Escape From Rome

by Walter Scheidel

  In Europe, the degree of cultural heterogeneity was likewise heavily mediated by state formation. Ancient elite bilingualism and the persistence of parochial languages reflected the Roman laissez-faire style of provincial governance: while it would be unrealistic to assume that existing diversity could have been completely overcome, more deliberate policies of homogenization could presumably have made some headway over the course of half a millennium. Yet under the Roman template of local self-rule, this was not a plausible option.

  Just as in China, the political order was a key determinant of the extent of cultural variety. On balance, the serially unified Chinese state was better able to foster some degree of homogeneity in elite circles and even beyond. Post-Roman Europe—or the post-Roman Mediterranean—faced much bigger obstacles. Arabic (and Islam, on which more below) spread because what was left of the Roman empire could not prevent it. Provincial versions of Latin morphed into Romance languages in part because they came to be associated with different (clusters of) polities. Latin became marginalized because the medieval sources of power were so strongly fragmented.

  Once again, these developments mutually reinforced each other, as greater political fracture allowed greater cultural diversity, and vice versa. Yet also once again, at least in the early stages of this coevolutionary process, state (de)formation appears to have been the critical driving force. From this perspective, cultural features such as language and script are best seen as proximate and even secondary factors in accounting for the relative prevalence of large-scale empire.8

  BELIEF SYSTEMS: RELIGION

  How much did content matter in this regard? Maybe what was thought and said and written down—rather than how this was done—made a bigger difference. I begin my brief survey with religious beliefs before moving on to secular ones.

  Western Eurasia

  The ascendance of Christianity marks the biggest watershed in Europe’s religious history. In substantive terms, this creed was undeniably imbued with considerable potential for constraining and challenging state power. Its most canonical texts drew a line between obligations to secular rulers and to God—“render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Its founding figure was thought to be the Son of God (and also part of God himself), not a mere prophet or some human pretending to be divine as Rome’s emperors did.9

  Most importantly, Christianity developed in latent conflict with the imperial state for the first 300 years of its existence: not only was it denied official recognition, let alone sponsorship, it appears to have been formally outlawed early on and was subject to sporadic local crackdowns. In the second half of the third century CE, as the empire narrowly survived an existential crisis, the central authorities adopted harsher policies of coercive suppression, even if they failed in the face of steadily growing Christian numbers, the state’s poor infrastructural power, and divisions at the very top.

  This backstory promised trouble for the state when the emperor Constantine in 312 CE performed a startling U-turn by embracing Christianity and his successors, with just one fleeting exception, followed suit, increasingly at the expense of established religions. The hopeful notion that rulers would be able to impose their will on the church and quell internal divisions proved largely illusory: the Christian movement preserved too much autonomy even as its elite cozied up to the imperial authorities for patronage, material and legal benefits, and support in the persecution of rivals within and beyond their own circles. Doctrinal disputes raged unabated despite repeated state intervention. Overall, the church’s rapid accumulation of wealth and political influence at the central and local levels leaves little doubt that the Christian leadership in particular derived much greater benefits from its cooperation with the late Roman state than the latter obtained in return.

  Bishops enjoyed tax immunity, managed growing largesse and estates, and assumed some delegated judicial functions. As the church was organizationally assimilated to the empire, a mirror hierarchy evolved, topped by leading bishops in the imperial centers, followed by metropolitan bishops with special prerogatives in provincial capitals and ordinary ones for individual urban settlements. This created a parallel career path to that in public service.

  The most senior bishops displayed considerable assertiveness. In 390, Ambrose, bishop of Milan, excommunicated Theodosius I, the last to rule the unified empire, for ordering a massacre, and imposed a lengthy penance before readmitting him to communion. A century later, Rome’s bishop Gelasius famously wrote a letter to the eastern Roman emperor Anastasius, reminding him in no uncertain terms that the world was primarily ruled by two powers, “the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power,” of which the former “carried greater weight.” Even though the meaning of this continues to be debated and Gelasius may not have intended more than affirming the principle that priests were in charge of spiritual affairs while subject to imperial regulation, the underlying dualism was normative. In practice, however, clergy were increasingly involved in the secular affairs from which this division of responsibilities was ostensibly meant to shield them. Even before the western empire unraveled, bishops came to perform civic functions and acted as community leaders.10

  The subsequent fading of imperial governance weakened church leaders as they lost the backing of a vast imperial state but also increased their autonomy and allowed them to fill a growing secular power vacuum. In the end, the bishop of Rome, elected by the city’s clergy and people—de facto local elite factions—benefited the most: detached from new centers of authority to the north and east, he never ran the risk of ending up as the appendage of an imperial court.

  All over Latin Europe, bishops struck bargains with the rulers of the various Germanic successor states, who drew on them for subsidiary services and human capital. The weaker the central authorities were, the more they relied on such allies. In return, they granted the church greater judicial powers and freedom from obligations. Once again it was state formation that drove other developments: in the High Middle Ages, as social power became even more diffused and a reformed papacy rose to greater prominence, power-sharing between secular and religious leaders generated growing friction. Popes were now able to excommunicate emperors and foment risings against monarchs by backing their unruly nobles: as each side claimed supremacy, they undermined the other’s position, as well as the cohesiveness and capacities of the polities involved.11

  This form of conflict was not a given: Byzantine history demonstrates that notwithstanding its genesis and substantive claims, Christianity could be successfully “tamed” and subordinated to a centralized state, provided the latter lasted long enough. Just as the patriarch of Constantinople resided next to the emperor’s palace, imperial and ecclesiastical power were closely enmeshed in an unequal relationship that privileged the former. The emperor appointed and invested the patriarch as a de facto state functionary, and could convene and preside over councils. Church property was liable to taxation. Earlier opposition by schismatic groups had waned following the loss of their core areas of support to foreign powers.12

  The Byzantine experience, and subsequently that of Russia’s Orthodox Church, amounts to a natural experiment that allows us to assess the determinants of Christian autonomy. Comparison of the Catholic and Orthodox churches strongly suggests that the extent to which Christianity’s potential for divisiveness was expressed in practice was largely a function of state power. A political center’s ability to control elite constituents, coerce rivals, and tax resources was the key variable: the lower this ability, the more the church was likely to interfere with state formation.

  The larger polities of medieval Latin Europe generally scored poorly on all these metrics, and suffered the consequences. Conversely, had the entire Roman empire survived much longer or been restored on a comparable scale, a more acquiescent church might well have evolved. It is therefore misleading to identify “Western Christianity” as an ultimate cause of Europe’s fragmentation: it
s path was secondary to outcomes in state formation. While Christianity undoubtedly contributed to post-Roman polycentrism, it was above all the antecedent weakening of centralized political authority that allowed and, indeed, encouraged it to do so.13

  The rise of Islam probably had a much smaller influence than interference by the church on the scale of post-Roman state-building. In theory, the division of what had been the Roman Mediterranean between Christians and Muslims ought to have made it harder for a similarly large empire to be constructed in the same space even if this had been a viable project (which, as we saw in chapter 5, it was not). But it took a long time for this divide to harden. In Egypt, Iran, and later in Asia Minor, conversion to Islam appears to have taken several centuries following their conquest.14

  Moreover, religious affiliation as such was not a serious obstacle to imperial expansion: in fact, diversity of customs and beliefs was a defining characteristic of many large empires. When in the seventh century Arabs took over the then largely Christian Levant, Egypt, and Maghreb as well as predominantly Zoroastrian Iran, they had no trouble ruling those territories. In the Iberian peninsula, Muslim rulers readily co-opted Christian Visigothic elites. The Seljuqs set up an empire that covered much of solidly Christian Anatolia, and the Ottomans later occupied the entire Christian Balkans and held on to them for centuries.

  There is no good reason to believe that during the last third of the first millennium CE, the time of the First Great Divergence, the expansion of Islam was a significant obstacle to empire-building in Europe: while it may have added to the existing list of impediments, it was surely dwarfed by several of those. Most importantly, this issue is of no particular relevance for our understanding of polycentrism at its most durable, in Latin Europe. Inasmuch as religious beliefs interfered with the return of hegemonic empire, it was Christianity and not Islam that mattered.15

  China

  In China, the expansion of Buddhism represents the closest parallel to the rise of Christianity in late Roman and medieval Europe. Like Christianity, Buddhism is a transcendent belief system, not tied to any particular polity, culture, or ethnic affiliation. Having originated in South Asia, it incorporated China into a larger ecumene that extended far beyond the confines of its imperial state, and offered an alternative to its traditional family- and state-centered rituals, the worship of ancestors, soil and grain deities, and Heaven (alongside its imperial intermediary). In short, Buddhism carried the potential for establishing significant autonomy from imperial institutions.

  First referenced in China in 65 CE, merchants from Central and Southeast Asia helped spread this new creed. Just as Christianity had capitalized on the intermittent weakness of the Roman state in the third century CE, the Buddha’s following soared during the Period of Disunion of the fourth through sixth centuries CE. Several of the northern conquest regimes provided support, in part because they regarded Buddhist communities as a counterweight to indigenous power networks. The rebuilding of state capacity in northern China consequently increased the scope for patronage.16

  At the time, Buddhism might have seemed to have a chance to reshape power relations the way Christianity did in Europe. In southern China, under the Eastern Jin dynasty, it was agreed that Buddhist monks did not need to bow to the emperors, who in turn took vows to forgo Nirvana until they had redeemed all living things. Rulers posed as redeemers and saviors, and generously sponsored Buddhist temples and rituals.17

  In the ascendant north, however, more autocratic regimes, while sympathetic to Buddhism, imposed more stringent regulation and formal hierarchies. In the late fourth century CE, the Northern Wei authorities appointed a chief monk to supervise religious activity. Emperors identified as incarnations of the Buddha and required gestures of subservience from monks. State sponsorships thus came with strings attached, and the supremacy of the secular ruler was not to be in doubt. Before long, an entire government department was put in charge of regulating the affairs of Buddhist monks and monasteries, and imposed restrictions on their proliferation.18

  Even so, such interventions were widely disregarded. In the sixth century CE, the Northern Wei capital Chang’an alone supposedly boasted 1,367 Buddhist sanctuaries, and a similar number also existed in Luoyang, where only a single one was formally permitted. These figures need not deserve more credence than the reported existence of more than 700 such temples in southern Jiankiang, but they undoubtedly reflect a very strong presence. As illicit shrines and votive towers populated the countryside and itinerant monks spread the religion, 30,000 sanctuaries with 2 million monks were said to be found across the Northern Wei realm. The ranks of the monks were inflated by their exemption from taxation and labor services, which heightened the appeal of devotion just as similar privileges had done in the later Roman empire.19

  Under the Sui, Buddhism became the primary state religion, and state support continued under the Tang. Over time, it was increasingly subsumed under the imperial order. The goal was to turn it into an extension of the state—its “spiritual arm,” in Mark Lewis’s words. Monks remained ubiquitous, most of them laymen claiming clerical status for personal gain.20

  Unlike in late Roman or medieval Europe, however, patronage could easily give way to oppression. In a pro-Confucian backlash in 574, the Northern Zhou regime turned on Buddhists (as well as Daoists). Their monasteries, which hoarded money and grain, were targeted in order to raise funds for war. But only four years later, full restoration commenced.21

  A similarly short-lived intervention occurred in the 840s when a new emperor favored Daoism. From 842, policy measures escalated, ranging from moves against unregistered monks and the confiscation of private property of clergy members to prohibitions of donations and pilgrimages and the purging of the court of Buddhist personnel and paraphernalia. In 845, the government outlawed temple estates and called for the surrender of institutional assets. Monks and nuns under the age of forty were to be laicized, and most foreign monks were expelled. Cult statues were melted down. The emperor boasted about the dismantling of more than 4,600 monasteries, the destruction of more than 40,000 chapels and hermitages, and the laicization of 260,000 clergy alongside extensive land confiscations. Only 49 monasteries and 800 monks were to remain in all of China. Once again, only a few years after the emperor’s death, restoration was in full swing.22

  These episodes are powerful testimony to the resilience and continuing appeal of Buddhism, but also demonstrate that the state retained the ability to intervene as it saw fit—even if it rarely did. The Roman emperor Julian’s modest pushback against the Christian Church in the early 360s paled in comparison to these sweeping measures. Moreover, no Buddhist leader would have lectured an emperor on division of powers. Even though personal exemptions invited abuse and cut into tax revenue, institutional assets—of Buddhist monasteries and other bodies—were never sheltered from taxation. Thus, unlike in Europe, land and rents did not move beyond the state’s reach. There were no clerical leaders to challenge or rival secular officials.

  In the end, the imperial authorities succeeded in co-opting a potentially disruptive belief system at relatively modest cost. This accommodation had much more in common with the arrangements regarding the Orthodox Church than with the relationship between secular and religious leaders in Latin Europe. In all these cases, it bears repeating, state capacity was the decisive variable.

  BELIEF SYSTEMS: IDEOLOGIES OF EMPIRE

  Comparison highlights another, potentially highly significant difference between China and Europe: that China was endowed with a secular belief system that was arguably conducive to stabilizing and universalizing the state, whereas Europe was not, either in the Roman period or at any time thereafter.

  A recent version of the argument runs like this. The Western Han period—the first phase of stable hegemonic empire—witnessed the rise of a dominant ideology that merged Confucian norms with elements of the Legalist doctrines that had flourished in the late Warring States. Both of them concentrated on h
uman social relations and ethics: while Confucian teachings emphasized loyalty, respect for parents and ancestors, altruism, rules of propriety, social harmony, and a sense of being part of a network of mutual obligations, Legalist writers were more mundanely concerned with the practicalities of shoring up the power and resources of the state and strengthening the central government vis-à-vis the individual and especially elite groups by means of legal and administrative intervention.23

  Once the swift collapse of the imperial Qin regime had discredited narrow applications of Legalism, a broader-based belief system that married Confucian ethical and social precepts with Legalist regulations and techniques proved much more resilient. In practical terms, the combination of the celebration of the state’s dominance—focused on the image of an idealized yet constrained ruler—with the political and social dominance of officials who were inculcated with Confucian norms created an elite-centric ideological edifice that was “tailor-made for the support of the state.”

  Generally privileging it over competing beliefs, state sponsorship and elite collusion turned this powerful construct into “the dominant political ideology and the normative base of cooperation between emperors and their officials.” Even though lineage, patronage, and wealth continued to matter a great deal, access to public office was at least ideally to be governed by considerations of canonical learning and social mores. This approach permitted an effective fusion of traditional and meritocratic principles. It also placed limits on rulers in the exercise of their power that in other cultures might have been imposed by religious prescriptions.24