Transformation of the Roman West

The Church was at the heart of the political and social, as well as the religious changes that look place in the Roman West from the fourth to seventh centuries. In this concise and effective synthesis, Ian Wood considers some ways in which religion and the Church can be reintegrated into what has become a largely secular discourse, and he contends that the institutionalisation of the Church on a huge scale was a key factor in the transformation from an incipiently Christian Roman Empire to a world of thoroughly Christianised kingdoms.