Theorizing the Crusades: Identity, Institutions, and Religious War in Medieval Latin Christendom1

Abstract

The “crusades”—a series of wars launched by the Latin Church between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries—pose a significant unresolved puzzle for International Relations Theory. The purpose of this article is to develop a historically sensitive yet theoretically governed account of the crusades that solves this puzzle. Empirically, the article draws heavily on a body of historiographical work that emphasizes the constitutive role of “religious” ideas and discourses in the evolution of the crusades. Theoretically, it adopts a constructivist approach, specifying the intersubjective factors that enabled the crusades to emerge as a significant instrument of papal “statecraft” and as a key element of medieval geopolitical relations. The article concludes with some reflections on the theoretical relevance of this account of the crusades for both medieval geopolitics and contemporary international relations.

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