(2) ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH / VATICAN CITY
The most enduring successor of the Roman Empire, indeed the one which can “actually trace its origin to the Roman era” and endures to the present day – inheriting the capitol, the pontifex and the imperial language of Latin, as well as many of the trappings and much of the mystique of the western empire.
It’s a successor in a somewhat unique sense. It was not a direct political successor or successor in terms of the military institutions of empire – as it lacked the latter other than those it could enlist from leaders or states owing it allegiance – but dare I say it, a spiritual successor.
I gave it away with that reference to leaders or states owing it allegiance – it was the surviving institution from the western empire most retaining allegiance, or cultural and moral authority or legitimacy, reinforced by its effective monopoly status as ‘international’ institution transcending tribes or kingdoms, reflected in the catholic part of its name, connoting universality
Indeed, it had started to eclipse the empire in moral authority even prior to the fall of the western empire, best demonstrated by Pope Leo I as imperial envoy to Attila the Hun to persuade him to turn back after his invasion Italy and not sack Rome, armed with little else other than moral authority – which by some miracle worked, with Attila withdrawing from Italy, never to return to the empire (and dying shortly afterwards, possibly from papal mojo).
For much of its history, the Church was somewhat broader than the present Roman Catholic Church, including as the Orthodox Church in the eastern empire – but ironically the Orthodox Church remained in the shadow of the eastern imperial government, while the Roman Catholic Church emerged as the shadow empire because of the very absence of any political state to rival it in reach after the fall of the western empire
Of course, the Church was able to convert (heh) its moral authority to claims for political succession of the Roman Empire, becoming effectively the ’empire-maker’ (or more precisely emperor-crowner) – not for itself, except in so far as it was able to secure control of Rome and other Italian territory as the Papal States, but for my next special mention.
On the subject of the Papal States, they too have endured to the present day, albeit very much in residual or substituted form as the state of Vatican City in its enclave within Rome, the smallest nation in the world.
The continuation of the empire in the Church tends to be one of bases for the argument that “the empire never ended” – albeit usually in a trippy way, as in the works of SF writer P.K. Dick.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)