BULGARIA Constantinople Black Sea Paris FRANCE HUNGARY Frankfurt GERMANY POLAND Prague RUSSIA Kiev DENMARK Hamburg
Baltic Sea
Moscow
topic, you will learn about:
The power of the Catholic Church
The role of religious belief in people’s lives
KEY Catholic Christianity
Greek (Eastern Orthodox) Christianity Islam
M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a Jerusalem Alexandria FATIMID CALIPHATE Christendom
Christendom Medieval Europe was almost entirely Catholic. Religious belief was very strong and had a huge
infl uence on people’s daily lives. Many people lived in constant fear of going to hell if they did not obey the Church’s teachings. So important was religion and so powerful was the Catholic Church that Europe was often called Christendom, which means the ‘kingdom of Christ’.
DID YOU KNOW?
Christendom was also home to many non-Christians. Most towns across medieval Europe had small Jewish communities, while for centuries the Muslim territory of Al-Andalus (now Andalusia in southern Spain) was a beacon of culture and learning.
The Alhambra in Andalusia
The Pope in Rome was the head of the Catholic Church and was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Europe was divided into dioceses, run by archbishops and bishops, and then into smaller parishes, run by priests. Kings often gave land and money to bishops and this made the Church very wealthy. Bishops would build huge churches called cathedrals in their dioceses to symbolise their power.
