ABSTRACT
There is no precise date at which we can say with assurance that the ancient church ended and the medieval church began. The transition from one to the other was not an event but a long process of which contemporaries were unaware. The fate of the Roman Empire had immense implications for the future of Christianity. In the eastern parts of the empire, the alliance between Christianity and the Roman state remained unbroken and developed into the close intertwining of the Orthodox church and the Byzantine Empire. In the western territories of the Roman Empire, the course of development was very different. The alliance between normative Christianity and the imperial government was unstable because the empire was slowly collapsing under the weight of economic, political and military problems. The decisive centuries of transition were the fifth and sixth. In the fifth century, the' imperial government in the west collapsed in one region after another under the pressure of invaders who spoke Germanic languages. In the sixth century, the territories of the western empire were divided among Germanic tribes, although a few small territories, including the city of Rome, remained as outposts under the control of the Roman emperors who resided at Constantinople. For the purposes of this book, the medieval church began when Christianity outlived the Roman state in the west and had to come to terms with a very different environment. The normative Christianity of the Roman Empire continued to offer models of behaviour and ideals after which to strive, but the key development was adaptation to a new situation.
