The Year 1000: When Globalization Began

by Valerie Hansen

The Primary Chronicle presents Vladimir’s decision to convert to Byzantine Christianity as a sequence of four events. First, at Cherson his armies defeat the forces of Bardas Phokas, a claimant to the Byzantine throne. Second, he loses his sight. Third, he is baptized and his sight returns. Fourth and finally, he marries Anna, the sister of the Byzantine ruler Basil II. No contemporary observer in either Byzantium or Germany viewed Vladimir’s conversion to Christianity as a major event; to them, it was a minor local matter between the Byzantines and the Rus. From our vantage point today, though, Vladimir’s conversion marked a key step in the formation of the Christian world. Vladimir’s realm had five million people living in an area of more than 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 sq km), twice the size of France. With Vladimir’s switch to Christianity, Eastern Europe turned to face Byzantium—not Jerusalem, Rome, or Mecca. The Rus maintained intensive economic and cultural ties with Western Europe, but they had only one sacral center, and it was in Byzantium.