The Social (and Religious) Meanings that Constitute War: The Crusades as Realpolitik vs. Socialpolitik

Abstract

This paper aims to present a different, and thus a more complete, explanation for “wars” in general and the Crusades to the Holy Land in particular than the one given by realist and rationalist theories. It makes its theoretical contribution in the context of a recent debate among several IR scholars, such as John Ruggie, Marcus Fischer, Rodney Bruce Hall, and Friedrich Kratochwil, forwarding the constitutive nature of the explanation of war. Furthermore, it wishes to incorporate into IR research a more sensitive historical research on the Middle Ages and the Crusades, based on French historiography and the Annalists, highlighting the “ mentalite ” as a cognitive structure that constituted particular interests, patterns of politics, and ultimately the wars of the Crusades. To show the evolution of social institutions, such as norms of Just War, Christian chivalry, and the idea of the Last Emperor into social praxis, this paper also focuses on the crusading life itself through the Hohenstaufen Emperors, Henry VI and Frederick II.