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

这本书系统地记录了欧洲中世纪旨在征服外国人民或领地的征服形式、目标和问题。一方面，它通过考察这一时期最重要的征服--从不列颠群岛、西班牙到波罗的海国家--来实现这一目标。另一方面，通过个人贡献的比较方法，从而提供了关于某些时期和地区与征服有关的动机、目标、事件过程和统治制度的模范陈述。在此基础上，该书出现了中世纪征服的典型特征：第一，政治、经济和宗教动机的紧密交织，第二，国王统治的参与者的社会范围，但在许多地区，贵族、主教和骑士秩序也可能起到决定性作用。第三，总体情况显示了征服者为确保获得领土而应用的各种形式的统治。鉴于后勤和行政资源有限，间接的霸权形式似乎是一种选择。只有在强大抵抗的情况下，征服者才诉诸直接统治作为最后通牒，这也可能导致被征服领土的政治和社会秩序发生深刻变化。然而，与被征服帝国的精英合作，从而寻求共识，仍然是征服政策的一个目标，即使形式和成功因情况而异。意大利南部诺曼和霍亨斯陶芬征服的例子也表明，被征服者如何能够利用权力斗争造成的混乱为自己谋取利益，并影响征服的过程。法律-历史解释也提供了全新的见解，表明征服自己如何富有成效地发展了法律，从而分阶段确立了由封建法确定的、特别适用于非基督徒的征服权，尽管其有效性绝不是无可争辩的。在中世纪的政治和文学话语中，征服的矛盾地位被各种主要涉及征服理由的贡献所突显。即使征服外国人民带来了名声，并可以被证明是统治者决心的表现，但征服通常只有在结束现有的不公正、被描述为重新征服或被激励为走向救赎的一步时才显得合法。最后一个方面对应于战争充满宗教色彩的特点，它被多次诊断为征服非基督教领土，并伴随着要征服的风景的神圣化。

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.