Tom Holland's 2008 narrative history of the years around 1000 AD — when Christendom as a distinct civilization was forged from the multiple crises of the Viking, Magyar, and Saracen raids — arguing that the Church's reform movement and the year 1000's apocalyptic expectations transformed Latin Christianity into Western civilization.
Narrates the formation of Western Christian civilization — The Forge of Christendom demonstrates that what became Western Europe emerged from the specific crucible of the 10th century's multiple external threats and the Church's response to them: Cluniac reform, the Peace of God movement, and the first stirrings of papal monarchy.
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