The Rise of the Holy Roman Empire

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After the collapse of the Roman Empire, there was religion in what is now Western Europe. By the eleventh century, the church wants to sort of break free from it. It develops powerful church councils with representation and consent. As part of this conflict with the Holy Roman Empire, it really systematizes law.

When it comes to the development of Western Europe there was religion and then there was science. That is how the story is generally told but Anna Gryzmala Busse believes that modern Europe owes more to the religious part of that than is generally appreciated. She has written Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton UP, 2023) and talks to Owen Bennett Jones about religion and the European state.

Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press.

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