ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses delineating the various tactics and dynamics that brought about the Christianisation of the early medieval West. It focuses on the interaction between various notions of masculinity and conversion to Christianity in the early medieval West. For public figures and military leaders, conversion was a ritualised game of hazard, a blood sport'. In order to do so, late antique and early medieval bishops developed a masculine rhetoric of conversion' that was meant to inculcate this idea. This rhetoric is apparent in a plethora of contemporary and near-contemporary sources that disseminate in various ways a Christian political ideology of kingship. The common good of the kingdom is the message of yet another rhetorical device deployed by late antique and early medieval authors that is, the insinuation of womanly influence on the conversion of prominent men. Every student of medieval history is familiar with the story of Clovis's conversion to Catholicism at the instigation of his Catholic wife, Queen Clothilde.
