A groundbreaking history of how the Christian West emerged from the ancient Mediterranean world
In this acclaimed history of Early Christendom Judith Herrin shows how--from the sack of Rome
in 410 to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800--the Christian West grew out of an ancient
Mediterranean world divided between the Roman west the Byzantine east and the Muslim south.
Demonstrating that religion was the period's defining force she reveals how the clash over
graven images banned by Islam both provoked iconoclasm in Constantinople and generated a
distinct western commitment to Christian pictorial narrative. In a new preface Herrin
discusses the book's origins reception and influence.
