Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000-1300

Theorizing the Crusades: Identity, Institutions, and Religious War in Medieval Latin Christendom1

“…This is the very meaning of “heteronomy.”When attempting to grasp the logic of any given world order, this suggests the need to map both the constellation of war‐making units comprising that order, as well as the socially constructed interests of the dominant social forces within each of these units. Social property relations may well be part of the equation—indeed, understanding the logic of what John France (1999:1‐15) calls medieval “proprietorial war” requires attention to precisely these relations—but it simply does not constitute a sort of master variable capable of explaining the “constitution, operation, and transformation of geopolitical orders” (Teschke 2003:7).…”

“…Obviously, however, the new script of “devout Christian” (with its entailed norms of humility, asceticism, Christian love, and public displays of piety) could only ever coexist uneasily with the older script of “noble warrior” (with its associated norms of ambition and honor and its defining practices of violence and conspicuous consumption). As a result, the members of the nobility became “painfully aware of their own sinfulness and its terrible consequences, and deeply anxious to escape from them”(France 1999:205; Housley 2006:34). Against this backdrop, the Church was able to summon kings, princes, lords, and their knightly retinues to fight on behalf of its temporal and spiritual interests by providing a means of resolving this tension—that is, by offering members of the nobility a means to atone for their sins while actually enacting the script of “warrior” (if in support of carefully delimited religio‐political objectives).…”

Notas sobre el uso y construcción de armas de asedio en el reino de Valencia durante la Guerra de los Dos Pedros (1356-1366)

“…Evidentemente, la mayor parte de trabajos que han abordado la cuestión de la guerra medieval, desde los clásicos hasta algunos más recientes, han tratado la cuestión del armamento en mayor o menor medida, o al menos lo han considerado como uno de los principales condicionantes de la práctica bélica. De esta manera, no podemos eludir trabajos clásicos como los de Philippe Contamine (1972: 121-128;1984: 86-93), John France (1999: 16-29) o Verbruggen (1997. Si buscamos trabajos centrados en armamento, sin duda alguna nos toparemos con trabajos como el de Kelly DeVries y Robert Douglas Smith (2012) y, por supuesto, la monumental obra de Ada Bruhn de Hoffmeyer (1982).…”