Keywords
Violence
Peace
Justice
Private Wars
Ordeals
Crusades
Marc Bloch
Norbert Elias
Stephen White
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper shows that, although people in the Middle Ages resorted to vengeance and private wars to solve conflicts, there were also controls other than violence. Therefore, Norbert Elias is wrong in attributing an uncontrolled aggressiveness to medieval society. Historian Marc Bloch is also wrong to suppose that violence was the consequence of an emotional instability or the uncivilized nature of the Feudal Age. On one hand, we claim that the progressive consolidation of monarchies and a renewed administration of justice since the twelfth century contributed to the reduction of violence. On the other hand, we state that this did not prevent private acts of justice from pursuing a purpose similar to that of the monarchy: peace above punishment. Finally, we conclude that these centralized powers, the papacy and monarchies, promoted their own violence against internal dissidents and Islam: the crusades, extremely violent wars. These theses are developed using the historiographic method, that is, the contrast between studies on violence today and in the Middle Ages.
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