Definition:
Starting with Pope Urban II’s call to the First Crusade at the Council of
Clermont, the social class of the knightly elite started to take on a new role
in the Middle Ages. Trained warriors had been wreaking havoc on their societies
in the years of relative disunity after the Viking invasions. Prior to the
Crusade, The Peace and Truce of God was implemented, which was a guide for
warriors on who and when they could fight (Peters 38). This doctrine tried to
suppress the professional warriors. The First Crusade was in some regards a
different approach to the “problem” of a knightly elite. This time, Pope Urban
II used the tactic of rechanneling the warriors with the promise of remission
of sins and consequently, he assigned a religious duty to a military class
(Peters 37).
Importance: Pope Urban II deserves great diplomatic applause for his religious
assignment to the warrior class. This decision, while questionable from a moral
perspective, was a great way to unify the class against a common enemy and
reduce the number of internal conflicts. Pope Urban was able to redirect the
military activity in a way that actually helped the Christians. In addition,
the warriors could “substitute” the Crusade for penance (Peters 37). One could
argue against Pope Urban’s decision by saying that in a sense he was “selling”
pardons for military expansion instead of money. This perspective is especially
important to consider when evaluating the morality of military valorization.
No comments:
Post a Comment