Laika - had a good read of those sources and while they are not particularly scholarly I will grant that I have a better understanding of what you meant by charity. I will happily accept that Christianity was a major factor in driving the spread of alms and caring for the poor and sick whereever it was dominant.
The effect of christianity in Britain is somewhat muted during the Roman occupation but gets up to a full head of steam with the Anglo Saxons. Christianity was also very local in its flavour having merged itself with the local pagan religions and having set itself up in places such as Iona.
I was very interested in the concept that medical care - in the form of hospitals - was largely a christian invention (some useful info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals) but of course there is a deeper story - the poison. How were these charitable acts paid for? How were hospitals, almshouses and infirmaries financed?
"In Europe the medieval concept of medical care by monasteries and religious orders was rejected by the Reformation, and most hospitals in Protestant areas were closed down. Theology was the problem. The Protestant reformers rejected the Catholic belief that rich men could gain God's grace through good works—and escape purgatory—by providing cash endowments to charitable institutions, and that the patients themselves could gain grace through their suffering"
Charity was being driven by a fear of hell. Indeed one thing that struck me is how ineffective these hospitals were (I am struck by a similar example with Mother Theresa) and beyond offering some shelter, food and a bed they weren't very effective. Indeed the reason why so many needed charity was because the invaiding Roman culture had fought hard against the indigenous Celtic concept of the individual with communal land rights and had replaced them with land ownership, servitude , taxation and other forms of wealth seperation. Religion was very much a tool of Roman occupation post 300AD.
So in short - yes charity was a defining charateristic of christianity but I would argue so was organisation, written dogma and guilt (all contributors to the spectacular spread of christianity.) Another thing to realise is how much the peasants were co-erced into accepting christianity (once a King or local noble converted the locals were normally baptised as well - people were property.)
So some good , fairly inneffective, stuff from christianity some poison in the form of guilt, sanctification through suffering, taxation and the general lack of genuine knowledge about medical matters (as one would expect from a set of religious books written by uneducated people rather than a super being.)
