Crusades, Holy War and Canon Law

This volume is concerned, above all, with the legal background and the juristic issues behind the ideology and practice of the medieval Crusades. This is an area that the author was the first to investigate systematically, and there are two particular reasons for his approach: one, the conviction that the historical phenomenon of the Crusades can only be adequately understood within the context of the legal systems that permeated the age; the other, that so much of the documentary evidence ' be it charters, decrees even chronicles ' was produced by people whose perceptions had been shaped by the law. A number of articles focus on the roles of individual crusaders, or address ideological questions, including the very concept of Holy War. Others deal with practical issues and the nature of the obligations incurred by a crusader, and examine the consequences these had, both for the institutions of medieval Europe and for the crusader's own family relationships. Ce recueil s'attache avant tout au contexte legal et aux questions juridiques qui se trouvent A la base de l'ideologie et de la pratique des Croisades au Moyen Age. L 'auteur a ete le premier A entreprendre des recherches de faAon systematique dans ce domaine; deux raisons precises sont A l'origine de cette demarche premierement, la conviction que seule la connaissance du contexte des systemes legaux dont l'epoque etait impregnee, permet de bien comprendre le phenomene historique des Croisades; deuxiemement, le fait que quantite de documents ' temoins ' chartes, decrets, ou encore chroniques ' sont l'oeuvre de gens dont la perception etait grandement influencee par la loi. Un nombre d'etudes se concentrent sur la rA'le individuel de certains croises, ou s'adressent A des questions d'ideologie, y compris le concept mA me de la Guerre Sainte. D'autre traitent de questions d'ordre pratique, ainsi que de la nature des engagements contractes par le croise; ils en examinent le