Christian History · Timeline
The Medieval Church
The thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Reformation are often dismissed as dark, but they were nothing of the kind. Monasteries copied Scripture and kept learning alive, missionaries Christianized Europe, and the East and West grew apart until the Great Schism of 1054 split the church into Orthodox and Catholic. It was an age of Francis and Aquinas, of cathedrals and universities, and of the first English Bibles and the printing press that would change everything.
The medieval church begins earlier than the entries below, in the monastic foundations of the sixth century. When Rome fell, it was Benedict’s monasteries, Patrick’s Ireland, and Gregory’s missions that carried the faith and its learning forward through centuries of upheaval. Those foundations are set out on the Age of the Councils page.
Across these centuries the church was at once glorious and deeply flawed, the age of Francis’s poverty and Aquinas’s wisdom, and also of the Crusades and corruption that would provoke the reformers. It ends with two quiet revolutions: ordinary people beginning to read the Bible in their own tongue, and Gutenberg’s press, which would soon put it in their hands.
The timeline
- AD 1054East and West excommunicate one another, dividing Christianity into the Orthodox and Catholic churches, a breach that endures to this day.
- AD 1095The First Crusade is calledPope Urban II launches the Crusades, a long, complex, and often tragic chapter that faithful Christians grieve honestly.
- c. 1181 to 1226Renouncing wealth, Francis renews the church through poverty, joy, and love for the poor and for creation.
- 1225 to 1274His Summa Theologiae weds faith and reason and remains a towering summit of Christian thought.
- c. 1382Wycliffe’s English BibleJohn Wycliffe and his followers translate the Bible into English, insisting that ordinary people should be able to read God’s Word.
- AD 1415Jan Hus is martyredThe Czech reformer is burned for calling the church back to Scripture, a full century before Luther.
- AD 1453The fall of ConstantinopleThe Byzantine capital falls to the Ottomans, ending the eastern Roman empire and sending Greek learning westward.
- c. 1455The Gutenberg BibleThe first major book printed with movable type is the Bible. Printing will soon carry the Reformation across a continent.
The thread through it all
Read the whole story and one thing becomes plain: through every century, every council and controversy, every rise and fall of empires, one Person holds it together. The church has been divided, persecuted, corrupted, and renewed, and yet it has never once disappeared, because it was never finally ours to keep. Jesus said he would build it, and he has.
Come and meet him yourself
This whole story runs back to a Person you can still meet. You do not have to take the church’s word for it, or ours. Read his own words and see. The Gospel of John is a gentle place to begin, and it costs you nothing but a little quiet and an honest look.
Meet JesusThe whole storyThe church around the worldJesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What was the Great Schism of 1054?
- It was the formal division of the church into East and West, the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches, after long-growing differences in language, authority, and worship. The breach has never fully healed.
- Was the medieval church really a dark age?
- No. Monasteries preserved Scripture and classical learning, universities and cathedrals arose, and thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas produced enduring work. It was a flawed but far from lightless age of faith.
- Who translated the Bible before the Reformation?
- John Wycliffe and his followers translated the whole Bible into English around 1382, insisting that ordinary people should read God’s Word, more than a century before Luther.