MEDIEVAL GERMAN CHURCH COLLECTION

The arrival of the German Church was rather late in contrast to its Western European counterparts. Certainly there are episcopal sees present along the Rhineland during the late Roman period which would become significant centers of Christianity in the Dark Ages. However, it would not be until the Carolingian period and the ecclesiastical and clerical reforms of Charlemagne that the German church would see its first flowering. By the 9th century the German duchies would be fiercely tied to the welfare of the church within their domain and begin to establish a distinctive German tradition of Christianity which has survived to the present. This German church would have strong ties to the Imperial cult re-born in the wake of the Carolingian collapse, and inspire some of the greatest minds in science and philosophy. Distinctively German saints would appear and help lay the foundation of the apostolic sees which became the bedrock for the Austrian, Swiss, Dutch, and German nations.