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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XII. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE EAST AND IN THE WEST TO 1054 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Development of the Christian Church   * Eastern Christianity   * Western Christianity: Rise of the Papacy   * Growth of the Papacy   * Monasticism   * Life and Work of the Monks   * Spread of Christianity over Europe   * Separation of Eastern and Western Christianity   * The Greek Church   * The Roman Church

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SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY OVER EUROPE

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND THE BARBARIANS

Almost all Europe had been won to Christianity by the end of the eleventh century. In the direction of this great missionary campaign the Roman Church took the leading part. The officers of her armies were zealous popes, bishops, and abbots; her private soldiers were equally zealous monks, priests, and laymen. Pagan Rome had never succeeded in making a complete and permanent conquest of the barbarians. Christian Rome, however, was able to bring them all under her spiritual sway.

RECONVERSION OF THE ARIAN GERMANS

Christianity first reached the Germanic invaders in its Arian form. Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Lombards were all Arians. The Roman Church regarded them as heretics and labored with success to reconvert them. This work was at last completed when the Lombards, in the seventh century, accepted the Catholic faith.

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy