Rola wojen i konfliktów w kształtowaniu ładu europejskiego w średniowieczu
The Role of Wars and Conflicts in Shaping the European Order in the Middle Ages

Summary/Abstract: It is rather difficult to reduce a thousand years of medieval wars and conflicts to one universal formula, because the whole thing is complex, and the attitude towards war used to be different in the past from what it is now. Wars and conflicts were thought to be connected to a fight for survival and power. In the Middle Ages the idea of total war was not known, nobody strove to annihilate their opponents. The purpose of most wars was to weaken the enemy or to get a good ransom. For a significant part of the Middle Ages the dominating military unit was the cavalry formed by the knighthood that later metamorphosed into the gentry. At the end of that period the structure of the army changed, and infantry and mercenaries became the most important parts of the army. Military service was compulsory for the vassal; yet, the recruitment among peasants played an important role, too. It may seem curious but war was treated as a kind of entertainment, as a cure for boredom, and it was the atmosphere which created the whole culture and ethics of knighthood. The basic rules of the medieval doctrine stipulated a good military preparation in order to keep the peace, the weaker were not right. The basis of a stable state was the army. It was accepted to stand up to a tyrant or an unjust sovereign that had been acting against his nation. In the Christian doctrine there were notions of a saint war (which later changed into a crusade) and of a just war. According to Saint Augustine war was a punishment for sins and crimes. The army often served the Church; it was the concept of ‘militis Christi’. The European order was thought to depend on the military power, and – to a significant degree – on the military propaganda. Theoretical aspects of armed conflicts and the problem of a just war were popular subjects in Poland; those questions were investigated by – among others – Stanisław of Skarbimierz and Paweł Włodkowic.

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