The 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 lgal et aux questions juridiques qui se trouvent la base de l'idologie et de la pratique des Croisades au Moyen Age. L 'auteur a t le premier entreprendre des recherches de faon systmatique dans ce domaine; deux raisons prcises sont l'origine de cette dmarche premirement, la conviction que seule la connaissance du contexte des systmes lgaux dont l'poque tait imprgne, permet de bien comprendre le phnomne historique des Croisades; deuximement, le fait que quantit de documents temoins chartes, dcrets, ou encore chroniques sont l'oeuvre de gens dont la perception tait grandement influence par la loi. Un nombre d'tudes se concentrent sur la rle individuel de certains croiss, ou s'adressent des questions d'idologie, y compris le concept mme de la Guerre Sainte. D'autre traitent de questions d'ordre pratique, ainsi que de la nature des engagements contracts par le crois; ils en examinent le