The Formation Of Christian Europe

The Formation of Christian Europe analyses the Carolingians' efforts to form a Christian Empire with the organizing principle of the sacrament of baptism. Owen M. Phelan argues that baptism provided the foundation for this society, and offered a medium for the communication and the popularization of beliefs and ideas, through which the Carolingian Renewal established the vision of an imperium christianum in Europe. He analyses how baptism unified people theologically, socially, and politically and helped Carolingian leaders order their approaches to public life. It enabled reformers to think in ways which were ideologically consistent, publically available, and socially useful. Phelan also examines the influential court intellectual, Alcuin of York, who worked to implement a sacramental society through baptism. The book finally looks at the dissolution of Carolingian political aspirations for an imperium christianum and how, by the end of the ninth century, political frustrations concealed the deeper achievement of the Carolingian Renewal.

How did Christianity come to have such an extraordinary influence upon Europe? Beginning with the transmission of Jesus - teaching throughout the Roman world, Gillian Evans shows how Christianity transformed not only the thinking but also the structures of society, in a Christendom that was, until relatively modern times, essentially a "European" phenomenon. She traces Christianity's influence across the centuries, from its earliest days, through the East/West schism, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, to its development in the scientific age of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its place in the modern world. The History of Christian Europe will appeal to scholars of religion and history who are seeking a fuller understanding of how Christianity helped shape and define Europe and, consequently, the wider world.

Book four, The Formation of Christian Europe, tells the story of the Christian community-its life and growth-from 600 to 900. In this time of disorder and conflict, the Church undertook to civilize and convert the barbarian tribes who lived in western Europe. The stories of whole nations, such as the Lombards in Italy and the Franks under Charlemagne, intertwined with the stories of individuals, including Boniface of Germany and Augustine of England. Readers learn how the Church gradually overcame obstacles and brought a new civilization into being-a civilization in which people could live and spread the Gospel of Christ.

Analyses the Carolingians' efforts to form a Christian Empire with the organizing principle of the sacrament of baptism. Owen M. Phelan argues that baptism provided the foundation for this society, and offered a medium for the communication and the popularization of beliefs and ideas, through which the Carolingian Renewal established the vision of an imperium christianum in Europe. He analyses how baptism unified people theologically, socially, and politically and helped Carolingian leaders order their approaches to public life. It enabled reformers to think in ways which were ideologically consistent, publically available, and socially useful.0Phelan also examines the influential court intellectual, Alcuin of York, who worked to implement a sacramental society through baptism. The book finally looks at the dissolution of Carolingian political aspirations for an imperium christianum and how, by the end of the ninth century, political frustrations concealed the deeper achievement of the Carolingian Renewal.

This volume presents the first comprehensive overview of the major early historical narratives created in Northern, East-Central, and Eastern Europe between c. 1070 and c. 1200, with each chapter providing a short introduction to the narrative in question. Most chapters are written by established experts in their fields, who have published critical editions of the discussed narratives, their English translations, or analytical works dealing with early history writing in corresponding regions. However, the volume is more than just a summary of various narratives. Despite being written in such different languages as Latin, Old Norse, and Old Church Slavonic, these narratives played similar roles for their reading audiences, in that they were crucial in the construction of Christian identity in the lands recently converted to Christianity. The thirteen authors contemplate the extent to which this identity formation affected the nature of narrativity in these early historical works. The authors ask how the pagan past and Christian present were incorporated in the texture of the narratives, and address the relative importance of classical and biblical models for their composition and structure. By addressing such questions, the volume offers medievalists a coherent comparative study of early history writing in the peripheral regions of medieval Europe in the first centuries after conversion.

The steps by which western Europe was able to rise out of the Dark Ages, shake off the Moslem power, inaugurate the twelfth century Renaissance and bring it to full glory two centuries later.

Religious history more generally has experienced an exciting revival over the past few years, with new methodological and theoretical approaches invigorating the field. The time has definitely come for this “new religious history” to arrive in Eastern Europe. This book explores the influence of the Christian churches in Eastern Europe's social, cultural, and political history. Drawing upon archival sources, the work fills a vacuum as few scholars have systematically explored the history of Christianity in the region. The result of a three-year project, this collective work challenges readers with questions like: Is secularization a useful concept in understanding the long-term dynamics of religiosity in Eastern Europe? Is the picture of oppression and resistance an accurate way to characterize religious life under communism, or did Christians and communists find ways to co-exist on the local level prior to 1989? And what role did Christians actually play in dissident movements under communism? Perhaps most important is the question: what does the study of Eastern Europe contribute to the broader study of modern Christian history, and what can we learn from the interpretative problems that arise, uniquely, from this region?