A broad survey of the formation of medieval Europe in the first millennium CE, from the British Isles in the fifth century to the new Slavic states towards the end of the first millennium. We will talk about Romans and barbarians, Christians and pagans, Charlemagne, the Vikings and the emergence of new nations and states whose names are still on the map today (such as the English, French, Normans, Poles or Russians). We will observe how these societies came to be part of a Western Christendom defined by a Christianity that is much closer to ‘our’ Christianity today than to the Christianities of earlier times or those of the East.
