PeaceDocs | Bibliography | Internationalism 1500–1800
CHAPTER 11: Internationalism, 1500-1800
General Introduction
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793.For updated and additional bibliography, see also PeaceDocs, Texts, Philosophical and Internationalist
795. The New Cambridge Modern History Vols. II–VIII. Various editors. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1957–1990.
Continues the historical background from the Reformation through the French Revolution.
The Religious Background
796. Berenger, Jean. “The Austrian Church.” See 799, 88-105.
Popular spirituality was carefully molded by the Jesuits and other orders in this land newly won back from the Protestants. The religion of the people was now restricted to communion and mass, pilgrimages and processions, and Marian devotions. Important background to understand the disappearance of any widespread Catholic peace movement and the laity’s acceptance of the increasingly authoritarian nature of the church.
797. Bokenkotter, Thomas. A Concise History of the Catholic Church. Rev. ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979, 248-339.
In the post-Tridentine Catholic church, as in the established Protestant churches, no room was allowed for the laity’s participation in administration. Doctrinal definitions were narrowed, and the Inquisition and Index ferreted out any dissent and heterodox thought. The Council of Trent also strengthened episcopal control over dioceses, and bishops were quick to stamp out any “challenge to orthodoxy or uniformity.” The church became a “rigorist and authoritarian institution,” highly centralized, negative, and defensive to the outside world. This state-of-siege mentality opposed all the new democratic and liberal trends of the modern world and stamped out any popular movements, including those for peace. An excellent survey of the trends and ideas that have shaped the modern church until Vatican II
798. Callahan, William J. “The Spanish Church.” See 799, 34-50.
Traces the growing rift in class background, education, and interests between lower clergy and the hierarchy. The latter came almost exclusively from the nobility, shared its morality, and worked closer and closer with the crown. Cites several examples of high clergy humiliated and hounded out of office for their oppostion to state interests. “In the end, the hold of the church over the masses depended on the ceremonial and placatory aspects of religion.” One can easily see the great difficulty of building any form of peace witness under such circumstances.
799. —., and David Higgs, eds. Church and Society in Catholic Europe of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
The early modern church was more rigid in every way than the medieval, pre-Tridentine one. All forms of popular spirituality and expression were thoroughly controlled. All dissent was systematically wiped out. Though it does not discuss the Catholic peace tradition, this collection of essays provides excellent discussion of this rigidification. Includes 796, 798, 802, 803, and 808.
800. Greaves, R.W. “Religion,” NCMH 7: The Old Regime, 1713-1763. J.O. Lindsay, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966, 113-40.
Good background and introduction.
801. Heyer, F. The Catholic Church from 1648 to 1870. London: Black, 1969.
A useful survey.
802. Higgs, David. “The Portuguese Church.” See 799, 51-65.
The Portuguese experience paralleled that of other Catholic countries in the age. As the gap between higher and lower clergy widened, and the needs of the poor majority receded into the background, the hierarchy and monarchy imposed ever tighter controls on all forms of popular expression both secular and religious. The Inquisition set up an almost secret police to ferret out dissenters, popular religious festivals and processions were suppressed, the laity was excluded from the pulpit and other forms of expression. The result was the separation of the hierarchy from popular spirituality in urban centers and the de-Christianization of large portions of the countryside. Clearly not the conditions required for a thriving Catholic peace movement.
803. Hufton, Olwen. “The French Church.” See 799, 13-33.
Popular spirituality declined throughout the eighteenth century to such an extent that in certain areas fifty percent of the population had abandoned the church. Religious observance was reduced to the level of ritual externals, with the result that Catholicism became a paganized religion in rural France. Replacing the Christian structures for the young, military service now became a normative influence. The intellectual forces of the church were, meanwhile, devoted to combatting the Philosophes, to the disregard of the moral education of most Catholics.
804. McManners, J. “Religion and the Relations of Church and State,” NCMH 6 (1970): The Rise of Great Britain and Russia, 1688-1715/25. J.S. Bromley, ed., 119-53.
A good introduction to the broad trends of the period.
805. Moose, G.L. “Changes in Religious Thought,” NCMH 4 (1970): The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War, 1606-48/59. J.F. Cooper, ed., 169-201.
Traces the major developments during the period: Roman Triumphalism, or the church militant coming to dominate all aspects of life in an alliance with political power; the rise of new spiritualities, including Jansenism and Quietism; and new forms of a socially activist Catholic piety, exemplified by Francis de Salles (1567-1622), Vincent de Paul (1580-1660), and others.
806. Noel, Charles C. “Missionary Preachers in Spain: Teaching Social Virtue in the Eighteenth Century,” American Historical Review 90, 4 (Oct. 1985): 866-92.
Focuses on four famous preachers, whose themes were all in the Renaissance Humanist tradition of Christian virtues. To this the preachers added a lively criticism of capitalism, business, and economic exploitation. Among the sermons were some that extolled social justice and reconciliation of enemies.
807. O’Connell, Marvin R. The Counter Reformation, 1560-1610. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
Pages 32-82, “The Catholic Peace,” is an apt description of the Triumphalist definition: the church in alliance with power coming to dominate society and to combat its enemies with all the force made available to it. This is the peace of order and stability achieved by crusade abroad against Protestants, Moslems, and pagans in the New World and enforced at home through repression and Inquisition. O’Connell also provides excellent introduction to the Council of Trent, religious forms, and the beginnings of religious war and rebellion.
808. Rosa, Mario. “The Italian Churches.” See 799, 66-76.
The church began to rely more and more on state intervention to put its post-Trent reforms into practice. Thus Catholic religious life fell more and more into line with governments’ aspirations for social and political order. Popular devotion and other religious expression were tightly controlled or suppressed, while greater and greater reliance was placed on internal piety, sacramental devotion, and the spiritual life of the individual family. Social definitions of peace and justice thus fell into disuse.
809. Walsh, John. “Religion: Church and State in Europe and the Americas,” NCMH 9 (1965): War and Peace in an Age of Upheaval, 1793-1830. C.W. Crawley, ed., 146-78.
A good introduction.
810. Whiteman, Ann. “Church and State,” NCMH 5 (1964): The Ascendancy of France 1648-88. F.L. Carsten, ed., 122-48.
A good introduction.
The Peace Tradition in Early Modern Europe
811. Bainton, Roland. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace. Knoxville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1960.
This period of peacemaking was dominated by the new Protestant peace churches. Pages 122-89 identify the Catholic tradition almost exclusively with the just war and give short shrift to such positive contributions as Las Casas’. While the period produced Rabelais’ satires on just-war theory, Bainton contends that most plans for world peace written by Catholics were not essentially Christian but based on natural law. Eimeric Crucé’s plan for a world assembly is an example.
812. Brock, Peter. Pacifism in Europe to 1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
Takes the leap over the Middle Ages from the early church to the Czech Brethren and then focuses on Protestant peace churches for the rest of his account.
813. Constantinescu-Bagdat, Elise. Études d’histoire pacifique. 2 vols. Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1924-1925.
This work is uneven and stems from the pacifist reaction in between-war France. Here pacifism can mean anything from Erasmus in Volume 1 to such “pacifists” as Sully and the military engineer Vauban in volume 2. Anyone remotely interested in providing international, or domestic, order, by almost whatever means, seems to fit this definition of pacifism. Yet while there is a great deal of chafe to winnow through, there is also some wheat in this broad field. Saint-Pierre’s projects for international peace is one example.
814. Lammers, Stephen E. “Roman Catholic Social Ethics and Pacifism.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 93-103.
While pacifism might be a viable alternative at present, it was never in the mainstream of Catholic moral or ethical philosophy. This was so especially after the Reformation, when the Catholic church rejected the Protestant pacifist sects and saw the unity of the Hebrew Bible and New Testaments threatened by Protestant emphasis on the New. Instead, Roman Catholic ethics turned to natural-law philosophy and the Greco-Roman just-war tradition. Early forms of Catholic international law also deliberately rejected religious justifications and turned to these natural-law solutions. Lammers also contends that, since the Reformation, pacifism has been misunderstood as upholding conscience above just authority, whereas Catholic teaching always subordinated the conscience of the soldier to the decisions of political leaders. True pacifism was thus an aberration in the Catholic tradition. A rehashing of Catholic views familiar in the pre-Vatican II church.
815. Louthan, Howard. The Quest for Compromise: Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. Cambridge studies in early modern history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
816. Souleyman, Elizabeth V. The Vision of World Peace in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century France. New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1941.
This is one of the most important books for tracing the Catholic peace tradition, and the best available for the early modern period. Includes detailed discussion, with lengthy quotations, of Dubois, Crucé, La Bruyère, Fenelon, Guez de Balzac, Pascal, Saint-Pierre, and Raynal, among others. Topics include early seventeenth-century proposals, the critics of Louis XIV, strictly religious attitudes to war, the free thinkers, political plans for world order, the thought of the Philosophes, Rousseau and the moralists, and the physiocrats and financiers. Balanced and useful. Excellent bibliography and notes.
The Humanist Tradition
Rabelais
817. Costa, Dennis. Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais. Stanford French and Italian Studies 21. Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1981.
Pages 107-38, “Daily Bread, the Horrible Mysteries of Rabelais,” discuss Rabelais’ superabundance of words and images as a true apocalyptic metaphor for the process of fulfillment in the end time. Aside from direct parallels to the text of the Apocalypse, which Costa analyzes, Rabelais’ subtext is a discourse on the essential nonviolence required for the apocalyptic transition to fulfillment. Violence in pursuit of the millennium, in fact, will only postpone its coming. Individual episodes also highlight Rabelais’ Erasmian concern for peace and his parodies of France’s war preparations. Excellent bibliography on apocalyptic literature.
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818.Rabelais, François. The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel
Many editions and translations, including online at Project Gutenberg.
Rabelais was an unabashed disciple of Erasmus. His book is fully in the humanist tradition of social and political satire and, like the Praise of Folly (712), touches on every aspect of contemporary life. Rabelais’ age was one of increasing rigidity and ideological war, however, and both his impact and the reaction to it were far more bitter. Book One, “Gargantua,” presents, among many other things, the story of Picrochole’s invasion of Grandgousier’s kingdom. In Rabelais’ satire of the just war, the conflict is caused by an argument over some sweet cakes and by Picrochole’s bad advisors and personal madness. Yet Grandgousier defends his kingdom only with the most just means, if, of course, we ignore the help of his son, the giant Gargantua.
In the course of the campaign Rabelais is able to paint vivid mockeries of chivalrous encounters, but his condemnations of war (spoken by the victors) are straightforward, if also a bit overblown: war is contrary to Gospel teachings and imitates the exploits of pagan heros æ the Alexanders, Scipios, and Herculeses of the world. “What the Saracens and Barbarians of old called deeds of prowess we now call robbery and wickedness.”
Book Three includes a satire on the just wars of colonial expansion first hinted at by More in Utopia and now being waged around the world. Pantagruel and his companions’ conquest of Dipsodia is a direct attack on the methods of European colonization. Rabelais’ criticism of the warrior also takes on an interesting modern note when he explicitly equates war with sexual aggression, declaring the codpiece “the first piece of harness in the arming of a warrior.” Cohen provides a good introduction to Rabelais’ life and work.
819. Stapfer, Paul. “Les idées de Rabelais sur la guerre,” Bibliothèque Universelle et Revue Suisse 3rd. ser., 40 (1888): 367-79.
Detailed discussion of Picrochole’s invasion of Grandgousier’s realm in Book One, the devastation of the peasants’ lives, of the warrior monks, and of the contrast between Gospel precepts and the deeds of Hercules, Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar. Stapfer shows how Grandgousier attempts to prevent war out of a sense of humanity and insists that Rabelais’ intent here is quite serious. Stapfer also discusses Pantagruel’s peaceful transplanting of the Utopians to Dipsodia in Book Three and concludes that Rabelais intended this to contrast sharply with Charlemagne’s forced resettlements of the Saxons and Flemings.
Montaigne
820. Armaingaud, N. “Montaigne et la guerre,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire 98 (1919): 81-86, 186-96, 304-15.
A survey of Montaigne’s views on peace drawn from his essays. A good introduction.
821. Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de. The Complete Essays.
Many editions, including online in French and English.
These essays cover a great span of time and subject matter. One must be wary, therefore, of selecting only those that provide evidence for peacemaking to the detriment of an overall understanding of the man. While Montaigne was no pacifist, he was an important spokesman for the Erasmian tradition of Humanism in sixteenth-century France. Both his political career and his writings demonstrate an unswerving commitment to toleration and the peaceful settlement of conflicts. For this he was named as an arbiter in several of the Protestant-Catholic conflicts of the period and was condemned by extremists on both sides for his efforts. Montaigne’s classicism and his intellectual skepticism, both similar to Erasmus’, allowed him to strip through the pious myths and sentimentalism of war and the warrior ethic. While he called on the warrior to fight honestly, he saw the just war as a mere pretext for aggression and condemned all wars of religion and violence against religious dissenters. Like Erasmus, he also used comparisons to the animal world for his sociology of violence, declaring that war makes humans far more savage than beasts.
While Montaigne can praise Caesar as the ideal soldier in one essay, in another he observes that ancient history is full of stories of great heroes who were nothing more than bloodthirsty and lecherous men bent on plunder: Caesar, Augustus, Alexander, the Trojans and Greeks. In the modern world kings show little better motive: war is caused by personal whims, a lust for glory, and flattery. War must be judged on the same moral level that we judge individual actions. Frame is an acknowledged master of this field. His biographical and introductory materials are first rate.
Pascal
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822.Pascal, Blaise. Pensées.
Available in several editions, including online.
See especially the essays numbered 291-294, 300-301, and 538.
823. Souleyman. See 816, 56-58.
In his Pensées, Pascal declares that all wars are abominations and that peace is the highest blessing. This and other truths are not confined by national boundaries, and it is absurd to kill another man simply because he lives on the other side of a boundary line. Just wars are an absurdity.
Francisco de Vitoria and International Law
824. Aguilar, Jose Manuel de. The Law of Nations and the Salamanca School of Theology. Washington, DC: Spanish Embassy, 1947.
The Catholic tradition of international law had precedents in Roman law, in Isidore of Seville, and in Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. With Vitoria and his colleagues the law of nations evolved into a hybrid of natural and positive law, which includes custom but is also based on Scripture, Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Augustine. This tradition states that civic life is natural and involves mutual obligations and rights. Basic human rights stem from the natural foundations of international law and the inherent unity of humanity. Nation-states have legal validity only so long as they respect these basic principles of human unity and rights.
From these principles stem international customs, such as the inviolability of ambassadors, and the basis for international agreements on the law of nations. While Vitoria implies that a supranational authority is needed to implement the natural-law rights and obligations of individuals and peoples, he does not really ever define one. War is a just instrument of this world order, like the force used by the police, but such wars can only be just if waged to implement world order and not the policies of individual princes or nations. The individual prince or state cannot act as both plaintiff, judge, and executioner. In these attitudes Vitoria, and not Grotius, emerges as the true founder of modern international law.
825. Benson, Robert L. “Medieval Canonistic Origins of the Debate on the Lawfulness of the Spanish Conquest.” See 827, 1: 327-34.
The basis of Indian rights, justness of wars of conquest, and compulsion in canon law.
826. Brière, Yves de la. “Conceptions du droit international chez les théologiens catholiques.” In C. Dupuis, ed., Les grands systèmes de politique internationale. Paris: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1930.
Not seen.
827. Chiappelli, Fredi, ed. First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old. 2 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976.
A collection of essays. Includes 825 and 832.
828. Dalmau, J. “Suarez, Francisco,” NCE 13: 751-54.
A good introduction.
829. Eppstein John. The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1935.
Surveys the intellectual tradition of such writers as Vitoria and Fenelon.
830. Foriers, Paul. “L’organisation de la paix chez Grotius et l’École de droit naturel.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 275-376.
Reviews Grotius’ antecedents in the Spanish school of international law.
831. Francisco de Vitoria. Addresses in Commemoration of the Fourth Centenary of his Lectures “De Indis” and “De Iure Belli” 1532-1932. Washington, DC: Catholic University, 1932.
A collection of essays, including 839, 846, and 850.
832. Grisel, Étienne. “The Beginnings of International Law and General Public Law Doctrine: Francisco de Vitoria’s De Indis prior.” See 827, 1: 305-25.
The De Indis emerged as a series of lecture notes. In the course of these lectures, analyzing all the pros and cons of an argument in true Scholastic style, Vitoria touched on the native Americans’ rightful dominion to the New World, Spain’s illegitimate claims, and its legitimate titles to possession. Among these legitimate claims were peaceful trade, natural association of peoples, Christian missionary activity, alliances and aid to the Americans, combating the tyranny of Indian lords, the voluntary submission of tribes at war with others, and their inability to rule themselves. Thus Spain’s titles were based on divine, natural, and some positive laws. Most important are the divine and natural laws that govern international relations between hitherto unrelated peoples. In this, Grisel argues, Vitoria was fully in the tradition of Vives and Erasmus. While Vitoria’s theories may seem to justify Spanish conquest, they also stress the full human rights of the Americans and the essential unity of all humanity.
833. Hamilton, Bernice. Political Thought in Sixteenth-Century Spain: A Study of the Political Ideas of Vitoria, De Soto, Suarez, and Molina. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
This is an extremely useful and well documented survey, and it includes good biographical information and much material of use for the peace tradition in early modern Europe. The Salamanca theologians had fundamental influence on the development of the law of nations. Despite his arguments supporting the Spanish rights of colonization, for example, Vitoria was also instrumental in establishing the rights of the native Americans as full and equal human beings in the context of international law. Vitoria rejected coercion and stressed the rights of non-Christians. Natural law gave native peoples legitimate rights to rule the New World, and he refuted Sepúlveda’s arguments that they were inferior beings and thus rightfully enslaved. [See 779.]Even the rule of Christ himself is not enough to justify conquest of the New World. Instead, peaceful conversion must be attempted. “War is not an argument for the truth of Christianity. The Indians cannot be made to believe by war, only to pretend to believe and to receive the Christian faith, which would be horrible and sacrilegious.”
While Spanish rule is thus seen as a trusteeship over new converts, the Salamanca theologians do argue that Christ did not approve total pacifism and in founding the Gospel law did not abolish natural law. Both Vitoria and Molina agree, however, that war can be justified in defense of peaceful settlements, their colonists or converts, or to redress injuries. In detailing the nature of these defensive wars the Salamanca theologians are led to spell out the criteria for just wars. These expand the thought of medieval Scholastics and include legitimate power, just cause and reason, proper conduct, including proportionality throughout.
Of great importance to the later just-war and pacifist traditions is Vitoria’s discussion of the rights of individual soldiers to question the orders of superiors in the course of a war or preparations for one. On the whole, he notes, the soldier should rely on the judgment of his superiors. This stems from the ignorance of the common folk, their lack of power to stop wars, as well as from the contempt in which rulers hold their subjects. Yet, Vitoria adds, a war can commonly be judged unjust by popular opinion. In this case subjects are not bound to obey. Even if a war is commonly judged just, however, the rights of conscience must be exercised if the individual subject is convinced that the war is wrong, and he ought not to fight if so ordered. “The corollary of this is that whether a war is just or unjust, if a subject’s conscience tells him that it is wrong, he must not fight in it.”
The influence of these theorists was immense. Not only did they teach thousands of students, but in their own time they also advised Charles V and Philip II on the charges made by Bartolomé de Las Casas (764 to 781) and others against the conquistadors. Their support of the missionaries helped persuade the kings to drastically change Spanish royal policy in the Americas.
834. Hanke, Lewis, ed. The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949; reprint Southern Methodist University Press, 2002.
While Vitoria insisted that the Spanish had a legal right to settle in the New World and to carry on missionary work, even to defend these against attack, he made clear that neither king, nor emperor, nor pope had any inherent right over non-Christian lands. In fact, the indigenous peoples had the right to resist any attempts at conquest, since natural law made them the full equals of Europeans. In the end, however, Vitoria’s influence on the course of events was questionable.
835. Johnson, James T. Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts 1200-1740. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Pages 150-71 are especially useful for the Spanish tradition of International Law, just-war theory and the contributions of the Spanish legists and theologians to this discussion.
836. Kamen, Henry. “Clerical Violence in a Catholic Society: The Hispanic World 1450-1720.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 201-216.
On Spain’s militant clergy in theory in action both in the New World and in Spain. The essay is part of a collection that emphasizes the church’s links to the state and its warmaking. Nevertheless, Kamen does acknowledge the role of the Salamanca school, of Las Casas, the Franciscans and Dominicans in forming a “peace lobby” at the Spanish court. This lobby had a strong influence on royal policy and was able to alter the brutality of the Spanish in the New World.
Such efforts were, however, overcome by events, and Kamen cites the paternalism of the Franciscans in Mexico and the Jesuits in Paraguay and their resort to violence as evidence. The last part of the essay focuses on clerical crime and violence in Spain.
837. Lange, Christian Louis. Histoire de la doctrine pacifique. The Hague: Academy of International Law, 1927.
Includes sections on St. Pierre, Crucé, and on Sully and his Grand Design for peace, all of which were actually internationalist plans for world confederations with military forces to impose international peace and internal stability. A good example of the intellectual confusion concerning the true nature of pacifism.
838. —. Histoire de l’internationalisme. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): H. Aschenhoug, 1919-1963
A good survey, including sections on Dubois, Wolsey’s Universal Peace project of 1518, Rabelais, Montaigne, Vitoria, Suarez, Grotius, the anonymous Apologie de la Paix, Guillaume Postel and his hopes for millennial conversion, Tommaso Campanella and his universal monarchy, Crucé, and Sully’s Grand Design.
839. McKenna, Charles H. “Vitoria and His Times.” See 831, 13-24.
A good introduction to his life, works, and times.
840. —. “Vitoria, Francisco de.” NCE 14: 727-28.
A good, brief, introduction.
841. Muldoon, James. “The Contribution of the Medieval Canon Lawyer to the Formation of International Law,” Traditio 28 (1972): 483-97.
A good survey.
842. —. Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250-1550. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979.
Vitoria helped found the intellectual opposition to the conquest of the Indies on moral, not legal, grounds.
843. Onclin, Willy. “L’idée de la société internationale en Europe occidentale avant Grotius.” In Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 219-40.
The medieval and Renaissance origins of the concepts of international order and law.
844. Scott, James Brown. The Catholic Conception of International Law. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1934.
Its origins in the medieval traditions and into the Salamanca school.
845. —. The Spanish Conception of International Law and of Sanctions. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), 1934.
Focuses on the Salamanca school.
846. —. “Vitoria and International Law.” See 831, 37-43.
A brief examination of his concepts and their place in the development of the modern system.
847. Suarez, Francisco. A Work on the Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. In James Brown Scott, ed. The Classics of International Law. Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez, S.J. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944.
Presents the text of this important work.
848. Truyol y Serra, Antonio. “La conception de la paix chez Vitoria et les classiques espagnols du droit des gens.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 241-73.
The age of Vitoria saw vast new dislocations: the new discoveries, the rise of the nation-states, religious division and the end of Christendom, and the pressing problem of war and peace. The emerging theory of international law therefore drew on church, scholastic, and humanist traditions to address these problems. Excellent biographical and bibliographical materials on Vitoria and nearly a dozen other Spanish legal thinkers.
Much of the article focuses on Vitoria, however, and seeks to explain his internationalism in terms of a common human republic that allows for a pluralist structure. Truyol y Serra sees the roots of this concept in classical political theory: Aristotle, Cicero and the Stoics, underscored by biblical injunctions to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Unlike the Stoics and the medieval tradition, however, Vitoria’s human unit is not bound by a universal monarchy but by a community of independent states harmonized by the ius gentium, the law of nations, that is based on natural law and provides all humans with the same human rights and states with the basis for independence and cooperation. Natural law, and not divine right, is also the basis for political legitimacy. This therefore gives non-Christians fully equal rights against conquest and subjugation.
849. Vitoria, Francisco de. De Indis et De Iure Belli relectiones. Ernest Nys, ed.; John P. Bate, trans. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1917; reprint, Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana, 1964.
Still a good edition, with facing English and Latin texts. Nys’ English introduction precedes the texts translated by Bate. Pages 299 to 471 print a facsimile of the 1696 edition.
850. Wright, Herbert. “Vitoria and the State.” See 831, 25-38.
Not seen.
Plans for World Peace
851. Adams, Robert P. The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives on Humanism, War and Peace 1496-1535. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962.
Spurred by ambitions to the papacy, Cardinal Wolsey launched an all-out campaign to have ratified a treaty of universal peace among European rulers. Such a treaty was signed on October 2, 1518 to the lavish praise of the humanists. While broken almost immediately, the treaty does show that sentiment for some form of international control over conflicts did survive from the medieval idea of Christendom and could be converted into the political language of early-modern Europe.
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852.Alighieri, Dante. On World Government (De Monarchia). Herbert W. Schneider, trans.; Dino Bigongiari, intro. Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1957; Middle Village, NY: Griffon House Publications for the Bagehot Council, 2008.
The same love of peace and order that infuses so much of the Divine Comedy is also apparent here. Yet, while the great poem focuses on the social anarchy of the Italian city-states, the De Monarchia tries to offer a solution in the unity brought about through the rule of a single government over the peninsula and over Christendom as a whole. Humanity, Dante argues, needs unity for peace and tranquility. Unity is the nature of God and of humanity, and divine rule in heaven should be mirrored by monarchy on earth. Only with a unified rule can peace, justice, and individual liberty be fulfilled. The Roman Empire was marked by special divine favor. Now, however, the papacy and the clergy argue that rule derives through the church, and clerical usurpation of the laity’s power has brought great havoc to the world. Christ’s sword is that of spiritual rule, and the church must concentrate on its spiritual mission.
Dante is not preaching Christian quietism, but an active political role for the laity written in the language of the times. His vision of peace is highly influenced by medieval Scholastic notions of order and justice: each in his or her own place properly fulfilling his or her function unhindered by the violence or oppression of others, each one’s place guaranteed by a strong government.
853. Atiya, Aziz S. The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages. 2nd ed. London: Butler and Tanner, 1938; reprint, New York: Kraus Reprints, 1965.
Pages 47-73 offer a good introduction to Pierre Dubois’ life and his plans for a new international order.
854. Davis, Charles T. “Remigio de’ Girolami and Dante: A Comparison of Their Conceptions of Peace,” Studi danteschi 36 (1959): 105-36.
Not seen.
855. Dubois, Pierre. The Recovery of the Holy Land. Walther I. Brandt, trans. and ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956.
Brandt provides a good introduction to Dubois’ life and the context of his works, and then goes on to analyze the Recovery. The work presents two major themes: the genuine desire for a crusade that would serve to strengthen the position of his master, King Philip IV of France, and the reform of church and society at home as prelude to this crusade. This second theme has interest for the student of internationalism.
Dubois’ reform themes have their roots in Scripture, Roger Bacon (526, 527), and Ramon Lull (536-546), medieval scholastic and canonist theory, and in Aristotle. This expedition would be planned by a general council of Christendom and would presuppose unity among Christian princes, peace in Christian hearts, and a single Christian commonwealth in which internal war was outlawed. The pope and hierarchy bear the chief responsibility for waging this campaign against war. Language schools devoted to training missionaries and physicians to convert Moslem courts would be established throughout Christendom.
While Dubois gives much attention to plans for the crusade, he states outright that war in itself is wicked. Most princes fight them for their own sake, peace is never their goal, despite their claims. No war can ever be fought against fellow Christians. Instead of through war, disputes between states are to be settled by impartial arbiters, with final appeal to the pope. Sanctions are to be economic and political: confiscations, embargos, and exile. War can be used only as a last resort, and then only with a heavy heart. Universal peace is the aim of these policies.
856. —. Summaria brevis et compendiosa doctrina felicis expedicionis et abreviacionis guerrarum. H. Kampf, ed., in Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Vol. 4. Leipzig-Berlin, 1936.
Not seen.
857. Gatto, Ludovico. “La pace nel pensiero politico di Pierre Dubois.” In La pace nel pensiero, nella politica, negli ideali del Trecento. Convegni del Centro di Studi sulla Spiritualità medievale 15. Todi, 1975, 113-53.
While Dubois is known for his ideas on total war, his ideas on making peace are far more important. In fact, his works, including De recuperatione and De abreviatioine guerrarum, focus on making peace in Europe, with the Crusade to the Holy Land only the occasion for his writing.
Gatto briefly reviews peace writers of the preceding century, as well as Dubois’ contemporaries. These include Adam Marsh and Guibert de Tournay, Roger Bacon, and Ramon Lull. He then reviews the content and themes of the De recuperatione and emphasizes the originality and importance of Dubois’ call for an international assembly (general council) to resolve Europe’s conflicts and establish the mechanism for a permanent peace. We must wait until the sixteenth century, in Erasmus’ Querela pacis (See 694–696) for a discussion of a general peace plan as well thought out.
858. Hemleben, Sylvester John. Plans for World Peace Through Six Centuries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943.
A good, introductory, review of many of the best known Catholic internationalists, including Pierre Dubois, Dante Alighieri, the peace plan of the Congress of Cambrai in 1513, Cardinal Wolsey’s plan for universal peace of 1518, Eimeric Crucé’s New Cyneas, the Spanish internationalists, and Charles Irenée de Saint-Pierre.
859. Marsiglio of Padua. The Defender of Peace (The Defensor Pacis). Alan Gewirth, trans. and ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1967; reprint Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.
Peace meant much the same to Marsiglio as it meant for Dante, or for most thinkers trained in the scholastic tradition: harmony and order, and a justice that gave each person his or her proper place in the universe. Marsiglio’s analysis covers the foundations of the state in natural law, the origin and development of the church, and the church’s usurpation of the powers of the state, with the resulting civil war and social anarchy that it entailed. True peace, he argues, will come about only when the papacy renounces, or is made to renounce, its claims to supremacy and assumes a spiritual leadership, leaving the state to lay leadership. Only when Christendom has one head can the order and justice required for peace be built. Marsiglio also discusses the nature of this unified rule and concludes that it resides with the people themselves. The Defender of the Peace was immediately condemned by the pope. Gewirth provides a good introduction to Marsiglio’s life.
860. Reeves, Marjorie. The Influence of Prophesy in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, 295-508.
An intrinsic element of Joachite millennial thought in the Middle Ages and early modern period was the role given to a Last World Emperor or Angelic Pope in the last apocalyptic days. At this time the world would be converted to Christianity and brought under universal peace and harmony by the rule of a divinely appointed agent. Depending on the sources and tradition, this was either to be a secular or a religious ruler. At various times the Hapsburg or Valois kings, at others a pope, or even a leader of the Spiritual Franciscans or another dissident group was the likely candidate. While the sources are not consistent in discussing the agency of this universal conversion and peace, most attribute it to divine intervention without the need for human effort in crusades and other wars. In fact, the nonviolent suffering of the elect in imitation of the early church is an important element in many prophesies of the Joachite tradition.
861. —. Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future. London: S.P.C.K., 1976, 59-82.
This is essentially a distillation of 860 in paperback form.
862. Russell, Joycelyne G. “The Search for Universal Peace: The Conferences at Calais and Bruges in 1521,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 44 (1971): 162-93.
The Renaissance inherited at least the propaganda notion that peace could be concluded on a universal scale by leaders of nations acknowledging that they were all part of a single Christendom.
863. Souleyman. See 816, 2-8.
Detailed discussion of the life, career, and works of Pierre Dubois and his plans for an international order.
864. Vasoli, Cesare. “La pace nel pensiero filosofico e teologico-politico di Dante a Ockham.” In La pace nel pensiero, nella politica, negli ideali del Trecento. Convegni del Centro di Studi sulla Spiritualità medievale 15. Todi, 1975, 27-67.
On medieval theories of general human rights and politics. Dante’s political views were not based simply on a reading of Aristotle but also derive from his first-hand experience of the spiritual and political crisis of his time. He held that the state is built on humanity’s natural cooperativeness and expresses itself best in city life, in which no one is sufficient without another’s help. From this, however, the desire for more territory leads to war, which introduces discord into the state and reduces it to a base level. Dante therefore looks to the Imperium, political authority writ large, to restore peace and justice on a local basis. Only with this tranquility, guaranteed by order, can true justice be found. This is the ability of each to fulfill the potential for perfection. This “peace” is also the starting point for Marsiglio of Padua, who held that all human groupings must be informed by universal principles of justice that form communities and lead to peace, which is the health of the body politic.
Ockham, on the other hand, predicated his political theory on the doctrine of the fall and the need for human institutions to check evil human nature and thus guarantee peace as order and justice. Ockham also acknowledged the theoretical universality of imperial authority, but based his writing on the reality of states and principalities, all of whom have the authority and duty to guarantee peace. His work clearly shows the shift in the fourteenth century away from universalist theories, such as those of Dante and Marsiglio.
865. Vesnitch, R.M. “Deux précurseurs français du pacifisme et de l’arbitrage internationale,” Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique 25 (1911): 23-78.
Reviews the life and thought of Pierre Dubois and Eimeric Crucé. Superseded by Souleyman and others.
866. Wright, Robert F. Medieval Internationalism. London: Williams and Norgate, 1930.
The subtitle reads “the contribution of the medieval church to international law and peace.” Topics include canon law, papal sovereignty as expressed through international assemblies and arbitrations, theories of international or universal government, papal diplomacy, international finance and commerce, treaties, and marriage alliances. Also discusses the restraints on war provided by the just-war theory, chivalry, the Truce of God, and sanctuary.
Wright attempts to explain away the Crusades by noting that, while they may be condemned by our standards, in the Middle Ages they represented an attempt to bring peace to Europe by exporting war.
Eimeric Crucé
867. Crucé, Eimeric. Le Nouveau Cynée. Thomas W. Balch, trans. and ed. Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1909.
The work’s five parts discuss the causes of war, the international foundations of peace, the principles of just government, freedom of commerce, and the means used to gaining international peace.
Crucé proposes a form of world confederation meeting regularly at a chosen city through permanent embassies, where international differences are to be settled by a general assembly, with more weighty attention given to a separate, smaller assembly of the representatives of the great republics. The confederation would prevent both international aggression and internal rebellions. Despite Crucé’s authoritarianism, however, his peace depends on good government and laws, social justice for the poor, a civil service based on merit, just taxation, and other innovations.
868. —. “A Holy Resolve.” In Peter Mayer, ed. The Pacifist Conscience. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966, 68-70.
This excerpt from Le Nouveau Cynée focuses on Crucé’s pacifism more than on his plans for international order. Peace, Crucé says, far excels the triumphs of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, or Sertorius. The honor that princes gain from peace is not that gained from tyranny, slaughter, or pillage but entails consistent government and lawful and regulated power. Differences between Turk and Persian, French and Spanish, Chinese and Tartar, Christian, Jew and Moslem are only political. “Geography does not weaken the ties of blood.”
869. Hemleben. Plans. See 858.
Reviews Crucé’s life, career, and works. Crucé’s life has revealed few details, and his New Cyneas exists in only three copies, of two editions, the 1623 and 1624. Yet his analysis of war clearly shows the Erasmian tradition surviving into the seventeenth century. His plans for world peace, on the other hand, look forward to the internationalism of the nineteenth and the twentieth. Briefly outlines the work.
870. Souleyman. See 816, 9-19.
A good introduction to his thought. This includes a strong pacifism that saw even the just war as causing more harm than it is fought to remedy. Crucé declares that war has had its day and that, instead, arbitration must now determine international conflicts. He therefore proposes a World Council of Representatives that relies on moral compulsion over force.
Saint-Pierre
871. Hayden, J.M. “Saint-Pierre, Charles Irenée Castel de,” NCE 12: 942.
A brief review of his life and works, with some bibliography.
872. Hemleben. Plans. See 858.
Traces the diplomatic career and writing of Saint-Pierre, especially his Memorandum for Achieving Perpetual Peace in Europe of 1712. Hemleben follows the work’s different editions and influence and then briefly reviews its major themes.
873. Jacob, M.C., ed. Peace Projects of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Garland Publishers, 1974, 1-61.
This is actually a reprint of the Memorandum bound together with other works on peace, with the separate paginations of the original editions. Saint-Pierre’s plans include a European confederation that would foster unity in political and economic spheres and would insure the internal stability of any member state. While states that refuse to join should be considered enemies, war itself is renounced as an instrument of foreign policy among member states. With disarmament the official policy of members, disputes are to be settled by a commission of arbitration permanently housed in a City of Peace.
874. Laborie, Lanzac de. “L’Apôtre de la paix perpetuelle: l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre,” Revue haebdomadaire (May 1919).
Not seen.
875. Lacroix, Lucien. “Un Apôtre de la paix: l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre,” La Grande Revue (May 1919).
Saint-Pierre as an exponent of international order.
876. La Fontaine, Henri. Histoire sommaire et chronologique des arbitrages internationaux 1794-1900. Brussels, 1902.
Not seen.
877. Lange. Doctrine. See 837, 303-10.
A good, brief introduction.
878. —. Internationalisme. See 838, 2: 196-213.
A good introduction.
879. Souleyman. See 816, 78-90.
Saint-Pierre paid a heavy price for his opposition to Louis XIV’s wars: dismissal from the French Academy, disgrace at court, and mockery for his adherence to a new international order. His Project for Perpetual Peace called for a permanent League of European States and a Federal States of Europe. He provided a detailed list of articles for such a confederation, which Souleyman summarizes in detail.
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