germanic consolidation under catholicism
At the same time as Pagan Germanic conquerors were making a deal with the Roman Church following the fall of the Roman Empire, a new religion was emerging in the east that would act to consolidate Germanic power in Europe.
Preached by Mohammed - incorporating features of Christianity and other religions - Islam was an attractive unifying religion that took advantage of bitter theological arguments and power struggles between the eastern and western Christian bishops to sweep through the Middle East and reclaim most of the territory ruled by the Christians of the old Eastern Roman Empire.
Syria, Palestine and Persia converted to Islam in 637, Egypt in 641 and then Africa, penetrating to central Asia and the frontier of India and China. By 715 the Moslems had conquered Spain (ruled by the Germanic Visigoths), and the Christian nobles of Spain rapidly converted to Islam in order to retain their land, wealth and power in the same way that Pagan Roman nobles had rapidly converted to Christianity after the 390 policy of Emperor Theodosius.
All that remained of the eastern Roman empire of Heraclius was a wide area around Constantinople which was known as the Byzantium Empire
It was the Germanic Franks, led by Charles Martel, who stopped the Moslems at the Spanish border in 732 and gained southern Gaul for the Franks; and it was his grandson, Charlemagne, d. 814, who had bestowed upon him by Pope Leo III the ambiguous title of Holy Roman Emperor in 800 for saving the good pope's life.
Far more than the bishops, the Germanic Franks could see the remarkable parallels between the rise of Islam (and the fall of eastern Christianity) and the rise of Christianity (and the fall of Paganism). Charlemagne did not want western Christianity - and his kingdom - to suffer a similar fate, so he cracked down harder on his subject people than any Pagan Roman emperor ever did - brutally enforcing total obedience to Christianity (which, to him, encompassed his kingdom), burning all heretics and those who refused baptism.
The marauding Pagan Vikings, however, were more of a threat to Charlemagne and his descendants - and other European states - than the Moslem Arabs in terms of lost land.
The lower Loire and Seine were abandoned to the Vikings about the same time, 866, that the Vikings conquered York, Eastern Mercia and East Anglia in Britain, forcing the Germanic Saxon King Alfred to make a treaty in 900 creating a frontier between West Saxon territory and the Danelaw. In 879 the Vikings took Flanders, in 882 Cologne and Trier were taken, but Paris was saved by the Capetian, Odo, who, in 888, became first king of Francia unrelated to former rulers. In 911, the Frankish king Charles the Simple finally legitimized the authority of the Vikings by granting them the area around Rouen (the Duchy of Normandy), and they eventually settled down and became Christians.
While Spain thrived under the Moslems, seeing a flowering of culture and learning, the rest of Europe was thrown into the Gothic Dark Ages under oppressive Germanic Catholicism.
The argumentative Roman and Constantinople Christians finally parted company with a schism in 1054 - followed in 1096 by the 1st of 8 Crusades against the Moslems in the Holy Land - but despite Gregory VII's papal infallibility announcement in 1073 and Thomas Aquinas's (born 1225) announcement that faith and reason are compatible, doctrinal controversy and outright disbelief continued to plague the Roman Catholic Church. It took a brave Scot, John Duns Scotus (born 1270), to contradict Aquinas by holding that faith and reason are incompatible.
Preached by Mohammed - incorporating features of Christianity and other religions - Islam was an attractive unifying religion that took advantage of bitter theological arguments and power struggles between the eastern and western Christian bishops to sweep through the Middle East and reclaim most of the territory ruled by the Christians of the old Eastern Roman Empire.
Syria, Palestine and Persia converted to Islam in 637, Egypt in 641 and then Africa, penetrating to central Asia and the frontier of India and China. By 715 the Moslems had conquered Spain (ruled by the Germanic Visigoths), and the Christian nobles of Spain rapidly converted to Islam in order to retain their land, wealth and power in the same way that Pagan Roman nobles had rapidly converted to Christianity after the 390 policy of Emperor Theodosius.
All that remained of the eastern Roman empire of Heraclius was a wide area around Constantinople which was known as the Byzantium Empire
It was the Germanic Franks, led by Charles Martel, who stopped the Moslems at the Spanish border in 732 and gained southern Gaul for the Franks; and it was his grandson, Charlemagne, d. 814, who had bestowed upon him by Pope Leo III the ambiguous title of Holy Roman Emperor in 800 for saving the good pope's life.
Far more than the bishops, the Germanic Franks could see the remarkable parallels between the rise of Islam (and the fall of eastern Christianity) and the rise of Christianity (and the fall of Paganism). Charlemagne did not want western Christianity - and his kingdom - to suffer a similar fate, so he cracked down harder on his subject people than any Pagan Roman emperor ever did - brutally enforcing total obedience to Christianity (which, to him, encompassed his kingdom), burning all heretics and those who refused baptism.
The marauding Pagan Vikings, however, were more of a threat to Charlemagne and his descendants - and other European states - than the Moslem Arabs in terms of lost land.
The lower Loire and Seine were abandoned to the Vikings about the same time, 866, that the Vikings conquered York, Eastern Mercia and East Anglia in Britain, forcing the Germanic Saxon King Alfred to make a treaty in 900 creating a frontier between West Saxon territory and the Danelaw. In 879 the Vikings took Flanders, in 882 Cologne and Trier were taken, but Paris was saved by the Capetian, Odo, who, in 888, became first king of Francia unrelated to former rulers. In 911, the Frankish king Charles the Simple finally legitimized the authority of the Vikings by granting them the area around Rouen (the Duchy of Normandy), and they eventually settled down and became Christians.
While Spain thrived under the Moslems, seeing a flowering of culture and learning, the rest of Europe was thrown into the Gothic Dark Ages under oppressive Germanic Catholicism.
The argumentative Roman and Constantinople Christians finally parted company with a schism in 1054 - followed in 1096 by the 1st of 8 Crusades against the Moslems in the Holy Land - but despite Gregory VII's papal infallibility announcement in 1073 and Thomas Aquinas's (born 1225) announcement that faith and reason are compatible, doctrinal controversy and outright disbelief continued to plague the Roman Catholic Church. It took a brave Scot, John Duns Scotus (born 1270), to contradict Aquinas by holding that faith and reason are incompatible.
Labels: catholicism, charlemagne, christianity, gaul, germanic tribes, martel, pope, roman empire, vikings
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