Europe: A History of Our Continent

By Claudius Mollokwu

In this epic narrative, Europe: A history tells the tale and narrative of how the continent of Europe came into shape and being.
As a result of the Roman Catholic church’s ideas and reforms, Europe became the leading western civilisation of all time.
This fresh history, taking into account new archival evidence, tells the tale of how Europe became a successful and flourishing civilisation. Europe is an indispensable guide and narrative to all those who wish to learn more about Europe and western civilisation and Europe and the west came to fruition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665599498

Claudius Mollokwu

Claudius Mollokwu is a writer. He has degrees in history and law from the University of London and the University of Oxford. Claudius is the author of a prize winning work on the Victorians.

Book preview

© 2022 Claudius Mollokwu. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/24/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-9951-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-9950-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-9949-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Foundations

Chapter 2 The Middle Ages

Chapter 3 Renaissance and Reformation

Chapter 4 Enlightenment

Chapter 5 Modernity

Chapter 6 The Future of Europe

Concluding Thoughts

Bibliography

PREFACE

‘The Church is Europe and Europe is the Church’- That was the insight made by the Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc. It has some merit. As Thomas E Woods has noted in the important text, ‘How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilisation’ a lot of the ideals and institutions of Europe can be traced back to the Roman Catholic Church, the thoughts of her teaching magisterium and her scholars. For Woods, ‘the catholic church was the indispensable [creator] of western civilisation’. This essay goes some way to build upon and expand Woods’ insights.

This monograph is about Europe, her history, her institutions, her faith, and her ideals. The monograph arose out of an essay of mine which too deals with Europe. The essay is a testament to and narrative of Europe’s history, politics, religion and culture. I was minded to write the essay as a result of Brexit issues by which Britain has seceded from the European Union. The essay stands a reminder of all of the benefits that Britain has gained from Europe where the latter has bequeathed her religion, her ideals and institutions to Britain. It is a reminder to Britain of the power and impressiveness of Europe and western civilisation. We ignore Europe at our peril. One could equate the recent Brexit with the English reformation- both situations have troubled European and Western civilisation. Britain has still not learned its lesson and continues to be a problematic agent in the global world and global sphere.

According to Professor Ferguson, there are six agents that made western civilisation the leading continent- notably ‘competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic’. I will seek to demonstrate that there are actually seven agents that made Europe- the agent of the Roman Catholic faith also played a part- even a central part in the configuring of Europe as she is known today. Through the church’s faith, her priests, monks, nuns and her scholars the church was not only a contributor to the ideals and institutions of Europe but was Europe and the west’s key creator.

Europe is more than a continent and physical agent- it is an ideal, a believer in the values of democracy, tolerance and economic freedom. Countries such as Italy, France, Germany and Spain have each succeeded due to their loyalty and adherence to the Catholic faith and the supra organisation, the European Union. Europe alone is an exceptional country. Europe informed by its adherence to Catholic Christianity has led the way as civilisations appropriating the church’s advice to form her ideas, ideals and democratic institutions.

I write this essay as a convinced European and a Roman Catholic loyal to the European project and her ideals. I subscribe to the ‘old west’ theory, first uttered by the catholic historian Christopher Dawson who notes that as opposed to the view that the middle ages were the ‘dark ages’ where ignorance and uncivility ran strife, the middle ages with the likes of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure, heralded a golden age for Catholic thought and Catholic ideals. A lot of the ideas, for example in Aquinas’ ‘Summa Theologica’ formed the backbone and developed the ideas from Christian antiquity to fashion out the ideals and institutions of European civilisation.

Currently the continent is in fairly healthy shape. The Franco-German motor is still healthy most recently incarnated in the close professional relationship of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron. Catholic Europe has flourished and has recovered from the trauma caused to it by Luther and Henry Tudor- two morally vacuous people who threatened the life of Europe. Thankfully they no longer hold sway over the continent. It is Roman Catholicism and all that she entails that is triumphing.

Europe has also suffered the trauma of two world wars. Thankfully nowadays, Europe is more united than at any time in her history.

The essay aims to achieve two things. I will first of all deal with the history of Europe and how she came to be considered the leading continent of western civilisation. I will note that it was the Roman Catholic Church that created and heralded the key institutions of Europe. Such a view has been made by the Catholic historian, Thomas E Woods in his masterful work, ‘How the Catholic Church built Western Civilisation’. Accordingly the church’s scholars such as Saint Augustine, Saint Benedict and Saint Thomas Aquinas as well as Saints Ignatious of Loyola and Theresa of Avila have all shaped the founding ideals of Europe and the West which has contributed to her political, social, economic and moral success. Finally I will offer a short comment on Europe’s future. It is more of a personal account. Such a future, I will note is promising as long as Europe continues to practice the ideals of ‘democracy’, ‘free enterprise’ and ‘solidarity’ and takes into account the advice of the Roman Catholic faith who did much to make her what she is today in these modern times.

My essay takes an ‘heroic’ approach rather than a micro-historical approach. For me, it is great men and their great works that cause and create the narrative of history. It is great men and their great works that drives history on (cf. Pedder, Revolution Francaise, Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent).

I take a primarily philosophical and historical approach to discussing issues concerning Europe. Philosophical because Europe was formed intellectually by ideas, values and principles which gave creed to her institutions. Historical in the sense that I offer a narrative and a tale about Europe driven as it were by great men and great women who did much to contribute to the epic and drama that constitutes the European story. This is a story about Europe and her people and all that said people did to create and build up Europe as a special ideal and institution.

This monograph substantively draws from my essay on Europe and I have chosen to give length to many of the insights first sighted in my essay- albeit in expanded and more comprehensive form.

I was minded to write this work when I read the historian Tony Judt’s important contribution to studies on Europe in ‘Postwar Europe’. There are many works which deal with civilisation and its history by the likes of historians such as Kenneth Clark, Christopher Clark and more recently Professor Niall Ferguson. There has also been a new tv serialisation detailing the history of civilisation with Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga, the latter of whom has written an accompaniment to the tv series. The aforementioned have written works dealing with civilisation from a world-wide perspective. This work differs- I take an unashamedly European and western approach where I note that civilisation is Europe in tandem with the Roman Catholic church, incarnate. Both institutions were the first civil institutions whose ideals, values and institutions have spread and influenced the world.

With the honourable exception of works by Judt, the Catholic scholar, Hilaire Belloc’s ‘Europe and the Faith’, the Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm ‘Ages of Revolution’ trilogy and the Catholic American historian Dr Thomas E Woods work ‘How the Catholic Church built Western Civilisation’ and some of former Pope Benedict xvi’s writings on Europe, Simon Jenkins and Norman Davies there is little substantive work that deals with the origins and narrative of Europe and its totality of existence. This book goes some way, as it were to fill that gap in studies of Europe where I have aimed to provide a comprehensive narrative and appraisal of Europe.

The scheme of the monograph broadly adopts and follows the pattern of chapters that my essay on Europe followed- albeit in expanded, extended and elaborated form.

My thanks go to Tony Judt, Christopher Dawson, Thomas E Woods and Professor Niall Ferguson as well as all of the historians and philosophers whose works have informed this essay. The last chapter comes from my article ‘Europe- an Essay’- albeit in modified form.

49025.png

Chapter 1

FOUNDATIONS

Europe is comprised of some 50 sovereign states, by which Russia is by far the largest, making up some 39% of the continent and makes up 15% of its population. Europe has a substantive population of about 746 million (around 10% of the world population), as of 2018 to date.

Athens, Ancient Greece the capital, was the founding city and country of Europe, her ideals and her institutions. Thinkers to whom she owed her founding institutions included the philosophers Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; in drama with Sophocles and Europides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes- all were Greek and all were European.

Greece along with the successive Italian Roman period are both considered to be the two founding cities of European and western civilisation.

Plato is known for his Socratic dialogues where he exposes and explains the views of his mentor, Socrates. Plato in the ‘Republic’ defended state owned properties which was soon to give birth to Communism. Plato influenced the nineteenth century communists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who in turned caused revolutions in Russia, Cuba and China. Plato’s views had a devastating impact on Russia and her eastern satellites as well as Cuba, Vietnam and China in the mid twentieth century just after the second world war adopted the political and economic model of communism- often with little or no success, though the model was to last for the best part of fifty years before the countries once again readopted capitalism and economic liberalism as the dominant economic model of choice. Plato also came up with the model of the ‘philosopher king’ where the ruler is well-versed in philosophy and can use his said knowledge of philosophy to govern countries effectively and competently.