700-720
-The preservation of the classical world and church was an enormous contribution to early monasteries. This preservation was soon to be lost by the fading knowledge of Greek, the language of the old manuscripts. Seeing this, many followed the monks in a movement to collect valuable scripts and translate them. This movement was a major contribution to the beginning of monasteries as the center of learning.(600-715)

- the Kingdom of Visigoths openly attacks a Christian church of innocent citizen 712

~John VII 705-707: Greek, constructed a palace-episcopium- near church of Sancta Maria Antiqua after he became pope

~St. Gregory II 715-73: ordained subdeacons by Pope St. Sergius I, rebuilt a great monastery near the church of St. Paul in Rome, converted the house of his mother into the monastery of St. Agatha consecrated St. Corbinian and St. Boniface as bishops

-English Benedictine monk, devoted his life to converting Germanic tribes, first missionary journey 719 at request of Pope Gregory II, he returned for the first time to Rome in 722 and reported theses conditions: when he found Christianity it either was lapsed into paganism or mixed with error, clergy not educated; because of the conditions the Holy Father told him to reform the German church, Boniface made a bishop and authorized to organize German church- met problems in Frankish kingdom; his final mission was to Frisians with 53 companions and they were all massacred while he was preparing the converts for Confirmation

720-740
~St. John of Damascus(676-749) -during this time he wrote the majority of his work defending the use of icons. After emperor Leo cut off his hand for writing in support of religious images, he prayed to Mary and awoke with his hand as it was before his punishment. After this he devoted himself to defending the use of icons, earning him the title “Doctor of Catholic Art”

~St. Gregory III 731-741: argued for the use of religious icon against the rising Islamic and Judaism cultures

- emperor Leo III forces Constantinople's Jews to convert to Catholicism

740-760
~St. Zachary 741-752: elected pope unanimously, position of Rome in peril- Lombards preparing to invade Roman territory, pope himself went directly to their ruler and was received peacefully, impressed the ruler so much that all the territory taken from the Romans was returned (taken since the preceding thirty years), also twenty years treaty and all prisoners released; translate St. Gregory's Dialoiges into Greek

~Stephen II 752-752: pope whose papacy only lasted 2 days

~St. Paul 1 757-767: secured alliance with Frankish king Pepin the short, opposed Iconoclast policies of Byzantine emperor Constantine V- making worse the already deteriorating relationship between the Byzantine Empire and the papacy

760-780
The Carolingian dynasty expanded the Frankish empire especially during the reign of Charlemagne(771-814) who conquered and converted many peoples in Western Europe to Catholicism

~Adrian I 772- 795: at his time he had the longest papacy of the church, he rebuilt ancient aqueducts, with the help of the Frankish king Charlemagne he defended his land from the king of the Lombards and eventually helped and encouraged Charlemagne to attack Spanish muslims to conquer and convert them to Christianity

780-800
the second council of nicea in 787 ( the first Iconoclasm 726-787) - Catholic Church’s response to the eastern christian byzantine church banning all icons. It condemned the earlier decrees of the council of Hieria which supported Emperor Leo III’s view against all types of icons. This council supported the use of icons as long as the church was careful not to venerate the icons themselves.

-rise of Islam: Muhammad Died in 632 but the effect of his teachings shaped the 8th century as many Christians converted to Islam