The building of Christendom

Christ and His Church remain at the center of the story and the key to judging the significance and character of the events described. However, this is more than a history of the Church; it is a political and religious history of Christendom as shaped by the Church — by lay men and women as well as Popes, bishops, priests, monks, and nuns — during eight dramatic centuries when Rome fell, Muslims and barbarians attacked Christian Europe, and a new civilization was born.

Here is the story of the great heresies that seemed to carry all before them, yet always failed to gain their final goal of capturing the Papacy; of St. Patrick’s mission to Ireland and its glorious fruits; of a lone hero’s last stand against an empire stretching from France to China which began the 770 year war for the reconquest of Spain; of how the Popes became judges of kings and the First Crusade swept on to victory against all odds; of how the Church bridged the abyss of the Dark Ages and laid the foundations of a new Christian order like nothing the world has seen before or since. All Christian countries are covered, with the history of the Popes as the connecting thread.