Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

hen the theologians Augustine of Hippo
and Thomas Aquinas set out the terms
by which war was acceptable to the
Church they set clear restrictions on who was able
to participate. Clerics, who by their vocation were
sacred, were forbidden to spill blood, as were
members of monastic orders, whose communities
prefigured the Kingdom of Heaven and who should
abstain from war as they abstained from possessions
or marriage.
This did not preclude the involvement of the
clergy in warfare altogether, however. Priests
routinely accompanied armies, in part to serve the
normal daily spiritual needs of the warriors.
Confession, penance and the Mass took on an extra
significance in the face of battle. As battle was
engaged those priests would gather and pray for
victory, as well as being there to tend the wounded
and offer the last rites. As previously mentioned, at
the battle of Northallerton, also known as the Battle
of the Standard for the saint's banners that the Anglo-
Norman forces carried with them, the priests,
including Bishop Ralph of the Orkneys, stood on a
hill above the battle, praying for God's intercession
against the Scots.
Priests might also take a more active role. The
communal militias that the Church encouraged for
the enforcement of the Peace and Truce of God
were often led by parish priests who, as men of local
standing and the representatives of the Church,
were obvious choices for command. Senior
churchmen combined the role of secular and
ecclesiastical lord. In the Holy Roman Empire (an
elected monarchy spanning almost all of modern
Germany and Austria and parts of Belgium and
Holland) the prince-bishops fused both secular and
ecclesiastical power in one body. The Bishop of
Durham had similar powers within his diocese
which, given its proximity to the Scottish border,
was a major military zone. It was inevitable that he
later medieval conceptions of the limits ol war. He recognized that peace was
impossible on earth and that it was necessary to make a place lor war within
Christianity. To his thinking wars were acceptable if they were 'just'. 'Just war',
according to Augustine, was primarily the fight for justice and the tranquillity of order.
War to right wrongs and recover goods was just', even if one was the aggressor.
However just war' should be declared and waged on the authority of a prince.
He alone held the responsibility for taking up arms. I f he declared a war that was not
|ust then the sin was his, his soldiers were rendered innocent by their duty to obey their
lord. Augustine also instructed that those with a religious calling should not participate
in war. Their sacred nature prohibited monks and clerics from spilling blood.
Augustine believed that 'jiL.ita bella ulcutcuntur injuria^', that is that just wars avenge
injuries'. The prince who waged a just war' acted as the instrument of God's