The Hierarchy of Violence in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Canonists

Abstract

sources and modern scholarly discussions of the large-scale military attacks upon religious enemies mounted by medieval Christian authorities describe these attacks by terms such as 'just war', 'holy war', 'crusade', and 'sacred violence'. Twentieth-century writers still use these categories to describe modern conflicts that they wish to justify by invoking idealistic motives that purport to legitimize hostilities. When General Eisenhower entitled his memoir of the Second World War Crusade in Europe, he doubtless meant to use 'crusade' as a metaphor in this way.1 When the Franco government entitled its account of the Spanish Civil War A History of the Spanish Crusade, however, the work was predicated on the belief that the struggle had been quite literally a crusade, because it was authorized by ecclesiastical authorities and fought in the name of religion.2 This essay, therefore, addresses a recurring problem in legal and historical taxonomy. On a different level, international public law continues to distinguish between just (or legitimate) wars and what are now called 'wars of aggression',3 and that distinction can entail significant legal consequences.4 The status of a conflict in international law may substantially affect such concrete matters as, for example, the public property of hostile states, the assets and other property rights of enemy aliens,5