The complicated sixteenth century: Difference between revisions
→Erasmus' influence upon Loyolla
| Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
In 1501, Erasmus published, ''Enchiridion militis Christiani'', or "Handbook<ref>The word "handbook" may be an incomplete translation of ''Enchiridion'', which suggests a more complete "manual" or set of instructions rather than a "handbook".</ref> of the Christian Soldier." The work was at the quest of the wife of an errant soldier who begged a friend of Erasmus to help change her husband's behavior. The medieval notion of "chivalry<ref>From French "''chevalerie''" for horseman and ''chevaler'' for knight; the English term, ''cavalier'', is drawn from the same Latin root, ''caballarius'' for horseman. A warrior who owned a horse was of a higher social and economic class from regular soldiers, thus its conneciton with nobility.</ref>" arose in the 12th century as a code of conduct for knights and noblemen and inspired a literary genre (such as the legend of King Arthur) as well as formal codes of behavior for military orders and for court life, generally. Chivarly was deeply intwined with Christianity, perhaps best seen in the Teutonic Knights who venerated the Vigin Mary as patroness. By the time of Erasmus, and with the avent of gunpowder and large state armies, chivalry had morphed into ritualistic expressions of knighthood such as jousting, hunting, and heraldry, which consisted of displays of rank and pedigree through emblems, flags, and banners. | In 1501, Erasmus published, ''Enchiridion militis Christiani'', or "Handbook<ref>The word "handbook" may be an incomplete translation of ''Enchiridion'', which suggests a more complete "manual" or set of instructions rather than a "handbook".</ref> of the Christian Soldier." The work was at the quest of the wife of an errant soldier who begged a friend of Erasmus to help change her husband's behavior. The medieval notion of "chivalry<ref>From French "''chevalerie''" for horseman and ''chevaler'' for knight; the English term, ''cavalier'', is drawn from the same Latin root, ''caballarius'' for horseman. A warrior who owned a horse was of a higher social and economic class from regular soldiers, thus its conneciton with nobility.</ref>" arose in the 12th century as a code of conduct for knights and noblemen and inspired a literary genre (such as the legend of King Arthur) as well as formal codes of behavior for military orders and for court life, generally. Chivarly was deeply intwined with Christianity, perhaps best seen in the Teutonic Knights who venerated the Vigin Mary as patroness. By the time of Erasmus, and with the avent of gunpowder and large state armies, chivalry had morphed into ritualistic expressions of knighthood such as jousting, hunting, and heraldry, which consisted of displays of rank and pedigree through emblems, flags, and banners. | ||
As a civilizing code, chivalry focused on duty to country, duty to God, and duty to protecting the weak, especially women. Its origins lay in the very real necessity for controlling behaviors in feudal society that lacked controlling centrol authority outside of the Church, especially in the political vacuum following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire. In 989, a Church assemby at Charroux, France, declared the ''Pax Dei'', or "Peace of God" to protect unarmed clerics or innocent noncombattants, especially virgins and widows (i.e. who lacked the protection of a male partner) from both targeted and random violence. The ''Pax Dei'' declared churches, monestaries and cemeteries protected, consecrated places, as well as Sundays and feast days, and used excommunication for enforcement. | As a civilizing code, chivalry focused on duty to country, duty to God, and duty to protecting the weak, especially women. Its origins lay in the very real necessity for controlling behaviors in feudal society that lacked controlling centrol authority outside of the Church, especially in the political vacuum following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire. In 989, a Church assemby at Charroux, France, declared the ''Pax Dei'', or "Peace of God" to protect unarmed clerics or innocent noncombattants, especially virgins and widows (i.e. who lacked the protection of a male partner) from both targeted and random violence. The ''Pax Dei'' declared churches, monestaries and cemeteries protected, consecrated places, as well as Sundays and feast days<ref>The prohibition on violence on the Sabbath and Feast Days were especially important to protect clerry, religious and congregants travelng to worship.</ref>, and used excommunication for enforcement.While not widespread, the ''Pax Dei'', inspired another prohibition on knightly wilding, as it were, the ''Treuga Dei'', or "Truce of God", this time at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The ''Treuga Dei'' expanded the periods of truce to include Advent and Lent through Easter (up to Pentecost) and protected larger groups, including merchants, who were themselves amidst their large role in the creation of modern Europe.<ref>Affirming the importance of mediveal church and cathedral building, as well as the growing cult of Saints, pilgrims were also given permanent protection from violence. Again, it was religion, not self-interest of combattants, that guided.</ref> | ||
and the ''Treuga Dei'' | Violence settles itself through vanquish or exhaustion, and negotiated peace always results from oppositional power and self-interest, not from recognition of what's best for the good of man.Thus, these movements to moderate violence would have had no authority without the Church. Scripture and common worship channel a common interest between Christian combattants, but, more largely, the Church itself produced a philosophy of war and peace. The Roman philosopher Cicero wrote about just war, but it was St. Augustine who defined just war and just peace as absent that all-too human impulse of revenge, which was a plenty good cause for Cicero.<ref>See https://repository.rice.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/67075914-3a1c-47f8-abef-43a23680fc5a/content pdf p. 4. </ref> | ||
As professor of architecture William Ward Watkin notes, | |||
War and peace, with creative construction and Christian civilization, required for solution the quality of justice, and justice was still understood as a quality of the will of God. The ages which have followed the thirteenth century have more and more omitted this third quantity in their atempted solutions.<ref>The Middle Ages: the approach to the truce of God, by William Ward Watkin, 1942 Citation<nowiki/>https://hdl.handle.net/1911/9018 and full text here: [https://repository.rice.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/67075914-3a1c-47f8-abef-43a23680fc5a/content . https://repository.rice.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/67075914-3a1c-47f8-abef-43a23680fc5a/content] pdf p. 10</ref> | |||
Clearly, war and violence persisted, but the power of the ''Pax Dei'' and ''Treuga Dei'' was such that doctrine and practice required harmony when the one didn't conform to the other. As such, two centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas studied the problem and argued that warfare in self-defense is justifiable even on feast days. | |||
Technologies, trade, and, especially, state formation changed the nature of war to its more modern impersonal forms of destruction justified by "reasons of state," or, more precisely, war justifying itself. By the time of Erasmus, war and chivalry yet persisted on horseback, but gunpowder was already beginning to defeat personal armor.<ref>Czech national hero and military genius, Jan Žižka, a Hussite leader (anti-Catholic revolutionaries), in the Hussite Wars (or Crusades) of the 1402s, used ''píšťala'', or handguns, to great effect against mounted, armored knights. Žižka taught common farmers to use the pistols, which required little training, hiding them behind attached farm carts to stop calvary charges. See [[wikipedia:Jan_Žižka#Gunpowder_weapons|Jan Žižka - Wikipedia]]</ref> War was back to a full-time business, and for its own justification, prompting Erasmus to observe, | |||
“It seems to be cause enough to commence a just and necessary war that a neighboring land is in a more prosperous, flourishing and free condition than your own.”<ref>Erasmus, [https://archive.org/details/complaintofpeace00eras/page/66/mode/2up?q=prosperous "The Complaint of Peace" (Internet Archive)], p. 66. </ref> | |||
Erasmus continues, | |||
"God made man unarmed. But anger and re- venge have mended the work of God, and furnished his hands with weapons invented in hell. / Christians attack christians with engines of destruction, fabricated by the devil, A cannon ! a mortar! no human being could have devised them originally; they must have been suggested by the evil one."<ref>Erasmus, [https://archive.org/details/complaintofpeace00eras/page/66/mode/2up?q=prosperous "The Complaint of Peace" (Internet Archive)], p. 66. </ref> | |||
By then, chilvary, had become a lifestyle or status measure more than a military strategy, with armies coming to be run by professional strategists using trained soldiers in wars between states. | |||
Yet, there was, as ever, plenty of opportunity for mischief, such as that carried on by the husband of the woman who pleaded for help from Erasmus through his friend. | |||
Medieval war | |||
which gave him, according to scholar Terence O'Reilly, "enormously popularity in Spain durng the 1520 not, primarily, as a satirsist, nor as a scholar, but as the author of ''Enchiridion militis christiani."''<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY], Terence O'Reilly, The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 30, No. 1 (APRIL 1979), pp. 115-127 (13 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press; </ref> | which gave him, according to scholar Terence O'Reilly, "enormously popularity in Spain durng the 1520 not, primarily, as a satirsist, nor as a scholar, but as the author of ''Enchiridion militis christiani."''<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY], Terence O'Reilly, The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 30, No. 1 (APRIL 1979), pp. 115-127 (13 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press; </ref> | ||