Skip content
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch
Christendom by Peter Heather
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, youโ€™ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Christendom

The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300

$30.00

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Peter Heather
Length 23 hours 47 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

'A fascinating story about a religion in a surprisingly precarious position' Dan Jones, Sunday Times

'Superb storytelling ... captivating and profound' Literary Review

'A page-turner' The Spectator


*A major new reinterpretation of Christendom, by one of our foremost medieval historians*

In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling new history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to Europe-wide dominance.

In exploring how the Christian religion became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a small sect of isolated and intensely committed congregations was transformed into a mass movement centrally directed from Rome, Peter Heather shows how Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies' and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman empire, which left the religion teetering on the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution of the eleventh century and beyond in which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation, Heather traces Christendom's chameleon-like capacity for self-reinvention and astounding willingness to mobilize well-directed force.

Christendom's achievement was not, or not only, to define official Christianity, but - from its scholars and its lawyers, to its provincial officials and missionaries in far-flung corners of the continent - to transform it into an institution that wielded effective religious authority across nearly all of the disparate peoples of medieval Europe. This is its extraordinary story.

'Sweeping and engaging history ... a non-triumphalist history of the triumph of Christianity, and all the more powerful for it' Financial Times

Peter Heather is Chair of Medieval History at King's College, London. His many books include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe, The Restoration of Rome, Rome Resurgent and, most recently, Christendom.

Peter Heather is Chair of Medieval History at King's College, London. His many books include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe, The Restoration of Rome, Rome Resurgent and, most recently, Christendom.

Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, youโ€™ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

*Financial Times Best Books of 2022: History*

"Magesterial . . . A bold reinterpretation of faith's nascent days . . . Adequately covering a thousand years of ecclesiastical governance and personal piety demands prodigious scholarship, and Heather answers the call admirably . . . A learned, exhaustive, and spritely account of the religious goings-on wherever Masses were celebrated." —Bob Duffy, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Fresh, prodigiously researched . . . Takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through eight centuries and across the length and breadth of Europe (and beyond) to understand the rise of Christendom . . . Throughout, the author finds ways to turn conventional wisdom on its head [and] introduces a host of little-known characters who played an outsized role in Christianity’s spread." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Students of the ancient world will find refreshing new perspectives on post-Roman Empire European history that challenge the received wisdom." —Mark Knoblauch, Booklist

“[A] sweeping and engaging history . . . Full of reinterpretations and new insights . . . [Heather’s] approach makes for a startlingly fresh look at a familiar story, a non-triumphalist history of the triumph of Christianity, and his book is all the more powerful for it.” —Jane Shaw, Financial Times

“We live in a golden age of broad-ranging historical surveys written by those who know what they’re talking about. Among them, Christendom is a fine specimen.” —Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Times Literary Supplement
 
“A page-turner . . . It is more pressing than ever to understand how exactly Christianity came to dominate in Europe. Heather’s account cuts through the myth of an innately Christian, culturally monolithic Europe [and] sheds light on the mechanics of state coercion and intermittent violence which led to the birth of Christendom.” —Eleanor Myerson, The Spectator

“Heather casts his eye across the whole medieval period as he unfolds a fascinating story about a religion in a surprisingly precarious position.” —Dan Jones, The Sunday Times (London)
 
“A brilliant exercise in disenchantment . . . Superb storytelling . . . While Christendom is fabulously rich in telling detail, Heather is always mindful of the big picture. The book is at once captivating and profound.” —Costica Bradatan, The Literary Review
 
“Expertly and entertainingly told . . . One of the many delights of this weighty book is the abundance of little-heard but illuminating and intriguing stories that [Heather] weaves into the narrative.” —Peter Stanford, The Daily Telegraph Expand reviews
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch