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This book is an investigation of the process by which large parts of Europe accepted the Christian faith between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries and of some of the cultural consequences that flowed therefrom. It is therefore unfashionably ambitious in its scope. Professional historians today are expected to know more and more about less and less, and to communicate their findings to other professional historians in those weird gatherings known as academic conferences. In consequence fewer and fewer people are going to listen to what they have to say. It is a wholly deplorable state of affairs when specialists in any discipline talk only to each other, and accordingly I have sought to write a book which will communicate some of the fruits of research in a manner which will make them accessible to all. Whether or not I have succeeded in this aim will be for others to judge. The last attempt at such a survey by an English author was a work called The Conversion of Europe by the Reverend C. H. Robinson, published in 1917. Much has happened in the discipline of medieval history in the eighty years since Canon Robinson’s book was published. It is timely to essay a new synthesis.

Very early on in my reflections on this topic I became convinced that it would be imprudent to attempt to explain this process of the acceptance of Christianity. Efforts to do so tend to be superficial and glib. My book proceeds by way of suggestion rather than explicit argument; my preferred method is to dispose the raw building blocks of evidence in such a manner as to move suggestions forward. Implicit argument may, I hope, be detected, to use an architectural analogy, in the disposition of mass and shape. The building is rambling, but I hope it coheres.

There are a few practical points of which the reader needs to be aware. The scope of the book is confined for the most part to western, Latin or Roman Christendom. The history of eastern, Greek or Orthodox Christendom is not my concern, let alone the history of those exotic Christian communities, Ethiopic, Indian and Nestorian, which lay beyond the eastern Mediterranean hinterland. Orthodox Christendom will loom on the horizon from time to time, notably in Chapters 10, 11 and 14, but for most of the time my concern is with Christianity in the west and the north of Europe. An exception to this rule is furnished by Chapter 9, which deals with the rival monotheisms of Judaism and Islam, with particular reference to early medieval Spain, offered as a kind of counterpoint to the main thrust of the book. Wherever possible I have allowed the original sources to speak for themselves by quoting them in the text, sometimes at length. The endnotes supply references to identify quotations, whether from original sources or from modern authorities, and to indicate reliable published translations where they exist. In a work of this character a formal bibliography would be out of place. Instead I have provided each chapter with brief notes on further reading, almost invariably in English, which will enable the enquirer to pursue matters further.

I wrote this book between September 1993 and June 1996, principally in the course of the two academic years 1993–5. I am grateful to the Research Committee of the History Department at the University of York, and to Alan Forrest, the then Head of the Department, for allowing me to take an accumulated entitlement to leave of absence during the academic year 1993–4; also to the British Academy for the award of a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship in the year 1994–5. It was thus my rare good fortune to be relieved of all academic duties for two singularly happy years during which I was enabled to concentrate single-mindedly upon research and writing. I record here my gratitude to the two institutions concerned for releasing me from employment and thereby making work possible.

In the course of preparing this book I have incurred many debts to colleagues and friends who have been unfailingly generous with books, articles, information, advice and criticism. I register here my grateful thanks to Lesley Abrams, Peter Biller, James Campbell, Eric Christiansen, Roger Collins, Katy Cubitt, James Howard-Johnston, Edward James, Henry Mayr-Harting, Judith McClure, Peter Sawyer and Charles Thomas. To six persons in particular I owe irredeemable debts. First, to Peter Rycraft, il miglior fabbro, under whose always patient if sometimes exacting guidance I first encountered the challenges and opportunities presented by the comparative historical study of Christian missions. Second, to Ian Wood, who with great generosity read the first half of the book in draft and saved me from many errors of fact and interpretation, especially as regards Frankish matters. Third, to Graham Shaw, who selflessly read the entire typescript and made a large number of extremely acute and perceptive suggestions, on matters both structural and detailed, for its improvement in the course of final revision. Fourth, to Stuart Proffitt, whose courtesy, diligence and sensitivity as an editor know no bounds. I should also like to put on record my heartfelt gratitude to Arabella Quin whose taste, enthusiasm and expertise have been a tower of strength to me during the process of seeing this book through the press. Fifth, to my son Humphrey, who repeatedly showed me that rage and despair were inappropriate (as well as ignoble) reactions to the bewilderments of an unfamiliar technology, and that calm, patience and humility were better means to acquire the necessary skills. Sixth and finally, to my wife Rachel: to her my gratitude is beyond words.

Nunnington, York

June 1997