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.

‘A serious and powerful book…A grand synthesis on a scale few people would dare now to attempt, ranging across diverse societies with considerable assurance.’ - Christopher J. Wickham, International History Review

‘A brilliant overview of how the legacy of the Roman empire continued to shape the Mediterranean world.’ - Rowan Williams, New Humanist

‘It will no longer be possible to hop from pagan antiquity to Carolingian Europe as if nothing had happened in between. Judith Herrin has laid her sheet of paper over the map of that 'dark’ age and rubbed and rubbed until the rich web of connections and cracks has shown through.‘ - Marina Warner, The Independent

'An ambitious, learned, lucid, and instructive book.’ - Alexander Murray, Times Literary Supplement