This Is How Christianity Created A European Foothold | The Christians | Our History

[Music] the vikings were only the final wave of barbarians to sweep down from the north in the dark ages bringing destruction to what had been the orderly europe of the old roman empire [Music] the roman city of trier in germany was where the emperors resided when they were in the western part of the empire trio's buildings were calculated to emphasize roman power and stability the sturdy gateway the imperial throne room which was built in the time of constantine constantine was the first emperor in the early fourth century to favor christianity and trio's cathedral stands today on the foundations of a church built during the reign of constantine because of him this roman city became a christian city this was no place for wild barbarians and much further north at the very edges of the empire there were elaborate defenses to keep them out such as hadrian's wall on the border between england and scotland once the empire was christian all this roman strength seemed part of god's plan as a christian author of the early 5th century confidently explained what is the secret of rome's historical destiny it is that god wills the unity of mankind since the religion of christ demands the social foundation of peace and international friendship the roman peace has prepared the road for the coming of christ this is the meaning of all the victories and triumphs of the roman empire but the barbarians were beginning to make nonsense of those victories and triumphs of the roman empire by the fourth century hordes of goths were driving back the imperial armies moving south to sunnier and richer lands close behind them came the vandals and then the unthinkable disaster rome itself was reached and sacked by the goths for seven centuries no enemy had breached the walls of the city and on their moved restless nomadic people tracing an aimless path through the settled provinces of rome more and more tribes were on the move the saxons to england in the middle of the 5th century the proud city of trier was finally engulfed by the franks by then there was a new development on the mediterranean coast it was reported that strange people were living on rocky islands off the south of france christian hermits fifteen centuries later there are still monks on the island of lehrers it's europe's oldest surviving monastery the first time it's here were taking refuge from a world in chaos but it would be monks like themselves who would later restore order to europe and over the sea in north africa there was a christian writer who seemed to imply just such a development saint augustine his book the city of god has profoundly influenced christian thought at every period even though he wrote it in response to one very specific event the sack of rome by the goths how come people were asking that rome had been destroyed after so long what had changed simple came the answer the gods had been changed the old roman gods had always kept out the invaders it was christianity's fault augustine took up his pen to argue the christian case his first line of defense was frankly unconvincing everything is god's will so all must be for the best but you can still find that type of argument in religious pamphlets today and frankly it hasn't improved with age but augustine's second point was more interesting the fall of rome he said was unimportant because it was only an earthly city all that mattered was the city of god and that could never fall because its inhabitants were immortal some of them were already in heaven others were still on earth but their real home was with god so they were in this world and yet not in it which would later come to seem a perfect description of a medieval monk senior the only two parts of western europe where christianity managed to hang on are still the catholic extremities of the common market ireland and italy well italy was not surprising ireland rather more so the rocky island of skellig michael is as far west as you can go in europe as far away from trouble as you can get 10 miles off the atlantic coast of ireland this was only one of the many inaccessible places where early monks settled in ireland undisturbed they were to keep alive the traditions of christian learning the earliest known irish writing from the 6th century is verses from the psalms some of them very suitable for monks who made their home in this remote landscape what hast thou wrought for them that hope in thee thou shalt hide them from the disturbances of men blessed be the lord for he hath shown his wonderful mercy to me in a fortified city well relatively fortified anyway in their beehive cells the monks were protected against the devil by prayer and against the weather to a limited extent by their own very skillful dry stone work but life in these monasteries was as uncompromising as the accommodation the normal position for prayer was with the arms held out in the form of a cross try that for a few hail marys and you'll discover the meaning of penance and there was corporal punishment for a monk who misbehaved not all the monasteries were built in remote or rocky places often as at glendale the monks would settle in a pleasant and fertile valley in such a place the abbot became the natural leader of the district he would guide the people in their local affairs and above all guide them on the path to god often with the help of the famous stone crosses of ireland a monk would preach below such crosses explaining to pilgrims the sculptured scenes with their favorite swirling patterns monks worked away in their monastery cells to decorate the gospel manuscripts [Music] from time to time a brief comment in the margin brings back to life a scribe in his drafty cell twenty days to easter monday and i am cold and tired thin ink bad vellum difficult text i am carmack the son of kosner mark and there is some devil in this ink do not reproach me concerning the letters the ink is thin the parchment scanty the day dark even so there is sometimes a cheerful note i have written this book for love of the irish because i am myself an irish man the salts had been one of the earliest migrating tribes finding their way eventually to ireland their descendants the celtic monks painted with the same restlessness they also had the same itchy feet just as these swirling lines seemed to propel the tiny human figure out of the maze so the monks themselves felt an irresistible urge to set out from ireland to carry the christian faith back over the sea no doubt in boats almost as insecure as this one first to scotland then england the coast of france and then on far from the sea or islands as if compulsively on and on finally even through the alps into italy a statue of an irish saint columban watches over a north italian landscape in which a place named mezzano scotty echoes those distant days when the irish were here and went to the eternal confusion of schoolboys the people who lived in ireland were called scots it was near here that colombian's wanderings came to an end at bobbio in 612 he founded a monastery it was almost an importance only a few hundred miles from rome here was a center for what had become a specifically irish form of christianity rome even in the darkest years had been the seat of the pope guardian he considered of the old christian ways ireland in its isolation had developed its own art and ceremonies even its own date for celebrating easter later in the middle ages when the church was united again and confident a grandiose tomb was built for some columbine it showed the saint kneeling humbly to the pope and receiving in token of esteem of precious vars well the story was a pious fraud like the vars which he is supposed to have presented the pope in rome had no time for eccentric irish monks he already had a roman variety of his own it wasn't benedict an aristocratic hermit fed daily in his cave by a friendly raven who first organized the italian hermits into settled communities there is still a monastery on the site of saint benedict's own cave at zubiako near rome but the rule which benedict wrote for his monks was much more gentle than the rigorous ways of the irish a monastery should if possible be so arranged that everything necessary that is water a mill a garden a bakery may be available it will be enough we think for each day's dinner if on every table there are two cooked dishes to suit various people's infirmities so that he who happens not to be able to eat of one may make his meal of the other avoid excess above all things that no monk should be overtaken by indigestion pope gregory sent roman monks on a mission to england at exactly the same time as the irish monks were wandering south to italy and it was to be in england that the clash between the two groups was resolved [Music] [Applause] canterbury cathedral its archbishop is today known as the primate of all england and the title reveals that victory went to the pope gregory's monks first settled in canterbury the pope made their leader the first archbishop of canterbury and from there they set about trying to impose rome's version of christianity and above all the authority of the pope on the english people [Music] they are not angles but angels pope gregory is supposed to have said on seeing english boys being sold as slaves in rome the industrial landscape of jarrow in northumbria was the home of the man who recorded that story in the monastery here that lived the monk and historian now known as the venerable bead it's typical of bead that he carefully labeled the tail of the angelic english boys a story handed down by tradition he was a serious historian and he had a fascinating subject here at jarrow he was able to look back on more than a century during which the christianity of rome had struggled against the celtic christianity which had been here before it especially over the matter of easter bead says that the royal house here in northumbria was split right down the middle the king was still following the old celtic ways when the queen had gone over to the roman method so he explains the king had finished lent and was celebrating easter when the queen and her household were still fasting it's enough to ruin any families easter the king called a great meeting or simmered at whitby surprisingly both the roman and the celtic monks allowed the king to choose between them and he chose for rome or for his wife eventually the authority of rome became accepted throughout england and the sturdy anglo-saxon churches which reflect a new settled self-confidence this one at bricksworth in northamptonshire is the most ambitious building from the 7th century to be found anywhere north of the alps and soon england had others nowhere else in northern europe at the time was that this sort of stability while the saxons on the continent were still worshiping pagan gods their anglo-saxon cousins were building for christ and if he wore around his head a faint memory of the sun well that only suggested how far these people had come from their pagan origins all over europe there are prehistoric shrines which make magic from the predictable movements of the sun this is a burial chamber nearly 5 000 years old the men who built it wanted their dead heroes to feel the touch of the sun at the precise moment when the world most needed its reviving powers at midwinter today there is still at midwinter sunrise that magical moment when the rays slide past the carefully placed obstacles of stone along the 60-foot corridor and at last light up for a few precious seconds the central chamber [Music] mid-winter and mid-summer are still the great fire festivals of northern europe the pagan practices of this part of the world were to prove an irresistible challenge to anglo-saxon monks from england when they arrived human sacrifice was already a thing of the past but not yet the far distant past it figures largely in the earliest full account of these regions written by the roman author tacitus tacitus spoke of joyful celebrations accompanying the travels of an earth goddess but the ritual to make sure that she and the earth remained fertile had sinister undertones [Music] this relief is part of a great silver bowl which may have been used to collect the blood of the goddess's victims tacitus provides further dark details after this her robes and if you will believe it the goddess herself are washed in a sequestered lake slaves are the ministers and are straight away swallowed by that same lake hence a mysterious terror and ignorance full of piety as to who and what it is which men behold by that leg only moments before they die this area of marsh and water at graubala in denmark is one of several bugs which seem to have proved tacitus right the earth here is a sort of peat which has a remarkable quality of preserving bodies over the years these bogs have yielded up a macabre collection of leathery corpses some of whom may well have been sacrificial victims when this man was found recently in that very bog the locals recognized him as a drunken peat cutter scientific analysis proved his throat had been slit sixteen hundred years ago this man had died two thousand years ago and he seems to confirm tacitus no one may enter the sacred grove unless he is bound with a cord by which he acknowledges his own inferiority and the power of the deity if these people were sacrificed to an earth goddess well the earth has faithfully kept them this is the body of a fourteen-year-old girl found just as she died with her head shaven and her eyes blindfold into these areas of northwestern europe with their dark secrets the marched a succession of monks from england bringing news of their own improved god who had offered himself as the sacrifice by far the most successful of these brave men were saint bonifas from devon who spent nearly 40 years converting baptizing with persuasion as his only weapon in a violent world he finally fell victim to a pagan sword and it was said that he only held up a book to protect himself for centuries this has been venerated as the actual book with neat slashes cut by some pious hand into both ends of it the small town of dokkum in the north of holland is where boniface died here in protestant as well as catholic homes he and his book can be found today though almost unknown in his native england boniface is a familiar figure throughout northwest europe through which he once stormed with such conviction attacking the old gods turning pagans into christians the most famous incident it was only one of many was when bonifas marched into a shrine in germany which was sacred to thor the god of thunder the cult object was a massive oak boniface took an ax to it and so the story goes at the very first blow there was a breath of wind from god of course and down it fell the heathens marveled and were converted and the saint used the wood from the tree to build a church to st peter well in its detail the story may be preposterous but it does have certain elements in it which ring true one was the sheer courage needed to march into someone else's holy place and start breaking it up and the other was saint bonifas building a church to saint peter with the same sacred wood christianity has had a subtle way of absorbing where necessary the earlier religions this great spreading oak seems more of a partner than a mere support to the little christian shrine it now contains three times boniface traveled all the way to rome to submit himself to the pope and to receive his instructions he was ordered to concentrate on the conversion of the germans and it was through his efforts that the authority of rome was first extended to much of what is now germany the city of fulda has grown up around the great abbey which boniface founded as the headquarters for himself and his missionary monks and it's at fulder that the roman catholic bishops of germany still meet for their annual conference in boniface's abbey here a century after his death the great hymn veni creator spiritus was first written come holy spirit [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the town of externa in luxembourg there's another great abbey founded at almost exactly the same time by a monk who is for a while a colleague of bonifas sent willy broad the image of willy broad is carried every year on the tuesday after whitson in a procession which suggests well how the christian church managed to impose itself on a pagan community taming primitive old customs which it couldn't quite suppress [Music] for centuries back beyond memory pilgrims have come from miles around to join in an exhausting ritual which has all the mind-numbing repetitiveness of authentic primitive folk [Music] dance just the sort of thing to stimulate the passions of old mother earth and bring her back to life [Music] more [Music] after an exhausting dance around the entire time the people find themselves naturally where the good bishop has always been leading them at the christian basilica [Music] instead of primitive pagans dancing down to hell the roman catholic church has made it possible for enthusiastic even if weary young christians to dance their way down to the abbey crypt [Music] here in the crypt they'll get the benefit of a new sort of magic that of being close to the relics of a saint in the shrine are the remains of willy broad himself [Music] charlemagne king of the franks in him the monks found a most effective ally they had converted by persuasion charlemagne would convert by force he was not the first frankish ruler to link christ with the sword the first king of the franks to be baptized had been clovis a contemporary historian described the event if you will give me victory jesus christ i will be baptized said clovis even as he said this the enemy ran away like some new constantine he came to the baptismal pool by the time of charlemagne the franks themselves were securely christian but their most troublesome neighbors the saxons were still heathen at nigh magen close to the northern boundary of charlemine his kingdom display the twin pillars of his policy on a high cliff to which a modern bridge now brings the traffic south across the rhine charlemagne built a fort for his soldiers which has long since vanished and beside it a baptistery baptism whether you liked it or not was to be his policy for a well-conducted empire and the building was deliberately imposing emphasizing the importance of the christian ritual no saxon god had a shrine like this built with such care and skill but their gods did have some marvels of their own in the heart of saxony is extendsteiner a place of mystery and magic where it is thought the saxons had an important shrine honoring the gods of nature [Music] these rocks have seen the change in europe's gods at its most brutal a frankish army smashed the pagan shrines stole the gold and silver ornaments and so introduced the saxons to a better god the commander of the army was charlemagne and being converted by charlemagne was a very different experience from being converted by boniface refusal to be baptized carried the death penalty in charlemagne's book of rules state christianity long familiar in the eastern empire was returning to europe in paderborn not far from externsheiner there was a crucial meeting which was to set the pattern for the future where the cathedral now stands charlemine had built himself a palace part of which has now been excavated and in 799 a pathetic figure came here to visit him he was the pope leo the third leo had recently been set upon during a religious procession in rome by a bunch of rival clerics they had made an attempt to put out his eyes and to cut out his tongue and by way of explanation they had accused him of perjury and of adultery he came to charlemine to ask for help nobody knows what the two of them talked about that summer of 799 here in paderborn but it's reasonably certain that they must have made some sort of deal by which the pope would crown charlemine emperor certainly charlemine gave leo his support and the following year he traveled to rome to show as much the climax of his visit came in the church of old saint peter's on christmas day 800 when the pope was celebrating mass charlemine was kneeling devoutly and he later claimed to have been displeased when the pope suddenly popped a crown on his head well politicians make a habit of being surprised when honours are thrust upon them the clergy and congregation recognized their cue and burst into shouts of acclamation charlemagne emerged from his visit to rome as a new figurehead for europe the first holy roman emperor and while he was in italy charlemagne visited the church of san vitale at ravenna it gave him an intriguing glimpse of what being an emperor could mean because it was built in the grandest of styles by the byzantine emperor justinian [Music] this was how an emperor should build this was how an emperor should be [Music] and so back in germany charlemine set his builders to copying justinian's church in his own palace chapel at aachen so enthroned as a christian emperor charlemagne developed a high sense of his own mission his scheme was both idealistic and practical his empire would be genuinely christian and the civil servants to run it for him would be the people nearest to god the monks [Music] [Music] r in rome charlemine had greatly enjoyed the church music of the monks of saint benedict the gregorian chant and he founded schools for the teaching of it north of the alps it was his encouragement to the benedictines which was to establish them as the one single order spreading throughout the whole of early medieval europe [Music] it was said that charlemagne's favorite book was saint augustine's city of god his vision was that he the emperor with the help of the monks would set about creating the city of god on earth in lake constance on the island of raikkonen there was one of the many benedictine monasteries supported by charlemagne and his successors from such places monks would carry to surrounding churches and villages the seeds of christian culture and civilization [Music] in return for royal patronage the monks were happy to paint the emperor as a semi-divine figure crowned personally by the hand of god holy roman emperors felt themselves to be the natural but improved successes of the pagan roman emperors who had also been halfway to heaven the jeweled pulpit at arkhan looks a suitable place from which to preach the truth endorsed by the emperor while at the same time showing off the emperor's wealth and power but this pulpit is also studied with pagan ivories which have no relevance at all except that they were carved in the great days of imperial rome and were treasured as such in the same way an antique cameo showing the head of the roman emperor augustus forms the centerpiece of a precious cross at arkhan and similar veneration would later be accorded to charlemine himself this golden reliquary was designed to hold some bones from his hand most of western europe under charlemagne's control was stable and christian by the end of his life he seemed to have established what he set out to achieve but there was to be one final upheaval [Music] the whole of scandinavia was still heathen already when charlemagne died the vikings were on the move each spring they would set off on expeditions across the sea to raid and plunder [Music] the shetlands the nearest islands to norway were the first to discover what a viking raid meant every january the people here still celebrate a viking mid-winter fire ceremony known as uphelia-r today the costumes and the smiling faces give it at first glance a cosy heir of pantomime but it's easy to imagine even so the terror caused a thousand years ago by wild heathen pirates arriving suddenly from the sea pillaging burning raping [Music] in this ceremony recreating the traditional funeral of a viking hero it's a ship that is burnt the most important of all viking possessions the object on which they lavish their most subtle skills their best carving a coffin fit for a hero but when the vikings first arrived in britain they weren't burning their own ships their favorite plunder was monasteries full of rich treasures and fat harmless monks were their victims beads monastery at jarrow was burnt by vikings 60 years after his death it wasn't to be the last to suffer such a fate the vikings moved on further west the christian civilization which had spread from ireland through england to northern europe was being rolled back along the same route today if you sail inland from the west coast of ireland up the river shannon it's a pleasant journey but in the year 845 this was the route by which a group of viking ships penetrated the country their target the rich monastery of clone mcnoys one of the great centres from which monks had converted the pagan irish fell to pagans from far away scandinavia it's said that the leader of this particular raiding party brought with him his wife who was a pagan priestess and that he set her up on the high altar from which she pronounced her prophecies what she certainly failed to prophesy was that though she now usurped a christian altar the tables would soon be turned at yelling in denmark the pagan stones and mound of the old world were long ago joined by a monument from the new the danish king who first adopted christianity put up a stone here with an inscription praising himself he was that same adult who conquered norway and made the danes christian [Music] it would be some time before christ even in this vigorous primitive form conquered norway but eventually there too the local skill with timber would produce christian churches more reminiscent of fanciful upturned ships complete with weird and savage prows europe finally was christian the vikings had moved as far and as fast as any of the previous waves of barbarians the word viking meant pirate but they were also known as men from the north norsemen normans and it was as norman's they launched their final invasion into england but by then that was just a dispute between rival christian kings the people of europe were settled but the old barbarian love of movement continued and it continued now within christian europe as pilgrimage pilgrims were constantly on the move to compostela in spain to rome and even to extendsteiner which had been claimed for christianity in the strangest of fashions amazingly these weirdly shaped rocks contain small chapels which were supposed to reproduce exactly some of the holy places in jerusalem the work had begun in 1093 there was a time when the turks were preventing pilgrims from reaching jerusalem and only three years later in 1096 the first crusade would set off to recapture the holy land but some monks from a monastery near here had a different solution if the pilgrims couldn't get to jerusalem they thought then jerusalem should come to the pilgrims and so from the 12th century christians clambered about these rocks marveling at hollowed-out areas which imitated the original holy places of palestine a monk had made the journey out there and was supposed to have brought back precise measurements the high point of the pilgrimage all too literally the high point was a visit to this chapel of calvary the pilgrims reaching here were told that this was the same size and the same shape as the chapel in jerusalem which had been built above the very rock on which the cross had stood for the crucifixion so they walked around it with the same sense of wonder as an american today perhaps visiting a replica of the mayflower though no doubt their wonder was even more intense the new europe then had broad horizons copying details from faraway jerusalem in this remote corner of germany but there is one feature here at extensteiner which shows that the germans were no longer mere provincials it backs up the theme of the chapels because it's a great rock sculpture showing the deposition of christ from the cross but such a sculpture could never have existed in jerusalem or constantinople or ancient rome roman sculpture was purely realistic this has an added element something vigorous exaggerated barbarian and the mixture is superb by the time this was carved in the 12th century christian europe had found its new identity in benedictine monasteries all along the pilgrim roots monks were now singing their gregorian chant in quiet cloisters full of the strange carved monsters which had so much appeal to their barbarian ancestors this was romanesque the vigorous new style that the barbarians had created from the rubble of the roman empire [Music] but the monks weren't only singing in the cloisters an offshoot of the benedictines made a christian virtue of hard manual labor they were the white monks the cistercians they advanced into many of the uncultivated corners of europe and through their efforts the land was tamed today it's the cistercians who contrived to grow grapes on the rocky island of laeras the monastery of laerance too was now playing its part in this new europe in 1073 the abbott decided he needed a fortified monastery and he began to build this tower it suited the new civilization an expansive europe in which priests themselves would soon be setting out on crusade and monks would build fortified monasteries far away in the holy land this was more a stronghold than a retreat and when the abbot persuaded pope urban ii to visit him here in 1094. he obtained a remarkable concession there was to be no earthly authority above the abbot of lerance except the pope himself the monks here were to be the pope's own man the emperor charlemagne had dreamt of controlling europe through a network of monasteries instead it was the pope who achieved it many monasteries like lehrans were under his direct control and all the clergy through the feudal hierarchy of the medieval church looked ultimately to rome the feudal pyramid was now firmly established at its top pope and emperor side by side the pope in this church painting that crucial inch or two higher the emperor with his barons the pope with his clergy just as the castle sits side by side with the abby church in medieval durham this strong frontier town in the north of england is not far from the old roman defense against the barbarians hadrian's wall in the abbey church which was also durham's cathedral the normans provided a magnificent resting place for two saints whose mortal remains had been grievously disturbed by the norman's ancestors the vikings the venerable bead lies here and some cuthbert after the vikings had burnt the monastery where cuthbert was first buried monks wandered for two centuries with his precious bones eventually the monks settled in durham [Music] so the descendants of the vikings enshrined the saint in a church which is one of the great glories of norman architecture [Music] the rounded arches which the english call norman are part of the wider tradition known in europe as romanesque deriving from roman culture the last wave of barbarians had finally settled down under the wing of the christian church and within the traditions of the roman empire [Music] here within church and cloister the monks sang read taught and wrote from monastery to monastery a vast stream of documents was now perpetually on the move through europe above all to and from rome some were trivial how many cows could a monastery keep some were routine clerical appointments being confirmed at headquarters and some were on matters of high policy how to control the local king or baron how to make sure that the church really towered above the castle an old prophecy said rome would stand as long as the tiber flowed well by now the flow of the tiber was exceeded easily by the flow of the documents but the remarkable fact was that the descendants of salts and goths and franks and vikings were writing in one language latin to one place rome the language had been that of the old roman empire the city had been its capital the barbarians in rome through the medium of christianity had come to a fruitful compromise and rome had a new kind of empire [Music] [Applause] you

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Length: 48min 31sec (2911 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021