History W4060y Professor Kosto
Columbia University M 2:10–4:00
Spring 2008 311 Fayerweather Hall
LAWS OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course focuses on the perception and regulation of wartime practices (rather than on strategy, tactics, and
weaponry) in the period 300–1500. It thus approaches the material from the standpoint of legal and institutional
history rather than off military history per se. Weeks 2 and 3 offer a survey of the military history through a main
secondary text, Keen’s Medieval Warfare. Students will also read during these weeks a common set of primary
sources for a series of important conflicts. During the next three weeks, each student will identify a particular
region, period, or conflict on which to focus their research for the remainder of the course. During those three
weeks (4, 5, 6), common readings will address the Just War tradition and the Peace and Truce movement. In weeks
7 to 11, the class will investigate a series of specific themes: prisoners and ransom, non-combatants, siege warfare,
chivalry, ambassadors and diplomacy. Students will be asked to supply the class each week with excerpts relevant
to the week’s theme drawn from the sources that are the subject of their research projects; this will supplement
common primary or secondary readings. Toward the end of the course, students will present the results of their
individual research projects.
REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
The principal requirement for the course is a 20–25 page research paper based on primary sources (in translation, if
necessary) on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. Students must select a geographical/chronological
focus by 22 February (e-mail to professor), submit a one-page prospectus (e-mail attachment) by 7 March, a one-
page outline (e-mail attachment) by 23 March, and a full draft (hard copy in class) on 21 April (seniors) or 28 April
(others). Final papers are due on 7 May (seniors) or 12 May (others). See additional paper instructions and
guidelines below. Students will make a ten-minute presentation on their research projects on the day the draft is
due. For weeks 7–11, students must post on Courseworks readings from their research relevant to the week’s
theme. Each student will also be responsible at some point during the semester for an oral presentation (with one-
page written summary to be distributed to the class) of a scholarly monograph. Participation in seminar discussions
and oral presentations will count for 50% of the grade; the research paper in all its steps will count for the other
50%.
READINGS
The following books are available for purchase at Book Culture (536 W 112th between Broadway and Amsterdam):
Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378), trans. W. Hamilton (Harmondsworth, 1986)
Stephen Morillo, ed., Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge, 1996)
P. W. Edbury, ed., The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade (Aldershot, 1996)
Janet Shirley, ed., The Song of the Cathar Wars: A History of the Albigensian Cruade (Aldershot, 1996)
Jean Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth, 1968)
Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to
Kant (Oxford, 1999) (optional)
Geffroi de Charny, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry, ed. Richard Kauper (Philadelphia, 1996)
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 3rd ed. (New York, 2000)
Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare can be found used online (www.addall.com). It, like all the books listed above, is on
reserve in Butler Library, along with a few additional relevant titles. Other readings will be available online or made
available for copying in the History Department Copy Room (6th Floor, Fayerweather)
GETTING IN TOUCH
Office: 501 Fayerweather
Office Hours: M 12:00–1:00, or by appointment
Phone: x4-3005
E-mail: ajkosto@columbia.edu
Regular Mail: Mail Code 2504; Fayerweather, 3rd Floor, Box 13
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES AND ASSIGNMENTS
= common reading (C) = on Courseworks
= literature report, to be assigned (W) = available elsewhere on the web
(X) = available to xerox
(R) = on reserve
1. 28 Jan Introduction; Organization
2. 4 Feb Medieval Warfare I
Maurice Keen, ed, Medieval Warfare: A History (Oxford, 1999), 1–88 (R)
Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories 31, trans. Walter Hamilton, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378)
(Harmondsworth, 1986), 410–33 [Adrianople] (R)
Royal Frankish Annals, aa. 772–804, trans., Bernhard Walter Scholz, Carolingian Chronicles: Royal
Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories (Ann Arbor, 1970), 48–84 [Saxon Campaigns] (X)
Stephen Morillo, ed., Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge, 1996), 3–53 (R, W)
3. 11 Feb Medieval Warfare II
Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare, 89–162 (R)
P. W. Edbury, ed., The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade (Aldershot, 1996), 45–50, 158–63
[Hattin] (R)
Janet Shirley, ed., The Song of the Cathar Wars: A History of the Albigensian Cruade (Aldershot, 1996),
11–71 (R, C)
Jean Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth, 1968), 68–96 [Crécy] (R)
4. 18 Feb Just War I
Exodus 20:13, 21:12–32; Deuteronomy 20:10–20; Romans 12:9–13:10 (X)
Arthur F. Holmes, ed., War and Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, 1975), 61–83 [Augustine] (X)
Cicero, On Duties, ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M Atkins (Cambridge, 1991), 1.34–40, pp. 14–18 (X)
The Digest of Justinian, trans. Alan Watson (Philadelphia, 1985), 49.15–16 (X)
Gratian, D. 1 cc. 7, 9; C. 23, selections (X, C)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica (London, 1915–38), I-II 105.3, II-II 40–42, 66.8, 123.5 (pp. 1099–
1101, 1359–66, 1481–82, 1710) (X)
Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1975)
David S. Bachrach, Religion and the Conduct of War, c. 300–c. 1215 (Woodbridge, 2003)
5. 25 Feb Just War II
Giovanni da Legnano, Tractatus de bello, de represaliis, et de duello, trans. Thomas Erskine Holland
(Washington, DC, 1917) (W, C)
James T. Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200–
1740 (Princeton, 1975)
Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius
to Kant (Oxford, 1999)
6. 3 Mar Ius in bello I: Peace and Truce of God
“Selected Documents on the Peace of God in Translation,” in Thomas Head and Richard Landes, The
Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response around the Year 1000 (Ithaca, 1992), 327–42 (X)
Carl Erdmann, Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton, 1977
[Stuttgart, 1933]), 51–85 (W)
plus 2 of the following:
Dolorosa Kennelly, “Medieval Towns and the Peace of God,” Medievalia et Humanistica 15 (1963), 33–53
(X)
Georges Duby, “Laity and the Peace of God,” [1968] in idem, The Chivalrous Society, trans. Cynthia
Postan (Berkeley, 1977), 123–33 (X)
H. E. J. Cowdrey, “The Peace and the Truce of God in the Eleventh Century,” Past and Present 46 (1970),
42–67 (W)
Thomas Bisson, “The Organized Peace in Southern France and Catlonia, ca. 1140-ca.1233,” American
Historical Review 82 (1977),290–310 (W)
plus one of the following:
Thomas Head, “The Development of the Peace of God in Aquitaine (970-1005),” Speculum 74 (1999),
656–86 (W)
Jeffrey Bowman, “Councils, Memory and Mills: The Early Development of the Peace of God in Catalonia,
Early Medieval Europe 8 (1999), 99–130 (W, C)
Thomas Head and Richard Landes, The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response around the
Year 1000 (Ithaca, 1992)
7. 10 Mar Ius in bello II: Prisoners and Ransom
C. Given-Wilson and F. Bériac, “Edward III’s Prisoners of War: The Battle of Poitiers and Its Context,”
English Historical Review 116 (2001), 802–33 (W)
A. King, “According to the Custom Used in French and Scottish Wars”: Prisoners and Casualties on the
Scottish Marches in the Fourteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002), 263–90 (W)
Froissart, Chronicles, 120–45, 167–69 [Poitiers] (R)
Yvonne Friedman, Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
(Leiden, 2002)
James Brodman, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic
Frontier (Philadelphia, 1986)
17 Mar [NO CLASS Spring Break]
8. 24 Mar Ius in bello III: Siege Warfare
Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare, 163–85 (R, C)
Lawrence W. Marvin, “War in the South: A First Look at Siege Warfare in the Albigensian Crusade,” War
in History 8 (2001), 373–95 (W, C)
Froissart, Chronicles, 97–110 [Calais] (R)
Edbury, ed., The Conquest of Jerusalem, 79–107, 167–74 [Acre] (R)
R. Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1992)
Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege (Woodbridge, 1992)
9. 31 Mar Ius in bello IV: Non-Combatants
Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare, 253–72 (R)
plus 2 of the following:
Walter Porges, “The Clergy, the Poor, and the Non-Combatants on the First Crusade,” Speculum 21 (1946),
1–23 (W)
Wolf Liebeschuetz, “The Refugees and Evacuees in the Age of Migrations,” in Richard Corradini, Max
Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz, eds., The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages:
Texts, Resources and Artefacts (Leiden, 2003), 65–79 (X, C)
Ilana Krug, “Wartime Corruption and Complaints of the English Peasantry,” in Niall Christie and Maya
Yazigi, eds., Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities: Warfare in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2006), 177–94 (X, R,
C)
David J. Hay, “Collateral damage?”: Civilian Casualties in the Early Ideologies of Chivalry and Crusade,”
in Christie and Yazigi, eds., Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities, 3–26 (X, R, C)
Nicholas Wright, Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside (Woodbridge,
2000)
William Caferro, Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore, 1998)
10. 7 Apr Ius in bello V: Chivalry
Geffroi de Charny, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry, ed. Richard Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy
(Philadelphia, 2005) (R)
Matthew Strickland, War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy
(Cambridge, 1996)
Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999)
11. 14 Apr Ius in bello VI: Ambassadors and Diplomacy
R. C. Blockley, ed., The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2
(Liverpool, 1983), 243–95, odd pages (Priscus, Fragments 11–14) (X)
Liudprand of Cremona, The Embassy to Constantinople, trans. F. A. Wright, The Works of Liudprand of
Cremona (New York, 1930), 235–77 (X)
Donald E. Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1967)
Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (Boston, 1955)
12. 21 Apr Student Reports on Research
13. 28 Apr Student Reports on Research
14. 5 May Modern Perspectives
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 3rd ed. (New York, 2000) (R)
RESOURCES
—If you need a quick survey of medieval history, the best approach is probably to read Barbara
Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages. The first edition (2001) is short enough to skim through
in one or two sittings; the second edition (2004) is somewhat longer. There are bunches of copies in the
library, or you can borrow one from the instructor.
—The best way to find a research topic is to poke around and locate primary sources that interest you.
Sometimes the best way to do that is to see what primary sources are being used by secondary sources on
topics that you find interesting. You should meet with the instructor at the earliest opportunity to discuss
your interests and possible avenues to pursue.
In addition to the bibliographies in Keen, Medieval Warfare, you will find useful lists of sources in:
Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (New York, 1984)
Guy Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (London, 2003)
John France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000–1300 (Ithaca, 1999)
Helen J. Nicholson, Medieval Warfare: Theory and Practice of War in Europe, 300–1500 (New
York, 2004)
All are on reserve.
—The following print and electronic resources are quite useful:
Kelly DeVries, A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology (Leiden,
2002); Update 2004 (Leiden, 2005). This print bibliography is available online through CLIO as an E-
Book and in hardcopy at Butler Reserves. He doesn’t take much of an interest in the laws of war per se.
deremilitari.org The website of De Re Militari: The Society for Military History. This is an excellent
academic website, with very detailed bibliographies and even some primary sources in translation. You
can search it by doing a domain-limited search on Google. The contents of and direct links from this site
may be assumed to be reasonably trustworthy. Again, they aren’t particularly interested in the laws of
war.
IMB On-Line International Medieval Bibliography On-Line. You can access this bibliography via the
databases search on the library homepage. It will give you access to articles in journals and edited
volumes. It catalogues articles in many languages, but you can limit your search to English (or other
languages you read). Again, articles you find here may be assumed to be reasonably trustworthy.
Internet Medieval Sourcebook www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html This is a general site with many
out-of-copyright sources in translation. It is reasonably useful for finding translated materials, although
check with the instructor to see if there is not something newer and better for the source you are looking
for.
COURSEWORKS AND WIKI
I will put up on the Courseworks site electronic versions of readings when available. You will post
readings to Courseworks as required in weeks 7–11. I will use the site for e-mail communication.
We are being dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century with our very own course wiki:
histw4060-001-2008-1.wikispaces.columbia.edu/ I have no idea what we are going to do with it.
Suggestions are welcome.
History W4060y Professor Kosto
Columbia University M 2:10–4:00
Spring 2008 311 FAY
LAWS OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Final Paper Instructions
Your paper must be based principally on primary—that is, medieval—sources. You are expected to draw
on secondary sources for additional relevant information and provide context, but ultimately your task is
to say something interesting about laws of war in the Middle Ages by analyzing evidence from that
period.
Your paper may be principally descriptive, or it may involve a complex argument, but in either case your
statements must be supported by evidence.
Follow proper citation practice. Use The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago, 2003) (available
online). Rather than thinking of citation as a way to avoid plagiarism (which is not to say that it is not
that...), think of it as a way to provide additional information to your reader. A footnote should allow
your reader to find out exactly what it was that you read that led you to write what you wrote. Not every
statement needs a footnote. “On 23 December, 1092, the sun rose in the East” does not need a footnote.
“On 23 December, 1092, the sun rose in the West” does. If you have questions, consult the instructor.
You should use internet resources principally as a way of pointing you toward printed resources. If you
do choose to cite an internet resource (and I advise strongly against this), please check with the instructor
about its reliability.
Use direct quotation, especially from secondary sources, sparingly. Paraphrase (but still provide a
footnote!). Quote directly only when the language of the quotation is relevant.
Students must select a geographical/chronological focus by 22 February (e-mail to professor), submit a
one-page prospectus (e-mail attachment) by 7 March, a one-page outline (e-mail attachment) by 23
March. Drafts are due at the beginning of class on April 21st or the 28th, depending on the group to
which you have been assigned. On the day the draft is due, you will make a brief (5–7 minute)
presentation of your tentative findings to the class; feel free to ask for advice, hand out problematic
passages, etc.
You must submit your final paper to my box (no. 13) outside 310 Fayerweather; e-mail attachments will
not be accepted.
Seniors must hand in the final paper by Wednesday 7 May at 12:00 noon.
Others must hand in the paper by Monday 12 May at 12:00 noon.
Very brief extensions on the term paper will be granted for reasonable grounds (e.g., several papers due
on the same day), but you will know these things ahead of time. No extensions will be granted after
12:00 PM on Monday 21 April. Work handed in late will be penalized one grade fraction (+/-) per 24-
hour period (e.g., a paper due at 12:00 on Wednesday is one day late at 12:01 on Wednesday and at 12:00
on Thursday).
All written work will be assessed on style (and grammar, and syntax, and spelling...) as well as content.
Thou shalt proofread (on paper, not on a computer screen). Thou shalt employ double-spacing and
reasonable margins. Thou shalt not trust thy spellchecker (or grammar-checker, for that matter).
Plagiarism is grounds for failure of the assignment, failure of the course, and exposure to University
disciplinary action.