The Church and Empire

''The Church and Empire'' the theme of Studies in Church History 54 reflects the reality that from its beginnings the Christian Church has had close often symbiotic relationships with empires and imperial power. Initially the Church engaged with the Roman Empire subsequently in Europe with the Carolingian Anglo-Norman Genoese Venetian and Holy Roman Empires and later - through the Church''s global expansion with European empires in the Americas Africa and Asia - the Spanish Dutch French and British empires and the imperial structures it encountered there. Bringing together the work of twenty-four historians this volume explores the relations of churches and empires and Christian conceptions of empire in the ancient medieval early modern and modern periods as well as the role of empire in the global expansion of Christianity.