The Forge of Christendom by Tom Holland

Acknowledgments
    Since pilgrimage is one of the major themes of this book, perhaps it is only fitting that the writing of it should often have seemed a long and winding road. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to everyone who helped me finally to arrive at my journey’s end. To Richard Beswick and Iain Hunt, my editors, and miracle-workers both. To Susan de Soissons, Roger Cazalet, and everyone else at Little, Brown, for all their unswerving support. To Jake Smith-Bosanquet, for his doughty batting as well as for his suave negotiating technique, and to Patrick Walsh, the best of agents, and the dedicatee of this book. To Gerry Howard, for his encouragement at a key moment of despondency, and to Frits van der Meij, for all his trained medievalist’s guidance. To James Palmer and Magnus Ryan, for giving the manuscript an exactingly – indeed, intimidatingly – close reading, and for being so incredibly generous with their time, scholarship and advice. To Robert Irwin, the
non-pareil
of contemporary orientalists, for reading the chapters on Christendom’s engagement with Islam. To Ben Yates, who bodes well to be the future of Norse studies in this country, for reading the final draft through despite all the other demands on his time – and to invaluable effect. To David Crouch, for opening my eyes fully to the challenges that lay ahead. To Michael Wood, for confirming me in my opinion that there is no period more fascinating and under-studied than the tenth century. To Andrea Wulf and Maike Bohn, who more than made up for my deplorable lack of German – and yes, Andrea, Holy Lances
are
more interesting than plants. To Jamie Muir, for reading the chapters through as they were written with all his customaryacuity and good humour, and for accompanying me around the housing estate that now occupies the site where Harald Hardrada fell. To Caroline Muir, for running round and round the local park with me whenever I felt the need to escape the first Millennium – or, indeed, to reflect upon it away from my desk. To Father Dunstan Adams OSB, for enabling me to share, if only briefly, in the daily rhythms that once animated Cluny. To Marianna Albini, for accompanying me to Canossa. To my brother, James Holland, for buying me a Norman helmet. To my parents, Jans and Martin Holland, for bringing me up in the very heartlands of Wessex. Above all, to my beloved family, Sadie, Katy and Eliza, for putting up with my lengthy bouts of hermitlike seclusion, for accompanying me uncomplainingly around Danish tumuli and Auvergnat churches alike, and for allowing me to name our cats Harold and Edith.
Beatus vir qui implevit faretram suam
.

“But do not ignore this fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”
    2 Peter 3.8
    “The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.”
    Hilaire Belloc

Timeline
    All dates are
anno Domini
.
    ?33
The crucifixion of Jesus.
?64
The execution of St. Peter in Rome.
?95
St. John writes the Book of Revelation.
?287
The martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion.
312
Constantine captures Rome, supposedly after a vision of Christ.
330
The founding of Constantinople.
426
St. Augustine completes his book on the City of God.
?507
The conversion of Clovis, King of the Franks.
711
The Muslim invasion of Spain.
751
Pepin makes himself king, deposing the dynasty of Clovis.
754
Pope Stephen II, having crossed the Alps, anoints Pepin.
800
Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III.
843
The Treaty of Verdun: Charlemagne’s empire is divided between his three grandsons.
846
Muslim pirates sack St. Peter’s in Rome.
856
Viking pirates sack Orléans.
899
The Hungarians begin their raids on Christendom.
905
The termination of the Carolingian line of emperors: the imperial throne of the West is left vacant.
910
The founding of the abbey of Cluny.
911
Rollo, a Viking warlord, agrees to convert to Christianity, and is granted the overlordship of