![]() ![]() Firstly, it took a long time for the Pope in Rome to become head of a separate church. Neither was there such a thing as Christendom, meaning, in reality, the lands where the Catholic Church held sway. The Byzantine state was able to tax its population, unlike the new kingdoms which emerged in the West, and was thus much wealthier and able to maintain a paid, standing army, again unlike Western rulers. Its Eastern half, what we’ll term the Byzantine Empire, long remained. ![]() ‘… one thing which remained constant throughout the Middle Ages was the importance of the old Roman imperial frontier’ (p.252).Īnd in a sense the Roman Empire did not collapse. That divide remained even after the Empire collapsed. In the Roman world, for example, the key divide was along the Rhine and the Danube, the border of the Empire. Chris Wickham, Medieval Europe (Yale University Press 2016), 352pp.Įurope has not always existed. ![]()
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