The Church, Warfare and Military Obligation in Norman Italy

Abstract

One of the most important intellectual problems which the Church faced in the Middle Ages was to reconcile warfare with the Christian message. But the presence of, and the necessity for, war affected not merely the intellectual attitudes and social message of medieval ecclesiastics. The institutional Church faced obvious practical problems when confronted with external warfare or civil disturbance. On the one hand the ruler might well, indeed usually did, require churches with extensive property and wealth to contribute to the burden of defending the community. On the other hand churches might well, especially if the ruler’s authority was weak, face the need to defend themselves against the aggression of their neighbours. Churches therefore needed a military potential, whether or not the state laid this obligation upon them. Even the Church’s attempts to control warfare, the Peace and Truce of God movements, tended to embroil it in military activity, since exhortation and spiritual sanction often needed the backing of force to convince a recalcitrant laity of the virtues of bridling its internal violence.