Ethics, Nationalism, and Just War: Medieval and Contemporary Perspectives

6. Poets and Politics: Just War in Geoffrey Chaucer and Christine de Pizan

6 Poets and Politics Just War in Geoffrey Chaucer and Christine de Pizan kate l. forhan There never was a good war, or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin During the Middle Ages, traditions of blood feud, desires for conquest and power, and even the chivalric code of honor intensified the frequency and legitimacy of war. Yet war as an inescapable fact of life does not diminish the desire for peace; in fact it may intensify our human sense of its value. Because conflict was so terribly damaging to land and lives in medieval Europe, ensuring peace often meant controlling war, or at least some of the negative and destructive by-products of the seemingly interminable hostilities. Consequently, the desire for peace in the Middle Ages was intimately related to the development of the concept of the “just war.” Generally, in medieval political theory, there are two major threads that concern those writing on war and its rationale. The first, ius ad bellum , addresses the justification for war. In traditional theory, one may go to war if three conditions are present. First, the perpetrator must have the authority to wage war, or auctoritas. Second, the war leader must have an appropriate reason or goal to accomplish, or causa; and finally, ∏ 99 he, his soldiers, and other combatants must have a correct interior disposition or intention, recta intentio, such as, for example, to do justice, rather than merely to take revenge. Traditionally, authority is limited to the emperor, because, at least hypothetically, all other rulers have recourse to him for redress of grievances. A “liberal minority,” according to Jonathan Barnes, gave that authority to kings as well (1984: 771–84). The second major thread, ius in bello, prescribes the conduct of war. Clearly, there is a relationship between how a war is fought and one’s intentions , but ius in bello goes beyond the stipulation of attitudes of justice and fairness. Rather, it grew out of the confluence of the evolving chivalric code and the intentionalist ethics of Christianity elaborated by the curiales who, beginning in the eleventh century, had to reconcile their religious training with the values of the courts in which they served. Encouraged by the presence of powerful women at court, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie de Champagne, this ethic of courtliness involved not only behavior—elegance, politeness, and comportment—but also qualities of generosity, compassion, and protection of the weak. Thus the conduct of warriors was, on the one hand, to include military efficiency, loyalty, and prowess, and on the other, benevolence, charity, and safeguarding noncombatants. It is often believed that the development of these and other medieval political ideas was the province either of clerics and Scholastics or of the aristocracy. Equally a part of the conventional understanding is the view that these rules of conduct were completely divorced both in their origins and in their application from ordinary people. Laypersons were not particularly heeded in the development of medieval political ideas in general and certainly had no influence on the conduct of war. Indeed, often the only role for the third and least important of the three orders, “those who work,” was simply to pay their taxes and suffer the consequences that befell noncombatants in medieval wars. For the most part, they suffered in silence. If the burden became too great, there might be a peasant revolt, as in England under Wat Tyler, or an explosion of the urban artisanate , as in Paris under butcher Simon Caboche, but unless the ruling classes suffered the consequences, they generally ignored these injustices . While this stereotypical view was probably never entirely accurate, by the fourteenth century social, economic, and political stresses were profoundly challenging the conventions in almost every aspect of life. In 100 Kate L. Forhan particular, the evolution of lay criticism of the ruling classes is one of the most remarkable developments of the later Middle Ages. The obligation to instruct rulers had long been the province of clerics writing in the traditional genre of the mirror for princes, but in the fourteenth century poets began to take on this advisory role. The works of two contemporaneous vernacular poets will demonstrate both the force and the courage of these voices who dared to criticize the conduct of government and to elaborate their own views of war. The first of these writers is Geoffrey Chaucer, whose “Tale of Melibee” provides a scathing critique of...