Thiota (; 847 AD) was a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

woman and false prophetess of the ninth century convicted of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

. She was originally from Alemannia (then part of

East Francia East Francia (Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the East Franks () was a successor state of Charlemagne's empire created in 843 and ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was established through the Treaty of Verdun (843) which divided the for ...

), and in 847 she began prophesying that the world would end that year. Her story is known from the ''

Annales Fuldenses The ''Annales Fuldenses'' or ''Annals of Fulda'' are East Francia, East Frankish chronicles that cover independently the period from the last years of Louis the Pious (died 840) to shortly after the end of effective Carolingian rule in East Fran ...

'' which record that she disturbed the diocese of Bishop Salomon, that is, the

Diocese of Constance The Prince-Bishopric of Constance () was a small ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire from the mid-12th century until its secularisation in 1802–1803. In his dual capacity as prince and as bishop, the prince-bishop also admini ...

, before arriving in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

. A large number of people were persuaded by her words, as well as even some clerics. In fear, many gave her gifts and sought prayers. Finally, the bishops of

Gallia Belgica Gallia Belgica ("Belgic Gaul") was a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and German ...

ordered her to attend a synod in St Alban's church in Mainz. She was eventually forced to confess that she had made up her predictions at the urging of a priest and for lucrative gain. She was publicly flogged and stripped of her ministry, which the Fuldensian annalist says she had taken up "unreasonably ... against the customs of the church"–possibly a reference to her being a woman who claimed religious authority for herself. Ashamed, she ceased to prophesy thereafter.

References

*
The Annals of Fulda
'. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.)

Reuter, Timothy Timothy Alan Reuter (25 January 1947 – 14 October 2002), grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical ...

(trans.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992. *Landes, Richard. ''Heaven on Earth: The Variety of the Millennial Experience.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 81–83. * Palmer, James. ''The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. {{Authority control 9th-century apocalypticists 9th-century Christians 9th-century women from East Francia Women Christian religious leaders