Editing History of Christianity (section)

===After 476===
For the five centuries after the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]] in 476, Western culture and civilization were primarily preserved and passed on by monks.{{sfn|Herrin|2021|p=90}}{{sfn|Williams|1987|loc=paragraphs 1, 2, 5}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1998|p=196}} Those in the [[Eastern Roman Empire]] continued to see themselves as a Roman Empire with an emperor, a civil government, and a large army.{{sfn|Rosenwein|2014|pp=58, 61}}{{sfn|Rousseau|2017|pp=2–3, 5}}{{sfn|Cantor|1960|p=47}}{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=8}}

The religious policies of the Eastern Roman Emperor [[Justinian I]] ({{reign|527|565}}) reflected his conviction that the unity of the Empire presupposed unity of faith: he persecuted pagans and religious minorities, purging the government and church bureaucracies of those who disagreed with him.{{sfn|Kaldellis|2012|pp=1–3}}{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=8}} Justinian contributed to cultural development,{{sfn|Heather|2007|p=283}} and integrated Christian concepts with Roman law in his ''{{lang|la|[[Corpus Juris Civilis]]}}'', which remains the basis of civil law in many modern states.{{sfn|Pennington|2007|p=386}}{{sfn|Herrin|2009|p=213}} 

In Gaul, the Frankish king [[Clovis I]] converted to Catholicism; his kingdom became the dominant polity in the West in 507, gradually converting into a Christian kingdom over the next centuries.{{sfn|Rosenwein|2014|pp=58, 61}}{{sfn|Rousseau|2017|pp=2–3, 5}} Papal influence rose as the church leaders increasingly relied on Rome to resolve theological disagreement.{{sfn|Nelson|2008|p=301}}{{sfn|Thompson|2016|p=36}} [[Pope Gregory I]] gained prestige and power for the papacy by leading the response to invasion by the [[Lombards]] in 592 and 593, reforming the clergy, standardizing music in worship, sending out missionaries, and founding new monasteries.{{sfn|Kolbaba|2008|p=214}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1998|pp=198-199}} Until 751, the Pope remained a subject of the Byzantine emperor.{{sfn|Hamilton|2003|p=63}}