Church Post-Constantine 2b: Medieval church targets

This is the second part of the second part of a series on the messy reality of Church History After Constantine. The others are: The Messy Reality of Post-Constantinian Church History and Church After Constantine 2a: The Late Antique Targets, with An Excursus on the Synod of Whitby, AD 664

This series of posts is considering those groups targeted by the official engines of the Church (be it ‘Catholic’ or ‘Orthodox’) following Constantine’s conversion in the early 300s. My main contentions, if you haven’t guessed by now, are:

1. The church has been policing its doctrinal boundaries since long before Constantine
2. Most of the groups targeted by the post-Constantinian Church are groups who would be considered heretical by the more doctrinally conservative Protestants who support the idea of the True Church having gone Underground in response to Constantine
3. The use of force and encouragement of secular authorities to police the…