War and Peace

The contributors to the present volume examine, from a wide variety of perspectives, the issues of war and peace in the Middle Ages and early modern time, probing the direction of the relevant discourse regarding the legitimacy of military operations. We can identify many voices in medieval literature, theology, philosophy, and in chronicle literature that questioned the validity and effectiveness of war, while others argued for the traditional knightly ideals or called for crusades against the infidels. As this volume demonstrates, war and peace have fundamentally determined medieval and early modern culture.