PODS around more mdeieval arms control

OK, the 2nd Latern Council of 1139 was supposed to have banned crossbows in warfare between Christians, on the grounds of preventing superfluous/unnecessary injury (which OTL is a key IHL principle as underpinned by subsequent treaties like the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration on Exploding Bullets & the 1907 Hague Conventions). Could the Catholic Church have also instituted other arms control arrangements during medieval times on similar grounds ? What other weapons could've poss been subjected to Papal bans ? What about Greek fire & other incendiary weapons ?
 
The problem is twofold. Firstöly, the Lateran Council's ban had no effect whatsoever, and the Catholic Church did not become Europe's primarey power player by being slow on the uptake. And secondly, the official policy of the church only supports one position on pretty much all weapons, so distinguishing between the permitted and the non-permitted is both theologically and politically problematic.

If the papacvy had allowed itself to be dragged into these debates (which were very much alive at the time, but mostly among professional users of violence), it is likely that they would have adopted the general tenor and condemned weapons that devalued traditional conceptions of valour and threatened established power structures.

I don't think that catapults or siege engineering would be condemned because the papacy was still culturally part of the Mediterranean setup, where this had a long tradition. A North European pope might do it, though.

Incendiary weapons are probably too insignificant a factor to attract papal condemnation at that point, though gunpowder almost certainly would be included if the tradition exists by 1300.

There may be something said about long spears and the general cruelty of targeting horses and slaughtering fallen riders. Horse archery, too, could become officially frowned upon.

Beyond that it is hard to see what would attract papal bans. There wasn't all that much new weapons technology around. IMO the ban on crossbows was a once-off deviation from course that the popes hads the goosd sense not to repeat.
 
The Pope also banned the sale of firearms to Muslims. That didn't stop that the Portuguese from trading them for slaves in Africa.
 
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I may be wrong on this but I recall that a mooted ban on crossbows was linked to the European nobility's anger at the potential for weapons to allow Nobles to be killed by peasants - they wanted to preserve warfare in a manner where Nobles went at it in glorious combat between themselves and the peasant masses went at each other as a by-product of warfare, able to turn battles yes but not able to in any way attract any of the glamour or success of their betters.

If - somehow - you can pull this off you may be able to preserve combat in a chivalrous, feudal state at least for longer than OTL. It may even hold back the rise of gunpowder weaponry. That said, by handing the English such a huge advantage here, good luck getting them to go give up the longbows too because it won't happen...
 
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