The Missionary Life - Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe 400-1050 (Paperback)

Examines how great missionary figures were crucial to their own time and were not only agents of change, but also some of Europe's first historians.

Missionaries brought Christian belief and culture to the pagan societies of Dark Age Europe.

The roles and aims of the missionaries provide a starting point for the history of early medieval Europe. While spiritualism is examined Ian Wood also focuses on the darker side of missionary life - flagellation, starvation, torture - as well as sanctity. Contemporary willing and unwilling evangelism relates to some of these first Christian pioneers.