Who were the most influential of medieval Western Civilization Christianity or Islam?

Answer 1

AnswerThe Catholic church ruled Europe. AnswerI think this question deserves a considered answer.

Perhaps the best way to look at this is to ask three questions. First how did Christianity make contributions to Western Civilization uninfluenced by Islam. Second, How did Islam make contributions uninfluenced by Christianity. Third, what influences were the result of the combination of, or confrontation between, the two religions.

The crusades, obviously, are part of the answer to the third question, as are a lot of the things that resulted from the crusades.

Purely Christian influences in Europe are powerful and present throughout the Middle Ages. The modifications to Germanic law that resulted in medieval law, were so numerous as to be overwhelming. A lot falls to the answer to the first question.

But the reason this question deserves consideration is because of the enormous contributions made to Western culture by Islamic people. Consider, for example, Arabic numerals. If you want to find a place where Roman civilization was backward, try dividing CCXLVII by XIX (the answer, by the way, is XIII). Algebra got its name from Arabic, because it was invented, developed, and introduced to Europe by Islamic people. The impetus to open universities was partly the result of the introduction of Greek philosophy, which first came to the attention of Western Philosophers in Latin translations from Arabic.

I could spend an afternoon writing about coming to an answer on this, which is that in my opinion Christian thinking was more influential that Islamic in Western Europe. But clearly, I think the idea deserves study.

By the way, there were a number of times in medieval history when the Catholic Church found itself struggling to reassert its authority after having lost power to various kings and emperors. There was a point when the Church divide in two halves, each dealing with half of Europe, and the breach was never sealed. The Roman half of the Catholic Church itself divided, so there were a pope in France and another pope in Rome. And all the while, there were alternate Churches, including orthodox, such as the Oriental Orthodox (not the same as Eastern Orthodox) and heresies, such as the followers of Catharism. So it is not best to think of a Church as ruling during the Middle Ages.