The Worlds Of Christendom

"The Worlds of christendom"

• The non-muslim regions of Africa witnessed an explosive advance of Christianity during the twentieth century.
• Europe and North America have been increasingly outnumbered in the census of global Christianity. 

"Christian contraction in Asia and Africa" 

• Europe was the principal center of Chrisitan faith.

"Asian christianity"

• It was in Asia that the decimation of earlier christian communities occurred most completely and most quickly.
• in both areas, the majority of people turned to Islam voluntarily, attracted perhaps to its aura of success. 
• The Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century offered a brief opportunity for christianitys renewal as the religiously tolerant mongols welcomed Nestorian Christians as well as people of various other faiths. 

"byzantine christendom"

• the contraction of of the christian faith and christian societies in Asia and Africa left Europe and Anatolia, largely by default, as the centers of christendom. 
• although the western Roman Empire collapsed during the fifth century, the eastern half persisted for another thousand years. 
• like Tang Dynasty china seeing to restore the glory of the Han era, byzantine consciously sought to preserve the legacy of classical greco roman civilization.

" The Byzantine State"

• the western Roman Empire was permanently lost to byzantine, despite emperor Justinians impressive but short-lived attempt to reconquer the Mediterranean basin. 
• after 1085, byzantine territory shrank, owing to incursions by aggressive Western European powers by catholic crusaders and by turkic muslim invaders. 

"The Byzantine church and christian divergence"

• In Byzantium the emperor assumed something of the role of both "caesar" as head of state and the pope as head of the church. 
• Eastern Orthodox christianity had a pervasive influence on every aspect of byzantine life. 
• differences in theology and church practice likewise widened the gulf between orthodoxy and catholicism despite agreement on fundamental doctrines. 

"Byzantine and the world" 

• on a political and military level byzantine continued the long-term roman struggle with the Persian empire.
• byzantine religious culture also spread widely among slavic speaking peoples in the balkans and Russia.

"The conversion of Russia"

• the most significant expansion of orthodox christianity occurred among the slavic peoples of what is now Ukraine and western Russia. 
• it was a fateful choice with long-term implications for Russian history for it brought this fledging civilization firmly into the world of orthodox christianity separating it from both the realm of islam and the Roman Catholic west. 

"political life in Western Europe" 

• the traditional date marking the collapse of the Roman Empire is 476 when the German general overthrew the last roman emperor in the west. 
• contact with the Roman Empire in the first several centuries had generated more distinct ethnic identities among them, militarized their societies and given greater prominence to Woden, their god of war. 

"Society and the church" 

• within these new kingdoms, a highly fragmented and decentralized society known as feudalism emerged with great local variation. 
• the only security available to many individuals or families lay in these communities where the ties to kin manor and lord constituted the primary human loyalties.
• church authorities and the nobles and warriors who exercised political influence reinforced each other. 

"accelerating change in the west" 

• for many centuries before this the world of European christendom had been subject to repeated invasions. 
• much as economic and technological change in china had eroded female silk production by the fifteenth century artisan opportunities were declining for European women as well. 
• another religious oppouritnuty for women operating outside of monastic life and the institutional church was that of the beguines. 

"Europe Outward Bound"

• This "medieval expansion" of western christendom took place as the Byzantine world was contracting under pressure from the west from arab invasion and later from Turkish conquest.
• the most famous crusades were those aimed at wrestling Jerusalem and the holy places associated with the life of Jesus from islamic control and returning them to christendom.
• Crusading was not limited to targets in the islamic Middle East.

"Catching up"

• europeans proved quite willing to engage with and borrow from the more advanced civilizations to the east. 
• Europe resembled several other third wave civilizations of the time. 
• technological borrowing required adaption to the unique conditions of Europe and was accompanied by considerable independent invention as well. 

"Pluralism in politics" 

• unlike the large centralized states of Byzantium, the islamic world, and china, this third wave European civilization never regained the earlier unity it had under roman rule.
• this multi centered political system shaped the emerging civilization of the west in many ways, it gave rise to frequent wars, enhanced the role and status of military men, and drove the gunpowder revolution.

"reason and faith"

• a further feature of this emerging European civilization was a distinctive intellectual tension between the claims of human reason and those of faith. 
• intellectual life in Europe changed dramatically in the several centuries after 1000, amid a rising population, a quickening commercial life, emerging town and cities, and the church's growing independence from royal or noble authorities. 
• this mounting enthusiasm for rational thought was applied first and foremost to theology, "the queen of the sciences" to European thinkers.