The Causes of War

Volume II: 1000 CE to 1400 CE

Alexander Gillespie

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781782259558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Droit international

This is the second volume of a projected five-volume series charting the causes of war from 3000 BCE to the present day, written by a leading international lawyer, and using as its principal materials the documentary history of international law, largely in the form of treaties and the negotiations which led up to them. These volumes seek to show why millions of people, over thousands of years, slew each other. In departing from the various theories put forward by historians, anthropologists and psychologists, Gillespie offers a different taxonomy of the causes of war, focusing on the broader settings of politics, religion, migrations and empire-building. These four contexts were dominant and often overlapping justifications during the first four thousand years of human civilisation, for which written records exist.

IV

The Thirteenth Century

1. INTRODUCTION

THIS CHAPTER IS the longest in this book. I do not know if this century was actually more violent than the others, but the causes by which people justified violence, multiplied. In some areas, the traditional patterns of causes of warfare continued unabated. In other areas, some of the causes that emerged out of the twelfth century culminated in the thirteenth, and finally, new and monumental actors, such as the Mongols, arrived, swamped a vast number of civilisations, and then largely disappeared from history.

Within Europe, the thirteenth century saw wars of religion intensifying, as fights against heresy accelerated and attacks were made on those Christian communities that disagreed with the approach of the papacy. The foremost example of this was the Fourth Crusade, where religious opportunities overlapped with dynastic struggles within Constantinople and disgruntled enemies waited beneath the walls of their city. Wars not about religion but about the power of the pope continued to be waged throughout Europe, as successive popes battled emperors (via trying to force them to be subservient to papal directives). The foremost example of this was with Frederick II, who ended up losing his dynasty, and leaving a heavily fragmented Germany in the wake of the demise. It was only when Rudolf Habsburg arose from a line which would become one of the most famous dynasties in history, that a sovereign coherency to Germany began to reappear. Southern Italy, was then cleaved off any linkages to Germany, and auctioned off by the papacy to compliant foreign rulers. In time, they found that they could not establish control over this part of the world, and peace could only be achieved with territorial division, succession plans and numerous interventions by Rome.

Wars in England in the thirteenth century were predominantly internal as the absolute power of the king was constrained by the Magna Carta and the development of constitutional structures through which the nobles gained some control over the realm. In the ensuing chaos, both Wales and Scotland sought to break free from all English influence. Although the English monarchy had battled its way back to the top by the end of the century, the idea of shared power within a constitutional framework became entrenched.

Whilst the constitutional pattern became settled in England, the relationship with France, always complicated by overlapping feudal obligations as regards English-held land in France, created continual friction. Despite frequent flare-ups, especially by disgruntled local nobles, who tried to play both crowns one against the other, peace was brought by clarifying the rules and inter-marriage between the two monarchies. Nonetheless, this inter-marriage laid the seeds for a conflict that would dominate Anglo-French relations for the next 150 years.

One of the most remarkable achievements of the thirteenth century, in terms of avoiding conflict, was Jerusalem moving back into Christian hands. It was remarkable as it was done peacefully, via treaty and not bloodshed. The context that allowed this to happen was the disintegration of the Sunni based empire that Saladin has created, after his death. In particular, although the Fifth Crusade failed miserably, within 11 years Frederick II had entered Jerusalem and was proclaimed as its overlord, following a treaty with the sultan of Egypt. However, the community he established became embroiled in regional inter-Muslim wars, in which alliances formed against the author of the treaty (the sultan of Egypt) would eventually lead to the downfall of the regime in Egypt and the rise of the Mamluks in its place.

As Jerusalem was changing hands, the Mongolian Empire was expanding rapidly in all directions. These, primarily migratory, peoples formed a coherent group until just after the middle of the thirteenth century. During this point wars were caused by the killing of ambassadors, the giving of sanctuary (or allowing transit) to enemies, or the failure to give tribute when demanded. Although being unique for their religious tolerance, the Mongols expected complete submission of areas that surrendered. For some areas, such as eastern Europe, the defeats were transitory, for other areas, such as what became much of Russia, the invaders came to settle and occupy large parts for centuries to come.

In the case of China, the Song cooperated with the Mongols, but when they tried to force the return of the culturally important areas which the Mongols came to hold, warfare followed. This intensified when the Song refused to pay the Mongols the same tribute they used to give to their former enemies, which the Mongols had defeated. The survival of the Song was only due to the breathing space created with the transition time, and civil war for the Mongols, involved in the finding of a new great Khan. When this was settled, following further warfare with the Song, peace was found for the price of silver and gold.

When Kublai Khan came to power, the Song were destroyed and a new dynasty, the Yuan, that unified China in the first time for hundreds of years, came into being. Control was also solidified over Tibet, Myamar, Korea and Vietnam, in which those who were not directly controlled, accepted a vassal status and provided tribute. The only country which avoided a subjected position was Japan which defeated two attempted invasions.

The only point in the thirteenth century when the Mongols were actually stopped and pushed back was with the Sunni based Mamluks. Their victories stopped the Mongolian juggernaut and saved Islam. With the Mongols halted, the Mamluks struck outwards, pushing the Mongol forces back and systematically destroying both non-allied Muslim and/or Christian communities in the process. They did this by dividing the opposition by offering some truces, and others war. Mongol–Christian alliances, as the only viable counterweight against the Mamluks, were at first rejected and then, when they were accepted, were too late to stem the tide, with the last significant Christian outpost in the Holy Land, Acre, being lost in 1291. The remaining Christian countries in the region, Armenia and Georgia, were subsumed within the Mamluk Empire over the following decades. Sunni Islam was now dominant throughout the region. Only with the reconquest of Spain, and follow-through actions into North Africa following the fragmentation of Almohad power into three, Sunni dynastic States, did Christian interests advance, as the Christian kings learnt to divide and rule between squabbling Muslim dynasties.

2. THE CHURCH

A.Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III reigned in Rome from 1198. He considered himself the Vicar of Christ on Earth, standing halfway between God and humanity, given ‘not only the universal church, but the whole world to govern’. He was ruled by the thought that the pope was responsible to God for the salvation of common people, ecclesiastics and kings alike. It was therefore his business to appoint, and control monarchs to ensure their righteousness and their respect for the rights of the Church. He would explain:

The princes ought to recognise that the right and authority of examining the person whom they have elected as king, as of promoting him to the imperial power belongs to us who anoint, consecrate and crown him …¹

And,

We do not deny that the emperor is superior in temporal matters to those who receive temporal things from him, but the pope is superior in spiritual matters, which, as the soul is superior to the body, are more worthy than temporal ones.²

With such confidence and piety, Innocent III exerted influence over every part of western Christendom. Within Italy, he had the local princes, including the Prefect of the Senate of Rome, take an oath of allegiance to him. Outside of Italy, Aragon, Portugal and Poland were all reconfirmed as papal fiefs. The pope also sent crowns to the new kings of Bulgaria (which was breaking free from Byzantium) and Bohemia. He managed marriage arrangements for the monarchs of Europe, and ensured that Kings of England, France, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, all did as they were told, especially on ecclesiastical matters.³

3. THE FOURTH CRUSADE

A.The Fracturing Relationship

Pope Innocent III was in power when Constantinople fell to the Latins. Hatred is probably an inappropriate word for Innocent III’s attitude towards the Greek Church, but he did regard the Byzantines as rebels against his authority. Nevertheless, in 1203, he warned the leaders of the Fourth Crusade:

Let no one among you rashly convince himself that he may seize or plunder the Greeks’ land on the pretext that they show little obedience toward the Apostolic See … Whatever evil the emperor and his subjects may have committed … it is not up to you to pass judgement on their crimes, nor did you take the cross for the purpose of punishing anyone for this offence.⁴

In addition to Innocent III’s prohibition, the broad history suggested this conquest of one Christian group by another should never have happened, as the genesis of the Crusades lay in helping, not fighting, Byzantium. However, just over 100 years after taking Jerusalem in the First Crusade in 1099, the Crusader forces, under the auspice of the papacy, would conquer Constantinople and nearly destroy their Christian cousin. In retrospect, this was not surprising, as the relationship between Byzantium and the West was tense, for three reasons which supplemented the ongoing theological fracture (and occasional anti-Latin riots in Constantinople) between the two foundations of the Christian faith.⁵

First, the Crusaders felt that the Byzantines, due to their willingness to make treaties with both the Fatimids (in the early part of the eleventh century)⁶ and the Seljuks (in the latter half of the twelfth century)⁷ could not be trusted. This lack of trust grew after the disasters that were the Second and Third Crusades when it became known that Constantinople had entered into alliances with Saladin. For the failure of the Byzantine city of Antioch to help Edessa, which was the catalyst for the Second Crusade, the French king, Louis VII, had advocated a Crusade against the Byzantine emperor, who was ‘Christian in name only’.⁸

As regards the Third Crusade following the fall of Jerusalem, once Barbarossa had sought permission to pass through Byzantine territory and the two forces found themselves in military conflict due to the military alliance that Constantinople had reached with Saladin, Barbarossa would send his son to discuss with the pope the possibility of a Crusade against Byzantium, which he felt was acting against the wider interests of western Christendom. In so doing, Barbarossa was particularly aware of the interests of the Bulgarians and the Serbians, both of whom were trying to claw back their independence from Constantinople and making overtures to the Latin, not Orthodox, faith.⁹

The second reason for a tense relationship was that there was considerable anger towards the Latins on the part of Byzantium, because it was believed that the Crusaders, in the wake of the First Crusade, had reneged on their promises to return to the original owner—Byzantium—lands taken from the Muslims. The Crusaders, in contrast, argued that they were only obliged to do this if Byzantium gave them sufficient assistance in the recovery of the lands, which, the Latins argued, it had not. This was most obvious in connection with the city of Antioch, which had been Byzantine until 1085, when it was taken over by the Seljuks and then, three years later, in 1098, by the Crusaders. The city’s return to Byzantium only occurred with the 1108 Treaty of Devol, but even then, the terms of the Treaty were never fully implemented.¹⁰

The third problem had to do with on-going warfare between a subset of the Latin Crusaders—the Normans of southern Italy—and Byzantium. The southern Normans had sought to topple Constantinople in 1081, making the most of a dynastic dispute, trying to force their way into Illyria. However, the Byzantine forces were waiting, and some 40,000 men fought each other at the battle of Dyrrhachium. Although two-thirds of the 15,000 dead on the battlefield were Norman, victory was not assured to either side, and the opponents continued to wage war against each other in the region for many years to come. The most significant conflicts followed in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• I. Introduction
• II. The Eleventh Century
• III. The Twelfth Century
• IV. The Thirteenth Century
• V. The Fourteenth Century
• VI. Conclusion
• Index
• Copyright Page