PREPARED FOR DR.

STONEMAN, HIST388, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Atrocities in 12 th

Century European
Warfare
Andrew Pedry
7/21/2010
 It would be helpful to immediately define the ambiguous and culturally-rooted term

“atrocity” as it is used in this project. “Atrocity” is here defined as: 1) violence committed

against non-combatants, 2) killing of prisoners, 3) execution using particularly horrendous

methods. These definitions were, under certain circumstances, regarded by contemporary writers

as unjustified. In most cases the justification of these actions was directly tied to the social role

(ie, religious or secular) of the author and the author’s connection to the aggressors. Some

actions were understood to be lawful, but were condemned by moralistic writers. An example of

this is the treatment of a captured city. Under accepted 12th century Western norms a city which

resisted a besieging force forfeited all rights to mercy should the besiegers take the city. In

essence, by resisting, the entire town was counted as combatants. Another term that needs

description is “royalist.” This term is intended to refer to a writer who was sympathetic to the

sitting king during a civil war.

Translated primary sources regarding 12th century warfare were easily available online.

Once a pattern of circumstances surrounding atrocities developed, finding instances of atrocities

became fairly routine. Atrocities were frequently committed under three circumstances: during

civil war, after a contested siege, and when fighting combatants of a different religion.

Secondary source writings on this topic are somewhat scarcer. A number of articles and

essays on the subject have been written, but a review of several books1 which provide overviews

of medieval warfare indicate that the subject frequently receives little dedicated attention in the

broader discussion of medieval war.

1
Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages, the English Experience by Michael Prestwich and
Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 by John France have no dedicated
discussion of the topic. Medieval Warfare: A History is an essay collection edited by Maurice
Keen. It has a chapter on “War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages” written by
Christopher Allmand.

2
PRIMARY SOURCES
‘Abd al-Wahid al Marrakushi. “The Battle of Zallaqa in 1086,” in Christians and Moors in
Spain, edited by Colin Smith. Aris & Phillips: 1989-92

‘Abd al-Wahid al Marrakushi’s account of the battle which checked Christian

encroachments into Muslim Spanish lands in 1086 was written nearly two hundred years after
the fact in 1224. His account differs significantly from many other Muslim recounts of this
battle for its lack of mythological or legendary elements. While no atrocities per se were
recounted here, the Christian forces under King Alfonso were allegedly slaughtered nearly to the
last man. As is typical of battle reports by the victor in medieval and modern periods, such a
one-sided slaughter is recounted in the most positive light “The Muslims pursued them, killing
them on all sides, but Alfonso - God curse him! - escaped with nine men.” While the actual
number of survivors may have been higher than nine, the chronicler’s point is the brilliance of
absolute victory.

Caffaro. “Genoese expedition to Almeria (1147),” in Christians and Moors in Spain, edited by
Colin Smith. Aris & Phillips: 1989-92.
Caffaro was a Genoese who wrote before 1154 about the Genoese role in the capture of
Almeria during Alfonso VII’s re-conquest of part of the Iberian Peninsula. Caffaro’s work is
heavily sympathetic to the Genoese, and mixes apparent precision: “they set sail in 63 galleys
and with 163 other vessels” with a great deal of religious rhetoric and apparent exaggeration:
“On that day 20,000 Saracens were killed.”
After the Christians’ success in storming Almeria Caffaro recounts the killing of 20,000
or 30,000 (his numbers do not appear to add up to his own total) Saracens and the enslavement
of “10,000 women and children.” In the context of the passage, it would seem then that a
substantial part of the total Muslim dead included civilian men. There is no direct
acknowledgment of this, and the potential clearly did not warrant mitigation or explanation in his
account – the occupants of the city had resisted and were Muslim, both of which could be seen as
legal justification for their killing under the circumstances. Of greater note here is the unusual
mention of mass slavery in a 12th century European text. While his figure of 10,000 is suspect,
he was clearly indicating that a substantial body of persons was taken into custody for use as
slaves. From his language this would not seem to have been an unusual or remarkable act, but
the only other source referenced in this bibliography which makes reference to potentially
comparable large-scale enslavement is that of Queen Margaret (q.v.); in that account the Scots
are gathering slaves from England in the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th centuries.
Compare to John of Worcester’s chronicle (q.v.).

Comnea, Anna. “[portion of] The Alexiad,” in Readings in Medieval History, pp.408-418, edited
by Patrick Geary. Orchard Park: Broadview Press, 1997.

Anna Comnea (1083 - ca.1148) was the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Alexius. She
wrote The Alexiad near the end of her life, and in it discussed the events of her father’s reign. As
a Byzantine she expressed mixed feelings regarding the members and actions of the First

3
Crusade. She clearly expresses antipathy towards Muslims, but her feelings about the crusaders
are more nuanced. She saw them as a weapon against Islam, but was fully prepared to detail
their atrocities, as seen in the passage below:
Later some Normans, 10,000 in all, joined him bet detached
themselves from the rest of the army and ravaged the outskirts
of Nicea, acting with horrible cruelty to the whole population;
they cut in pieces some of the babies, impaled others on wooden
spits and roasted them over a fire; old people were subjected to
every kind of torture.
Anna’s willingness to detail atrocities committed by co-religionists (in a broad sense) and
notional allies is unusual among the sources of the period. The Normans’ apparent wanton
devastation of a civilian target is also somewhat out of the expected circumstances for atrocities.
The Norman’s extremely long journey up to this point, the cultural and religious differences
between them and the citizens of Nicea, a desire to compel Nicea to capitulate or bring its army
to the field, and exaggeration in the recounting may be explanations for their actions.

Greenway, Diana and Watkiss, Leslie, translators. The Book of the Foundation of Walden
Monastery. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

An unknown author wrote this text in 1203 to advance the autonomy and position of
Walden Monastery in relation to advances by the local bishop. Part of the text describes the
history of the Monastery’s patrons; among those writings is an account of Geoffrey, earl of
Essex’s role in the civil war between himself and King Stephen of England (ca. 1096 – 25
October 1154) in 1143 written from a royalist perspective.
The text reads: “…great dissension in favor of the contending parties and distressing
disturbances broke out at that time in the kingdom of England. There were frequent deadly
encounters between knights, men died, cities and churches were burned down, property was
ruined, lands devastated and everything imaginable plundered.” This brief description of the
general atrocities of war is linked to the kingdom’s state of civil war. Civil war seems to have
invoked significant unease amongst period writers, as seen by this and several other writings
featured in this bibliography. Depictions of the deprivations, atrocities, and social disorder
associated with civil war are often somehow more frantic than warfare involving competing
kingdoms as notions of stability and normality are shattered.

Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum : the history of the English people.
Translated and edited by Diana Greenway. Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press,
1996.

Very little is known about Henry of Huntingdon (ca. 1080–1160) other than a scarce
outline of his life and his role as the Archdeacon of Huntingdon. He wrote his Historia at the
request of Bishop Alexander of Lincoln (d. 1148) during the reign of King Stephan, who was
engaged in suppressing revolts for most of his reign. Henry’s writings indicate his position as a
royalist; his depictions of the king in battle are favorable, and the king’s enemies are
marginalized and demonized.

4
 Henry describes the Battle of [the city of]Lincoln in 1141 where the King was captured
and “Consequently the city was sacked according to the law that governs hostilities, and the king
was brought into it in misery.” Other primary sources such as the Historia novella : the
contemporary history, by William of Malmesbury, and the Gesta Stephanim, deal with the
sacking of Lincoln in more detail, describing the arson, theft, and murder which comprised the
event. Presumably Henry was trying to avoid casting the King in a poor light by drawing
attention to the suffering of his subjects after his defeat. Instead, he attributed the unsettling
details to the “law that governs hostilities,” thus reinforcing the idea that ‘atrocities’ as we now
understand them were sometimes an accepted part of medieval warfare – though their recounting
could be manipulated to serve an author’s agenda.

Herman of Tournai. The Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin of Tournai. Translated by
Lynn H. Nelson. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.

Herman of Tournai, like Suger (q.v.), was an abbot in Fladers during the rebellion of
1126-27. In The Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin of Tournai he, like Suger,
describes the murder of the Flemish Count Charles and the events that followed his death.
Unlike Suger, Herman took a less venomous approach to the Count’s murderers. While clearly a
supporter of the King and Count, his account reads more like a history and less like a propaganda
piece. Herman also condemns the Count’s murderers for committing their sin in a church and
for killing their sovereign lord, but much less emphasis was placed on this betrayal of obligation
and less emphasis was placed on their low birth station. Herman also glosses over some of the
executions which Suger relates in gory details. While both men were clearly writing accounts
which condemned the actions of the Count’s murderers, Suger’s certainly comes across as a
more sensationalized piece designed to elicit a more emotional response.

Ibn al-Athir. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for The Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh.
Part , 1The Years 491-541/1097-1146: The Coming of the Franks and the Muslim Response.
Translated by D.S. Richards. Aldershot: Ashgare Publishing, 2006.

Ibn al-Athir was a Mesopotamian Muslim who held some administrative positions and
whose family was connected to the Zankid dynasty, particularly the branch from Mosul. His
writings are characterized by a focus on Muslim politics and maneuvering, but he does recount
the important actions of the Crusading westerners. While he frequently failed to identify his
sources his work is one of the central sources which describe the events of the First Crusade
from an Islamic standpoint.
There are a number of massacres and atrocities described in this text, yet they usually
receive no more than brief mention by Ibn al-Athir. “Many were killed” is a frequent turn of
phrase both for those on the receiving end of a military defeat and civilians suffering from an
army’s brutality. Even the slaughter at Jerusalem in 1099 elicited only two sentences: “The
inhabitants became prey to the sword. For a week the Franks continued to slaughter the
Muslims.” While the wholesale slaughter of people was an event of note, it was not an event that
elicited the kind of emotional response which would dictate elaboration.

5
Ibn al-Qalanisi . The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and translated from the
chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi.Translated by H.A.R. Gibb. London: Luzac & Co., 1932.

Ibn al-Qalanisi (1070-1160) was a Damascene Muslim scholar and politician; he served
as mayor of Damascus on two occasions. He wrote an account of the First Crusade covering
1097-1159 and as an important citizen of Damascus would have been close to and well informed
of the Crusade’s events. His account is clearly and appropriately sympathetic to the Muslim
cause and his information is presented with the mixed propaganda-and-history style that is
characteristic of the period.
In the beginning of his account of the siege of Tyre in 1111-1112 he describes the
deployment of Muslim forces from his city of Damascus under the command of Zahir al-Din at
the behest of the mayor of Tyre. In his description he says: “Zahir al-Din on learning that the
Franks had invested Tyre marched out and made his camp at Banyas, whence he dispatched his
squadrons together with bands of brigands into the territories of the Franks with a free hand of
plunder, kill, rob, destroy and burn, with the object of causing them vexation and forcing them to
abandon the siege.” The nature of medieval war and the strategic use of “atrocities” are as well
illustrated in these events as the chevauchees of the Hundred Years War. Civilians were
deliberately targeted with the hope of forcing a reaction by the Frankish military commander.
These actions received no condemnation from Ibn al-Qalanisi despite his background as a
scholar (and thus, given the nature of Medieval Muslim education, something of a theologian)
presumably because the atrocities were committed against Christians (a religious “other”) and
because they were committed by the forces of his city.

John of Worcester. The Chronicle of John of Worcester. Edited and translated by P. McGurk.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

John of Worcester’s (d. ca. 1140) chronicle is the only extant source describing the siege
and sack of Worcester in 1139 by Miles of Gloucester who had rebelled against King Stephen
earlier in 1139. His chronicle also describes the siege and sack of Sudeley by the Count of
Meulan in retaliation. John was a royalist and clearly biased in his writing against the man who
sacked his city. The recount describes a fairly typical post-siege scene of looting, property
damage and capture for ransom. It can be valuable to compare this account where the captured
citizens are taken specifically for the purpose of extracting ransom with Caffaro’s account (q.v.)
where captured citizens are taken into slavery. Presumably the differences in these incidents lie
in the religious, cultural and ethnic similarities of the combatants in John’s account and the
differences among the combatants in Carrafo’s account.
Also of interest is the way that John addressed the retaliatory sack of Meulan: “If you ask
what the earl [Sudeley] did there, the answer is barely worthy of record for he rendered evil for
evil. He seized and carried off a booty of men with their goods and cattle, and returned to
Worcester the next day.” Compare this with the harsh condemnation of the same treatment done
to his own citizens: “Many are taken prisoner in the streets and in the townships, and led away,
coupled like dogs, into wretched captivity…”

6
The Church Historians of England. Edited by Joseph Stevenson. London, 1856, volume 4, part 2.

In Joseph Stevenson’s book is an account by William of Newburgh (d.1198), a prominent

th
12 century English historian, about the warfare between England and France and Scotland in
1173-74. William’s account of the Scots is so polemical that it serves the historian more as a
source for the imagery of extreme “outgrouping” than for historical description.
Everything was consumed by the Scots; to whom no kind of food is too
filthy to be devoured, even that which is fit only for dogs; and while
they were grasping their prey, it was a delight to that inhuman nation,
more savage than wild beasts, to cut the throats of old men, to
slaughter little children, to rip open the bowels of women, and to do
everything of this kind that is horrible to mention. So while this army
of most infamous robbers was poured into the miserable province, and
the barbarians were reveling (sic) in their inhumanity, the Scottish king
himself, attended by a more honourable (sic) and civilized body of
military, who kept watch around him, appeared to be unemployed, and
remained in observation around a very strong castle called Alnwick, in
order to prevent the possibility of a band of soldiers sallying from it,
and so disturbing the plunderers, who were robbing and killing around
them in every direction.

Within this account we can surmise that the Scots acted as most raiding invaders of the
time did, especially when they were invading the lands of a different ethnic group. They
pillaged, murdered, and raped, and to some extent it appears to have been a deliberate
operational tactic used by their leadership. William’s language is similar to that exhibited by
Pope Urban II describing the Muslims during his appeal to the knights of France before the First
Crusade. With this language William took acts which were generally a standard part of warfare
and through his rhetoric and dehumanization of the enemy sought to magnify the threat posed by
the Scots and elevate the civilization represented by the English.

Matthew of Edessa. Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of
Matthew of Edessa. Translated by Ara Edmond Dostourian. Lanham:University Press of
America, 1993.

Matthew was born in Edessa in the second half of the 11th century and died in 1144. He
was a churchman in the Armenian Apostolic Church and his writings show mixed sympathy and
antipathy for both Franks and Arabs. His Chronicle is a melodramatic piece of writing, filled
with florid accounts of battlefield slaughters, civilian massacres and divine retribution.
It is difficult to pick out particular atrocities in Matthew’s writings due to the generally
blood-soaked accounts which he gives. When analyzing his work atrocities can only be
identified by ignoring the flourishes that usually serve to indicate that a particularly gruesome
event has occurred and focusing on the factual details that he does provide. For example: “…the
King of Jerusalem equipped a fleet against Tripoli and, besieging the city by sea and by land,
launched a formidable assault against it. Tripoli was set on fire and the inhabitants of the whole
city were put to the sword, causing the streets to be inundated with blood.” The key to this
passage is “the inhabitants of the whole city,” which indicates that a massacre of civilians might

7
have taken place. However, given Matthew’s dramatic bent all of his accounts should be taken
with a large measure of salt and compared with other contemporary sources.

Otto of Freising. Gesta Frederici I imperatoris. Edited by B. Simson. Hanover, 1912.

Otto of Frieising was Frederick ‘Barbarossa’ I’s biographer and contemporary recorded
25 camp rules set down by Frederick I at the start of a campaign in northern Italy in 1158. What
is remarkable about this list in the study of atrocities is what it does not include. There are
numerous regulations regarding theft, one that appears to address prostitution, one that mentions
retention rights in the event that buried treasure is found, several that dictate game-retention
rights while hunting, and a number which address inter-camp violence. Only one addresses
violence against civilians, and it reads: “If anyone set fire to a village or a house, he shall be
shorn and branded on the cheeks and flogged.” The punishment lain out is severe and has heavy
overtones of humiliation and social degradation along with its purely physical pain. Never the
less, this article is still only addressing property damage, not violence against civilians
themselves.

Robert the Monk. “The Calling of the First Crusade.” In Power and the Holy in the Age of the
Investiture Conflict by Maureen CA. Miller, 132-134. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.

Robert wrote his account of Urban II’s call to the first Crusade ca. 1100-1125. Pope
Urban used atrocities, both real and imagined, to help persuade his audience to take up the
crusade. The Pope did not advocate atrocities in response to the actions of the Muslims, but he
was clearly using their violence against Christian civilians, Christian religious centers, and their
religious “otherness” as justifications for war. The offences ascribed to the Muslims differed, if
at all, from those committed by his audience of Franks against other Christians only in their
extremities. Violence against civilians was part and parcel of 11th and 12th century warfare
before the crusades, but it was always understood to be undesirable, even if it could be justified.
By ascribing violence against civilians and religious institutions to a religious (and thus social)
outsider group and then making that violence beyond the scope of any acceptable norm he was
able to exert considerable persuasive power on his audience.

Suger. Life of Louis VI. Translated by Jean Dunbabin. St. Anne's College, Oxford OX2 6HS,
England.

Suger was an abbot, historian and administrator for the French kings in the early to mid
th
12 century. While Louis VII was away on the second Crusade he served as a regent for the
kingdom; clearly he was a powerful man firmly in the French Kings’ camp. He wrote of the
revolt in Flanders (1127-1128) in his Life of Louis VI and in Chapter XXX describes the murder
and revenge of Count Charles of Flanders, a vassal of the French King.
The Count’s murderer was technically a fairly humane affair; his murderers, who were
from families that owed fealty to the Count, surprised the Count at prayer and beheaded him with
their swords. After the beheading the Count was allegedly hacked to pieces and all of his

8
followers who could be found were killed. Suger was merciless in his condemnation of the
murderers. They are “dogs,” “savage,” “puffed up with pride” and ‘savage.’ His lengthy
diatribe against them seems to stem from their low birth, their killing of their sovereign lord and
that they murdered the Count while he was praying in a church.
When the murders were caught (in some cases, after a siege) they were violently
executed. One was hung with a dog who chewed him to death as the dog was being beaten; one
was tied to a wheel, blinded, and impaled and others were thrown from a roof. As Suger
reckoned, this was no less than they deserved. Their punishments perfectly fit their crimes, and
though their executions today appear to be far more atrocious than their crime, to a monk of the
period the true atrocity was their betrayal of their liege in a house of God.

Tudebode, Peter. Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere. Translated by John Hugh Hill and Laurita
L. Hill. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1974.

Peter Tudebode was a priest who accompanied the First Crusade and witnessed the siege
of Antioch. In his account of the siege he described the treatment of a captured Crusading noble,
Rainald, and a number of Christians in Antioch by the emir of said same city. The emir
attempted to convert Rainald, and upon Rainald’s refusal had him beheaded.
“Then the emir, in a towering rage because he could not make Rainald turn apostate, at once
ordered all the pilgrims in Antioch to be brought before him …he ordered them stripped… He
then had chaff, firewood, and hay piled around them, and finally as enemies of God he ordered
them put to the torch.

The Christians, those knights of Christ, shrieked and screamed so that their voices resounded in
heaven to God for whose love their flesh and bones were cremated; and so they all entered
martyrdom on this day wearing in heaven their white stoles before the Lord, for Whom they had
so loyally suffered in the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom is the honor and glory now and
throughout eternity. Amen.”

Here we have a massacre being used to its maximum political advantage. Tudebode was
a priest, and as such was part of a caste which throughout the Middle Ages was particularly
sensitive to atrocities. In this instance the atrocity was happening in a time and place which
warranted particular dramatization. Tudebode dutifully recorded the incident with a pen loaded
with moral outrage. This was an atrocity as heinous as they come, but the victims’ deaths and
ascensions were described with the goal of eliciting outrage, sympathy, and support.

Turgot, bishop of St. Andrews. Life of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland. Translated by William
Forbes-Leith. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1884.

Margaret was an English noblewoman who fled to Scotland after the William the
Conqueror’s invasion in 1066. She married the Scottish King, who had instituted large-scale
raids and slave-gathering expeditions into England in response to William’s invasion by
Normans. Turgot, like many other western medieval ecclesiastical writers, was eager to
advocate for a local hero, and focus on her exceptional morality. He was allegedly a confidant of
St. Margaret, and his writings are one of the earliest accounts we have of Scotland during the
time of the Conquest.

9
 In section 25 of chapter 3 Turgot told of how St. Margaret had her spies search through
Scotland for English captives who were being held in slavery in Scotland. She then paid the
ransom for select individuals “of all ranks” who were the most ill-treated. St. Margaret’s
concern for individuals across class lines is unusual for the early 11th century. She clearly
recognized the human suffering involved in the practice of slavery and was prepared to risk the
wrath of her husband and King by secretly opposing it. Her actions also illustrate a retained
sense of cultural identity; she was English by birth liberating Englishmen and women who had
been captured by Scots (of whom she was now Queen) in retributions for the actions of the
Norman lords who held England.

Walter of Thérouanne. Vita Karoli comitis Flandri. Translated by Jeff Rider, Dept. of Romance
Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459.

Walter was made archdeacon of Flanders in 1116 and like Suger (q.v.) and Herman (q.v.)
wrote about the murder of Count Charles and the subsequent war and execution. Walter’s
position as a Flemish royalist churchman/biographer was similar to that of Suger and Herman,
and his overall condemnation of the events is in line with his contemporaries’ writings. His
account differs in the emphasis on the ‘collateral damage’ caused by the murder; the effect of the
subsequent warfare on the countryside he described so:
In the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven,
during the fifth indiction, on March 2, peace was taken from our land,
honesty carried off, and all happiness nearly extinguished by the
detestable outbreak of death, war, travail, foulness and all
unhappiness. Indeed, on that day of that year the lives of many people
were jeopardized through the life of one man and, according to God’s
just judgement, the deserved deaths of many men were engendered in
a kind of horrible breeding by the undeserved death of one man.
This attention to social upheaval caused by the murder demonstrated a more plebian
attention to consequences than shown by Suger or Herman. The other authors, through language
and detail selection, seem to have avoided mention of such a far-reaching condemnation of the
resulting war as it was conducted by the King in just retribution for the murder of the Count.

William of Jumieges. Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumieges, Orderic Vitalis, and
Robert of Torigni. Translated by Elisabth M.CA. Van Houts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995

William of Jumieges was a Norman monk born ca. 1025 who gave an account ca. 1070 of
King Henry I’s incursion into Duke William of Normandy’s holdings in 1054. During this event
one arm of the French King’s army advanced with the intent of drawing out a portion of Duke
William’s forces. The French detachment, pillaging, advanced through the Norman countryside
and Pays de Caux. “…as the duke saw to what extent he and his people were under attack, he,
moved by deep and noble grief, at once chose soldiers whom he quickly sent out to curb the
pillagers of the Pays de Caux.” These Normans “found the French at Mortemer totally
preoccupied with arson and rape of women. There at dawn battle was instantly joined and
continued on both sides with bloodshed until noon.”

10
 William’s account is interesting for two reasons. On the one hand, he offers an idealized
view of Duke William’s response to the suffering of his people. While his work is a self-
professed propaganda piece for Duke William, the way that he associated the Duke with the kind
of altruistic concern for his people shown above preempts the widespread ideas of chivalry
which will not take root in Europe’s warrior caste for several centuries. The French
preoccupation with arson and rape is clearly presented as a ‘bad thing’, but like many of these
11th century sources it does not see them as worth dwelling on. Presumably they were enough of
a fact of life that while a monk could condemn them as wrong they were enough a part of the
fabric of life that they did not warrant significant comment.

11
SECONDARY SOURCES

Allmand, Christopher. “War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages.” In Medieval Warfare:
A History edited by Maurice Keen, 253-272. Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 1999.

Allmand addresses the gradually increasing recognition for the legitimacy of protecting
non-combatants starting in the 9th and 10th centuries. This protection initially focused on limited
violence against women, children, clergy and the elderly and protecting the property of the
church. In the 11th century the effort to limit warfare culminated in the “Peace of God” where
the church declared that warfare could only be legally executed on Mondays, Tuesdays, and
Wednesdays which were not religious holidays. Obviously the “Peace of God” was widely
ignored, but it illustrates a widespread desire to limit the effects of war in the high Middle Ages.
Allmand moves beyond the 12th century within three pages of his nearly twenty-page chapter,
making this a starting point for the study of 12th century atrocities, but not a source of
comprehensive information or analysis.

Best, Geoffery. Humanity in warfare. London: George Widenfeld & Nicolson, Ltd., 1980.

Geoffery’s discussion of the thoughts being addressed regarding the civilian in war
during the later Enlightenment period bear similarities to those seen in the 12th century. The idea
that civilians should generally be left unmolested was common among 12th century churchmen,
as was the idea that material theft to support an army was unavoidable, and if executed without
excess, acceptable. Another parallel lay in the belief that actions against civilians taken in a
spirit of hostility were automatically deplorable, an idea that Cowdrey (q.v.) also addresses.
Unlike the mostly secular humanist publicists discussed by Geoffery, the 12th century moral
authorities who were addressing warfare and civilians were largely churchmen.

Christie, Niall and Maya Yazigi, editors. Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities, Warfare in the
Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

The collection of essays in this book addresses many of the issues surrounding atrocities
throughout the Middle Ages. Chapters devoted to civilian casualties, the value of human life,
and the use of torture are authored by David Hay, Kelly DeVries, and Piers Mitchell,
respectively. Hay discusses the complicated views of violence against civilians, the way that it
could be used as a deliberate strategic or operational tool while being simultaneously
condemned. DeVries concludes that the value of human life changed slowly through the middle
ages, cheapening as the size of armies increased and the use of indiscriminate mass missile fire
increased. Mitchell, writing about torture in the crusades, concludes that torture was used on
both sides against each other and members of their own religion. Torture was used to gather
intelligence, increase ransoms, to ensure transfer of property, as psychological warfare, as
entertainment, as a vent for frustrations, or to produce a confession.

12
Cowdrey, H.E. “Christianity and the morality of warfare during the first century of crusading.”
In The Experience of Crusading, Volume 1: Western Approaches, edited by Marcus Bull and
Norman Housley, 175-192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Cowdrey tackles the thorny issue of Christian justifications for warfare during the first
century of the crusading period. He focuses on the origins, development, and utilization of the
concepts of ‘holy war’ and ‘just war’. All Christian warriors faced the moral problem that
injuring and killing people was considered a sin and a social injustice. Mitigation of this
religious and social guilt could be had if the warfare was just or declared holy. The ‘just war’
concept had been adopted from Classical writers, and generally required a war to be enacted by a
sovereign lord for the purpose of defense or retribution for a harm, whether physical or social.
‘Holy war’ was a concept that had been developing for centuries, but which largely matured
during the crusading period. In the concept of holy war warfare which is directed towards a
sanctioned enemy without a mentality of aggression, greed, or avarice could be conducted
without sin. These ideas play closely into the kinds of warfare that were so often characterized
by atrocities: civil war and war against non-Christians.

France, John. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: 1000-1300. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1999.

John France provides a topical overview of warfare during the crusading period. While
the book claims purview over all of Western warfare, the book is strongly focused on Western
Europe. France’s other shortcoming, particularly in light of this bibliography, is a lack of
attention to the role of civilians or ethics in war. The topics surrounding atrocities and atrocities
themselves are occasionally mentioned as they connected to a larger campaign or battle, but they
are not addressed in any kind of cohesive manner. Regardless, France’s work is an important
overview of the period’s warfare, and thus provides critical context to the atrocities which
occurred. His chapters on “Europe, Ideology and the Outsider,” “Crusading and Warfare in the
Middle East” touch on the often more horrendous nature of violence against the Slavs and
Muslims. His chapters on sieges, command structure and the nature of authority, proprietorial
warfare and campaigns also provide useful insight into the systems surrounding and
commanding the armies that committed atrocities.

Prestwich, Michael. Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages, The English Experience. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Much of the same commentary that can be made about France’s work (q.v.) also applies
to Prestwich’s. Of note is that Prestwich covers a narrower group - the English, from a wider
chronological framework - the entire Middle Ages, making this a somewhat less useful text for
this bibliography’s subject than France’s work.

Van Creveld, Martin. The Culture of War. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.

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 In The Culture of War Van Creveld discusses warfare from a broad human perspective.
His book is broken into four sections, the second of which: “In War and Battle” contains the
chapters most relevant to understanding the atrocities. In particular, his discussion of “The Rules
of War” directly addresses self-imposed limitations to violence and why levels of violence used
by the same army may be different depending on whom that army is facing. The central idea of
that chapter is that rules of combat serve as a limiter to violence and that the wider the gulf
(socially, culturally, or linguistically) between the belligerents the less likely it becomes that
those rules will be the same or understood and elevated violence or atrocities become more
likely.

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