How Christianity Civilized Barbarian Europe in Just One Hundred Years

by Emmet Scott (January 2014)

At the dawn of the tenth century most of Europe was a rural backwater. All of the lands east of the Elbe (and almost all east of the Rhine) were barbarian-infested wastelands without a trace of literate civilization. Those to the west, in Gaul and Britain, and even in Italy, were not much better. In this region there prevailed an almost universal illiteracy and a subsistence barter economy of the most primitive kind. There existed only a handful of towns with more than 30,000 people, and even these were nothing like the towns of the Roman period. England had none, with the possible exception of London. Even Rome had little more than the same figure. Yet by 1492, when Columbus set out on his great voyage of discovery, Europe stood on the verge of world domination. The continent, from the Atlantic almost to the Urals, was full of towns and cities built partly of stone and brick, with dozens of universities and a thriving economy. The whole of Europe was crisscrossed with roads which conveyed an astonishing array of wealth and produce from one region to another. Printed books were everywhere, and literacy was extremely common, even among the relatively poor.

What had happened in the intervening years? The answer is no secret, and until fairly recent times was widely accepted and celebrated: Christianity, and with it a rejuvenated form of Latin civilization, commenced, from around 950, to spread east of the Rhine and north of Germany. By 1050 this Christianized Latin civilization had advanced almost as far east as the Ural Mountains, raising towns, cathedrals, universities, schools and hospitals in every land it entered. Indeed, the continent of Europe was civilized and transformed in this one century even more quickly than the continent of North America was transformed in the years after 1700. It took two centuries for literate and urban civilization to spread in America from the Atlantic to the Pacific: the vast space between Rhine and Urals was civilized in little more than one.

 Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 124.)

Essays and Sketches, Vol. 3, New York, 1948, pp. 316-7.)

If the monks were classical scholars, they were equally natural philosophers, engineers and agriculturalists. Certain monasteries might be known for their skill in particular branches of knowledge. Thus, for example, lectures in medicine were delivered by the monks of Saint Benignus at Dijon, whilst the monastery of Saint Gall had a school of painting and engraving, and lectures in Greek and Hebrew could be heard at certain German monasteries. (Ibid., p. 319.) Monks often supplemented their education by attending one or more of the monastic schools established throughout Europe. Abbo of Fleury, having mastered the disciplines taught in his own house, went to study philosophy and astronomy at Paris and Rheims. We hear similar stories about Archbishop Raban of Mainz, Saint Wolfgang, and Gerbert of Aurillac. (Ibid., pp. 317-9.)

Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 95)

As noted by the above writer, their interest in healing led the monks naturally into medical research, and in course of time they accumulated a vast knowledge of physiology, pathology, and medication. Their studies of herbs and natural remedies led them into the investigation of plants, and they laid the foundations of the sciences of botany and biology.

As part of the Rule of Benedict, the monks were committed to a life of work, study and prayer, and the work part often involved manual labor in the fields. This led to a renewed respect for this type of activity amongst the aristocracy who, by the late Roman period, had come to regard manual work with contempt. Their labors in the fields produced a deep interest in agriculture and agricultural techniques. New technologies were developed by the monks, including, almost certainly, the windmill. Everywhere, they introduced new crops, industries, or production methods. Here they would introduce the rearing of cattle and horses, there the brewing of beer or the raising of bees or fruit. In Sweden, the corn trade owed its existence to the monks.

The Impact of Islam, both published in New English Review Press.

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