According to our division laid down in the introduction to the first volume, the three periods
of the middle ages are the fourth, fifth and sixth periods of the general history of Christianity.
FOURTH PERIOD
THE CHURCH AMONG THE BARBARIANS
FROM GREGORY I. TO GREGORY VII.
a.d. 590 to 1049.
––––––––––
CHAPTER II.
CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN AND WESTERN BARBARIANS
§ 6. Character of Mediaeval Missions.
The conversion of the new and savage races which enter the theatre of history at the threshold
of the middle ages, was the great work of the Christian church from the sixth to the tenth century.
Already in the second or third century, Christianity was carried to the Gauls, the Britons and the
Germans on the borders of the Rhine. But these were sporadic efforts with transient results. The
work did not begin in earnest till the sixth century, and then it went vigorously forward to the tenth
and twelfth, though with many checks and temporary relapses caused by civil wars and foreign
invasions.
The Christianization of the Kelts, Teutons, and Slavonians was at the same time a process
of civilization, and differed in this respect entirely from the conversion of the Jews, Greeks, and
Romans in the preceding age. Christian missionaries laid the foundation for the alphabet, literature,
agriculture, laws, and arts of the nations of Northern and Western Europe, as they now do among
the heathen nations in Asia and Africa. "The science of language," says a competent judge,^7 "owes
more than its first impulse to Christianity. The pioneers of our science were those very apostles
who were commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; and their
true successors, the missionaries of the whole Christian church." The same may be said of every
branch of knowledge and art of peace. The missionaries, in aiming at piety and the salvation of
souls, incidentally promoted mental culture and temporal prosperity. The feeling of brotherhood
inspired by Christianity broke down the partition walls between race and race, and created a
brotherhood of nations.
The mediaeval Christianization was a wholesale conversion, or a conversion of nations
under the command of their leaders. It was carried on not only by missionaries and by spiritual
means, but also by political influence, alliances of heathen princes with Christian wives, and in
some cases (as the baptism of the Saxons under Charlemagne) by military force. It was a conversion
not to the primary Christianity of inspired apostles, as laid down in the New Testament, but to the
secondary Christianity of ecclesiastical tradition, as taught by the fathers, monks and popes. It was
a baptism by water, rather than by fire and the Holy Spirit. The preceding instruction amounted to
little or nothing; even the baptismal formula, mechanically recited in Latin, was scarcely understood.
The rude barbarians, owing to the weakness of their heathen religion, readily submitted to the new
religion; but some tribes yielded only to the sword of the conqueror.
(^7) Max Müller, Science of Language, I. 121.