Conflict and Disorder in the East

Abstract

Abstract Did the collapse of a view of the world that had united city communities for centuries and its replacement by another, embodying a different system of values, and one not centring on the city and its political community have a detrimental effect on the functioning of that community? In other words, did Christianization make cities less stable? This is a very difficult question to answer. For even if it can be shown that the East was more disorderly in AD 600 than it had been say in AD 400, Christianization was not the only development that made for greater instability.