After the ravages of plague, the long seventh century witnessed a period of great creativity. Many historians have considered this a proper ‘Dark Age’, of chaotic politics and of learning in decline, and yet this was also a time of innovation in law and monastic organisation, when missionaries proactively sought to expand Christendom north and east, and the Irish and Isidore of Seville transformed the frameworks for knowledge. While the power of Merovingian kings might have declined over time, this was in many respects a time of strength and vitality for Frankish, Visigothic, English and Irish political orders compared to the sixth century. As so often, the colour of history depends on which hues one prefers. Eschatology and apocalypticism were, regardless, rarely divorced from the cultural intersections which shaped change. At times they lurked, unsettlingly, on the peripheries of ‘corporate’ ideas, particularly following Isidore’s reformulation of the Hieronymian-Prosperian chronicle. At other times, they stood centre stage as a major element in ascetic renunciation and attempts to improve morality throughout society. No less than under Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours, Augustinian sensibilities were adapted, adopted and reshaped to meet new needs – and not silently, or hidden away in impenetrable intellectual tomes, but for a range of publics and situations.