"The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith." Belloc looks first at the Roman Empire, then the place of the early Church inside that Empire, then the Empire's decline, which is represented by the devolution of central power from the Emperor to local administrators and landowners. Belloc is essentially a continuist, stressing that the barbarians had no desire to destroy the Empire - indeed were usually auxiliaries in its armies. As the central government weakened these men - often the former chiefs of Barbarian tribes as well as the officers of a barbarian legions - became known as reges, as kings. Civil offices which were once the object of election became hereditary rights. Nations formed around powerful landowners and so the political unity of the Empire fragmented into feudal states.