The contributors to the present volume examine, from a wide variety of perspectives, the issues of war and peace in the Middle Ages and early modern time, probing the direction of the relevant discourse regarding the legitimacy and justification of military operations. Because man is a deeply aggressive and greedy creature, wars have been waged throughout times. Nevertheless, we can identify many voices in medieval literature, theology, philosophy, and in chronicle literature that questioned the validity and effectiveness of war, while many others argued for the traditional knightly ideals or called for crusades against the infidels. Those heroes who defend a people against an evil threat enjoyed profound respect, but there were also those figures calling for peace and the end of all fighting. As this volume demonstrates, war and peace have fundamentally determined medieval and early modern culture.

This is a major study of the ideas and practices involved in the making and breaking of peace treaties and truces from Classical Greece to the time of the Crusades. Leading specialists on war and peace in ancient and medieval history examine the creation of peace agreements, and explore the extent to which their terms could be manipulated to serve the interests of one side at the other's expense. The chapters discuss a wide range of uses to which treaties and other peace agreements were put by rulers and military commanders in pursuit of both individual and collective political aims. The book also considers the wider implications of these issues for our understanding of the nature of war and peace in the ancient and medieval periods. This broad-ranging account includes chapters on ancient Persia, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings.

The first systematic attempt to reconstruct from original manuscript sources and early printed books the medieval doctrines relating to the just war, the holy war and the crusade. Despite the frequency of wars and armed conflicts throughout the course of western history, no comprehensive survey has previously been made of the justifications of warfare that were elaborated by Roman lawyers, canon lawyers and theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth century universities. After a brief survey of theories of the just war in antiquity, with emphasis on Cicero and Augustine, and of thought on early medieval warfare, the central chapters are devoted to scholastics such as Pope Innocent IV, Hostiensis and Thomas Aquinas. Professor Russell attempts to correlate theories of the just war with political and intellectual development in the Middle Ages. His conclusion evaluates the just war in the light of late medieval and early modern statecraft and poses questions about its compatibility with Christian ethics and its validity within international law.

Many of the combatants in the European wars of the late middle ages fought for their own gain, but they observed a code of regulations, part chivalrous and part commercial which they called the ‘law of arms’. This book, originally published in 1965, examines this soldiers’ code, to understand its rules and how they were enforced. How did a soldier sue for ransom money if his prisoner would not pay it, and before what court? How did he know whether what he took by force was lawful spoil? As the answers to these and other questions reveal, the workings of the law of arms gave practical point to the contemporary cult of chivalry. It also had an important influence on the early development of ideas of international law.

This book explores a new way for students of International Relations to look at war, peace and world orders throughout European history. The contributors argue that the predominant 'realist' paradigm that focuses on states and their self-interest is not applicable to the largest period of European history, because states either did not exist or were only in the making. Instead, they argue, we have to look through the eyes of historical entities to see how they understood the world in which they lived, The authors use a wide range of case-studies, focusing on subjects as diverse as the ancient Greek concept of honour and persecution under Communist regimes during the Cold War to explore the ways in which people in different societies at different times perceived and felt about war and peace in the world around them.