1 The Foundations of Medieval Europe

The post-Roman setting

The deposition of the last western Roman emperor in 476 CE is a conventional marker for the end of the Western Roman Empire, not a sudden end to Roman life. Roman laws, customs, roads, towns, and Christian communities continued in many places, even as political authority became more local and varied.

The eastern half survived as the Byzantine Empire, whose rulers still considered themselves Roman. In western Europe, political power developed into a patchwork of kingdoms.

Continuity and change

These changes unfolded over generations. Some towns and long-distance networks weakened, while rural communities and regional centers became more important. New rulers adapted existing Roman practices and worked with local populations, so the post-Roman world combined Roman and Germanic traditions rather than simply replacing one with the other.

Early medieval kingdoms

Kingdoms formed in the former western empire, including the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia, kingdoms in Italy, and the Frankish realm in Gaul. Their borders and ruling families changed through warfare, alliances, and inheritance. Kings relied on personal ties to warriors and nobles as well as on the resources and customs of the lands they controlled.

Kingship and religious conversion

The Franks became especially influential under Clovis, who ruled from the late fifth into the early sixth century. His conversion to Nicene Christianity connected Frankish kingship with the Church and helped distinguish his rule among the Christian peoples of the former Roman West.

In Iberia, Visigothic King Reccared converted from Arian Christianity to Nicene Christianity in 589. His conversion helped bring religious unity to his kingdom. These cases show that religious choices could support political alliances and a shared identity, but conversion across a kingdom was gradual.

Christian institutions

Christianity had spread widely in the Roman Empire before its western government disappeared. In the post-Roman West, churches and monasteries provided enduring institutions despite changing rulers. Bishops led Christian communities and could be influential local figures. Monasteries organized religious life and, in some places, supported learning and the copying of texts.

Benedict of Nursia’s sixth-century monastic rule shaped communities well beyond the monastery he founded at Monte Cassino.

Religion and political authority

Kings supported churches, sought the backing of bishops and popes, and sometimes sponsored missions to neighboring peoples. These relationships could strengthen a ruler’s standing, but Church and royal interests were not identical: religious leaders and kings could cooperate, negotiate, or disagree.

Christianization did not happen everywhere at once. Christian and non-Christian communities, as well as different forms of Christianity, coexisted across early medieval Europe.

A changing European landscape

After the western Roman imperial government ended, Roman traditions continued alongside new regional powers. Early kingdoms, including the Franks and Visigoths, formed through changing military and political relationships. Christianity linked communities across these kingdoms and gave rulers influential partners and symbols of legitimacy, while churches and monasteries helped sustain religious and intellectual life.