The Medieval Christian History

Christianity is one of the biggest religions that is still currently practiced today in society. However in the Middle Ages, it was perhaps the biggest religion in the world. So much so that they would go on crusades to either kill their enemies or converting them into Christianity. Ironically, it has been stated that Christians should love and respect everybody, including their enemies. Nonetheless, there has been works that portray Christians as battle-ready warriors and there are other works that tries to explain the understanding and purpose to Christianity. As such, depending on the books and/or poems, there can be many perspectives of Christianity. Even within 500 years from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Middle Ages, the viewpoints

In the Medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church played a great role in the development of England and had much more power than the Church of today does. In Medieval England, the Roman Catholic Church dominated everyday life and controlled everyone whether it is knights, peasants or kings. The Church was one of the most influential institutions in all of Medieval England and played a large role in education and religion. The Church's power was so great that they could order and control knights and sends them to battle whenever they wished to. The Church also had the power to influence the decision of Kings and could stop or pass laws which benefited them in the long run, adding to this, the Church had most of the wealth in Europe as the

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and into the duration of the Renaissance, the Medieval Church’s social and political power dwindled. Centuries prior the Catholic Church gained a surplus of control, largely due to the stability it maintained during the chaotic breakdown of the Western Roman Empire . Yet toward the end of the Middle Ages the Church set in motion factors that would ultimately lead to its downfall as the definitive figure of authority. However, despite political and social controversy surrounding the church, the institutions it established cleared a path for a new way of thinking, shaping society in an enduring way.

From being a persecuted religion, Christianity rose up to be an official religion of Rome with the support of the Emperor Constantine and Theodosius I in the fourth century. By the early Middle Ages, the Church had become extremely powerful and was one of the two dominant forces that controlled the entire Europe, with the other being the State. Although the popes and the kings were ought to be supportive of each other, there usually existed between them a constant struggle for ultimate authority over the kingdoms. More than often, these conflicts created tension between the State and the Church eventually resulted in the people's sufferings.

In Mark Greengrass’s Christendom Destroyed, Greengrass looks at how Christianity has changed throughout Europe. This change was a direct result of Martin Luther, the Ottoman Empire as well as different rulers throughout Europe. Christianity was going through something that they had never saw before with this change. Different rulers with different philosophies contested some of the churches believes as well as the questioning by Martin Luther. With this church was forced to change due, this change can be considered change for the best. Luther’s arguments led way for another type of religion that the church had to go up against. This was the primary force that allowed for change. The questioning of ideas and the creation of a new way of believing was a direct threat to the church, change needed to happen.

During Medieval times the highest power of the time was the Christian Church. They had the power over politics, economics and culture. They had so much power being one of the only powerhouse churches of the time they were the make or break of everyone. They decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. They decide who leads and who is a commoner.

The Roman Catholic Church was the only church during the middle ages. It had very large funds and its own set of laws. The Church, as some even considered very wealthy, had many sources of income and it accounted for one-third of the land in England. Breaking away from this entity that dominated most of the western world and once bound everyone together for thousands of years seemed inconceivable. It controlled religion, art, music, morals and even politics. There was truly no alternative and anyone who went against or defied the church was known as a heretic or pagan and was burned at the stake. Catholics began losing faith over time with the expanding influence of Humanism and corruption in the church. This sparked the Protestant Reformation,

By The Middle Ages, one understands a relatively long historical period extending from the end of the Roman Empire to the 1500's. The conquest of The Roman Empire by Germanic tribes, and synthesis of Germanic and Roman ways of life formed the civilization which we call medieval (medieval-from Latin words; medium (middle) and aevum (age)). Medieval civilization was greatly influenced by the Muslims in Spain and The Middle East, and by Byzantine Empire and Christians in Southeast Europe.

In the year 476 A.D, the Christian era of the Western Roman empire came to a close. What followed would be a series of Germanic Kingdoms such as the Visigoths, Angles, and Saxons. These kingdoms, like most budding nations, founded their own unique political systems, laying the groundwork for future European nations. Although these kingdoms were deemed “independent”, they still found themselves under the jurisdiction of the Church. This subjected them to the political model of the Church, and by extension Rome.

The late Middle ages was definitely a troubled time for citizens around Europe. From the 14th Century to the 15th Century, humans were raveled by famines, disruption of socio economics, and lost of faith in the Catholic Church. To the eyes of many at the time, this era was looked at as a major decline of life. With the many deaths, poor condition for poor people, and the schism of the Church, it may seem easy to call this era a decline. Although upon closer looking, this era is more of a transitional period into the next period than a decline due to many reasons. Whether you look at religious, social movements, or economically, the late Middle Ages helped transition Europe into what it has become.

Religion is often a driving force behind civilizations, and Christianity is no different. During the Middle Ages in Europe when chaos and instability ruled, Christianity was a guiding light in the darkness. Shaping the European continent, Christianity affected it in ways that paved the road to the modern-day Western civilizations. After the fall of Rome in 476 CE, anarchy erupted in Western Europe. Christianity rose to power as the single dominating and unifying central authority, acting as a government in many aspects, helping preserve history and progressing Western Europe into a more developed age. On the other side of the continent, the Byzantine Empire was continuing on in relative peace. Yet during the reign of Justinian, a deadly plague, known as the bubonic plague swept through the empire. The plague killed half of the empire’s population and without the manpower to run the empire, left the infrastructure in ruins. Politically and economically weakened, the Byzantine Empire was on its knees. Christianity helped support the Byzantine Empire forward in many regards, but because of the hierarchy of the Eastern Orthodox Church compared to the singular Pope in the Roman Catholic Church, Christianity left a more lasting effect in the West than in the Byzantine Empire. Especially in the West, having combined the forces of emperors and the church working together, which benefited politically and economically, influencing art and culture, and increased the domain of the

With the Pope’s suggestion, Christian knights pursued a religious war against Muslims to obtain the holy land known as Jerusalem. After back and forth fighting for about two centuries, it kept Europe in turmoil. The Christians were told that if the holy land were received, then they would go to heaven. Things like this gave the church its power, wealth, and role. Another social conflict going on is feudalism. This meant that peasant would farm a piece of land for a lord and agreeing to serve under the lord in exchange for protection. Increasing the authority of kings helped breakdown feudalism. If knights had died in battle and had no family to pass their land to, they would give their land to the King. They legalized the authority of the church

With the decline of the Western Roman empire Western Europe was a disjointed land that had no true unifying structure till the rise of Christianity. In Roman antiquity people used the State or empire of Rome to define themselves and give them a sense of unity despite having a diverse group of people within the empire. When Western Rome fell this belief based on a Roman cultural identity disappeared and no longer were people able to identify themselves with any particular group as they once have. The Christian religion was able to fill this vacuum by having the people associate themselves to a religion instead of a given state or cultural group. During Medieval Europe Christianity became the unifying force that would define what it

During the Medieval ages the religion known as christianity was expanded throughout multiple empires. Some of the most important places in the areas would be Rome, and constantinople. The mass conversion began with the fall of the empire of rome. And it consisted of different people and places and changes to the religion itself to make due for the new people involved in the religion. Christianity changed people and places in the name of the conversion.

Throughout history, Christianity always had a reputation, or a “name” following it. Different perspectives approached the reputation that was attached to Christianity in different manners. Justin Martyr and Porphyry had objectives when defining whether this “name” really defined Christianity and the past. They wondered whether the past really represented Christianity. Additionally they honed in on the question of was the past that people represented as Christianity really the roots of Christianity? All around Porphyry and Justin was perceptions of what Christianity rooted from and stood for.