Fifteen Signs before Doomsday

The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday (alternatively known as the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday, Fifteen Signs before Judgement, in Latin Quindecim Signa ante Judicium, and in German 15 Vorzeichen des Jüngsten Gerichts^[1]) is a list, popular in the Middle Ages because of millenarianism, of the events that are supposed to occur in the fortnight before the end of the world.^[2] It may find an origin in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Thomas^[3] and is found in many post-millennial manuscripts in Latin and in the vernacular. References to it occur in a great multitude and variety of literary works, and via the Cursor Mundi it may have found its way even into the early modern period, in the works of William Shakespeare.^{[citation needed]}