Christendom, the social-political-religious definition of Europe for nearly millennium was shaken at the right moment and the right place to rend it asunder for all time.  In Hans J. Hillerbrand’s revision of his own work, The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century, the Reformation started by Martin Luther in Germany is seen first and foremost as a religious dispute that was not inevitable but due to political and societal factors as able to evolve until it became irreversible.

 

Hillerbrand began by setting the stage upon which Luther would burst onto the scene focusing not only on the condition of the Church, but also the political situation in Germany.  Then Hillerbrand goes into what he calls “the first phase” of the Reformation in which Luther was the primary focus from 1517 to 1521, then after Luther’s stand at Worms the focus of the Reformation changes from a primarily religious controversy into one that politics begins to dominate in Germany.  Yet, Hillerbrand doesn’t stop with Luther and Germany, as he begins describing the reactions to the German events in other territories before they lead to their own Reformation events.  The Catholic Church’s response to the spread of Protestantism across Europe, the different forms of Protestantism besides Lutheranism, and the theological debates between all of them were all covered.  And at the end of the book Hillerbrand compared the beginning of the 16^th-century to the end and how each was different and the same after over 80 years of debate.

 

While Hillerbrand’s survey of the Reformation is intended for both general audiences and scholars, which he successes in doing, the epilogue of the book is what I believe is the best part of the text.  Entitled “Historiography”, Hillerbrand discusses the various ways the Reformation has been covered by historians over the past 500 years and the trends in history as well.  But in reviewing his own text, Hillerbrand emphasized the religious aspect that sparked as well as influenced the Reformation and the importance of the events in Germany which determined not only Luther’s but the Reformation’s fate in Europe.  By ending the book on this note, Hillerbrand gives his readers much to think about on either to agree or disagree with his conclusion which is one of the many reasons to study history.

 

The Division of Christendom is a relatively, for 500 pages, compact survey of 16^th-century Europe in which things both changed dramatically and yet stayed the same during a transformative time in Western history.  As one of the foremost historians of the Reformation, Hans J. Hillerbrand knows this period of history as no one else and just adds to my recommendation to read this book for those interested in the Reformation.

 

The Knight of the Temple is the debut novel of The Crown of the World trilogy written by young author Nathan Sadasivan.

 

The book cover shows Christ's crown of thorns above a battle scene where the main character, Godfrey de Montferrat, a bold and brave Temple Knight, is engaged on a battle. The author takes the reader into a tale of Christendom with emphasis on Godfrey's dilemmas about faith, loyalty, love, war, and his purposes in life.

 

The book begins with Godfrey de Montferrat and his companion, Jacques de Maille, riding their horses through the desert of Egypt searching for a Frankish camp. Due to the intense heat of the sun, both horsemen are extremely tired, thirsty, and have had hardly any sleep. They find an oasis where they refresh themselves and their horses can drink water to replenish their energy. Not far from them, Yusef, an arab leader well-known for his battle and commanding skills, and his warriors discovered the hoofprints of the Temple Knight's horses. Yusef, allows Malik to go and investigate the matter and report back to him. Malik, a young warrior thirsty for Frankish's blood and with battle fever, reports his findings to Yusef and suggests a surprise attack on the knights. But things don't go as smooth as Malik expects. The knights fight back but get separated during the battle. This separation leaves Godfrey defending his life fiercely against Malik's violent attacks.

 

The outcome of his encounter with Malik marks the beginning of Godfrey's personal quest to find the answer to his many questions. The encounter with Yusef and his warriors at the desert is just the beginning of the many clashes between the Saracen (Muslims) and the Frankish Knights. The author will take the reader to a world of betrayal, espionage, love, prayer, and political power struggles, where the most ambitious and wicked one of them all will stop at nothing to reach his goal.

 

I admire the author's attention to details. With the skills of a masterful painter, he portrays the battle scenes and enfold the reader into a mystical tale of a world already forgotten, and a time where not everything is was what is seems to be.

 

At the end of the book Godfrey finds himself in front of the Tabernacle demanding to know:Why??? The answer to his question will open up the road of healing for his broken spirit and will leave the reader contemplating on its meaning, too.

 

I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy books about Christendom and are willing to follow Godfrey de Montferrat and his companions through this trilogy.

Prestige and links with the past counted greatly for such rulers. There were still many pasts from which they could choose. P343

There is a certain symmetry to this excellent book. Its introduction is worth reading in its own right as a mighty survey of recent historical work that has debunked a great deal of what we thought we knew about the end of the Western Roman Empire and its late chapters describe how the myths we have relied on were produced in the interests of an emerging European elite. Perhaps a fulcrum to all this is the Carolingian myth that they were restoring the original Christian Roman Empire of Constantine after a long “Dark Ages” caused by barbarian invasions. In the light of this book, we can only smile at the power of political ideology to make us believe so strongly in the reality of things that never were.

More pragmatically, the book implies that what made the Roman Empire effective was its system of taxation and its exploitation of the labour of its peasant farmers. After centuries in which rulers lost the power to accumulate capital through taxation, Western Christianity in its “Roman” form offered a rediscovery of taxation and peasant exploitation through the medium of tithes. Pagans clearly recognised the connection between conversion (often forced) and the emergence of strong kings, and the example is given of Iceland choosing to adopt Christianity as a way to avoid the violent imposition of a Christian ruler as witnessed in Denmark and Trondheim and hence to protect its uniquely democratic legal system. This incident from the final chapter reiterates findings reviewed in the introduction that the so called “fall of the Roman Empire” brought about a considerable improvement in the lives of many local communities, albeit alongside a collapse of the types of economic activity which would mainly benefit the elites.

The book makes the interesting point that northern pagans presented Christianity with quite different challenges to those of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Its final chapter describes the role of Christian scribes in setting down all that we know of the Tain, Beowulf, the Icelandic sagas and the oral culture generally of the northern peoples, with the surprising evidence that they preserved pagan myths because their Christian rulers at the time still depended on them for legitimacy. Popular religion typically wove together Christian and pagan features, especially because Christianity failed to address the importance of season and weather in the lives of European peasants away from the Mediterranean.

The conversion of pagans has often been less essential than converting different Christians to a contested orthodoxy. There has always been a contest between the religious requirements of the ruling elite and the religious concerns and priorities of ordinary people. The major theme of this book is its demonstration that there has never been a single, recognizably orthodox Christianity. It is a faith that has been adapted repeatedly and creatively to serve the needs of diverse communities, fragmenting into many competing and often incompatible belief systems. And of course, related to this has been the writing and rewriting of histories to justify each change of direction in the swirling mists of social change.

Interesting topic, fairly dry presentation.

Christendom 1 - Roland H. Bainton Ok, first the good points about the first volume of Christendom: It was readable (which surprised me), the first portion of the book was interesting to me, and I learned several things.

Now, the less than good points: Although I learned several things, the main thing that's going to stick in my mind is that the word "czar" is a corruption of the word "ceasar." I doubt that this is the main thing the author wanted his readers to come away with. I think there are two main reasons why very little from this book is going to stick for me. First of all, the author assumes, I think, that his readers will have a solid understanding of the history of Europe during the time period that this book covers. I am not one of those people. I felt fairly comfortable when the author was discussing the early days of Christianity, but as soon as Rome fell, he lost me. There is just not enough skeleton to my knowledge of this time frame to make what the author was trying to do (show me how Christianity influenced Western Europe) to make his effort successful in my case. It's not enough, for instance, to know that Charlemagne, or Innocent III, or Justinian existed. The author expected his reader to know who these people were and why they were significant, because he was not going to fill in those details for you.

Secondly, because the author assumes a certain level of pre-existing knowledge on the part of his reader, his examples are sometimes, well, thin. I was very struck by this when he was discussing Heloise and Abelard in his section about how Christianity and the idea of romantic love interacted with each other. The author holds up Heloise and Abelard as an example of the point he was trying to illustrate, and then says, in essence, "well, we all know what happened to them, so there's no need to discuss it here." Trust me, we don't all know what happened to them, so this example, which may have been perfect, now falls completely flat and illustrates nothing.

All in all, I'd probably give this first volume of Christendom 2.5 stars. I got some things out of it, and it was readable, but it's just not going to stick for me. Something I read *may* come back to me the next time I watch a related show on TV, but I'm most likely to forget most of this book within a month, and I'm not too likely to check out volume II.