{"product_id":"christendom-the-triumph-of-a-religion-ad-3001300-9780451494306","title":"Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion  AD 300-1300","description":"\u003cp\u003eA major reinterpretation of the religious superstate that came to define both Europe and Christianity itself  by one of our foremost medieval historians.  In the fourth century AD  a new faith grew out of Palestine  overwhelming the paganism of Rome and resoundingly defeating a host of other rival belief systems. Almost a thousand years later  all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers  and the religion  ingrained within culture and society  exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But how did a small sect of isolated and intensely committed congregations become a mass movement centrally directed from Rome? As Peter Heather shows in this illuminating new history  there was nothing inevitable about Christendoms rise and eventual dominance.  From Constantine the Greats pivotal conversion to Christianity to the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman empirewhich left the religion teetering on the edge of extinctionto the astonishing revolution of the eleventh century and beyond  out of which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation  Heather traces Christendoms chameleonlike capacity for self-reinvention  as it not only defined a fledgling religion but transformed it into an institution that wielded effective authority across virtually all of the disparate peoples of medieval Europe.  Authoritative  vivid  and filled with new insights  this is an unparalleled history of early Christianity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651870449717,"sku":"ByrdShop_045149430X","price":38.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780451494306.jpg?v=1781843157","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/christendom-the-triumph-of-a-religion-ad-3001300-9780451494306","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}