History and the Study of Religion. Prophecy, Imagination and Religion in the Granadan Lead Books, the Works of Jacobus Palaeologus and of Nicholas of Cusa*

Abstract

This article challenges the observation that historians and the discipline of History have not been helpful in addressing some of the important challenges in the Study of Religion by concentrating on "the local" and on deconstruction rather than on construction and "the global." By undertaking a cross-cultural case study - Medieval and Early Modern prophecies in the Muslim world and Europe - and focusing on the role and significance of the Granadan Sacromonte Lead Books (1588-1606) and the work of the radical Antitrinitarian Jacobus Paleologus (1520-1585), this paper argues that global and connected microhistorical approaches have been of great value to developing the promising trend of a relational approach in the Study of Religion.