of the many Christianities of this time. For the entire period from 200 to 1000, Christianity remained predominantly a religion of Asia and of northern Africa. Though well established in parts of the western Mediterranean {and not least in large cities such as Rome and Carthage} Christianity spread slowly throughout the non-Mediterranean West. What we now call a distinctively "European" Christianity was unthinkable in the year 500 A.D. Even the notion of "Europe" itself only took on its modern meaning in around the year 650 A.D. {as we will see at the end of chapter 11}. By the year 1000 A.D., what could be called a "European" Christianity had only recently been established, with the conversion of Germany, of parts of Eastern Europe, and of Scandinavia.
( Peter R.L. Brown )
[ The Rise of Western ]
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