How did a persecuted sect become the faith of an empire, and how was European civilization built on the heritage of Greece and Rome, mediated by “civilized barbarians”? How did Europe both preserve and transform antiquity while building a distinctive civilization of its own? These are the questions explored in The Golden Thread, Volume I, Part 2: Christendom, written by James Hankins.
Hankins begins with the Christianization of Rome and the founding of a new capital at Constantinople, tracing the moral revolution wrought by the early Church upon pagan Roman culture. He follows the barbarian raids, the end of imperial rule in the Latin West, Justinian’s reconquest of the Mediterranean, and the Roman Church’s spiritual reconquest of the Arian barbarian kingdoms. He charts the Islamic conquest of two-thirds of the old Roman empire, Charlemagne’s revival of the Western empire, and the disintegration and recovery that followed. In the final chapter, Hankins discusses how early European civilization was shaped by the two great Renaissances of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
While telling this grand story, Hankins examines how the scholasticism, art, architecture, chivalry, and warfare of the high Middle Age laid the foundations of Europe. Featuring rich illustrations, original maps, and curated letters, speeches, and quotations from the defining figures of each era, this volume masterfully weaves a vibrant tapestry of the millennium that made Europe.
