AHC/WI: Popes fight on the battlefield
- Thread starter Zuvarq
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Yeah. Popes Leo IX, Leo X, Julius II and probably others I'm missing. In the middle ages the Pope leading an army was fairly normal.
Snake Featherston
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The most obvious one you're missing is Alexander VI. Signor Borgia himself.
The most obvious one you're missing is Alexander VI. Signor Borgia himself.
Thanks
I'd forgotten if he'd led an army while he was Pope or if that was only his sons.IIRC, the only pope to actually lead an army after being raised to the papacy was Julius II, of whom Guicciardini wrote:
"...a soldier in a cassock; he drank and swore heavily as he led his troops; he was wilful, coarse, bad-tempered and difficult to manage. He would ride his horse up the Lateran stairs to his papal bedroom and tether it at the door".
Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a satirical diaogue (Julius Exclusus) where he imagins this conversation between St. Peter and Julius in front of the Gates of Heaven:
"St Peter: Why are you in armour?
Julius: Do you expect me to wage war naked?
St Peter: You are bristling with weapons. You smell of brothels, booze and gunpowder.
Julius: Thanks to me the Christian church, once starving and poor, is now flourishing. Royal palaces, beautiful houses, plenty of servants, well trained troops.
St Peter: In poverty, sweat, fasting, thirst and hunger Christ passed His life; and in the end He died by the most humiliating of deaths.
Julius: Well, perhaps He will find someone to praise Him for that - but no one to imitate Him. Not these days, at any rate."
"...a soldier in a cassock; he drank and swore heavily as he led his troops; he was wilful, coarse, bad-tempered and difficult to manage. He would ride his horse up the Lateran stairs to his papal bedroom and tether it at the door".
Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a satirical diaogue (Julius Exclusus) where he imagins this conversation between St. Peter and Julius in front of the Gates of Heaven:
"St Peter: Why are you in armour?
Julius: Do you expect me to wage war naked?
St Peter: You are bristling with weapons. You smell of brothels, booze and gunpowder.
Julius: Thanks to me the Christian church, once starving and poor, is now flourishing. Royal palaces, beautiful houses, plenty of servants, well trained troops.
St Peter: In poverty, sweat, fasting, thirst and hunger Christ passed His life; and in the end He died by the most humiliating of deaths.
Julius: Well, perhaps He will find someone to praise Him for that - but no one to imitate Him. Not these days, at any rate."
Nah, he never led his armies. This was Juan's and later Cesare's job.The most obvious one you're missing is Alexander VI. Signor Borgia himself.
Though he at least once showed up at the front and personally blessed the cannons. That were about to knock down the walls of a Catholic city. Oh, wait, they'd just been declared heretics specifically for this purpose.
Perhaps the papal states get involved with the 30 years war and the pope leads an army against the protestants. IDK how, since there was no protestant country in Italy and most of the fighting took place in Germany but it could be doable. Or the Pope leads an army against Napoleon I.
It's not that hard for early middle ages. After all, Irish monks fought themselves because of loyalties divided along secular nobility, and some bishops or religious if not fighting were present in battlefield (as Odon of Bayeux or Oppa of Sevilla by exemple).
So, without talking of a lasting feature, it could happen, even if rare.
Now, it would became less rare Paix de Dieu movment (or without the development of feudalism, but it would be really hard to butterfly it without butterflying the concept of pope as we know it) that made the clergy the guarant of peace where the feudal power was defailant (where the king, duke, count couldn't really apply peace among his own vassals).
"Armies of peace" were created, composed by peasants and morally led by clergy. Some little changes could lead to a clergy in arms as a more current feature, and as many popes of the period came from the aera of devellopment of Paix de Dieu (Aquitaine, Burgundy), it's possible to have them agreeing to clergy participating in some precise conditions.
Now, having the pope fighting in battlefied is hard to have regularly, for the same reasons that no POTUS since Washington did : other responsabilities, no real strategic skills superior to others, and too dangerous to have him captured.
So, without talking of a lasting feature, it could happen, even if rare.
Now, it would became less rare Paix de Dieu movment (or without the development of feudalism, but it would be really hard to butterfly it without butterflying the concept of pope as we know it) that made the clergy the guarant of peace where the feudal power was defailant (where the king, duke, count couldn't really apply peace among his own vassals).
"Armies of peace" were created, composed by peasants and morally led by clergy. Some little changes could lead to a clergy in arms as a more current feature, and as many popes of the period came from the aera of devellopment of Paix de Dieu (Aquitaine, Burgundy), it's possible to have them agreeing to clergy participating in some precise conditions.
Now, having the pope fighting in battlefied is hard to have regularly, for the same reasons that no POTUS since Washington did : other responsabilities, no real strategic skills superior to others, and too dangerous to have him captured.
Apart of Julius II? Not really. As said, strict definition of what clergy can do or couldn't do prevented it to happen.
This guy was kind of an exception.
There was a definition of what the clergy could do; however it was usually circumvented one way or another (Odo of Mainz who fought in Italy with Barbarossa was notorious: it is said he fought with a mace, rather than a sword, to avoid spilling Christian blood
). In any case, no prohibition applied when fighting infidels or heretics. Bishops and cardinals where quite regularly at the head of armies. be it the levies of the papal states or their own when prince-bishops: the cardinal Albornoz who managed to subdue again most of the cities that had left the papal dominions (14th century) is possibly one of the most famous; Julius II himself, when still cardinal della Rovere, led a number of campaigns; the list could go on and on.I can suggest "Popes, Cardinals and war : the military church in Renaissance and early modern Europe" by David Chamber if anyone is interested to go a bit more in depth on the subject.
That's a legend. There's no source that support such thing and it's to put with other mythos dustbin, as "knights unable to rise up in armor" and "Droit du seigneur"There was a definition of what the clergy could do; however it was usually circumvented one way or another(Odo of Mainz who fought in Italy with Barbarossa was notorious: it is said he fought with a mace, rather than a sword, to avoid spilling Christian blood
Probably another mark of contempt, as suggered by the smiley, for an era as a whole.
The mace (or a staff), in this case, wasn't a weapon but a mark of authority and its actually shared by other people (non-cleric or cleric) in nonf-fighting situation.
One of the many exemples could be the staff as a "regalia" of visigothic kings.
For the crusade, as the cardinal Pelaio by exemple, it wasn't question for them to fight, but to be part of the decisional staff.
And, yes, there was prohibition for fighting anyone. It's why Church never killed condamned heretics, but given them to secular courts in order to do that. You can contempt as you want, but this is one of the elements that show even if they could give to others the fighting role, the clergy itself wasn't allowed to.
Now, you had exception, critically in the Early Middle Ages where such behaviour wasn't uncommon (as said before). But with the establishment of feudalism and separation of orders from one hand, and on the other hand the papacy rise on Latin Church with canonic laws depending on him and not local councils, it was deemed.
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Except that there's no account of Johannes X doing something else than organizing the army and being present during the siege. Again, we're in "being part of the campaign" against "actual fighting".
Personally, I think that if it was, it would have been accounted as an unusual event, just like Adhemar du Puy was during the First Crusade.
If you want a more modern comparison, it would be like saying Stalin fought during the Battle of Moscow, or Churchill during the Battle of Britain.