Christianity in the roman empire.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Theo,

Up north I think there were alot less christians in Europe. After the fall of Rome christianity died down a bit everywhere except Rome, Egypt, Judea, and the Byzantine Empire I believe. This is due to the barbarian invasians into former Roman areas.

This was only true for Britain, IIRC. The Goths were already Christian before they even invaded Roman territory. The Franks and Vandals quickly converted after their invasions. Christianity was flourishing in Spain under the Visigoths. It was still possible to attain a classical education in Spain and Italy in the sixth century. Only Britain and parts of Gaul truly descended into a dark age.

I must say that I am still wondering very much about the actual figures. On the one hand it's clear that paganism is not very much alive in most areas of the Roman empire by the late 5th century, we must of course wonder about the actual 'depth of belief' in those areas. Thompson made a case for the absence of any paganism in Late Roman Noricum - which must indeed tell us something; if border areas under threat indeed showed such a level of Christianization, the more central areas would probably have been even more Christian.

That being said though, I have some reserves about your statement on Britain descending into a dark age, whilst in Spain a classical education was still available.

Spain, especially the areas suffering from Suevic domination between the vandal move to Africa and before the Gothic takeover, was not exactly a good place for the intellectuals. Nor was it a place for obedient Christians, judging from the letters from pope Leo to the disobedient see of Tarragona (the only area not under Suevic control). It seems to have been a place that you wanted to escape from, as the historian Orosius did, scrambling towards a ship under a hail of barbarian missiles, fleeing to Minorca (and a frowning St Augustine noticed that some Spanish did stay with their beleaguered flock).

Britain would have been a similar place like Suevic Spain. It seems that many British Christians did not stay true to their belief though, and they may have embraced paganism as they may have embraced the Anglo-Saxon language at some point.
And even so, it seems that a monk called Gildas was by the early 6th century still able to get a classical education. Strange.