ABSTRACT
Medieval Christendom was a diverse and far from unified society, but it is accurate to assert that the health of the social body and the continued favour of God were in general predicated on doctrinal purity and uniformity of religious practice, and that force was one tool that was frequently employed to maintain religious uniformity. Martin's model sermon was designed to root out Pagan and syncretistic beliefs and practices from the life of the peasantry in post-Roman Spain. Protestantism de-emphasized institutional mediation and stressed the importance of an individual's personal relationship with God through reading the Bible. The academic study of religion developed in the nineteenth century, in part as a response to this relativization of religions, as the abstract term 'religion' entered the Western vocabulary during the Enlightenment. Paganism is, by contrast, local and pluralist. When medieval Christian missionaries encountered Pagan beliefs, their instinctive reaction was to deem them wrong and to attempt to destroy them.
