Book review: ‘Domination’ by Alice Roberts

I picked up my signed copy of Prof. Alice Roberts’s Domination on the Bradford leg of her UK tour promoting the book. I very much enjoyed the show—and the book.

In this book, Roberts explores how the Christian Church rose to prominence in the wake of the Roman Empire.

The book begins by exploring early ‘Celtic’ Christianity in and around the Atlantic Archipelago (i.e. Great Britain and Ireland and associated smaller islands). Roberts investigates how local churches and monasteries maintained Roman traditions (e.g. in education), with many church leaders coming from high-status local families. She also explores the connections between early churches in Wales, Ireland, Devon and Cornwall, and Brittany, especially regarding the cults of saints. (In those days, any important church leader tended to become a saint; it wasn’t yet necessary to obtain approval from Rome.)

Roberts then moves on to Brittany, showing how local bigwigs adopted church roles, thereby preserving their privileged statuses as the Roman Empire gradually withdrew from the area. Formerly public buildings such as basilicas and bath-houses were repurposed for Christian activities. When the (already Romanised) heathen Visigoths invaded, the new local ecclesiastical elite often managed to assume useful roles under the new regimes, it being more convenient for the invaders to maintain previously tried-and-tested administrative structures than to implement new ones.

Roberts then considers the influential figure of Emperor Constantine, questioning the extent of his Christian credentials, as well as some of the pious legends surrounding him. His support for the upstart religion seems to have been the result of political pragmatism, rather than religious devotion. By insisting that different Christian factions resolved their differences at the Council of Nicaea, Constantine unintentionally created a Church ‘brand’—a brand that subsequently became what was, in effect, a franchised business with its fingers in many pies: "a huge collegium that helped to protect [members of the middle classes’] jobs, prospects and income".

As with all of Alice Roberts’ books, Domination is a fascinating and entertaining read.