The Quest for the City:
A.D. 740 to 1100
Pursuing the next world, they founded this one

As the last quarter of the first Christian millennium drew to its end, the prospects for Christianity did not look promising. Much of western Europe still lay a smoldering ruin, little recovered from the invasion of the barbarian tribes from the East that had destroyed the western Roman Empire. At least half of the lands that had once been Christendom—much of modern Turkey, the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa and Spain -- now lay under Muslim domination. There Christians were tolerated as a backward minority, forbidden on pain of death to preach the Gospel, ride horses, build tall churches or ring church bells, subject to special taxes, and often required to wear special clothes designating their inferior status. In these circumstances, thousands were turning to Islam.

Meanwhile, from the East came the Magyars, kinfolk of the old Huns, and even more terrifying. From the North came another scourge. The Vikings, romantic in their folk tales and the Medieval world’s greatest seamen, were nonetheless cruel beyond description and wreaked terror, slaughter and fiery destruction along the coasts of Britain, Ireland, France and the Low Countries, virtually wiping out the Christian presence on the northern seaboard.

Out of this misery and chaos, there emerged an amazing movement. Just as in later centuries men and women who felt the call of Christ were drawn to the overseas missions, the closing years of the first millennium would see them drawn in thousands to the monasteries and convents. Wave after wave of monastic initiative swept the West, each a reform on its predecessor.

The monks and nuns were there chiefly to save their souls, and to create what Augustine and the Bible had called the “City of God.” Thus, the volume’s title, The Quest for the City. But in the course of doing this, they saved and renewed western Europe, draining the swamps, restoring the land to food production, and rebuilding the roads. They saw new towns spring up, and old cities rebuilt. Most important of all, they copied and archived the great works of the ancient world that one day would make possible the rediscovery of Greek philosophy and the birth of modern science. In short, though they had not the faintest notion they were doing it, they were in fact laying the foundations of what would come to be called “western civilization.”

All through the period of this volume, order gradually replaced chaos. Charlemagne created a model Christian empire, which fell into ruin with his death. In Britain, now named “Angle-land,” for one of the barbarian tribes that had conquered it, the Saxon king Alfred would score the first great victory over the Vikings, baptize their king, and become the only English monarch known as “the Great.”

The Englishman Boniface would live a life endless peril and hasten the conversion of the German tribes. But the greatest Christian triumph would occur far to the East, where the Vikings became the rulers of the people called “the Rus,” and the Viking Valdimir’s decision to become Christian would lead to one of the great love stories of our history, out of which modern Russia would one day emerge.

Foreword to The Quest For The City:

With the publication of this sixth volume, we complete Part I and reach the halfway point in the twelve-volume series. We have now covered the first Christian millennium and moved slightly into the second, ending on the eve of the Crusades. This volume covers what will probably turn out to be the longest time span of any of them, the period from 740 to 1100—three hundred and sixty years in which four momentous developments take place.

The first is the most difficult for the modern reader to comprehend. The monk and the nun become the central figures of Christianity. The idea of giving up home, family life, all one’s possessions, almost all physical comforts, and all of one’s time, to the service of Jesus Christ, in common with other men or women of similar mind, will seem to many readers extreme to the point of delirium.

And yet, is it? Christians today of almost every denomination give up many of these things when they undertake foreign mission work. Others do so in undertaking work in urban ghettos. At a minimum, every Christian risks being branded a “religious kook” if he witnesses to Christ in a typical workplace. And there was a time, in the memory of many people still living, when men voluntarily gave up these same things to fight in wars from which there was every possibility they would not return. No, the depth of the commitment of the monk or nun is not entirely unknown today. Only the form of it is unusual.

But in these centuries long passed, it was not unusual. Impelled by their vision of a world to come, men and women divorced themselves from this world. Ironically, however, their effect on this one was profound and is still with us today, for they established the very foundations of our society. That is the first development covered in this volume.

The second is a great tragedy. Eastern and Western Christianity divided, to the ultimate detriment of both. Neither wanted this to happen. When it did, neither believed the rupture would be permanent. But it would become permanent, and in no small degree because of it, in Part II of the series, we will see Eastern Christians suffer almost an entire millennium of steady oppression and persecution, unrelieved and on occasion made worse by their brothers in the West.

Offsetting this reversal, however, is the third development, a truly glorious accomplishment, namely the thorough conversion of the Slavic peoples and the establishment of Christianity right across Eastern Europe. The delightful story of its crowning achievement, the coming of “the Rus” to Christ in Prince Vladimir’s determination to win his Christian wife, is one of those strange love stories that happen also to be true. It concludes chapter 8.

Finally, we come to the fourth event, or series of events, of which Christians should be acutely aware. Much mention is made these days of the Crusades, which are usually portrayed as an unprovoked Christian attack on the peace-loving peoples of Islam. This is greatly at odds with the facts.
In the last volume, we showed how Islamic forces took over more than half the Christian world at the point of the sword. In the last two chapters of this one, we show how Muslims fought for the next three hundred years to finish off Christianity, conquering southern France, Sicily, Crete, the Aegean Islands and repeatedly attacking Rome itself, resulting finally in the Christian counterattack known as the Crusades. From the Christian perspective, the Crusades were morally doubtful. But they were not unprovoked. They were very provoked indeed.

Ted Byfield