Early Middle Ages - Christianity West and East

Christianity West and East

Medieval Christians

  • St Boniface - Baptism and Martyrdom.

From the early Christians, early medieval Christians inherited a church united by major creeds, a stable Biblical canon, and a well-developed philosophical tradition. The history of medieval Christianity traces Christianity during the Middle Ages - the period after the fall of the Roman Empire until the Protestant Reformation, considered the start of the modern era.

During the early Middle Ages, the divide between Eastern and Western Christianity widened, paving the way for the East-West Schism in the 11th century. In the West, the power of the Bishop of Rome expanded. In 607, Boniface III became the first Bishop of Rome to use the title Pope. Pope Gregory the Great used his office as a temporal power, expanded Rome's missionary efforts to the British Isles, and laid the foundations for the expansion of monastic orders. Roman church traditions and practices gradually replaced local variants, including Celtic Christianity in Great Britain and Ireland. In the East, the conquests of Islam reduced the power of the Greek-speaking patriarchates. Various barbarian tribes went from raiding and pillaging the island to settling and invading. They were entirely pagan, having never been part of the Empire, and although they experienced Christian influence from the surrounding peoples, such as those who were converted by the mission of St. Augustine sent by Pope Gregory the Great.

Further information: Christianity in the 6th century, Christianity in the 7th century, and Christianity in the 8th century

Read more about this topic:  Early Middle Ages

Famous quotes containing the words christianity, west and/or east:

    “What’s the greatest enemy of Christianity to-day? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why? Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford to eat too much meat. Now there’s cheap Canterbury lamb and Argentine chilled beef. Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism and despair.”
    —Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

    “One perceives that again and again she has destroyed her life when it was forming into shapes of happiness because of her loyalty to the early misery, her conviction that that has the sanction of ultimate reality, and that beside it all other things are trivial.”
    —Rebecca West (1892–1983)

    “We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
    —Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)