Europe is a conglomeration of warring kingdoms, changing shape with personalities, dynastic succession is the norm. The Angles, Saxons, and Franks are still an aggressive lot with no semblance of a secular high culture. Local languages and related identities are slowly emerging. Education is religious and monopolized by monasteries secular education is scarce. Representative religious music includes the Gregorian chants.
Literature espouses chivalrous values, fantastic tales of valor, honor and patriotism.
In 1054 CE, the Roman and the Eastern Churches split on doctrinal and political grounds with reciprocal excommunications. Both now claim to be the sole true Church of Christ. The coronation of Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor establishes a precedent whereby imperial authority depends on the sanction of the Pope. Armed with the power to excommunicate, the Pope could, and did on at least one occasion, undermine imperial power by absolving the emperor's vassals from their allegiance to him. The chief concern of medieval western political thought remains the proper relation between the church and state, settling most often in the middle ground between the extremes of theocracy and Erastianism, i.e., the church as a department of state.