Stahl, Michael (Hrsg.) Spielregeln im Krieg?

Formen kriegerischer Gewalt und die Frage der Wirksamkeit gewaltbegrenzender Konventionen in den Kriegen Friedrich Barbarossas

Wars in the Middle Ages are said to have been characterised by a comparatively low level of violence, as the belligerents are believed to have adhered to norms and conventions that were imposed on them by the Church as part of the Peace of God movement, were part of a code of conduct for knights, or developed from mechanisms of ritual communication. It was customary to avoid direct military confrontation with the enemy in open battle and instead to inflict damage indirectly, often only material damage. If fighting did break out, the enemy was not to be killed if possible, but taken prisoner and later released in exchange for a ransom. Civilians were largely spared from the violence of war, and armed conflicts were supposed to be ended through negotiation at any time. Michael Stahl considers this image of medieval warfare, as conveyed by some modern medieval research, to be rather trivialising. In this study, he uses narrative sources on the wars of the Staufer Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to show that these wars were characterised by excessive brutality in some cases. Relevant reports by contemporary authors prove that the participants in the war did not shy away from direct confrontation with the enemy in battle, provided that the balance of power appeared favourable. Instead of deliberately showing restraint, the aim in such battles was often to kill as many enemies as possible. Of course, civilians were also regularly victims of war, and it is by no means true that the settlement of armed conflicts through negotiation was always possible. Accordingly, Stahl concludes that the aforementioned norms and conventions limiting violence were by no means binding and that the warring parties tended to be pragmatic in their choice of means of violence, focusing on the greatest possible benefit for achieving their respective war aims.