The Rise of Western Christendom : Triumph and Diversity, A. D. 200-1000

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The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

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Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Revised Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

Western Europe in a Wider World

The Making of Europe: "A History of European Unity"?

Barbarians and Missionaries

A Mediterranean Unity? The "Pirenne Thesis"

After Empire: A World without a Center

"Micro-Christendoms": Center and Periphery in Christian Europe

Early Medieval Christianity: A "Barbarized" Religion?

"Background Noise": Dark Age Christian Culture

"Directly Ancestral": The End of Ancient Christianity

An Applied Christianity

"Portions of Paradise": Art, the Sacred, and Gift-Giving in Early Medieval Europe

Part I Empire and Aftermath: A.D. 200-500

1 "The Laws of Countries": Prologue and Overview

One World, Two Empires

Who are the Barbarians? Nomads and Farmers

A Middle Ground: The Rise of the Frontier

2 Christianity and Empire

The New Empire: Crisis and Reform in the Roman Empire in the Third Century

Religiones: The Ancient Religion

New Religion in a New Empire: Christianity before Constantine

"All malice will be wiped out": Salvation, Martyrdom, and Penance in the Christian Church

The Church and Society: Almsgiving

From religiones to Religion

3 Tempora Christiana: Christian Times

"The religion of the Greeks has vanished from the earth": The End of Paganism, Official Version

The Conquest of the Cities

The Call of the Wild: Monasticism

The Power of the Saeculum : The New Aristocracy and its Values

A Generation of Converts

Grace, Free Will, and the Church: The Pelagian Controversy

The "Glorious City": Augustine's City of God

4 Virtutes sanctorum strages gentium: "Deeds of Saints Slaughter of Nations". A World without Empire

Guests of the State: The Barbarian Settlements

Defending the Cities: Bishops and Patron Saints

Bishops as Aristocrats

Bishops as Monks

A View from Rome: Leo the Great and Church Order

"New Rome": The View from Constantinople

Emmanuel: "God with Us": Christological Controversy in the Eastern Empire

5 On the Frontiers: Noricum, Ireland, and Francia

A Saint of the Open Frontier: Severinus of Noricum

An Age of Tyrants: The End of Roman Britain

"From the ends of the earth": Patricius in Ireland

Northern Gaul: Clovis (481-511) and the Rise of the Franks

Kingdoms without Rome: North Africa and Axum

"This latter-day Israel": A New History for New Kingdoms

Part II Divergent Legacies: A.D. 500-600

6 Reverentia, rusticitas: Caesarius of Arles to Gregory of Tours

The Battle for the Mundus: The Natural World between Paganism and Christianity

Triumph or Bad Habits: Narratives of Christianization in East and West

"The unceasing voice": Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (502-542)

Reverentia: the Gaul of Gregory, Bishop of Tours (573-594)

Gregory's World: Reverentia, Justice, and Peace

"A Touch of Paradise": Gregory and the Spiritual Landscape of Gaul

7 Bishops, City, and Desert: East Rome

"To maintain good order": Bishops and their City in the Eastern Empire

"The Church of Satan": Secular Traditions in the City

"Sustained by their prayers": Asceticism and Society in the Eastern Empire

"The fortunate race of the Romans": Justinian (527-565) and his Empire

The Plague of 543 and its Consequences

The Quest for Unity

New Solidarities: From Imperial Church to Dissident Communities

8 Regimen animarum: Gregory the Great

"The Holy Commonwealth": Italy and the East Roman Empire

Roma invicta, "Unconquered Rome": The Senatorial Aristocracy of Italy. Antiquarius Domini: "Book-producer of the Lord"

Cassiodorus and the Vivarium

The Young Gregory: From the Clivus Scauri to Constantinople

"Thundering forth hidden meanings": Gregory's Moralia in Job

"The giants groan beneath the waters": Pope Gregory (590-604)

"The art to end all arts": The Regula Pastoralis

Part III The End of Ancient Christianity: A.D. 600-750

9 Powerhouses of Prayer: Monasticism in Western Europe

The End of Ancient Christianity

Monasticism in Mediterranean Western Europe

"A school of the Lord's service": The Rule of Benedict (ca.480-ca.547)

"The cool refuge of chastity": The Convent of Caesaria at Arles (508)

"To pray for the peace of the kingdom": Radegund of Poitiers (520-587)

10 The Making of a Sapiens: Religion and Culture in Continental Europe and in Ireland

The "Rustic Roman Tongue"

The Decline of the Schools

"Worldly wisdom": The Classics and the Christian Church

"Subtlety of words": Secular Culture in the "Barbarian" West

The Making of a Sapiens: Sixth-century Ireland and West Britain

"Medicine for sin": The World of the Penitentials

Prelude to Exile: Columbanus at Bangor (570-590)

11 Medicamenta paenitentiae: Columbanus

"Coming from the world's end": Columbanus in Europe

Disciplina disciplinarum: The Training of All Trainings: Columbanus' Monasticism

Medicamenta paenitentiae : The Medicines of Penance

Frankish Society and the New Monasticism

Districtio: "a strict accounting": Sin and Penance in the Western Church

Journeys of the Soul

The Rise of the Other World

The Christianization of Death

"All the Inhabitants of Europe"

12 Christianity in Asia and the Rise of Islam

"A kingdom which shall never be destroyed": East Rome in Asia

"Two powerful kingdoms who roared like lions": East Rome and Persia: 540-630. At the Crossroads of Asia

"The patrimonial faith": Armenia between Persia and Rome

"The Church of the East": Persian Christians and the School of Nisibis

From Mesopotamia to China: The "Church of the East" in Asia

"Trapped on a rock between two lions": The Arabs between Two Empires

"My servants, the righteous, shall inherit the earth": Muhammad and the Preaching of Islam

13 "The Changing of the Kingdoms": Christians under Islam

"The fourth kingdom greater than all other kingdoms": Responses to the Arab Conquests

"Justice flourished in his time and there was great peace": The Ummayad Empire, 661-750

An Empire Gains its Public Face: Language, Coinage, and Mosques

Cities, Segregation, and Control: Muslims and their Subjects

Christian Attitudes to Islam

The New Hellenism: History and Learning in the Syrian World

"Walking the roads to China": The Church of the East under Islam

Taxes and Language: The Beginning of Islamization and the Triumph of Arabic

Islam, East Rome, and the West

14 Christianities of the North: Ireland

The New North

A New Religion for the Elite: Sixth-Century Ireland

"In the terrible clashing of battles": Saint Columba (521-597) and the Hegemony of Iona

Competition and the Lives of the Saints

"The sewing together of church and people": Christian Communities in Ireland

"The blessed white language": Christian Literacy and Pre-Christian Tradition in Ireland

15 Christianities of the North: The Saxons of Britain

"A barbarous, fierce and unbelieving nation": Saxons and the Christianity of Britain

Christianity and Overlordship: Ethelbert of Kent (580-616)

Screening and Acceptance: From Ethelbert of Kent to Edwin of Northumbria (616-633)

A History for the English: Bede (672-735)

16 Micro-Christendoms. "A boundless store of books": Benedict Biscop (628-690) and the Library of Wearmouth

"First of the English race to introduce the Catholic way of life": Wilfrid of York (634-706)

"To restore the monumental fabric of the Ancients": Encyclopedias and Autonomy in Seventh-Century Europe: Visigothic Spain 589-711

"The philosopher the archbishop of far-away Britain": Theodore of Tarsus at Canterbury (668-690)

"The work of angels": Lindisfarne, the Book of Kells, and Northern Art

"Now must we praise Heaven-Kingdom's Keeper": Caedmon, The Dream of the Rood, and Anglo-Saxon Religious Poetry

Part IV New Christendoms: A.D. 750-1000

17 The Crisis of the Image: The Byzantine Iconoclast Controversy

An Empire under Siege: From an East Roman to a "Byzantine" State

"If only I see his likeness, I shall be saved": Images and East Roman piety, 550-700

"Inanimate and speechless images which bring no benefit": Images and Their Critics, 600-700

To Purge the Temple: The First Iconoclasm, 730-787

"Why is it that the Christians all experience defeat?" The Balkan Crisis and the Second Iconoclasm, 787-842

"Led by visible images": John of Damascus and the Theology of Images

"As she has appeared in visions": The "Triumph of Orthodoxy" (843) and the Training of the Christian Visual Imagination

Byzantium and the West: Charlemagne and the Council of Frankfurt (794)

18 The Closing of the Frontier: Frisia and Germany

A New Political Order

Center and Periphery in Christian Europe

What is the Frontier? From Roman Limes to Mission Territories

"So much barbaric lack of order": Boniface in Germany

Paedagogus populi, Educator of the People: The Legacy of Boniface

"To preach with a tongue of iron": Charlemagne and the Conquest of Saxony

19 "To Rule the Christian People": Charlemagne