Rule over Foreign Peoples and Realms. Forms, Objectives and Problems of Conquest Politics in the Middle Ages

本卷系统地记录了中世纪欧洲征服的形式、目标和问题，这些征服旨在征服外国人民或领域。它一方面通过考察最重要的征服来实现这一目标这一时期最重要的征服从不列颠群岛经西班牙到波罗的海诸国。另一方面，通过个人贡献的比较方法，从而提供了与特定时期和地区的征服相关的动机，目标，事件过程和统治制度的模型式陈述。在此基础上，本书揭示了中世纪征服的典型特征：第一，政治、经济和宗教动机紧密交织；第二，以国王为主导的行动者的社会范围，但在许多地区，高贵族、主教和骑士骑士团也可以发挥决定性作用。第三，整体图像显示了征服者为确保获得领土而采用的广泛的统治形式。由于后勤和行政资源有限，间接形式的霸权似乎是选择的手段。只有在遭遇强烈抵抗的情况下，征服者才会采取最后的直接统治，这也会导致被征服领土的政治和社会秩序发生深刻的变化。然而，与被征服帝国的精英合作，从而寻求共识，仍然是征服政策的目标，即使形式和成功因情况而异。诺曼和霍亨斯陶芬征服意大利南部的例子也表明，被征服者如何利用权力斗争造成的混乱来为自己的利益服务，并影响征服的进程。法律历史的解释也提供了全新的见解，它表明征服本身是如何富有成效地发展法律的，因此，由封建法律确定的、特别适用于非基督徒的征服权是分阶段确立的，尽管它的有效性绝不是毫无争议的。征服在中世纪的政治和文学话语中的矛盾地位被各种主要处理征服正当性的贡献所突出。即使征服外国人民带来了名声，并且可以作为统治者决心的表现而被证明是正当的，但只有当它结束了现有的不公正，以重新征服的形式出现，或者被动机作为走向救赎的一步时，一场征服通常才显得合法。最后一个方面与战争的宗教特征相对应，这种特征多次被诊断为对非基督教领土的征服，并伴随着将被征服的土地神圣化。

This volume documents systematically the forms, goals and problems of conquests in the European Middle Ages that were designed to subjugate foreign peoples or realms. It fulfills this objective on the one hand, by looking at the most important conquests the most important conquests of this period from the British Isles via Spain to the Baltic States. On the other, by the comparative approach of the individual contributions that thus provide model-like statements on the motives, aims, course of events and regimes of rule associated with conquests for certain periods and regions. On this basis, the volume allows the typical characteristics of medieval conquests to emerge: firstly, the close intertwining of political, economic and religious motives and, secondly, the social range of the actors among whom the kings dominated, but in many regions the high nobility, bishops and orders of knights could also play a determining role. And thirdly, the overall picture shows the broad spectrum of forms of rule that conquerors applied to secure the acquisition of territory. Given the limited logistical and administrative resources, indirect forms of supremacy seemed to have been the means of choice. Only in cases of strong resistance did conquerors resort to direct rule as ultima ratio which could then also lead to a profound transformation of the political and social order in the subjugated territories. Nevertheless, cooperation with the elites of the conquered empires, and thus the search for consensus, remained an objective of conquest policy, even if the form and success varied from case to case. The example of the Norman and Hohenstaufen conquests in southern Italy also shows how the conquered were able to exploit the confusion caused by the power struggle to their own advantage and influence the course of the conquest. Completely new insights are also provided by the legal-historical explanations, which show how conquests themselves productively developed the law, so that a right of conquest determined by feudal law and particularly applicable to non-Christians was established in stages, although its validity was by no means undisputed. The ambivalent status of conquest in the political and literary discourse of the Middle Ages is highlighted by various contributions that deal primarily with the justification of conquest. Even if the subjugation of foreign peoples brought fame and could be justified as an expression of a ruler’s determination, a conquest usually only appeared legitimate if it put an end to existing injustice, was presented as a reconquest or was motivated as a step towards salvation. The last aspect corresponds to the religiously charged character of war, which was diagnosed several times for conquests of non-Christian territories and was accompanied by the sacralisation of the landscape to be conquered.