Christendom divided and restored: The Latin and Greek churches in the historical imagination of the Middle Ages (868--1274

Scholars commonly argue that the unity of modern Europe was anticipated by the medieval religious community of Latin Christendom. This study examines the meaning of Latin Christian identity from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries viewed through one particular lens: the division of Christendom into two communities, one Latin and one Greek. This rupture between the followers of Rome and Constantinople is usually thought of as an ecclesiastical .schism over disputed points doctrine, rites and church hierarchy. The Latin divergence from the Greeks, however, constituted more than just an institutional conflict. It also involved a broad claim among Latin churchmen that Latin Christians were the ultimate recipients of the Lord's favor, the inheritors of Eastern relics and the liberators of the Holy Land from the Muslims. According to some, it was the Latins who would form the vanguard of God's apocalyptic plan for the restoration of the Western and Eastern churches, followed by the conversion of the Jews and the final triumph of the faithful over the forces of Antichrist. An important part of what made Latin Christians into Latins was this sense that members of the Latin community had a special role to play in salvation history, distinct from that of their Greek siblings. At the same time, certain Latin churchmen demonstrated considerable ambivalence toward the Greeks and viewed their divergence largely as the result of sins committed by the church of Rome. It was equally believed that God had punished and would punish again the Latin church for its own shortcomings. From this perspective, the topic of Christendom's division and its eschatological restoration provides us with insight into the meaning and limits of Latin Christian identity, while calling into question the popular thesis that Latins were increasingly and uniformly antagonistic toward Greeks in the Middle Ages.