Religious Change from a Historical Perspective

Paper Summary:

This paper considers whether or not historians have over-emphasised religious change at the expense of continuity and how one could account for such trends in the historiography. Themes include the transformation of religion under Augustus, the emergence of Christianity, the Pagan revival, Early Medieval Religion and importantly the role of Holy Men and the Cult of Saints.

From the Paper:

"Religious change is fundamentally the difference between the situation after an event and the situation before, for example the difference in the status of Christianity before and after the reign of Constantine. Constantine's conversion in 312AD is a significant moment and is an ideal point to begin assessing how historians have presented religious change and continuity. Thirteen years after his conversion, Eusebius records Constantine describing how, in the days before the battle of Milvian Bridge, he and his troops saw 'the sign of a cross in the sky and the words in hoc signo vices. [in 312]' Following a subsequent visionary dream in which he was visited by Christ, Constantine incorporated the cross onto the legions' shields and the Chi-Ro sign onto the standards. Religious change certainly occurs with Constantine, but the claim it amounted to a 'revolution which was perhaps the most audacious act ever committed by an autocrat in disregard and defiance of the majority of his subjects' is an example of how historians have overemphasised the consequences of a change, ignoring many of the continuities present. It would surely have been impossible for Constantine to impose such a 'revolution' on his subjects when only one in ten were Christian."

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