The Roman Church, as the successor of the Roman Empire in
the West, formed the chief center of civilization during the earlier part of
the Middle Ages. She stood between the conquering Germans and the Romanized
provincials and helped to join them both in lasting union. To the heathen she sent
out her missionaries, preaching a religion of love and charity and introducing
a higher morality than the barbarians had ever known before. She multiplied
hospitals, orphanages, and asylums. Her bishops were the only protectors of the
weak and the oppressed. She fostered education, art, and learning within the
walls of churches and monasteries. Her priests and monks were the only teachers
in an ignorant age. In an age of bloodshed and violence, when might made right,
she proclaimed the superiority of the spirit to mere brute force. To sum up:
the Roman Church was an indispensable agent in the making of medieval Europe.
THE MENACE TO CHRISTENDOM
Christianity in its Greek and Roman forms was not the only
great religion of the Middle Ages. In the seventh century, before the
separation of the two churches had been completed and before all Europe had
become Christian, another religion arose. It grew with marvelous rapidity,
stripped the Church of much territory in western Asia, northern Africa, and
Spain, and promised for a time to become the dominant faith of the world. This
was Islam, or Mohammedanism, the religion of the Arabs.
