<P> The Bishops of Rome, the Popes, were forced to adapt to drastically changing circumstances . Maintaining only nominal allegiance to the Emperor, they were forced to negotiate balances with the "barbarian rulers" of the former Roman provinces . In the East the Church maintained its structure and character and evolved more slowly . </P> <P> The stepwise loss of Western Roman Empire dominance, replaced with foederati and Germanic kingdoms, coincided with early missionary efforts into areas not controlled by the collapsing empire . Already as early as in the 5th century, missionary activities from Roman Britain into the Celtic areas (current Scotland, Ireland and Wales) produced competing early traditions of Celtic Christianity, that was later reintegrated under the Church in Rome . </P> <P> Prominent missionaries were Saints Patrick, Columba and Columbanus . The Anglo - Saxon tribes that invaded southern Britain some time after the Roman abandonment, were initially pagan, but converted to Christianity by Augustine of Canterbury on the mission of Pope Gregory the Great . Soon becoming a missionary center, missionaries such as Wilfrid, Willibrord, Lullus and Boniface would begin converting their Saxon relatives in Germania . </P> <P> The largely Christian Gallo - Roman inhabitants of Gaul (modern France) were overrun by the Franks in the early 5th century . The native inhabitants were persecuted until the Frankish king Clovis I converted from paganism to Roman Catholicism in 496 . Clovis insisted that his fellow nobles follow suit, strengthening his newly established kingdom by uniting the faith of the rulers with that of the ruled . </P>

When did christianity officially begin what book is this event recorded in