What if christianity never existed ?

[The Grand Nudger]

https://www.amazon.com/Mohammed-Charlema...amp;sr=8-1

Excellent, thank you.

Pirenne's thesis has not convinced most historians of the period, but they generally agree it has stimulated debate on the Early Middle Ages, and has provided a provocative example of how periodization would work.[8][9] Later archaeology has largely disproved the Pirenne thesis, by showing that Mediterranean trade was not disrupted by the rise of Islam in the way envisaged by Pirenne.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Pirenne

As to your comments about monks....to say that classical learning "survived" them, or through them..is a gross misrepresentation of what they did to classical works. They were ret-conners and book burners. They rewrote and christianized classical works to such an extent that we no longer trust their accounts or revisions or copies to be an accurate representation of the originals. OFC, in the 1920's we still accepted the christianized version of history, we were, ourselves, enamoured with the idea of being a part of classical civilization, so long as it had been whitewashed of anything we found culturally objectionable. So long as it's greatest moment was -our- moment....brought low by the hated turks and mohamedan, whom we had since defeated and subjugated.