All histories are potentially divisive. Depending on how one approaches a period, supporters, detractors, identitarians, anyone with a self-appointed mission to either defend or attack certain sacrilized bovines may find agitation to the point of absurdity. The historian must be at least aware of all this before tackling her subject. Not with a view to self-censorship (although that may happen by default) but to know how much referencing and documentation may be required to overcome (somewhat) assaults based on issues having only tangential relation to the history being examined.

Which is one reason a book such as Peter Heather’s new Christendom: the Triumph of a Religion AD 300—1300 is both hefty and well-notated. He is not here interested much in the assertions of Christianity, only in the evolution of the religion over time as a social and political entity. The road from minor cult to the dominant aesthetic and political reality of Europe by the 14th Century is here examined as a system. How did it get to the point where we are still wrestling with questions of cultural legitimacy as they impinge upon the political realities of modern life?

Heather resents his credentials—agnostic, let’s say—as someone interested in what people did and how they did it. This is a history like any history of a country or a people. Dates matter. Major players matter. Shifting demographics matter. This is the story of bureaucracies and armies and successions and, above all, assertions of power. The Christianity that emerged over centuries after Emperor Constantine declared it the state religion of the Roman Empire is, regardless of how individual believers may feel, a political system. After Constantine is certainly became something other than what it started. The road it traveled is fascinating and maps closely to the more usual history with which we are familiar (if we are familiar with it).

This adds a layer as well to the questions of why Rome “fell” and how the Crusades began and failed and the way in which dynastic politics became inextricable from the dissemination of a faith that, in primary ways, was diametrically opposed to everything Europe became.

Two details make this a fascinating take on the topic. One, Heather goes into great detail over the matter of conversion. Of course, we know the famous ones—Augustine, Constantine, the less well-known Pegasios—and by these we understand it to be a dramatic, soul-wrenching experience. But when closely examined, it was never so simple, and for the vast majority of people at the time it was much more mundane. This month we’re worshiping Apollo, next month Sol Invictus, the month after that the Christian God. In order to comply with the law and obtain work, we must change our associations. Constantine’s mandate impacted the Empire through patronage. In order to obtain a position in the government, conversion was required. Heather makes clear with the case of Pegasios (bishop of Ilios, 350s A.D.) that it was a revolving door, as Pegasios had no trouble going back and forth between paganism and Christianity as circumstances dictated. This was not, for him (and presumably many others) a matter of salvation of the soul as it was a matter of livelihood and income.

Moving forward, it then appears obvious that the vast majority of conversions were pro forma. The king has decreed he and his subjects shall be Christians and so the people go to a different church.

This contradicts the idea of a major ideological revolution sweeping the continent. This was political.

Once understood, subsequent Church history makes more and more sense as history. Alliances, territory, prestige—all the values of a strong state—contributed to the eventual displacement of older religions as Christianity became the dominant ideology.

It is in the triumph of that ideology—or, rather, its symbols—that the success is traced. What people followed willingly (and, to our dismay, today) is a successful leader who could demonstrate a special bond to fate. The story of Constantine’s victory at Milvian Bridge is not a single unitarian narrative. There are four versions and it seems obvious in context that each served a public relations purpose. The Chi Rho triumphant, symbol of early Christianity, figures prominently in the story, but not in the same way in the various tellings.

Which is also where Christianity veered off its previous path of peace and harmony and, over time, became a militant religion. The leader who was victorious in battle and claimed aegis of the Christian god got to say which god would be worshiped. The contradiction emerged from the beginning. Peace and War joined in a paradoxical arrangement to underwrite the legitimacy of king or emperor.

The other thing Heather’s history dispels is the myth of the barbarian hordes. We tend to visualize them as rude brutes with no learning pouring brutishly into Roman precincts destroying a sophisticated civilization. In reality, these “barbarians” had learned from Rome and were in many way culturally on par with the empire they were displacing. And they brought with them their own variations of what they saw as True Christianity.

Which leads to another aspect that is oft misunderstood, which is the mythology of the Church Triumphant calling all the shots across Europe. That did happen, but it was a long process and fraught with setbacks and disputes. For much of the millennium being discussed, it was the kings who told the church what to do. Charlemagne’s crowning as the first Holy Roman Emperor was his idea, stage managed on his end, with the Pope going along with it lest there be consequences.

In short, this is an agnostic analysis of the growth of a bureaucratic, political system which follows the twisted paths of such things like any other. And by the time Rome became predominant once more, it was at the head of a religion that barely resembled the early pastoral communities from which it sprang. Each stage was a near-run thing and the unity of the Church was never what it appeared to be. 

Which is a curiously pertinent bit of history to become acquainted with now. Keeping the components separate and knowing how such things happen is a useful tonic in an age where the cries of faiths that claim unalloyed divine cause to overturn anything in their path.