Middle Ages

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Origins

Christianity was entirely different. It did not accept other gods. Christianity declared that there was only one true God, whose son was Jesus Christ. In the early 1st century, during the lifetime of Jesus, those who believed in him were largely confined to Palestine, the Roman province where Christianity originated. (The Palestine of Jesus’ day is today incorporated into parts of Israel, Jordan, and Syria.) After Jesus’ death, his followers began to preach and to convert people outside Palestine. Christianity spread in the cities of the empire, first in the east and later in the west. By the 3rd century, many Roman cities had Christian communities, and the Christian church had developed a rudimentary organization of church officials. The highest officials were the bishops, and under them were the priests.

The Christians of the Roman Empire suffered some persecution, as did Jews. At the beginning of the 4th century, however, Constantine declared toleration for all religions, and he himself favored Christianity. Thereafter many people in the empire became Christians, and in 391 Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

In the view of the Christians of the time, the official adoption of Christianity meant that the old pagan gods had been defeated. Christians considered these gods demons and the traditional town festivals demonic. Christians recognized different sources of holy power. In their view, certain special men and women—sometimes living, sometimes dead—had in them, by God's grace, the power of God. These were the saints.

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Saints and Relics

Saints were very important in Late Antiquity. They were considered both models of virtue and powerful miracle workers. One of the most well-known saints of the period was Saint Anthony. Anthony gave away all his possessions and left his hometown in Egypt to live alone in the desert and pray. Anthony was one of the first Christian monks. The word monk comes from a term meaning 'alone.' Gradually Anthony attracted followers, and he eventually became the center of a whole community of monks who wished to live as he did. This community was not organized well enough to be called a monastery (a permanent residence of a group of monks), but it was the precursor of such institutions. There were female saints as well. Stories circulated about Saint Mary of Egypt, for example, who lived for years on a few loaves of bread and spent her time in repentance and prayer.

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Saints remained special even after they died, and their bones and other remains were venerated as relics. Pious people often built churches or chapels over the tombs of saints. Saints’ remains were moved frequently. For example, Saint Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, brought the relics of two saints into his own church and put them under the altar, the focal point of Christian worship. In this way, he allied himself and succeeding bishops of Milan with the power of those saints.

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Development of Doctrine

Because Christianity focused more on the eternal salvation or damnation that occurred after death than on the events of the everyday world, it changed the things that people valued. For example, worldly possessions became less important. From the 3rd through the 5th century, churchmen developed these ideas and other Christian doctrines in sermons, treatises, and biblical commentaries, and they also established a standardized body of Christian teaching. Some of these authors came to be known as Fathers of the Church, and their writings are called patristic literature. Perhaps the most important and influential of them was Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo (near modern Annaba, Algeria). His most famous book, The City of God (413-426), counsels Christians not to worry too much about the events of this world but to keep their minds focused on salvation and the afterlife—the heavenly city of God.

Other churchmen did not always agree with Augustine. Christianity was understood and interpreted in many different ways in Late Antiquity. For example, churchmen argued frequently and sometimes violently about the nature of Christ and the nature of the Trinity (God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit together). Augustine, whose view prevailed, said that Christ's godliness was equal to the Father's. But other Christians—known as Arians after the primary proponent of the teaching, Arius—thought that the Father's godhood was greater than that of the Son. Both sides believed that their salvation—their eternal life in Heaven—depended on accepting the right doctrine.

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Changes in the West: Assimilation of New Peoples

The variety of religious views in Late Antiquity mirrored the great variety of people in the Roman Empire, a variety that increased during the 4th and 5th centuries and transformed the empire politically. Beyond the borders patrolled by the Roman army were peoples whom the Romans called Germans. Although not biologically different from the Romans, they had a different culture—or rather, many different cultures. They lived in tribal groupings that were always in a state of change, breaking up and absorbing other groups. They fought with the Romans, but they also traded with them. Many Germans admired the Romans and adopted their habits and institutions. Many also adopted Christianity, although most of them became Arian Christians because Arian missionaries converted them.

Military need led the Romans to incorporate German warriors into their army units. Other Germans were brought into the empire to settle in depopulated areas, and their children were recruited into the army. Beginning in the 4th century, army units of Germans led by their own commanders were welcomed into the empire to defend the Romans.

The German settlers were eventually assimilated into the empire, but there were also tensions with the native inhabitants. The Germans were like a migrant labor force: The Romans needed them, but they also resented them. In the 5th century a Germanic tribe called the Visigoths asked to settle in the empire. They were being forced out of their homeland by the Huns, a nomadic tribe from Central Asia that was moving west. The Visigoths were allowed to enter the empire but were then ignored and left to starve. Their leader, Alaric I, marched his tribe to Rome, which he attacked and plundered. Eventually Alaric and his people settled in what is now southern France.

Meanwhile, other Germanic tribes were entering the empire. By the end of the 5th century, the western half of the empire was under the control of various Germanic kings. In 476 the Western emperor was deposed and not replaced. After that, there was only one Roman emperor, and he remained at Constantinople.

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Changes in the East: The Byzantine Empire and the Growth of Islam

Although Constantinople called itself the second Rome and the emperor there still called himself Roman, the eastern half of the empire changed so dramatically between 600 and 750 that historians call it by a different name: the Byzantine Empire. The most striking change was in the empire’s size—the empire lost huge portions of territory to the Muslims. By 750 the Byzantine Empire consisted only of what is today Turkey, part of Greece, and bits of Italy. The Muslims had conquered all of the Middle East, Egypt, and North Africa.

The Muslims, who practice the religion of Islam, were a new force in history. Their prophet and first leader was Muhammad, a trader in Arabia (now Saudi Arabia) who turned from paganism to belief in one God, the same God that the Jews and Christians worshiped. Muhammad and his followers thought that God had communicated his final revelation to Muhammad. That made him God's last and most important prophet. God’s revelation to Muhammad was written down and became the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an.

Muhammad first preached the word of God in his hometown of Mecca, and he converted a number of people there. However, he also made enemies at Mecca. When he was invited to go to the nearby town of Medina, he and his followers accepted, and they emigrated there in 622. This emigration is called the Hegira, and its date marks the year 1 of the Islamic calendar. At Medina, Muhammad converted many people to Islam, but the Muslims also clashed with nonbelieving Arabs in outright wars. Eventually Muhammad's fighters were successful, uniting most of Arabia under the religion of Islam. Under Muhammad's successors, the Muslims moved out of Arabia into new territories. By 750 their conquests stretched from Spain to India.

Muhammad's successors, called caliphs, built their first capital city at Damascus, in Syria. There they discovered and adopted many Roman and Byzantine institutions. They minted coins modeled on those of the Byzantine Empire and hired former officials of Byzantine rulers. They also supported Arabic literature, which began to flower. Religious scholars wrote down stories of Muhammad’s words and deeds. Poets wrote songs of love, celebrations of brave warriors, and witty satires.

The Muslims did not normally mingle with those they conquered. They lived in fortified cities from which they collected taxes and imposed their rule. The Muslims tolerated Christians and Jews and allowed them to worship as they pleased, as long as they paid a tax for the privilege.

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