicted
didn't in fact happen, readers such as Nostradamus would no doubt have
applied to the *next* time it happened. So it seems to be worthwhile
to start our translations from this part of the book with chapter 2,
which is taken from the revelation of Abbot Joachim of Fiore:

Text of the Prophecy:

On the vicissitudes of the Church of Christ and of its leader, as
prefigured by Adam and Eve, our first parents: an excerpt from the
revelation of the Abbot Joachim.
Before the coming of this terrifying eclipse, more than one peril
shall threaten the Church of the Lord and the barque of Peter. This
barque, raised by tumultuous billows, and beaten on all sides by
storms, and fighting against the waves, and close to going under,
shall be sustained nevertheless on the surface: because God in his
goodness shall come to its aid in the midst of its perils, and shall
deliver it from shipwreck. For we know that it is in vain that the

storms shall beat upon the barque of Peter: never shall it sink in the
waves.
It was in these words that Joachim confirmed the words of Jeremiah on
the Church. The barque of Peter is the Roman Church. Adam and Eve
represent the sovereign Pontiff.
Since the beginning, the tree of good and of evil shall offer to them
both good, for the support of life, and evil, for its ruin; and then
shall appear giants on the earth and mighty men, throughout the whole
of Christendom. These men shall no longer be satisfied by the
simplest things; at the suggestion of another serpent, they shall
choose wives for themselves from among the people.
Alas! I fear that, led astray by treacherous counsels, they shall come
to live corrupt lives, to waste their strength on them and to destroy
the Churchs dignity: then, spreading across the earth, to inhabit the
land of Cain amidst shame and confusion.
So spoke Jeremiah, and with these words he announced that one day the
Church would fall prey to false Christians. Indeed, in the book of
the Revelations of Saint Brigid, it is said that when a child shall be
seated on lilies [possible reference to the throne of France?],
tribulation shall arise in the Church of Saint
Peter, and God shall cause France, whence pride shall have shaken all
obedience, to rise against the Church.
Then the end shall come; then no longer shall there be heard anything
but clamours, moans, howlings, until the stars announce that the
barque of Peter shall not be submerged. Peter shall doubt so much that
God shall not have appeared; and the pastors shall be amidst
affliction until the Lord has spoken.
Behold, all this is what shall happen during the sojourn of Jupiter in
the abode of Mars.
Rome shall then hardly be worthy of being considered the abode of the
masters of the world.

6. The prophecy of St Brigid of Sweden (14th century)

Note the 'Nostradamian' themes of the barque of St Peter, the flight
of the Pope from Rome and the eagle, symbolic of the Holy Roman Empire
with its heartland in Germany. Peter Lemesurier

The Revelation of Saint Brigid, virgin.

The perils and schisms that shall threaten the Church following the
alliance of the Germans with the Gauls.
Under the great eagle that shall nourish the fire in its breast, the
Church shall be ravaged and trampled underfoot. For the Lord is
capable, in his just judgements, of summoning the proud Germans
against his Church in order to chastise its disobedience; and then the
barque of Peter, attacked by powerful enemies, shall be shaken.
Terrified, Peter shall be forced to flee, in order not to incur the
infamy of servitude.
It is then, too, that the Church of the West shall see the power of
the French ally itself with that of Germany. The Germans united with
the French shall devastate the Church, and the river Rhine and the
western sea shall see unheard-of things: the Romans shall waver in
their faith, which, alas! in those days, shall find few constant
souls.
The Church of Peter shall be exposed to dangerous attacks in the year
of the Lord 1496, and news of misfortunes shall shortly reach the
cardinals. These calamities shall last several years. These
calamities are prefigured by the seven hairs of Samson with which the
head of the German nation is adorned.
But soon Flemish, Brugeois and Picards, rejecting the kings of the
confederation in which they had placed their trust, shall leave the
infidels in order to join to the Lord's flock: and then the head,
deprived of its hairs, that is to say of its powers, shall become weak
as once Samson did.

The prophecy of Saint Brigid the virgin,

on the symbolic lily growing in the field of the west.
This is chapter 18 of Part 2 of Lichtenberger's text as quoted in the
'Mirabilis liber', ascribed to St Brigid of Sweden -- a 14th-century
source. Note the various symbolic players whom the later Nostradamus
was adopt with some gusto!

At this point in the text of the ML, most of the prophecies are busy
ascribing apocalyptic significance to events at around the end of the
15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries (a fact that ought to
make us wonder about just how far ahead Nostradamus likewise was
really thinking!). However, they do show us the meaning of many of the
terms that Nostradamus was wont to use. They're also referring quite a
lot to the idea of 'prefiguring' -- i.e. basing future prophecies on
past events (most of them biblical so far), i.e. the familiar 'Janus
hypothesis', as evidently applied by Nostradamus too -- which is
instructive, to say the least! - Peter Lemesurier
Brigid said, in her revelation:
There shall come out of the soil of the West a lily that shall grow in
an astonishing manner on virgin soil; its perfume shall absorb all
poisons, its stem shall be stronger than the cedar.
O young man advancing into the land of the lily, listen to my counsels
and engrave them in your heart. Consult your conscience, and see
whether you are coming from the good or from the evil cockerel. For
there is an old prophecy about the good cockerel that runs:
The lily, partner of the great eagle, shall sweep from the West to the
East against the lion; the lion, defenceless, shall be overcome by the
lily, which shall spread its perfume over Germany, while the eagle, in
its flight, shall carry its fame afar.

8. The prophecy of Raynard Lolhardus, quoted in

chapter 26 of Part 2 of Lichtenberger's 'Prognosticatio'
of 1488, as reproduced in the Mirabilis liber.
Prediction of a severe persecution visited on the Church by the
Barbarians, which shall be alleviated by the Spaniards and the
Hungarians. Deliverance of Constantinople, and civil wars under M
[i.e. the Emperor Maximilian].

In his revelation, Reynard Lolhardus said:

after Doglosius shall come one of his heirs who boasts of being of the race
of Sara, but who belongs to that of Hagar; his successors shall not build
houses; but like wild men, they shall live under tents in the immense deserts,
and shall live by pillage and plunder.
Their rage against the Christians of the north and of the west shall
surpass the ferocity of all the cruellest beasts; the Christians, full
of gentleness, shall be crushed by them.
It is also said in Methodius: one day the children of Hagar, having
emerged from their deserts, shall meet up in several parts of Germany,
and shall govern the world for a period of 8 years. They shall destroy
cities and kingdoms, shall slaughter the priests at the altar, shall
drink from the sacred vessels, shall surrender themselves to sleep in
the churches in the arms of their women, and shall tether their horses
to the tombs of the faithful.
When all the resistance of the Christian princes shall be exhausted,
an invincible leader shall emerge from Spain, and shall put to death
this successor of Doglosius. Then Saturn shall be elevated above
Jupiter, and this elevation shall be without end.
The pride of the Turks shall be cast down; the kingdoms and the
principalities shall be joined with the Church because the children of
Sagittarius, Spaniards and Hungarians, shall exceed all Catholics in
valour, and shaking off the shame of the original disasters, shall put
to flight the Turkish perversity.

With the Turks put to flight, a pure and brilliant prosperity shall
distinguish the reign of Maximilian.
Then good Jupiter, by its happy influence, shall rectify and repair
the lamentable damage caused by horrendous Saturn, and it shall bring
happiness and rejoicing in its train.
The Turks having been expelled from all parts, men shall be seen to
flee beyond the seas; and then the Church of Saint Sophia shall
revive, and the time of general prosperity shall draw near.
The lion of the forests shall be led on a leash at the heel of the
mother of the faithful, and there shall be a new reform, which shall
last for many years.
The Catholics shall hear no more talk of the Emperor of the Turks, but
the princes of Germany shall disagree with the great eagle, and civil
wars shall ignite between them.
Then shall come the heir of Doglosius, the fifteenth Emperor, who
shall ravage Poland, Mysia, Asia, and Pruth [the area of the Danube?]:
he shall enter Picardy, Brabant and Flanders, and shall meet his death
close to the golden apple of Agrippina [Cologne?], as was predicted by
Merlin. Engrave these things in your hearts, O faithful!
I find the times when these events shall occur in the writings of
various authors. For all have concerned themselves, in their own way,
with searching for the significance of the eclipse: some by explaining
its effects by horary distance, others by means of the signs; and the
difference between these systems is immense. There are some who
suggest that the distance of one hour [i.e. one 24th of 360 degrees,
or 15 degrees] and one sign [i.e. 30 degrees] are to be understood in
terms of a month; others, whose authority is no less, such as Ali and
Ptolemy, think that each hour of distance corresponds to a year.
These things are set to happen between the years 1496 and 1598-99, a
period when we should expect to see happenings unheard of in our own
day.

9. A prophecy on the Antichrist

This is chapter 33 of part 2 of Lichtenberger's book, as reprinted in
the Mirabilis liber.

A prophecy on the Antichrist

There shall come as it were a kind of Antichrist who shall seduce the
prelates and princes of the Church with false signs and an erroneous
doctrine.
After that, there shall appear in the land of Leo another prophet who
shall announce astonishing things in the Roman senate. Saintly in
appearance and timorous, severe as regards the sanctity of Christian
life, he shall have rooted deeply within his heart a malignant spirit
that shall lead him, beneath the cloak of his hypocrisy, to the very
feet of the sovereign Pontiff. He shall deceive bishops, prelates and
princes with a false facade of piety, and shall draw them into grave
error. Even the wisest shall be misled; the most distinguished men of
Italy, of Lombardy and of Upper Germany shall let themselves be
fooled.
He shall be great in the eyes of people, and one of the most respected
princes since the beginning of the Church. He shall be called the
Antichrist. The pontiffs who have honored him shall be put to death;
and men shall walk in his footsteps to disgrace. Oh! if only the men
of the gospel who lead the churches knew of his coming, how much they
would fight against him and seek to appease the Lord who, in his
anger, has sent him like a curse against his children! They would
raise their voice to their Creator.
The true Pope shall ask grace of the Lord, and the Church shall be
re-established after him. That is why, if the Church is to be
renewed, it is necessary that, because of its dissoluteness and
imperfections, it should first pass through the trial of this prophet.

10. Prophecy on the Angelic Pastor

This is the last chapter of Lichtenberger's Part 2: it's the famous
prophecy of the Angelic Pastor, apparently from St Cyril: compare
Nostradamus's prediction of the reform of the Church at II.8.

The prophecy of the Angelic Pastor

A saintly man shall be consecrated pope. He shall reform, in a short
time and in an admirable manner, all of the Church. After him shall
appear three saintly personages who, confirming his words, shall
continue his work.
Then shall appear a hermit of great saintliness. As [the Abbot]
Joachim says, a man of remarkable holiness shall be elevated to the
papal see. The Lord shall use him to perform so many miracles that all
men shall revere him, and no one shall dare to challenge his
teachings. He shall forbid the conferring of several benefices on a
single person, and he shall take measures to ensure that the clergy
live [only] on the tithes and offerings of the faithful. He shall
forbid all pompous vestments and everything that is dishonest, as well
as dancing and hymn-singing; he shall preach the gospel, and shall
encourage honest women to appear in public without gold or jewelry.
After he has occupied the papacy for a long time, he shall happily
rejoin the Lord.
Immediately after him, God shall cause to appear three men of
enlightening virtue: each shall follow the other, and like him, shall
provide models of virtue and shall perform miracles, confirming the
teachings of his predecessor. Upon their precepts the Church shall
develop, and they shall be called the angelic pastors.

11. An excerpt from a very long chapter in the M.L.

Peter Lemesurier This is part of a very long chapter, all referring to a
period years before Nostradamus was writing -- yet a lot of familiar themes
are there, and one has the impression that N was still re-using them ad lib!
Remember the droughts, the deaths of cattle, the burning of the land, the
fishes being boiled alive at II.3, the various aerial phenomena, the
pestiferous air of VI.5, the counterfeiting of the currency of VIII.14, the
torch in the sky near the source of the Rhone at II.96, the various
predictions of plague, the desertion of the monasteries at I.44...? Can there
really be much doubt that this is where he got most of them from?

1505, 1506 and 1507.

An extraordinary drought that shall dry up even the water of the
rivers.
Death of the flocks and herds in mountainous countries by reason of
lack of water.
The land shall burn in many places, and the heat shall be intense!
The fishes shall perish, being themselves consumed.
The snakes shall die.
The thieves, widespread in the countrysides, shall pounce on the
faithful in mid-journey.
Many shall be hanged, and many decapitated.
The rich shall fall into poverty, paupers shall become rich.
New phenomena shall be seen in the air in Austria, in Italy, and in
all the Eastern quarter.
Flies shall spread on the wind like clouds.
War on all nobles: the air shall be poisoned.
Fires in all parts; terror.
Fake jewelry, false metals.
The years 1508, 1509 and 1510.
Discord shall once again brandish its torch on the banks of the Rhine
in Germany.
Severe disorders shall take place.
Writers shall be oppressed; the most perceptive men shall be reduced

to poverty.
A burning fever shall consume the inhabitants of the Rhine, and great
tribulations shall come to devastate the clergy and people.
All this comes from the position of Saturn close to Mercury.
1511 and 1512.
Alsace, France, Lombardy, the Dauphin and Spain shall all see the
plague in turn. High cost of provisions, a succession of wars,
burnings and animosities even in the conjugal sanctuary [the
bedroom!].
Scandal shall transmute into honor.
The great shall search for the depraved; the just and devout shall be
tormented.
The cloisters shall be cold: no more devotion; and men without morals
shall succumb to all vices.

12. On the Angelic Pastor, on his goodness, on his

virtue, on his saintly works:
Peter Lemesurier This piece on the expected Angelic Pope (folio 32
onwards of the original Mirabilis liber of 1522) claims to be from a
manuscript dated 1104, but in fact dates from the 14th century. Once again,
Nostradamus seems to have applied some of the ideas in it to *his own*
future: the last bit particularly is reflected in Nostradamus's II.8.

On the Angelic Pastor, on his goodness, on his virtue, on his

saintly works:
he shall appear at the end of the tribulations.
The Roman Church and the clergy, as it has been announced, are to be
prey to tribulations of more than one kind until the time of Frederick
III.
These stormy times shall last until the year of our Lord 1520, in
which shall appear a new Pope and a new Emperor. It remains to be seen
when this mutation in the hierarchy shall take place.
Now here are some of the terms in which the prophets have responded to
this question. For me, I claim in the first place that this pontiff
shall come during the life of Frederick or later [interpolation by the
16th-century editor!], or during the persecution against the Church
and the secular princes.
According to all the prophets, this new Pope shall be full of holiness
and very pleasing to God, and during his life and at his death shall
perform miracles. Many prophets eulogise this sovereign pontiff.
Merlin, in his revelation on the sovereign pontiffs, said: I rejoiced
in what has been told to me: after the still-distant sufferings of the
Christians, and after too great a shedding of innocent blood, the
prosperity of the Lord shall descend upon the devastated nation; a

remarkable pastor shall take his seat upon the papal throne, under the
protection of the angels.
Pure and full of grace, he shall annul everything [untoward that has
taken place hitherto], and shall redeem with his amiable virtues the
State of the Church and the dispersed temporal powers.
He shall revere the stars and shall fear the sun, because his
conscience shall be in the hand of Lord.
He shall overcome every other power and re-conquer the kingdom of
Jerusalem.
A single pastor shall lead both the Eastern and Western churches at
the same time. One unique faith shall be in force. Such shall be the
virtue of the benevolent pastor that the peaks of the mountains shall
bow in his presence.
This saintly man shall break the pride of the religious, who shall all
return to the fold of the primitive Church; that is to say, there
shall henceforth be only a single pastor, a single law, a single
master, modest, humble, fearing God.

13. A prophecy that by Joannes de Vatiguerro

This is the first part of No 11 as per Dr Jennifer Britnell's commentary, and
is an updated version of a prophecy that purports to be by Joannes de
Vatiguerro, who lived in the late 14th century and appears to be
commenting on the events of his own day (Black Death, battle of Poitiers,
Capture of the French King John II by the English, the Jacquerie...).
Another case, evidently, of the projection of past events into the future... It
worried the authorities no end at the time of the French Revolution, who
tried to discourage its being reprinted...

According to me, Jean of Vatiguerro, from the year of our Lord 1490 up
to the year of our Lord 1525, there shall occur here below many ills,
so great and so various that, since he beginning of the world, there
shall never have been such a upheaval, nor woes so numerous, so
astonishing or so worthy of awe.
Indeed, all these woes shall start in the year of our Lord 1502,
because in that year mortality and plague shall devastate and afflict
the whole world in an astonishing manner. Also nearly half of mankind
shall die, and that in the space of sixty five months, during which
(and beyond) the plague shall persist, even though during its
existence it shall seep now through one country, now another.
In addition, in the year of our Lord 1503, great ills shall be
prepared for sometime in the future: at that time insurrections and
horrible conspiracies shall be plotted that, in these years, shall not
produce all their effects, for some shall only break out later.
Moreover, in around the year of our Lord 1504 or beyond [interpolation
of 16th-century editor!], the greatest prince and most august king of
all the West shall be put to flight and led away [captive] in an
astonishing battle, and nearly all his noble army shall be killed in a
surprising manner; above all, there shall be a shameful defeat, a
lamentable ruin and a massacre of many great and powerful Lords.
That is why commerce shall be shattered; nay, before peace is
re-established among the French, the first event, as already described

or even worse, shall arrive shamefully and by surprise several times

over.
In one of these trials the most noble prince shall be put into
captivity by the enemies as a result of a lamentable event, and he
shall mourn grievously because on account of his own people.
The eagle shall fly across the world, and shall subjugate several
nations in around the year of our Lord 1507 or beyond; it shall be
crowned with three diadems as a sign of victory and of valour.
Afterwards it shall return to its nest, which is shall no longer leave
save to rise gloriously towards heaven.
Its children shall wage war on each other, and shall steal their prey
from each other; then in the West [there shall be a] redoubling of
ills and of sufferings, and in the year of our Lord 1510 or beyond,
there shall break out a horrendous insurrection by reason of king of
the French being taken captive.
Nearly all the major part of the West shall be destroyed by its
enemies; that is why extraordinarily violent earthquakes shall be felt
in many places, and the glory of the French shall be converted into
disgrace and confusion; for the lily shall be deprived and stripped of
its noble crown, and it shall be given to another to whom it does not
belong, and it shall be humiliated to the point of confusion, and many
shall say peace, peace, peace, and there shall be no peace [compare
supplementary Nostradamus quatrains VIII.4a and VIII.2a], and then
shall be revealed judicial seditions, and conspiracies, and unheard-of
confederations of plebeian cities, and there shall be in the world
such great dissension that no one shall know what to make of it.
And before the world arrives at the year of our Lord 1516, the kingdom
of the French shall be invaded in all parts, sacked, and left nearly
destroyed and annihilated because the administrators of this kingdom
shall be so blinded that they shall find not a single defender, and
the hand and the anger of Lord himself shall weigh heavy and furiously
upon the French and against all the great and powerful of all the
aforesaid kingdom.

14. Another prophecy of Jean de Vatiguerro

This is the second excerpt of Jean de Vatiguerro's prophecy.
References between square brackets are to relevant Nostradamus
prophecies:

The strongest and most powerful cities shall be taken, and battles
shall be fought. There shall appear in the celestial bodies numerous
and remarkable signs which shall announce the predicted events and
many others which must follow them [III.46]; and as if by Divine Will
the state of world shall shortly be changed; likewise also the
servants, filled with deception, pride and fury, shall rebel against
their masters; and nearly all the nobles, without exception, shall be
put to death, cruelly hunted and stripped of their dignities and
powers, because the populace shall make a king according to its pure
caprice; and the people shall not be at all co-operative; on the
contrary, there shall be a surprising and cruel defeat and slaughter
of kings, of dukes and of barons; and all the earth shall be sacked
and pillaged by bands of brigands and thieves, who shall increase and
prevail; they shall ravage particularly all the country of France. And
these things shall commence in around the year of our Lord 1518, a
little before or a little after. One year shall determine the other.
Many towns shall suffer from these disturbances and shall establish
new charters, by means of which they shall isolate themselves and
shall rule within their own boundaries [VI.5]; but they shall remain
in desolation; the most strongly fortified camps shall be taken,
pillaged and destroyed, and many widows shall be deprived of their
children. Let each beware of his neighbour, for men shall be victims
of their neighbours, who shall rob them through atrocious banditries
and shall put them to death. No one shall keep his word; but people
shall deceive and betray each other [VI.64]. No longer shall anybody
seek the good and weal of the state; no longer shall there be any
question of it; partiality and selfishness shall reign.
Then Divine vengeance shall press down both generally and individually
on all men: it shall be obvious and overt. The Turks and Albanians
shall destroy many Christian islands. The Greeks shall invade a Latin

kingdom and shall wreck it entirely. Armenia, Phrygia, Dace and

Norway shall be cruelly subjugated by their enemies; they shall be
plundered and ravaged in a cruel and irreparable manner. Many towns
and strong military posts on the Po, the Tiber, the Rhne, the Rhine
and the Loire shall be razed by extraordinary floods and earthquakes.
The kingdoms of Cyprus, Sardinia and Arles shall be frightfully and
shamefully devastated, pillaged and nearly destroyed by Divine Will.
Between the Aragonians and the Spaniards there shall be troubles and a
great division; they shall make civil war, and there shall be no peace
between them until one of their kingdoms is utterly destroyed.

15. The prophecy of Jean de Vatiguerro (final excerpt)

Peter Lemesurier Nostradamus has obviously taken so many predictions
from it that I have inserted the most likely relevant verses directly into the
text]

Text of the prophecy:

Before the world arrives at the year of our Lord 1525, the Catholic
Church and the entire world shall mourn the capture, despoliation and
devastation of the most illustrious and famous city, capital and
mistress of the Kingdom of all the French [Nostradamus, V.30?]. All
the Church in all the World shall be persecuted in a lamentable and
grievous manner [I.44]; it shall be stripped and deprived of all its
temporal possessions [V.73, X.65, VI.9], and there shall be nobody in
all the Church who does not feel fortunate at having escaped with his
or her life. For all the churches shall be polluted and desecrated,
and all public worship shall cease because of fear and because of a
most rabid and uncontrolled madness.
The nuns, quitting their convents, shall flee here and there, demeaned
and insulted [III.84, VIII.80]. The pastors of the Church and the
hierarchy, hunted and stripped of their dignities and their positions,
shall be cruelly manhandled [V.43, VIII.98]; the flocks and subjects
shall take flight [I.72, III.20, VI.10], and shall remain dispersed
without pastor and without leader [III.68].
The supreme leader of the Church shall change residence [II.41,
VIII.99, II.97] and it shall be a cause of gladness to him, as well as
to his brothers who shall be with him, if they can merely find a place
of shelter where each can eat the bread of suffering with his own
people in this vale of tears [X.93]. For all the malice of men shall
turn against the Catholic Church, and as a result she shall be without
an advocate for twenty-five months and more, because, throughout the
said space of time, there shall be neither Pope nor Emperor in Rome,
nor any Regent in France.

The world shall esteem only those who shall be driven by evil and
vengeance. Alas! the suffering caused by all the tyrants, emperors and
unfaithful princes shall be renewed by those who shall persecute the
holy Church. Indeed, the mischief and profanity of the Huns and the
cruel inhumanity of the Vandals shall be nothing in comparison to the
new tribulations, calamities and sufferings that in a short while
shall oppress the holy Church [I.52, V.73]; for the altars of the holy
Church shall be destroyed, the floors of the temples desecrated, the
monasteries polluted and despoiled [V.73, II.84], because the hand and
anger of God shall take their vengeance on the world on account of the
multiplicity and continuity of sins.
All the elements shall be debased, because it is necessary that the
whole nature of the age be changed; indeed, the earth, petrified with
fear, shall suffer frightening quakes in many places, and shall
swallow up the living; a number of towns, fortresses and strong
castles shall collapse and be flattened by earthquakes [I.93, II.52,
III.3, XII.71, IX.31?]. The production of the land shall diminish; now
the plants shall lack moisture, now the seeds shall rot in the fields,
and the shoots that come up shall not produce any fruits. The sea
shall rage and shall rise against the world, and it shall swallow many
ships and their crews [VIII.16, I.69, V.31, II.86]. The air shall be
contaminated and corrupt because of the malice and the iniquity of
men. In the sky shall be seen numerous and most surprising signs: the
sun shall be darkened, and it shall appear the color of blood to the
eyes of many people [III.5, III.4]. On one occasion, for about four
hours, two moons shall be seen at the same time; next to them shall
appear many astonishing things worthy of awe. Stars shall collide with
each other, and this shall be the sign for the destruction and
massacre of nearly all mankind. The natural movement of the air shall
be almost completely altered and perverted because of pestilential
illnesses. Men, as well as animals, shall be struck by various
infirmities and by sudden death [II.62]: there shall be an unspeakable
plague [IX.55]; there shall be an astonishing and cruel famine
[VII.34, I.67] which shall be so great and of such an extent
throughout the World and especially in the regions of the West, that
since the beginning of world no one has ever heard of the like. The
pomp of the nobles shall disappear [V.79], even the sciences and arts

shall perish [I.62], and for a short space of time the whole order of
the clergy shall remain in humiliation [V.79]. Lorraine shall be
stripped and plunged into mourning [X.50, X.51], and Champagne shall
in vain implore help from its neighbors; it shall not be given any,
but [instead] it shall be turned upside down, pillaged, and shall
remain grievously in devastation. It shall be Ireland, Scotland and
England that shall invade and devastate it [VI.12?]. But toward the
year of our Lord 1515, or shortly before or after, these provinces
shall be rescued by a young captive, who shall regain the crown of the
lily and shall spread his dominion over the whole World [V.74, V.39,
V.41, VI.42, IX.33, V.52]. Once fully established, he shall destroy
the sons of Brutus and their isle [Britain?], such that there shall no
longer be any question of it and that they shall stay forever
annihilated. So much for the tribulations that must take place before
the restoration of Christendom.
But after the whole World shall have been prey to the tribulations and
to such great and numerous miseries, in order that the creatures of
God may not remain entirely without hope there shall be elected by the
Will of God a Pope from among those that shall have escaped the
persecutions of the Church, and he shall be a very holy man, gifted
with every perfection [Sixain 15?] and he shall be crowned by the holy
angels and placed on the holy throne by his brothers who, with him,
shall have survived both exile and the persecutions of the Church.
This Pope shall reform the whole World by his holiness, and shall
bring back the ancient manner of living, consistent with the disciples
of Christ, to all the clergy [II.8], and all shall respect him because
of his virtues; he shall preach barefoot and shall not fear the power
of princes. Also he shall bring back many to the holy fold through
their repenting of their mistakes and of their criminal life. He
shall convert nearly all the infidels, but mainly the Jews.
This Pope shall have with him an Emperor, a very virtuous man, who
shall be of the remnants of the most holy blood of the kings of the
French [X.80, X.27?]. This prince shall be an aid to him and shall
obey him in all things with a view to reforming the World, and under
this Pope and this Emperor the World shall be reformed, because the
anger of god shall subside [IV.77]. There shall not be more than one
law, one faith, one baptism, one way of life. All men shall have the

same sentiments and shall love one another, and peace shall last for
many years [IX.66].
But after the age shall have been renewed, there shall appear many
signs in the heavens again and the malice of men shall reawaken
[I.63]. They shall return to their old iniquities and to their
detestable wickedness, and their crimes shall be worse than the first;
that is why God shall bring about and shall advance the end of the
world.
I have spoken: it is finished.
You will find this ancient prophecy about the very noble Kingdom of
France, in the hands of a certain priest named Guillaume Baug, in the
Diocese of Touraine and the parish of Rohan.

16. PROGNOSTICATION OF THE BLESSED VINCENT

REDISCOVERED IN ANCIENT VITERBO
This is the prophecy of St Vincent on which Nostradamus apparently
based quatrain VIII.90. Attributed by some sources to St Vincent
Ferrer, by others to Vincent of Aquila, it is actually a faily late
prophecy, dating from about 1503.

Text of the prophecy:

PROGNOSTICATION OF THE BLESSED VINCENT REDISCOVERED
IN ANCIENT VITERBO
[city near Rome]
When you shall hear the first Ox bellow within the Church of the Lord,
then the Church shall start to go lame; but when three other signs
shall be presented to you, and when you shall see the Eagle joined to
the Snake, and when the second Ox bellows in the Church, it is the
time of tribulations.
For the Snake and the Ox shall summon up a king with a great name from
the west who shall devastate the kingdom of the Assyrians, and after
disposing of his conquered loot, he shall return barely safe and sound
to his estates: then shall appear an adulterer who shall arrange for
Snakes to be hidden in the shadows. Woe to the inhabitants of Sicily;
for they shall see the dangers, without being able to ward them off.
Finally, with Divine permission, the second Ox shall bellow; then
there shall be more or less a schism in the Church: two Popes at the
same time, of which the one, schismatic, shall triumph by banishing
the true Pope to Venice after usurping his pulpit by violence.
Then three powerful armies shall enter Italy: one coming from the
west; another from the east; a third from the north. They shall arise
one against the other, and Italy, drowned in waves of blood, shall
never have seen such a slaughter. The Eagle shall seize the adulterous
king, and with fear and force shall subdue all. There shall be a new
reform in the city, and the sects shall cease to be.

17. Second Charlemagne prophecy

This instalment contains two prophecies. The first is a 16th
century prophecy relating (in retrospect!) to the reign of Franois I.
The second is a version of the well-known Second Charlemagne prophecy,
adapted to Franois I simply by suppressing the name 'Charles'. This
was in turn partly quoted and commented on by Nostradamus's secretary
Chavigny in his 'Pleiades' of 1600 -- as referring to Henri IV!

1. When Rome shall first hear the bellows of the fat cow, Italy shall
become prey to war and dissensions. A violent hate shall erupt between
its winged snake and the lion that bears the lilies. Woe to you, land
of Pisa, the calf shakes his newborn horn in a menacing manner. Then
there shall be born in the midst of the lilies the most handsome of
princes, whose renown shall be great among kings, as much because of
the rare beauty of his body as of the perfection of his mind. The
entire world itself shall obey him when the haughty oak shall have
fallen and shall have crushed the boar with its bristly hair with its
fall: his years shall pass in happiness from the West to the East,
from East to the North, and from the North to the South. In all parts
he shall overcome and shall trample upon the feet of his enemies.
0 Alpha and Omega. The fat cow is united to the snake.
A monstrous king shall seat himself upon a mobile throne; this monarch
shall only with great difficulty escape imminent death. Awake, bristly
boar, join with the lions, and you shall capture the snake, wrapped in
its serpentine coils. The lion, surprised in the drunkenness of
triumph, shall take its leave of you; you shall deceive it and you
shall cause it to perish. Woe to you, handsome lion, when you prepare
yourself for combat in the shade of the haughty oak! Woe to you,
Liguria, and to you, bloodstained Flanders; your meadows and flowers
shall be laid waste! The schism shall be overturned when the oak, in
its fall, shall crush the savage boar.
Weep, alas! unhappy Babylon, what sad days await you! Like the ripened
harvest, you shall be scythed, because of your iniquities. The kings

of the four corners of the world shall advance against you; they shall
rally the saints of God, so that they shall not be included in the
judgment and shall choose the angel of the gospel who is to convert
all perverted and dissident hearts to the Lord. The arrow of Italy,
shooting forth towards the Middle East [II.70], shall go there to dig
the furrows in which to plant the vine of the true Savior, when the
prince with a new name shall flourish, to whom all peoples shall
submit and to whom the eastern crown shall be given to guard.
2. There shall come forth a monarch of the illustrious lily [France],
who shall have a lofty brow, prominent eyebrows, large eyes and an
aquiline nose; he shall muster a great army and shall destroy all the
despots in his kingdom and shall strike them dead: by fleeing across
the mountains they shall try to avoid facing him. He shall make almost
constant war on the Christians, and shall subjugate in turn the
English, Spaniards, Aragonians, Lombards and Italians. The Christian
kings shall offer their submission to him. Rome and Florence shall
perish, delivered by him into the flames, and salt shall be sown on
the land where the last members of the clergy shall fall under his
blows [i.e. to make it forever unusable].
The same year, he shall gain a double crown: then, crossing the sea at
the head of a great army, he shall enter Greece, and shall be named
king of the Greeks [I.74]. He shall subjugate the Turks and Barbarians
[i.e. Muslims] [X.86?], and shall publish an edict whereby whoever
will not worship the cross shall be put to death [VI.85, V.21,
VIII.83, IX.43, VIII.36, III.97].
No one shall be able to resist him, because he shall always have the
strong arm of the Lord beside him, who shall bestow on him sovereignty
over the entire world [VI.70]: that done, he shall be called the Peace
of Christendom [IV.77, IX.66]. Going up to Jerusalem and the Mount of
Olives, he shall pray to the Lord and, baring his crowned head and
giving thanks to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he shall surrender
his soul at this place, together with the crown; and the land shall
quake, and miracles shall be seen.

18. Extracts from Savonarola's 'Compendium

revelationum' of 1495
The following passages are extracted from Savonarola's 'Compendium
revelationum' of 1495, which is reprinted in full between folios 40
and 65 of the original 1522 edition. They are of course taken up
again, only slightly edited, in Nostradamus's Preface to Cesar.

Text of the prophecy:

Although on many occasions, inspired by the Lord, I have predicted
future events, nevertheless, recalling to mind the sentence of our
Lord Jesus Christ saying, in St Matthew, 'Do not give what is holy to
the dogs; do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
underfoot, or the dogs throw themselves upon you,' I have always been
very reticent in my revelations...
It is written in the first book of Kings: He who today is called a
prophet is really so [only] when he knows things of which every human
being is ignorant. Thus the prophet, sometimes exalted above the earth
in his moments of inspiration, sees things which are far above
humanity and [its] ordinary perceptions, and everything that has to do
with free will is not revealed to men in their natural state...
Only divine knowledge may properly foresee what is to come: for in the
sight of God past, present and future come together and are combined.
It is written: 'Nothing is hidden from his eyes.' So the future is
hidden from all human investigation; God alone, in his eternal light,
knows it, and it is only from Him that those to whom he deigns to
reveal it have knowledge of it...
In this kind of revelation, [God] proceeds in two ways: first, he
casts upon the prophet beams of supernatural light, which is like a
kind of participation in his divine nature. Then the prophet, in this
ocean of light, perceives perfectly two things -- what was revealed to
him, and the source of the revelation itself. And such is the force of
this light, that the prophet acquires complete certainty of both, just

as the natural light gives to philosophers the certainty of the truth

of First Principles...

19. Extracts taken from the late 13th century

'Prophecies of Merlin
The following extracts are taken from the late 13th century
'Prophecies of Merlin', of Venetian origin. The 16th century compiler
has suppressed the name of Merlin, and instead attributed the text to
an anonymous person from the time of St Gregory the Great. [1st
extract]

Text of the Prophecy:

There shall be a King in Gaul called R. And this king shall be the
[Crusaders'] champion, or golden chief: and there shall be another as
good as the champion.... From the time of Solomon until the dragon of
Babylon there shall not have been such a wise man as he shall be, for
his renown shall spread as far as the dried-up tree of the king who
afterwards shall enjoy his services and his goodness and his courtesy.
And how he shall believe in the Holy Church! And this champion of
Gaul, which shall be called France, shall spread fear throughout the
world and shall destroy nearly all of them. And his renown shall
endure until the Day of Judgement, and his good works shall be
recounted throughout the world: far and near, this shall never fail...
The bishops of this world shall at that time hold fast only by dint of
money... The clerics shall have changed the Gospel of Monsignor Saint
John, which says that nothing should be done by dint of money.
Thenceforward the book of the gospels shall not be in force. For the
judges shall keep justice only by dint of money... And know that for
this sin Our Lord Jesus Christ shall manifest a sign.
He shall make the high sea mount above its shores -- that is to say
above the shore of the lily. As the mountains are above the plains, if
it were not for an angel, they would all drown in their sins. But this
sea shall rise far above the shores quite obviously.... The sea shall
rise in all parts of the world: truly even the Indies shall share in
it, and know that the sea shall rise greatly and miraculously...

...Abraham had a son who had the name of Ishmael, from whom there
shall issue the peoples I have mentioned, who shall destroy various
parts of the Indies. The fresh waters shall flow toward the mountains,
and the others towards the abyss. And the peoples shall be able to go
across the sea in the parts of the Indies... At this time they shall
kill the serpent amidst the sea, which shall have inflicted grievous
ill on them...
Once upon a time there also came forth a race from Troy on account of
the great war that happened there; whence they travelled far away to
Italy, of whom part are already Christians: they are the Roman part,
and the others shall not be Christians, other than at the time when
the good champion shall be in Gaul, which at that time shall be called
France, the one who shall do so many good things during his life. But
it shall happen that they shall not keep the Christian faith as
perfectly as they do today that of Muhammad, and so their faith shall
decline... In this year there shall be many cities that shall perish
for the sins that were formerly committed. And the mistress city of
this province shall collapse before the dragon comes, and this shall
happen for the said grievous sin; and before they collapse the greater
part shall be destroyed by swords and rapiers...
A country in Italy shall topple, and it shall be on account of the
said champion who shall die in disgrace. It is called 'Romanie' [i.e.
Rome]... After the death of the champion who shall die in disgrace and
after a hundred years shall have passed, this city shall have within
its walls a great part of the world's knowledge and shall be peopled
with folk who shall love the Holy Church, for whom our Saviour shall
give them a great victory over a cockerel who shall hold the country
for many days. The female serpent shall be born in this country, and
she shall be red and purple like blood; and it shall be on account of
the inflaming of her lust that she shall love the dragon, and so it
shall be that they shall conjoin with each other, and both of them
shall be dead that night...
A swordsman shall be crowned king of the triple crown... And he shall
place beneath him the Saracen criminals, and before him the good and
bad of all Italy shall tremble and forsake their evil ways. There

shall be a man in Turkey who shall continue spew forth flames from his
mouth...
Translation copyright Peter Lemesurier 2002

20. Additional Extracts taken from the late 13th century

'Prophecies of Merlin
The following extracts are taken from the late 13th century
'Prophecies of Merlin', of Venetian origin. The 16th century compiler
has suppressed the name of Merlin, and instead attributed the text to
an anonymous person from the time of St Gregory the Great. [2st
extract]

Text of the Prophecy:

It shall be clear that the whole world, as well as men, women, beasts,
fishes, birds, weather, wind, rain, running water and everything else
shall change for the worse, according as men change for the worse in
their faith in Jesus Christ...
There shall be born of a tree a bird, and this bird shall be as big as
a horse: it shall fly about as wildly as a bolt from an arbalest: not
shall any other device be comparable with it. And know that it shall
be seen everywhere in the world, where it shall keep its beak open and
swallow up alive all the other birds... And at this time a beast shall
go forth from the deserts of Babylon, and this beast shall have a horn
on its head as sharp as a sword. This beast shall be called
'Cartangles', and it shall wander around all those deserts killing the
evil beasts that go about devouring the others...
At the same time as the bird and the beast shall be born, there shall
also be born a fish in the river Jordan... and it shall go about
swallowing up those who go about the seas swallowing up others: this
fish shall be called 'Amergle', and it shall be 150 feet long and 36
feet wide and 15 feet thick... And know for sure that when the beast
has devoured and killed nearly the beasts in the land, it shall go to
another land both by sea and by land...
There shall be no more champion in Italy, but he shall depart with the
good mariner to Greece by the commandment of the governor and the

champion where the griffons shall have exiled themselves, and the
towns too. And at this time there shall be peace throughout Italy. The
good mariner shall have a very great war on account of this...
There shall break out a war across the world, in the pagan lands as
much as in Christendom; and this war shall last a long time, during
which our Lord shall send upon the Christians, just as upon the
pagans, so great a famine that when He shall see them make war on each
other, he shall make them abase their pride despite themselves...
There shall break out a war in the area of Jerusalem which everybody
shall have cause to lament about, and after this war Jerusalem shall
be removed from the hands of the pagans who shall for nearly 500 years
have had it within their grasp...
It shall come about afterwards that the great city which Constantine
once founded shall be captured and removed by those from Gaul...
There shall be a fire, and it shall strike the sea, and from the sea,
the land... A little afterwards a sword shall emerge from the sky...
At the time when the strong man whom I have mentioned in my prophecies
shall be born in the market which I have described as of bad change,
at around this time a war shall break out in M[ilan]...
And know for sure that God shall be angered against the Christians
until they shall remove the Holy City from the hands of the pagans...
Translation copyright (c) Peter Lemesurier 2002

21. Extract from a book called 'Stimulus Divine

Contemplationis'
21. This final compilation includes an extract from a book called
'Stimulus Divine Contemplationis' of uncertain date (probably 14th
century), and another called 'Le Baptesme de Sophie roy de Perse'
dated 1508, both from the concluding, French section of the 'Mirabilis
liber'..

Text of the Prophecy:

In France, before the time of trouble and terror, there shall be three
trees which shall blossom and have leaves, but shall bear no fruit
that shall survive to be harvested: and from their roots shall be born
three other trees which shall bear neither blossoms nor leaves, but
they shall bear fruit sufficient to produce three trees, and from
their roots shall spring a scion which shall diminish and destroy
much...
...around the year of our Lord 1527 there shall come a good king and a
pope who shall transfer the see of Rome to Jerusalem, and he shall
make everybody believe in Jesus Christ, and shall destroy all the
evil-doers and idolaters who will not belief in our faith, and who
refuse to be baptised. And he shall totally destroy all evil and
perverse dispensations; and then he shall convert all evil Turks,
idolaters and evil-doers to our faith in Jesus Christ, and all shall
be destroyed who refuse to believe in him.
... and be assured that in around the year of our Lord and saviour
Jesus Christ 1530, from this said see of Limoges shall be the third
pope in Rome. The which good pope of Rome, a native of France, shall
be elected miraculously, and shall perform great and marvellous
justice over evil and unfaithful Christians, and shall miraculously
reform the whole Church, reduce and return it to its original state as
it began, and in Rome there shall never again be a pope from France...
And he shall transfer from Rome to Jerusalem the holy seat and see of
St Peter... and wondrously and miraculously the holy father from Rome

shall deliver the Holy City and land of Jerusalem from the hands of
the evil-doers. And after that all the countries of the world. And
nearly all the evil-doers from among the faith and dispensation of our
Lord Jesus Christ he shall convert to the said faith and belief in
Jesus Christ.
Translation copyright (c) Peter Lemesurier 2002