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INTRODUCTION

It was the Roman Empire that first gave Europe an identity, unity and cohesion. The
Roman Empire lasted roughly from 0 to 500 AD. Because it was centred on the
Mediterranean, it did not exactly coincide with Europe. It did not include the
northern part of Europe, but did include North Africa and the Middle East. Long after
it fell, throughout the Middle Ages, roughly 500 to 1500 AD, Rome continued to
exercise a fascination for those who came after; it had a strong “afterglow”.

Around 1500 Europe underwent an astonishing series of transformations: the
Renaissance, the voyages of discovery, colonization, the Scientific and Industrial
Revolutions. These transformed not only Europe but, via global colonization, the
world. Modernity – the modern world in all its ramifications – originated in Europe.

This is not to suggest that Europeans have superior DNA, but clearly there must be
something unusual in European history that triggered these transformations.

Underlying them all is the change from a religious to a “secular” outlook (“secular”
means having a focus on earthly concerns, on this world, rather than on the world of
religion). Before 1500 Europe was “Christendom”, built on religious foundations.
After 1500 Europe became increasingly “secular”, drained of religious influences.
What could have triggered this fundamental change? Whatever it was, it must be
something unusual in Europe’s pre-1500 history.

I suggest that this “something” is a fact so well known that its weirdness often goes

unnoticed, namely the fact that the Roman Empire became Christian, and although
the Roman Empire fell, the Christian Church didn’t. Spiritual and earthly authority
became separated, divorced from one another. Modern visitors to Rome can see this
division between the earthly and the spiritual: the earthly remains of the Roman
Empire lie on one side of the River Tiber, near the city centre, while the home of
spiritual authority, the Vatican, lies across the river. During the Middle Ages this

divorce caused perpetual conflict, like the clashing of tectonic plates, and it was this
conflict that led to the transformation of Europe from Christendom to secularism
after 1500. This is unique to European history. It explains how our modern secular
world sprang directly out of European Christendom.
We will clarify and explain these complex events and historical “tectonic plates” by
exploring the stories of ten people, ten individual Europeans, each of whose lives and
thinking caused Europe to see itself differently.