Europe: 1500-1914

Abstract

In 1500 the unity of Christendom was still Europe’s ideal. Chris­tian unity lasted as long as it did because of the constant chal­lenge of the non-Christian world. In the seventh and eighth centuries it had been attacked by Muslim invaders who struck at Europe through Spain and later through the Balkans. In the ninth and tenth centuries Asiatic nomad Magyar horsemen had raided deep into Europe. From the eighth to the eleventh centuries Europe had been threatened by the pagan Vikings, whose dragon-prowed ships had penetrated its waterways, and whose plundering and murdering had spread terror throughout Christendom. In the thirteenth century Europe had been battered by the Mongols, who swept from the heartland of Asia through eastern Europe to the shores of the Adriatic. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Christian Europe had turned back the Turks at the gates of Vienna.