All Things Roman (History)

[Wile E. Coyote]

From whate date would "you" (I mean the student of history you, not the religious you) date the Primacy of Rome?


The primacy of Rome is the foundational Christian doctrine that the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) holds supreme universal authority over the entire Church.

The first Council (ecunemical synod) was called by an Emperor (Constantine) who was not a christian, (he was a sun worshipper), with the aim so they say...... to clear up certain disagreements within Christianity. This Council took place without the Bishop of Rome even being present, and as little as 5-7 western bishops. (if any??)

Disagreements within christianity continued over the centuries, with Emperors not Popes calling Councils to resolve these. These disagreeements would not occur if you had a supreme recognised church head.......


There is simply no evidence for a "Primacy of Rome", during the early years and the "clever" second line of defence, he was a "primus inter pares" also does not apply........

Wileys best guess is that the Primacy of Rome dates to 1061 ie the first election by cardinal of Pope Alexander II, who then supported the nascent Reconquistà in Spain, as well as William the Conqueror's conquest of England (1066) and the Normans conquest of Southern Italy ( 1067).

The foundation event of Western histiography, and our sacred, Christian chronology was the election of Pope Alexander II in 1061, and the revolutionary crusades that followed

[Mick Harper]

I'd be quite happy to go along with that, with one of two provisos:

1. Since we have no evidence of Christianity in Britain before the eleventh century, we have tentatively made Christianity a 'Norman' invention, whatever 'Norman' precisely means. They then spread it eastwards via -- but not exclusively -- the Crusades.

2. Christianity is an invention of the Byzantines sometime before the eleventh century and the 'Normans' introduced it into western Europe. They then forced the Byzantines to accept the primacy of their bishop (in Rome) as the price for saving them from the Muslims by the Crusades.

But I haven't really worked it all out in my own head. And that includes the real chronological dates for Normans and Byzantines relative to the Roman Empire (the one that looked to Rome).

It's only the lack of Christianity in Britain that forces me to exclude Christianity from western Europe before the Norman era and accept the chips as they fall from that.