Chapter 11. Civil War as Holy War? Polyphonic Discourses of Warfare During the Internal Struggles in Norway in the Twelfth Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 227-244
Author(s):  
Bjørn Bandlien
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Holy War

The Earl, the Kings, and the Chronicler

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Full Length ◽  
English History ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
William The Conqueror

This book is the first full length biography of Robert (c.1088 × 90–1147), grandson of William the Conqueror and eldest son of King Henry I of England (1100–35). He could not succeed his father because he was a bastard. Instead, as the earl of Gloucester, Robert helped change the course of English history by keeping alive the prospects for an Angevin succession through his leadership of its supporters in the civil war known as the Anarchy against his father’s successor, King Stephen (1135–54). The earl is one of the great figures of Anglo-Norman History (1066–1154). He was one of only three landed super-magnates of his day, a model post-Conquest great baron, Marcher lord, borough developer, and patron of the rising merchant class. His trans-Channel barony stretched from western Lower Normandy across England to South Wales. He was both product as well as agent of the contemporary cultural revival known as the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, bilingual, well educated, and a significant literary patron. In this last role, he is especially notable for commissioning the greatest English historian since Bede, William of Malmesbury, to produce a history of their times which justified the Empress Matilda’s claim to the English throne and Earl Robert’s support of it.

Architecture and Authority: Castles

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Distribution Map ◽  
Archaeological Evidence

This core chapter analyses the archaeological and documentary evidence for the militarisation of the twelfth-century landscape through castle-building. The considerable challenges of identifying and dating castles built and strengthened during the civil war mean that the total picture of fortification in the period will always remain murky at best, irrespective of how much new archaeological evidence comes to light. The proportion of unfinished and lost castle sites is also far higher than for other periods. That Stephen’s reign saw a marked thickening in the distribution map of castles is beyond doubt, but this was probably more tightly focussed in contested regions than a genuinely nationwide phenomenon and is likely to have involved scores rather than hundreds of ‘new’ sites. Overall, archaeology highlights individuality in twelfth-century timber castle design, which went far beyond the ‘motte and bailey’ or ‘ringwork’ labels. ‘Enmotted’ towers were a hallmark of the period, as was the re-activation and remodelling of Iron-Age hillforts as castles and the construction of great masonry donjons, which percolated from being a royal to a magnate prerogative during the period.

scholarly journals Civil war and religion in medieval Japan and medieval Europe: War for the Gods, emotions at death and treason

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-287
Author(s):  
Philippe Buc
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Medieval Japan ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Compare And Contrast ◽  
The Church

To compare and contrast medieval Japan and medieval Western Europe allows one to discover three things. First, analogous to Catholic holy war, in Japan becomes visible a potential for war (albeit seldom actualised) for the sake, quite surprisingly, of Buddhism. Second, the different role played by emotions during war: in Europe, when vicious (and motivated by emotions such as greed, ambition or lust), they endanger the victors; thus the concern for right emotions foster, to a point, proper behavior during war; in Japan, however, the focus is on the emotions of the defeated, which may hamper a good reincarnation and produce vengeful spirits harmful to the victors and to the community at large. Finally, while Japanese warriors could and often did switch sides, the archipelago did not know for centuries anything approaching the European concept of treason, ideally punished with the highest cruelty, hated and feared to the point of generating collective paranoia and conspiracy theories. Western treason was (and is still) a secularised offspring of the Christian belief in the internal enemy of the Church, the false brethren. Arguably, the texture of the religions present in the two ensembles gave their specific form to these three aspects of warfare.

Lakwena, Alice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Behrend
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Unique Form ◽  
Northern Kenya ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Government

Alice Lakwena’s transformation from a healer into a Christian prophetess occurred during a period of civil war and unrest in Uganda. In 1986, she founded the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces (HSMF) in northern Uganda and waged war against the government of Yoweri Museveni. Above all, her power was based on the practice of possession by gendered spirits, a ritual that fostered a unique form of holy war. Though her forces were defeated, and she later died in a refugee camp in northern Kenya, her fame continued to grow after her death.

Material Culture: From Arts to Coins

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
South West ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Parish Churches ◽  
Post War ◽  
South West England

This chapter examines the material culture of the twelfth century and assesses evidence for change as a result of the civil war. The period’s pottery shows a myriad of regionally distinctive patterns although towards the end of the twelfth century we see the growth of markets and commercialisation of the industry in a post-war boom. In the sphere of the arts there is no evidence whatsoever of any hiatus nor of declining standards during Stephen’s reign, and instead the period witnessed achievement and innovation in several different areas. While it is difficult to isolate developments in the 1130s, 40s and 50s from longer-term trends, it does seem clear that sculpture in parish churches shows particularly high levels of experimentation, while grave slabs were a modish means of commemoration and expressing identity for emerging parish elites. Coinage provides our best means of mapping the fluid geopolitics of the civil war on the ground. An ever-expanding dataset is highlighting the existence of a short-lived Angevin proto-state in south-west England during the 1140s, but we should also be cautious in assuming that all ‘rival’ coin issues during the period provide straightforward evidence for opposition to Stephen’s rule.

Historical Outline and the Geography of ‘Anarchy’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver H. Creighton ◽  
Duncan W. Wright ◽  
Michael Fradley ◽  
Steven Trick
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
English Channel ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
English Society

This chapter covers two areas: it provides a sketch of English society and landscape in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, and presents a year-by-year chronology of Stephen’s reign. At the point of Stephen’s accession to the throne in 1135, the longer-term impacts of the Norman Conquest on English society and landscape were still being played out. Ethnicity and identity in the period were fluid, and so mid-twelfth-century England was a developing Anglo-Norman state rather that a subjugated dominion. While ‘the Anarchy’ of Stephens reign is frequently styled as a civil war, the conflict was unusually complex and protracted, and involved more than two opposing sides. The period saw persistent asymmetric warfare on the borderlands of Wales, a succession of incursions from Scotland and Angevin invasions from across the English Channel, while a struggle for control of Normandy dominated the wider strategic landscape. The most characteristic feature of conflict during the period was an unprecedented series of internal rebellions, led by disloyal, disenfranchised or marginalised magnates and underlain by regional grievances.

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