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ABSTRACT
The contribution focuses on the ways in which medieval Catholic religion influenced warfare, not in terms of causality but in terms of conditions of possibility. After having looked at (1) the way in which the crusades, in particular, opened up the possibility to transfer attributes from monastic asceticism (the monks were spiritual ‘warriors of God’) to warriors (fighting as ‘warriors of God’), the article examines two examples. (2) Theology provided to the Western European culture of war the figure of the ‘false brother’, which, translated, yielded a script for the internal enemy, the political traitor and adversary in civil wars. Around this figure enormous fantasies crystallized themselves, arguably without equivalent in non-monotheistic cultures. One sees in the late medieval French civil wars the semi-secularized mobilization of this figure, with fantasies and execution of violent purge. (3) The ascetic values activated for warfare with the First Crusade meant that while in reality (as one would expect) sexual did transgressions occur, rape in war by one’s own side was hardly ever admitted, and arguably was in reality also inhibited.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For the appropriateness of the concept of religion, see the introduction for this dossier.
2 Kantorowicz proposes a purely intellectual history. For the historical process, see Housley (Citation2000).
3 This article uses ‘secular’ and ‘secularization’ in the Schmittian sense, bypassing the discussion in Sociology and Anthropology about the West and the Rest, which involves different concerns and a totally different definition (see Asad Citation2003). Asad’s critique has led to the emergence of the thesis of ‘multiple secularities’ (see Künkler et al. (Citation2018); and for Japan Rots and Teeuwen, eds. (Citation2017)), which while fascinating is not topical here.
4 Susanna Throop (Citation2020), whom I read in revising this article, rightly underlines the absence of strict boundaries between crusading violence and other forms of Christian violence. Her chapter was likely too limited in scope to discuss more than the one common denominator she identifies, charity for the in-group.
5 A fine study, Smith (Citation2011) might have been more explicit about what she owes to Harnack.
6 ‘Traitor’ itself is initially a religious term (the normal Latin words for treason are proditio, infidelitas, and perfidia). A traditor is a person who ‘hands over’ (tradere) the Holy Scriptures to the pagan persecutor, see Frend (Citation1951). A related exemplar is Judas traditor, who sold Jesus Christ to His enemies (thus the prime traitor who passed from Christendom’s initial core (the group of twelve apostles) into the corpus diaboli). A history of the term’s evolution would warrant an article of its own. Ca. 800, Alcuin cursed contemporary ‘accomplices of his [Judas’] wickedness, who also now persecute His [Christ’s] members’ (Patrologia Latina 100, 907d). Clauses protecting Church property vowed transgressors to Hell ‘cum Iuda traditore’ (with the traitor Judas).
7 Canso (1957–1951) xxvi, in particular § 175:11–12, 2.226. It is a galïament, deceit or treason, § 177:67, 2.242. In § 179:20–42, 2.250–252, wicked Simon praises the bishop, who ‘with words and pacts deceived’ his enemies. One of his knights sees the planned plunder of Toulouse as a breach the mutual oaths between Simon and the citizens. The theme of clerical deceit runs through the chapters devoted to Simon's vengeance against Toulouse, Canso xxiiff, 2.199ff. See as well § 169:11–18, 2.182, where a companion of Simon, opposing the count himself, pleads that to break an oath that was coerced, a sagramen forsat, is not treason.
8 A classic discussion is Azar Gat (Citation2006). Biologists however have subverted the notion of deep dispositions created in the far prehistoric past and transmitted genetically to present human agents. See e.g. Callebaut (Citation2011, esp. 345–347).
9 Blood and gore also in abundance in the Ayyoubid chronicler and companion of Saladin Al-Iṣfahānī (Citation1972).
10 In the counter-attack against the insurgent Jacques (1358 C.E.), the nobles push and cut with their swords; it is the men-at-arms who ‘butcher (abatoient) right and left like sheep’ these villains, described as ‘dark (noirs), short, and badly armed’ (Chroniques [Citation1867–1877] vol. 6, 57).
11 Whereby the enemy perversely apes a God-willed purge of the wicked (see Buc Citation2015, 268).
12 A statement of no small weight, see the parallel wording when a Christian priest is slain at the altar during mass, XXI, vv. 558–561 (Chanson 1976, 43).
13 A rare instance in Julian of Toledo, Historia Wambae regis §10, from the later seventh century: ‘Behold, judgment by combat is at hand, and it would be pleasing that a person fornicates?’ (cited in Buc Citation2015, 266).