The civilizing influence of the Benedictine monks during the early Middle Ages can scarcely be over-emphasized. A monastery was often at once a model farm, an inn, a hospital, a school, and a library. By the careful cultivation of their lands the monks set an example of good farming wherever they settled. They entertained pilgrims and travelers, at a period when western Europe was almost destitute of inns. They performed many works of charity, feeding the hungry, healing the sick who were brought to their doors, and distributing their medicines freely to those who needed them. In their schools they trained both boys who wished to become priests and those who intended to lead active lives in the world. The monks, too, were the only scholars of the age. By copying the manuscripts of classical authors, they preserved valuable books that would otherwise have been lost. By keeping records of the most striking events of their time, they acted as chroniclers of medieval history. To all these services must be added the work of the monks as missionaries to the heathen peoples of Europe. 126. SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY OVER EUROPE THE ROMAN CHURCH AND THE BARBARIANS Almost all Europe had been won to Christianity by the end of the eleventh century. In the direction of this great missionary campaign the Roman Church took the leading part. [23] The officers of her armies were zealous popes, bishops, and abbots; her private soldiers were equally zealous monks, priests, and laymen. Pagan Rome had never succeeded in making a complete and permanent conquest of the barbarians. Christian Rome, however, was able to bring them all under her spiritual sway. RECONVERSION OF THE ARIAN GERMANS Christianity first reached the Germanic invaders in its Arian [24] form. Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Lombards were all Arians. The Roman Church regarded them as heretics and labored with success to reconvert them. This work was at last completed when the Lombards, in the seventh century, accepted the Catholic faith. FRANKS AND ANGLO-SAXONS CONVERTED TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM The Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, whose kingdoms were to develop into the chief states of medieval Europe, adopted from the outset the Catholic form of Christianity. The conversion of the Franks provided the Roman Church with its strongest and most faithful adherents among the Germanic tribes. [25] The conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain by Augustine and his monks, followed later by the spread of Roman Catholicism in Ireland and Scotland, firmly united the British Isles to the Papacy. [26] Thus Rome during the Middle Ages came to be the one center of church life for the peoples of western Europe. ST. BONIFACE AND THE CONVERSION OF THE GERMANS