From its origins in the ancient world as a rival to traditional
paganism, Christianity has become one of the great world religions. How
the Church took over spiritual control of Western Europe to become the
foundation of medieval life, setting the moral agenda of society and
dominating its intellectual world, is the guiding enquiry at the heart
of this book. Covering the period between the fall of the Roman Empire
and the Reformation, the account is structured in three chronological
blocks, starting with the gradual development of unity within the
Western Church up to the 11th century, followed by the period of
centralization between the 11th and 13th centuries, and concluding with
the break-up of this centralization in the later Middle Ages.
Organizational developments and changes in spirituality and doctrine are
examined, and the history of the papacy is situated in the wider
context of both ecclesiastical and lay society. Intellectual
developments and the rise of heresy, at both elite and popular levels,
are the focus of an exploration of the mental world of medieval
Christendom.