SIX:  CHRISTIANIZATION OF EUROPE

So, imagine a world in which everything is going topsy-turvy. Yet, there was also a constant. The constants provided by the Church. As soon as Christianity was legalized by Constantine in the early part of the 4th century and was made the official religion of the Roman Empire Christianity by Theodosius in 480, the newly formed institution took on some of the attributes of the political organization of Rome Most particularly of the legal system of Rome.

I have already mentioned that the Romans were competent lawyers. They were good technologists, but more importantly, they contributed to the world a solid set of written laws. Laws which applied to all Roman citizens no matter where they lived. Roman law is still the law of the land in continental Europe. It has gone through a couple of incarnations. First of all it was recodified under the emperor Justinian, and we will talk about the Justinian code when we discuss Byzantium. Then it was recodified under Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century. Barring these recodifications, if you study law in Europe you start out with Latin texts.

The Church became a bridge which not only preserved much of the Roman law but also at least some of the ancient culture, because people connected with the Church tended to be literate when many others were no longer literate. Literacy fell to a very, very low level during these dark ages.

I believe this also explains why the pope of Rome, the bishop of Rome, eventually became so important in the West. People tended to look at Rome as the center of their world. In the East there were other places which could be considered central. But in the West all roads continued to lead to Rome. So, the bishop of Rome had a natural authority which made it very easy for him to slip into the vacuum created by the Roman emperor's impotence, until eventually there really was no emperor in Rome, and the Pope remained. By that time he came to be called Pope, and eventually he and the patriarch of Constantinople would excommunicate one another in the 12th century. From then on, until the sixteenth century, there were two official branches of the Christian Church. Before then, there was an uneasy truce.

We have a time of a great deal of insecurity. We have a time of a mingling of diverse populations. We also have a time of gestation. The term gestation is appropriate. Gestation generally takes place in darkness and it takes place without being known. A seed gestates underground. Fertilization is a process which takes place gradually and in secret. What occurs around the 3rd and 4th century until about the 7th and 8th century is this intermingling of the Roman or ancient classical cultures and the various barbarian peoples and institutions.

Law, for example became a blending of Roman law and the law of the Germans, particularly as it affected the administration of the manor. Church law remained very close to the Roman law. But, the law of the land tended to be a mingling of ancient Roman and of Germanic ideas. As far as blood lines were concerned intermarriage became common. It may well be that there was a certain amount of vigor which was imparted to a dying culture by the infusion of new genetic material.

When we look at the foundations of the Middle Ages we will see almost a kind of tripod. One of them is Christianity, and Christianity itself is a result of the mingling of the Hebraic, the Jewish, and the Greco-Roman. Next there is the pagan classical culture (in addition to its contribution to Christianity). Finally, there are certain barbarian institutions. These three elements became the foundations of the Medieval world. It is not a clear cut movement from the Greeks and the Romans to what we call the Middle Ages. Imagine beginning with the Greeks and the Romans. Add to the mixture a strong dose of Jewish tradition, which gives us Christianity. Next, Christianity tempers and absorbs the warrior ethos of the barbarians. No wonder, the Crusades happen! The Crusades were military operations designed to liberate the Holy Land from the pagans.

I mentioned Crusades because the idea of fighting a war in the name of Christ is a paradox. I see Christianity as a religion of love and peace, and cannot comprehend how love for one's enemies can be reconciled with chopping off heads and wading in blood, which is literally what the crusaders did when they sacked Jerusalem in 1099. Obviously, this is a Christianity different from the faith Jesus shared with his followers. We are dealing with Christianity as it became institutionalized, influenced by other cultural elements. We are actually speaking about large groups of only recently semi-civilized barbarians who adopted Christianity quite frequently themselves because they preferred life to death, since they had bean threatened with extinction if they did not convert. We have a weird mixture of Christianity with the customs of the fighters who had overrun the Roman Empire. I think this is how we can explain the Crusades.

Which brings us to the question of how central Europe became Christianized. Well, conversion happened by the teachings of gentle and not so gentle missionaries, some of whom came bearing swords. Around the year 800 Charlemagne, Charles the Great, decided to convert the Saxons. His method was very simple: you either become Christian or you are dead. Understandably, most Saxons decided they'd rather be Christian than dead. Which did not mean that the pagan peoples who had been thus "baptized" by the sword, abandoned their earlier ways. As a matter of fact, Christianizing proceeded generally by a mingling of the pagan with the Christian. Through a baptizing of pagan places. Through a sanctifying of pagan gods.

This is very, very clear in sixth century Ireland. The ancient Irish before they became Christians were very fond of goddesses, particularly of the triple goddess, Bridget. She is called a triple goddess because she was imagined in three different manifestations, as young, middle aged, and old. Bridget had a shrine in a place which is called Kildare. And that particular shrine was characterized by a fire which continued to burn there eternally. I have no idea who started it, but it was supposed to be kept alive. She was seen primarily as the goddess of spring and fertility. She was addressed at times of childbirth. She was a very gentle and very loving goddess. Well, after Ireland became Christian, one of the major Irish saints turned out to be St. Bridget. She established a monastery at Kildare. She presided over the monastery (which was co-ed!). She was a major emissary of the Church. She traveled a great deal. She administered the equivalent of a minor kingdom. After her death she became sainted, and all of the adoration which had gone to the triple goddess was transferred to her, even the place was still the same.

This is the way Christianizing took place. Your book has a wonderful example of the origin of Valentine's day. How did we get from two martyred priests in the early still illegal days of Christianity to Valentine's day with red roses and red hearts and chocolates and cards?  The martyrdom of those two priests (both of whom were named Valentine) almost coincided with a pagan Roman fertility festival, called the Lupercalia. These two discordant memories were unconsciously mixed, resulting in St. Valentine's day--a blending of young love and a couple of saints who were murdered for their faith.

AD 500-AD 1650] [ONE] [TWO] [THREE] [FOUR] [FIVE] [SIX] [SEVEN] [EIGHT] [Untitled]

Posted 28 August 2000
Last revised: 00-09-08
Text and images copyright © Ingrid Shafer 2000