The Catholic church is a much maligned and often misunderstood organization. The purposes of this writing are to show three important factors which make the Catholic church so important in European history.
These are not the only factors but in this writers opinion they are the most extant and undeniable. The first is that the Catholic church contributed to the stabilization of Western Europe during the dark ages. Secondly the Roman Catholic church provided a frame work as well as a repository for the European writings. Third it gave legitimacy to European armies fighting the invading Muslims.