This post departs from usual focus of this blog. Instead I thought it might be useful to put something up that can be used as a starting point for an investigation into the appropriateness or otherwise of the Israeli intervention in Gaza.
While this post is largely about Agincourt, the idea of the just war continues today with very little variation in the principles of justification. When you read or hear a politician speaking about a war they are engaged in being a ‘just war’ it sounds like they are talking about a purely moral idea. They are not. They are largely referring to a legal idea that has a moral expression and moral content. The casual listener wouldn’t twig to the legal aspect. But for those ears attuned to the language, for example members of the military of each side in a dispute, this language is all part of the battle. The term ‘just war’ is a very very loaded one, that goes to the heart of the state’s capacity to act externally. As noted below, Shakespeare’s Henry V can be understood as a justification in law of Henry V’s actions at Agincourt.
‘Just war’ is a legal term with literally thousands of years of accumulated usage and meaning.
One of the elements of the just war is appropriate proportionality. Though please note that there is a difference between the legal ideas relating to going to war - dealt with below - and law relating to actions during war. This post can only be used as an introduction to the question of whether going to war is justified, not whether the actions within a war are justified. Still, it’s an area not commonly known, and it serves as a springboard to further understanding of both jus ad bellum and jus in bello.
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Please excuse the lack of formatting, particularly italics, but I had to strip out some pesky formatting and that process removed all formatting aside from the most basic. I have reintroduced a little of the lost formatting, but not much.
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Introduction
A tradition of Western thought has developed suggesting that some kinds of war can be considered ‘just’, providing they meet certain criteria. Wars which are not just are effectively illegal in international law. Just war theory in the Christian west originated from a blend of Roman-based natural law and biblical teachings and traditions. The first major thinker in the Christian tradition was Augustine. His ideas were taken up in the middle-ages and developed according to a perceived need to tame a warrior class which was disrupting medieval society. Many schools of thought contributed to the theory, and the rules and customs of the warrior class itself formed part of the tradition. The result was the creation of relatively pragmatic and workable rules for the control of war. The rules helped to concentrate power in the hands of the sovereign prince by disallowing war between private individuals. In this post I concentrate upon the conditions required to call a just war (the jus ad bellum), and I do not address the law and traditions relating to permitted acts during a just war (the jus in bello).
The following paragraphs sketch the evolution of jus ad bellum, and tease out the streams of thought which inform the justifications used by Henry V early in his campaign to regain the territories of the Angevin Empire beginning in 1415. In the first section I examine the evolution of the just war tradition and trace ideas from Augustine through to Bouvet’s influential writing in the late fourteenth century. In doing so I discuss the place of religious and natural law thinking in the tradition, and discuss the aims of those who worked on the system of rules. In the second section I give a brief overview of the 100 years war between the French and English kings which commenced in 1337, in part to contextualise Henry’s place in the war and in larger measure to show what were the causes of the war and how the aims of the English kings needed to be addressed by Henry in his justifications. In the third and last section of the essay I examine the Gesta Henri Quinti in relation to the just war doctrine and discuss the themes in the Gesta which address the criteria for a just war. I find that Henry’s attempts to justify the war were remarkably successful and his thorough dealing with the requirements of the just war is evident in the Gesta.
1. The just war tradition
The idea of the just war draws upon several branches of Western thinking - theological, canonical and secular, including chivalric and civil law.[1] It is usual for scholars to trace the just war tradition to Augustine,[2] however Augustine himself drew in part on biblical and Roman traditions. Roman tradition required that every war be justified, the two chief Roman justifications being the defence of the frontiers and the pacification of barbarians.[3] The biblical tradition of just war is found in the stories of the old testament, including those of Moses and Joshua. These traditions allowed Augustine to develop a just war doctrine which allowed Christians to fight.[4] Initially Augustine confined the just war (bellum justum) to the civil sphere. In this sphere a war could only be just on one side and could only be fought for a just cause - for the purposes of self-defence or the recovery of stolen property.[5] Later, in answer to the Donatist military threat, Augustine developed the idea of the ‘holy war’ sanctioned by God, basing the doctrine on Luke’s command to ‘Compel them to come in’.[6] In addition to a just cause Augustine required that no Christian could make war unless the war was fought with the right authority, the right intent (for Augustine ‘that peace may be had’[7]), some prospect of success, the proportionality of good to evil be in favour of the good, and that war be the last resort.[8] Augustine’s concern was with the jus ad bellum - the just cause of war - one of the two aspects of the just war. A further stream of just war doctrine which gained particular attention from the eleventh century onwards dealt with behaviour of participants in war - the jus in bello.
The canonical contribution - the right authority
With Gratian’s Decretum, circa 1170,[9] a full canonical just war doctrine began to emerge, dealing with considerations of jus ad bellum and developing a detailed jus in bello.[10] In discussing the jus ad bellum Gratian took Augustine’s pre-conditions, but, in line with other canonists, concentrated his attention upon the concept of who had the right authority to levy war.
In defining the just cause for war - the jus ad bellum - Gratian drew together Christian traditions from Isidore of Spain (following Cicero[11]) and Augustine, producing his own definition that ‘A just war is waged by an authoritative edict to avenge injuries’.[12] Within this formulation there are three considerations to be met for a just war - the authority to wage war, an edict announcing the war, and the avenging of injury.[13] By 1230[14], building upon Gratian’s ideas, Raymond of Pennaforte had extended the opinions of Augustine and Isidore into a ‘full scale theory of just war’[15] and laid down the prerequisites that a just war must be fought by laymen, not clerks; it must be to redress some injury to right, possessions or person; there must be no alternative means of resolution; it must be fought with a genuine desire for justice, not for hate or cupidity; and it must be fought with the authority of the Church or a sovereign prince.[16] In 1360 John of Legnano took these ideas and additionally divided wars into four categories: war waged on the authority of the Church against infidels; war on authority of a prince with no earthly superior[17]; war on authority of a judge; and war in self-defence.[18]
The concern of middle and late medieval culture in generating ideas of the just war was to limit the endemic violence of the period within the Christian domain[19], to recognise in legal doctrine the rise of kings who claimed independence from the Holy Roman Empire and who recognised no earthly superior,[20] and to harness the energy of combatants to outward campaigns directed to the protection and extension of the Christian faith,[21] particularly in opposition to the Ottoman threat.[22] The first generation of canonical theorists after Gratian, the Decretists, looked at the question of the crusades, of which there had been two before their era. In their concern for developing ideas for what constituted right authority they examined and developed the idea of the crusade by secular forces as a just cause which could be authorised by the pope.[23] Following the Decretists, who were exclusively concerned with religious authority,[24] the Decretalists turned to the rights of secular authorities to initiate violence.[25] Their position is best indicated by Innocent IV’s (1243-54) position. He consolidated of the positions of various Decretalist theorists producing a system that attempted to control violence within Christendom by drawing a distinction between private acts of violence and the public resort to force. His formulation allowed only princes with no temporal superior to wage just war, and considered that only the public resort to force was morally legitimate.[26] The concepts of the private fight between individuals - the duellum - and corporate combat - the bellum - were developed and their distinction sharpened by canonists to confine the levying of war to a few sovereign princes. A complicating question of who had sovereign independence remained, as sovereignty was a developing concept in the middle ages.[27] Innocent removed self-defence from the stream of just war theory, as the right to self-defence is everyone’s by nature, and was not the equivalent of just war.[28]
The theological contribution
A second church-based theoretical tradition, the theological, includes the influential contribution of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). The theologians were more concerned with the issues of right intent. Aquinas reduced the Augustine/canonist concept to three conditions for just war: that there be some fault to be punished, that there is right authority as the ‘minister of God to execute his vengeance against the evildoer’[29] and that there is right intention.[30] Aquinas (in line with Gratian) quotes Augustine:
For peace is not sought in order to the kindling of war, but war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of the peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace…[31]
For Aquinas, the spirit of peacemaker is the primary attitude which produces the just war. This is linked to the Christian notion of charity. Christians who make war must do so with love for the enemy, to correct their errors and not simply to hurt or dominate them.[32]
The knightly class
The religious line of thought did not directly accord with that of the law of arms which regulated the knightly class. This class saw war as a duel between two (not necessarily sovereign) princes with their soldiers effectively their seconds.[33] War was thus a private matter.[34] Knights sought to monopolise the use of force to resolve disputes, and, ultimately, to obtain wealth, glory and power. The chivalric code drew from contemporary religious and cultural ideals and fragments of older Germanic traditions on warfare, manliness and the ideal of a soldier.[35] Through the involvement of the knightly class in war, aspects of the chivalric laws of war for the duellum were imported into the bellum[36] These aspects informed the jus in bello, regulating the behaviour of the knightly classes during the just war. The law of arms was an extension of civil and canon law, which were in turn expressions of natural law and jus gentium.[37] Jus gentium was that law which was derived from natural law principles, and which could be found in all societies, or at a minimum in all Christendom, and which could be classed as international law.[38] At the time of Henry V the bulk of jus gentium related to war[39] helping to define the behaviour consistent with a just war.
The chivalric tradition had been developed with the aid of Benedictine thinkers who aimed to put the knightly sword in the service of ‘justice, right, piety, the Church, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed’.[40] However the tradition produced a warrior class responsible for ‘…devastation and social distress which was everywhere in the late Middle Ages the accompaniment of the passage of men at arms’[41]. Wright states ‘fundamentally they were an irresponsible and anarchic element in society and they were recognised so to be’.[42] Knightly pursuits became, effectively, a business - a means of acquiring an income, and occasionally, wealth and power.[43] Keen relates the story by Sachetti[44] of Sir John Hawkwood being met by two friars who wish him peace. His reply was ‘May the Lord take away your alms, do you not know that I live by war and that peace would be my undoing.’ Sachetti adds ‘So well did he manage his affairs that there was little peace in Italy in his day.’
The law of war became a double edged sword for the knight. On the one hand knights made a living out of war and so needed rules.[46] War was conceived of as a kind of joint-stock operation and by serving in it the knight acquired a legally enforceable right to share of profits.[47] In addition the rules of chivalry helped the combatant survive by placing limits upon violence between members of the knightly class.[48] On the other hand the laws of war were increasingly used by the church and the secular princes to constrain knightly mayhem and to appropriate the knight’s skills and energy to their own purposes.[49] The widely read book, The Tree of Battles by Honore Bouvet was written in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Wright states:
The book represents a stage in the development of legal theory relating to war: a product of legal synthesis which drew upon a multitude of sources, biblical, scholastic, canonical, Roman, and customary. The selection of material from such disparate sources which appeared in the Tree achieved its coherence not because the sources themselves agreed, but because they had been employed selectively according to the criterion of the ‘public good’.[50]
Beginning as a program for reform, during the fifteenth century, it became effectively a battle handbook for warriors. It laid out a threefold standard for the just war - that the objectives were legitimate, the parties were competent, and its conduct proper.[51] Violence in self defence was again permitted as a separate category, but it readily became a matter of criminality where improperly applied. Bouvet privileged the role of civil law and authority over the customary law he terms the ‘law of arms’.[52] According to Wright, Bouvet’s work tends to a monarchical view of the world. It introduced to the chivalric code the Roman discipline found in Vegetius, and in privileging discipline and the concept of the public good it ultimately reduced the knight to the prince’s agent, as the prince was the guardian of the public good. Thus only the sovereign prince subject to no lord may decide on war.[53] Just who was a sovereign prince created some difficulty for Bouvet. The pope, the emperor and the king of France were so, but the kings of Spain and England were less clearly so.[54] Bouvet’s formula was further promulgated by the populist writings of Christine de Pisan in 1409 in Le livre des faites d’armes et de chevalerie.[55] For Bouvet a just war was ‘not an evil thing, but … good and virtuous’ and its purpose was to ‘wrest peace, tranquillity and reasonableness, from him who refuses to acknowledge his wrongdoing’.[56]
In determining a just war, however, a prime question for Bouvet is whether the participants think it is so. Thus for Bouvet both sides may fight a just war. This possibility raises the need for strong allegations of right by the parties in a war. The canonist Angelus of Perusia also made much the same point, stating that if there was doubt as to which of the parties in a war was in the right it would be correct to ‘regard the war as just on both sides’.[57] Both Bouvet and Angelus were more concerned here with whether an individual engaging in a war is endangering his soul by being on an unjust side. The answer is that both sides may be just.
One of the key functions of the law of arms was to regulate the division of the spoils of war. Because knights derived their income from the spoils of war, those who wished to levy a war were careful to ensure that standard conditions for a just war were (at least seen to be) met. If the war was not just, knights would not be entitled to their spoils and they could be forced via the courts to return their gains.[58] Because the law of arms transcended territorial boundaries so too could law suits for return of goods, and the set of rules ‘were accepted as decisive in the trial of disputes arising out of war, no matter where they were tried or by whom.’[59]
The just war tradition forces a belligerent party to convince external power centres of the right and justness of the cause. In the medieval period these power centres included the pope, the empire, potential allies, and potential dissenting voices within the opposite party. Similarly within the belligerent party itself centres of power must be appeased if possible. The just war tradition gives a language and code with which to achieve this. Used adroitly it can become another tool of war.
2. The hundred years war
The origin of the conflict which saw the invasion of north France by Henry V in the campaign which culminated in the battle of Agincourt may be dated in several ways. It can be convincingly traced back to the Norman invasion of England which resulted in the relationship between the king of England and the territories of France.[60] The French territories were of great significance to the English kings, perhaps more so than their English inheritance, at least up to 1259 at which time the rights to Normandy were renounced.[61] Gascony[62] was annexed to the English Crown in 1254, thus whoever was King of England was the lawful Duke of Aquitaine. Under the influence of Roman law and the development of administrative practices the French kings began to assert greater authority over their lands. Thus Le Patourel suggests that ‘The difficulties in Aquitaine … were more than a conflict of two largely theoretical sovereignties occasionally applied; it was also the clash of the two state-building enterprises operating in the same territory.’[63] As a result of his relationship to the French throne, both as the inheritor of a long standing membership of the French government and as the closest living relative of King Charles IV, in 1328 Edward III made a claim for the throne. This was rejected probably because he was young, and out of dislike for his mother and her lover and because ‘no one wanted the King of England on the throne of France’.[64] But the reason given was that Salic law applied and the throne could not pass to a woman, and from this it was claimed it could not be inherited through the female line. The adoption of Salic law was seen by the English as a doubtful tactic. However Wood notes that because of the adulteries of the daughters-in-law of Philip IV and consequent doubts of legitimacy of their children, and the place of these doubts in the succession of Philip V, ‘France was well on its way to inventing the Salic law’.[65] An anonymous French propagandist, author of the text now known as Pourceque pluseurs claimed that the exclusion was based on many factors including custom.[66] The matter had not been tested for 200 years of French succession. When the issue arose jurists steeped in Roman law were able to appeal to the past, break new ground in cementing custom, and in doing so elevate the French crown to the level of the Empire and papacy (and out of the inheritance rules of private law which recognised no distinction between men and women) which could only be headed by men.[67] After the succession Edward was required to pay homage. In requiring this the new king of France, Philip VI, was effectively requiring Edward to give up his claim to the French throne. In 1329 Edward did pay homage. Peace was sought. Both kings preferred to plan for a crusade. But French manoeuvres in Scotland, and the postponement of the crusade by Benedict XII until the two sides sorted out their difficulties, brought war. By 1337 Edward had gathered a formidable group of allies and had renewed his claim for the French throne. Philip confiscated the Gascon lands from his disloyal vassal on May 24, 1337. War commenced in the spring of 1337.[68]
The next 110 years of military and diplomatic struggles saw many different complexions put upon this same basic determination of the English king to obtain full sovereignty for his French territory. Edward III was careful to couch his war in terms of the just war requirements,[69] Charles V of France was scrupulous in the matter,[70] and Henry V, following Edward’s example, was also careful to properly justify his wars.[71]
Scholars have described the nature of the war in three ways. Initially the war bore the nature of a feudal struggle with the right of sovereignty of Aquitaine, and other territories, at issue. Intertwined with this was the English claim to the French throne, which claim was pursued with varying degrees of intensity. Sometimes the claim was used more as a bargaining chip for what at these times was the main concern, the sovereignty of Aquitaine, and at others the claim for the throne was pursued for itself.[72] At these times the dispute may be said to have had a dynastic element. But during the war a third element crept in which perhaps ultimately resolved the issue, and which was itself, arguably born of the war. The idea of nation, and thus of a natural formation of borders was promulgated by both sides at varying stages of the war. It may be argued that without nationalism the two competing claims for the territory and also the throne need never have reached resolution. Nationalism is a construction of political unity that exists outside of the competing feudal and dynastic claims. The feudal and dynastic claims ultimately rest upon the perception of right by an individual. Nationalism draws upon criteria external to these claims. Each of these elements, the dynastic, the feudal and the nationalistic were capable of providing just cause. Together they created strong arguments for both sides and their strengths and weaknesses were variously called upon for the duration of the war.
3. Just war, the invasion of France in 1415, and the Gesta Henrici Quinti.
A primary document outlining Henry’s claims and the just cause for his war was the Gesta Henrici Quinti, probably completed in early 1417.[73] Taylor and Roskell state ‘The general purpose of the Gesta was to present Henry as a devoutly Christian prince who with his people enjoyed God’s constant approval and support …. It aimed also to justify Henry in his policy, in both diplomacy and war, by representing him as honourable, considerate, and humble in the face of an enemy who was deceitful, stubborn, and arrogant.’[74] The editors speculate that the Gesta was written with a dual purpose - to garner support at home, but also to justify at the Council of Constance Henry’s French policy and the Anglo-Imperial alliance, and to vindicate Emperor Sigismund’s diplomatic activities and the closeness which appeared to have developed between Sigismund and Henry.[75] In the course of its telling of the events of Henry’s reign the Gesta seeks to establish a sound footing for the war within the just war tradition.
Redress injury:
The war, including Henry’s battles, was fought over a difference of opinion as to an injury done. In 1415 Henry V departed England with an army for France with the intention of enforcing the conditions of the Treaty of Bretigny of 1360[76] which, among other things, had given the king of England sovereignty in his absolute right[77] to one third of the land of France,[78] comprising Aquitaine, Calais and nearby areas, and territories between the Loire and the Pyrenees.[79] Henry had prepared the way with a strong campaign of justification for his actions.[80] He was to continue that campaign after his return from France where he defeated the French army at the Battle of Agincourt. Henry’s aim for the invasion was to ‘recover [his] duchy of Normandy, which belongs to him entirely by a right dating from the time of William the first, the Conqueror, even though now, as for a long time past it is thus withheld, against God and all justice, by the violence of the French’.[81]
During negotiations in August with the French Council, the English put forward, in the following order, a claim for the French throne, a claim for the Angevin empire, and finally a claim for the fulfilment of the Treaty of Bretigny. Palmer sees the English claims for the French throne during negotiations as mere rhetorical preface to the core claims. The core claims were effectively the fulfilment of the Treaty of Bretigny. He describes the claim to the throne as ‘formal’, and a position that was abandoned after a ‘short interval’.[82] Similarly the claim for the whole of the Angevin Empire was a rhetorical device the negotiators used which ‘sufficiently impressed their audience’.[83] Be that as it may, it is thought that Henry truly believed that he had a just claim to the throne.[84] In law, and hence just war doctrine, each of these claims fall into the category of the recovery of what is one’s rightful property. Authority for the recovery of property as cause for just war begins with Augustine in the Christian era and never wavers as a just cause for the making of war by a sovereign prince.[85]
Ultimately the question of who is the injured party is to be decided by battle. After the failure of negotiations Henry ‘hastened to seek a ruling from the Supreme Judge…’[86] God’s will determines right. This is also symbolised by the challenge to a duel which Henry offers the French Dauphin, in place of his sick father. The duel is a private fight, a ‘trial by battle’, and hearkens back to era when the feudal war as a private fight. It is in such an act that the duellum and bellum merge. The duel is a means of determining the justice of a cause. The outcome represents the will of God.[87] Bouvet argued that duels should only be fought in matters of major significance and only where other forms of legal proof are unavailable. [88] They were frowned upon by those outside the warrior class. The rejection of the challenge by the Dauphin (by non-reply) can be read to symbolise French weakness and the lack of authority of their cause, making for good propaganda.[89]
Peaceful intent:
Augustine, Aquinas and Bouvet all demand that war be, in the words of Augustine, ‘waged in order that peace may be obtained’.[90] Bouvet expresses his requirement such that a just war should ‘wrest peace, tranquillity and reasonableness, from him who refuses to acknowledge his wrongdoing’[91] In answer to this the opening of the Gesta contains an encapsulation of Henry’s thoughts and aims. These are identical to those set out in Henry’s official documents.[92] The Gesta states: [93]
…[Henry V] applied his mind with all devotion to encompass what could promote the honour of God, the extension of the Church, the deliverance of his country, and the peace and tranquillity of kingdoms, and especially (because they were more closely connected and associated) the peace and tranquillity of the two kingdoms of England and France…’
Bouvet’s wording is strongly echoed here. The Gesta expands upon this theme. For example in the last paragraph it provides a recipe for peace:
And may God of his most merciful goodness grant that, just as our king, under His protection and by His judgement in respect of the enemies of his crown, has already triumphed twice, so may he triumph yet a third time, to the end that the two swords, the sword of the French and the sword of England, may return to the rightful government of a single ruler, cease from their own destruction, and turn as soon as possible against the unsubdued and bloody faces of the heathen. [94]
Bouvet has also associated the return of the enemy to ‘reasonableness’ in his demand for the wresting of peace and tranquility. Such reasonableness is found by the Gesta to be lacking in the French. It is a constant theme of the Gesta, which, for example, habitually refers to the French as double-dealers.[95] But the Gesta brings home French unreasonableness in the second to last paragraph where it describes parliament’s adoption of Henry’s ‘unbreakable resolve to go overseas in the following summer to subdue the stubborn and more than adamantine obduracy of the French, which neither the tender milk of goats nor the consuming wine of vengeance, nor yet the most thoroughgoing negotiations, could soften.’[96] The Gesta’s brief roller-coaster ride from lofty rhetorical flourish to the most prosaic of negotiations makes its point about French unreasonableness, and also ensures that Bouvet’s final element in his formula is answered - that the French king ‘refuses to acknowledge his wrongdoing’ by remaining obdurate and unyielding in negotiation.’
Last resort:
Augustine demands that war be fought only as a last resort.[97] Bouvet specifies that a just war may only be fought where means of peaceful resolution have been exhausted.[98] The Gesta is at pains to point out the various peacemaking and war avoiding opportunities the English have given the French. For example it retails the French abuse of peace negotiations as a means simply of delaying war until ‘under cover of unprofitable delays all would go their way … hoping to destroy England at feasts of verbosity … and with swords fashioned of words…’[99] Similarly during negotiations prior to the war the French are seen to push the bargaining too far during peace negotiations as:[100]
[The] French council (cleaving inordinately to its own will, which it treats as though it were law) could not, by any equitable course or just means, be induced to accept such peace without immense injury to the crown of England and perpetual disinheritance of the same in certain of the most noble parts of it belonging to us in that kingdom, although to procure that peace the [French] king had been willing to make concessions noble and notable enough.
Right authority:
‘Oh God of warriors, England is indebted to Thee’[101]
All the traditions of the just war require that the party levying war has the right authority. Aquinas requires that there is right authority as the ‘minister of God to execute his vengeance against the evildoer.’[102] The Gesta deals with this authority by making Henry favourable to God:[103]
When young in years but old in experience, he began his reign, like the true elect of God savouring things that are above, he applied his mind with all devotion to encompass what could promote the honour of God, the extension of the Church…
And God in turn shows clear judgement as to the right of Henry’s campaign. Thus the Gesta records with approval, and probably embellishment[104], the opening speech to Parliament by Henry, Bishop of Winchester, where he establishes that this is a combat under the direction of, and thus judgement of God:[105]
‘Just as a dispute between those having a superior on earth is resolved by an earthly judgement, so one between those having no superior under Heaven is made plain by a Heavenly arbitrament carried out by the sword.’
He continues, declaring that just as three similar judgements are regarded on earth as making a title fully in favour of a claimant, so in heavenly judgement a sequence of three divine sentences is regarded as determining title absolutely and is to be obeyed. These are the battle of Sluys, the battle at Poitiers and that at Agincourt, all English successes.
He then despairs:
O God, why does this wretched and stiff necked nation not obey these divine sentences, so many and so terrible, to which by a vengeance most clearly made manifest, obedience is demanded of them.
For good measure he notes that the French are also deprived of three things, Calais, bravery, and military might. This, he says, is the judgement of God, and he continues:
Oh, if only that stubborn nation would come to its senses and feel compunction for its own kith and kin and, reflecting upon these dreadful and marvellous judgements of God, would, even so late in the day, hasten to reach a reasonable settlement with the English, lest a patient and loving God, so often perplexed by the contempt shown for His judgement, should at last … avenge Himself implacably upon those who have rebelled against Him.
The Bishop has thus produced evidence of God’s feeling for the English cause.
The prince with no earthly superior
Bouvet, following Innocent IV and John of Legnano, has it that war may not be levied by any other than a prince with no earthly superior. This is clearly answered in the statement attributed to the Bishop of Winchester in parliament that the king of England has ‘no superior under Heaven’.[106] However during 1414-16 the Council of Constance was sitting. And in an attempt to reduce the effect of the united voting block of the English and the Holy Roman Empire at the Council of Constance the French challenged the right of the English Crown to vote as a nation separate from the Holy Roman Empire. In doing so the French challenged the independent sovereignty of the English and the status of the kingship of Henry over the Scots and the Welsh. They failed in their attempt. The Gesta was in part written to overcome the difficulties at the Council of Constance - it emphasised the legitimacy of the English king’s status over the Scots and Welsh and the good relationship between Sigismund and Henry as two sovereign independent heads.[107] Had the French succeeded in reducing the status of Henry’s sovereignty to one which was not free and independent of all other earthly command, it is conceivable that they might have threatened the English king’s right to wage just war. Not only would this have denied the right of Henry’s knights to take the spoils of war, but more importantly it would have lowered Henry’s political status. Henry would have been left with self defence as a cause for just war, but with a lowered status his arguments would be politically more difficult to make. Without a just war, as waged by a sovereign with no superior, Henry could become responsible for the deaths of his victims, and his venture become one of criminality in the event of loss. He would be ‘nothing more than a renegade leader bent on wreaking havoc among the community of civilized nations.’[108]
Prospects of success:
The just war tradition demands that war is only fought where there is a prospect of success, in line with Augustine’s declaration to this effect. Having the right authority, when it is the authority of God, must enhance the prospects of success. Drawing on this source of support the Gesta portrays an almost continuous optimism about Henry’s prospects for success in his future campaigns, and the rightness of his successes in the past. The Gesta is clear that these successes are not based upon good fortune or any other random or fleeting variable, but upon verity of God’s judgement as evidenced by past victories. Thus, in the Gesta, the win at Agincourt was preceded by Henry’s reply to Sir Walter Hungerford’s expression of a wish for more archers:[109]
‘that is a foolish way to talk’ the king said to him, ‘because, by the God in heaven upon Whose grace I have relied and in Whom is my firm hope of victory, I would not, even if I could, have a single man more that I do. For these I have here with me are God’s people, whom He deigns to let me have at this time. Do you not believe’ he asked ‘that the Almighty, with these His humble few, is able to overcome the opposing arrogance of the French who boast of their great number and their own strength?
The king’s righteousness,[110] the demise of the bravery and military might of the French[111] and the win in a position of unfavourable numerical odds at Agincourt all go to illustrate the improbability of a French success. In relation to Agincourt Mattox states that ‘The justification for his optimism is essentially an Augustinian one: the battle is in the hand of God, such that the ratio of the enemy to friendly troops is on no particular consequence’. This observation may be extended beyond Agincourt itself, to indicate the potential for future successes. Agincourt becomes a signal for what is possible with God’s mercy.
Proportionality of good to evil:
There is a strong presumption against war as a means of solving international disputes.[112] The intention of the late medieval theorists was to reduce violence. Augustine’s doctrine only allowed the just war where the proportionality of good done to evil committed weighed in favour of good.[113] The cause for which war is fought must be of sufficient matter to warrant it as a means of resolution. The Gesta only indirectly addresses this issue, but Henry’s expressed hankering for ‘peace and tranquility’ is an indication he does not take to war lightly. The Gesta itself, as propaganda, continually prays for peace (if only the French would come to their senses) and laments the horrors of war. For example in the text following Agincourt it laments that England, despite its success, has ‘reason to grieve for the suffering and destruction wrought in the deaths of Christians’.[114] As for the good which is to come from the war, these are listed at the beginning of the Gesta along with peace and tranquillity, as the promotion of the honour of God, the extension of the Church and the deliverance of his country.[115] The role of God in the war, as defined by the Gesta, also serves to ameliorate evils committed, as they are committed under God’s guidance.
In Shakespeare, Henry V’s reputation as a just warrior was cast forever. Mattox notes:
Shakespeare … demonstrate[s] Henry V to be a monarch who conducts his warfare in accordance with the demands of the Western just war tradition. It is this aspect of Shakespeare’s portrayal of Henry V that transforms and elevates him from the status of being merely England’s greatest warrior to the status of England’s consummate just warrior.[116]
As propaganda, the Gesta, and Henry’s other justificatory endeavours, have served Henry V very well.
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Bibliography
Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti - The Deeds of Henry the Fifth, translated by Frank Taylor and John Roskell, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975
Burne, Alfred H. The Agincourt War. A military history of the latter part of the Hundred Years War from 1369 to 1453, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956
Contamine, Philippe. “The French Nobility and the War”, in The Hundred Years War, in Fowler, Kenneth (ed.). The Hundred Years War, London: Macmillan, 1971
Crowder, C.M.D., “Henry V, Sigismund, and the Council of Constance, a Re-examination” in Hayes-McCoy (ed) Historical Studies IV - Papers read before the Fifth Irish Conference of Historians, Bowes and Bowes, London, 1963.
Delbridge, Bernard, Blair, Peters, Butler (eds) The Macquarie Dictionary, (2nd ed), New South Wales: Macquarie Library, 1991
Doig, James A. “Propaganda, Public Opinion and the Seige of Calais in 1436″ in Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Rowena Archer, Stroud:Alan Sutton Publishing 1995
Fowler, Kenneth, “Introduction: War and Change in Late Medieval France and England” in Fowler, Kenneth (ed.). The Hundred Years War, London: Macmillan, 1971
Hutchison, H.F. Henry V, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode 1967
Johnson, James Turner. Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War. Religious and secular concepts 1200-1740, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975
Johnson, James Turner. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War - A Moral and Historical Inquiry, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981
Keen, M.H. “Chivalry, Nobility, and the Man-at-Arms”, in War, Literature, and Politics in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C.T. Allmand, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1976
Keen, M.H. The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965
Le Patourel, John. “The Origins of the War”, in Fowler, Kenneth (ed.). The Hundred Years War, London: Macmillan, 1971
Lewis, P.S. “France and England: The Growth of the Nation State” in Lewis, P.S. Essays in Later Medieval French History, London: The Hambledown Press, 1985
Lewis, P.S. “France in the Fifteenth Century: Society and Sovereignty” in Lewis, P.S. Essays in Later Medieval French History, London: The Hambledown Press, 1985
Lewis, P.S. “War propaganda and historiography in fifteenth - Century France and England” in Lewis, P.S. Essays in Later Medieval French History, London: The Hambledown Press, 1985
Mattox, John Mark, “Henry V: Shakespeare’s Just Warrior”, in War, Literature and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, 12/1, Spring/ Summer 2000, at http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfeng/wla/12_1/Mattox.pdf accessed on 12 September 2002. [No longer available (Jan 2009). Instead see at http://www.wlajournal.com/12_1/Mattox.pdf. Also see for an example of Mattox’s work Saint Augustine and the Theory of Just War, or Google search Mattox just war and Mattox Mattox Henry V just war.]
Meron, Theodor. Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws. Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993.
Minnucci, Giovanni. “La Capacità processuale della donna nel pensiero canonistico classico. II, Dalle Scuole d’oltralpe a S. Raimondo di Pennaforte”. Milano, Giuffré, 1994, available from. http://www.droitcanon.com/Rec_M1.html, accessed 20 October 2002. [scroll down alphabetically]
Palmer, J.J.N. England, France and Christendom 1377-99, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul,1972
Palmer, John. “The War Aims of the Protagonists and the Negotiations for Peace” in The Hundred Years War, in Fowler, Kenneth (ed.). The Hundred Years War, London: Macmillan, 1971
Perroy, Edouard. The Hundred Years War, Translated by W.B Wells, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951. First published in French, La Guerre de Cent Ans, 1945.
Post, Gaines. Studies in Medieval Legal Thought. Public Law and the State, 1100-1322. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964
Powicke, Michael. “The English Aristocracy and the War” in The Hundred Years War, in Fowler, Kenneth (ed.). The Hundred Years War, London: Macmillan, 1971
Rymer, Foedera, “The Final Demands of Henry V’s Ambassadors, March 1415″ IV, ii, 106-9 [Latin], from B.M., Cottonian MS., Claigula D 5, in David C. Douglas, English Historical Documents, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969
Sachetti, F. Novelle (3 vols), Milan, 1804-5
Stacey, Robert C. “The Age of Chivalry” in The laws of war: constraints on warfare in the western world eds. Michael Howard, George Andreopoulos, and Mark Shulman, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994
Strecche, John. “The Chronicle of John Strecche for the Reign of Henry V” from Bulletin of the John Reynolds Library, XVI, ed. F. Taylor, (1932) 149, in Douglas, David C., English Historical Documents, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969)
Thompson, Peter E (ed). Contemporary Chronicles of the 100 years war from the works of Jean Le Bel, Jean Froissart and Enguerrand De Monstrelet. Translated by Peter E Thompson.. London: The Folio society, 1966
Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror. The Calamitous 14th Century, New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1978
Ullmann, W., “The Development of the Medieval Idea of Sovereignty” in Garnett, G (ed) Law and Jurisdiction in the Middle Ages [a collection of works by Walter Ullmann] London: Variorum Reprints, 1988. (Journal article first published in English Historical Review LXIV, London, 1949)
Vinogradoff, Paul. Roman Law in Medieval Europe, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929
Williams Jr., Robert. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought - Discourses of Conquest, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990
Winroth, Anders. The Making of Gratian’s Decretum, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000
Wood, Charles. Joan of Arc and Richard III, New York : Oxford University Press, 1988
Wright, N.A.R. “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet and the Laws of War” in War, Literature, and Politics in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C.T. Allmand, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1976
See also:
http://www.ethicsineducation.com/HenryV.pdf
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References
[1] James Turner Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War - A Moral and Historical Inquiry, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981), xv
[2] Ibid, 121
[3] Robert C. Stacey, “The Age of Chivalry” in The laws of war: constraints on warfare in the western world eds. Michael Howard, George Andreopoulos, and Mark Shulman, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 27
[4] James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War. Religious and secular concepts 1200-1740 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975), 36; Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 121
[5] Luke 14:16-24, quoted in M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 66.
[6] Robert Williams Jr., The American Indian in Western Legal Thought - Discourses of Conquest, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 30
[7] M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 8 citing Augustine, Epistolae, CLXXXIX, 6
[8] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 123
[9] Anders Winroth,, The Making of Gratian’s Decretum, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2000
[10] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 121
[11] Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 36 and M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 66
[12] CJC, Decretum, Causa XXIII, Quaest. II, Can II.
[13] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 152
[14] Giovanni Minnucci, “La Capacità processuale della donna nel pensiero canonistico classico. II, Dalle Scuole d’oltralpe a S. Raimondo di Pennaforte”. (Milano, Giuffré, 1994), in-8°, XV-307 p. (Quaderni di “Studi Senesi”, raccolti da Paolo Nardi, 79) available from. http://www.droitcanon.com/Rec_M1.html, accessed 20 October 2002
[15] M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 66
[16] Raymond of Pennaforte Summa, Lib. II, cap. 5 para 17. In M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 67
[17] Actually ‘war which is just according to written law’, which Keen suggests may be interpreted as war levied on authority of a prince. In M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 67.
[18] John of Legnano, Tractatus, cap. 76
[19] N.A.R. Wright, “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet and the Laws of War” in War, Literature, and Politics in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C.T. Allmand, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1976), 26; Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought. Public Law and the State, 1100-1322. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), 454; Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 46, 140 and 161
[20] M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 68; Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought, 465; Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti - The Deeds of Henry the Fifth, translated by Frank Taylor and John Roskell, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975), 123; Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 151 and 161
[21] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 157.
[22] Edouard Perroy, The Hundred Years War, Translated by W.B Wells (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951). First published in French, La Guerre de Cent Ans, 1945, 202. Although according to Johnson ‘…the papally accepted apologetic for the crusades always strongly emphasized the temporal injustices perpetrated by the infidels upon nations and pilgrims who just happened to be Christian’. In Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, p51
[23] Robert C. Stacey, “The Age of Chivalry”, 28; Wright, “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet” 26; Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 140;
[24] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 156
[25] Ibid. 161
[26] Ibid 46.
[27] John Le Patourel, “The Origins of the War”, in The Hundred Years War, ed. Kenneth Fowler (London, Macmillan, 1971), 32. Keen notes that in medieval life all princes were subject to laws, and this is to be contrasted with later ideas of absolutism. In Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, p72.
[28] Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 64
[29] Romans 13:4 quoted in Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, II/II Quest. XL, Art.1 cited in Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 28
[30] Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 39-40
[31] Augustine, Ad Bonifacium, CLXXXIX; Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II/II, Quest. XL, Art. 1; CJC, Decretum, Quaest.I, Can.III; In Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 41
[32] Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 41
[33] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 45.
[34] Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 2.
[35] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 123
[36] Ibid. 48
[37] Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 14
[38] In the medieval period jus gentium had a duel identity. On the one hand it had a customary basis, and incorporated the canon and civil law common to all in Christendom. On the other hand it was law derived by reason and ‘based on those principles of honesty and good faith without which men cannot live as social beings’ (Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 12) and applied to (and was derived from) all the world. It was effectively a sub-set of divine law as all Christendom looked to God for their practices (Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 8). The concept of jus gentium was derived from Roman law and developed by civil lawyers who worked to incorporate and bring up to date Roman precedents of law. (Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 122) The duel nature of the law emerged from the difficulty of translating a philosophical system developed within an homogenous legal environment to one where it encompassed several sovereignties, and because the Roman texts on jus gentium and natural law reflected a society with different values from the medieval world, and yet its basis in natural reason purported to convey universal values. For discussion of this problem and its bifurcated resolution see Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, Ch. 2.
[39] Theodor Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws. Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993), 9
[40] Barbara W Tuchman, A Distant Mirror. The Calamitous 14th Century, (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1978), 62
[41] Keen, “Chivalry, Nobility, and the Man-at-Arms”, 38.
[42] Wright, “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet” 19.
[43] See Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 62; Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 3; Robert C. Stacey, “The Age of Chivalry”, 31
[44] F. Sachetti, Novelle (3 vols), (Milan, 1804-5), iii. 91-93.
M.H. Keen, “Chivalry, Nobility, and the Man-at-Arms”, in War, Literature, and Politics in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C.T. Allmand, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1976), 32.
[46] Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, p4.
[47] Robert C. Stacey, “The Age of Chivalry”, 31. See also Wright, “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet”, 21.
[48] See for example Robert C. Stacey, “The Age of Chivalry”, 30
[49] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 140
[50] Wright, “The Tree of Battles of Honore Bouvet”, 29
[51] Ibid. 15
[52] Ibid. 26
[53] Ibid. 15
[54] Ibid. 16. Bouvet’s book was, afterall, written for the French court.
[55] Ibid. 27-31
[56] Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws, 20
[57] Angelus of Persuia, Disputatio, inc Renovata Guerra (Pavia, c 1490, unpaginated) quoted in Keen, “Chivalry, Nobility, and the Man-at-Arms”, 35.
[58] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, p73.
[59] Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 22
[60] Le Patourel, “The Origins of the War”, 38-45
[61] Ibid 38.
[62] Aquitaine is the political unit and Gascony the name of the geographic area. Ibid., 48, n6. Guienne is also a part of the political unit. The Macquarie Dictionary, (Second edition), ed. Delbridge, Bernard, Blair, Peters, Butler (New South Wales: Macquarrie Library, 1991), 781
[63] Le Patourel, “The Origins of the War”, 44.
[64] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 45
[65] Charles Wood, Joan of Arc and Richard III, (New York : Oxford University Press, 1988) 12-14.
[66] See Lewis in P.S. Lewis, “War propaganda and historiography in fifteenth - Century France and England” in P.S. Lewis, Essays in Later Medieval French History, (London: The Hambledown Press, 1985), 204-5.
[67] Perroy, The Hundred Years War, 71
[68] Ibid. 86-94.
[69] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 186
[70] Perroy, The Hundred Years War, 146
[71] Michawl Powicke “The English Aristocracy and the War”, 129
[72] Perroy, The Hundred Years War, xii and 114.
[73] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, Introduction, xviii.
[74] Ibid, xxiii.
[75] Ibid, xxvi.
[76] John Palmer, The War Aims of the Protagonists and the Negotiations for Peace in The Hundred Years War, ed. Kenneth Fowler (London, Macmillan, 1971), 66.
[77] Alfred H Burne, The Agincourt War. A military history of the latter part of the Hundred Years War from 1369 to 1453, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956), 17.
[78] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 189.
[79] Ibid, 69
[80] Powicke describes the lengths to which the English kings from Edward III onwards went to justify their actions as ‘tedious’. In Powicke “The English Aristocracy and the War”, 129.
[81] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 17.
[82] Palmer, The War Aims of the Protagonists, 67. See “The Final Demands of Henry V’s Ambassadors, March 1415″. From Rymer, Foedera, IV, ii, 106-9 [Latin], from B.M., Cottonian MS., Claigula D 5, in David C. Douglas, English Historical Documents, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969), 209;
[83] Palmer, The War Aims of the Protagonists, 66-7 Palmer states ‘[The testimony of the peace negotiations] is unambiguous; until 1416 his ambitions were limited to the implementation of the treaty of Bretigny, and thereafter they increased only to keep pace with his military conquests. Not until 10 September 1419 did he make a bid for the French Crown.’
[84] See for example Burne, The Agincourt War, 52; Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws, 20; Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, Introduction, xxx. Hutchison finds Henry’s claim for the throne tenuous at best, in H.F. Hutchison, Henry V, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode 1967), p89, while others think his claim valid.
[85] See also Raymond of Pennaforte, Summa, Lib. II, cap. 5 para 17. In Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, 67 with his doctrine that war may be fought in defence of injury to right, possessions or person.
[86] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 15
[87] Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws, 134
[88] Ibid. 135
[89] Ibid. 135
[90] Augustine, Ad Bonifacium, CLXXXIX; Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II/II, Quest. XL, Art. 1; CJC, Decretum, Quaest.I, Can.III; in Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 41
[91] Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws, 20.
[92] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, Introduction, xxvii.
[93] Ibid. 3, quoted in Introduction at p. xxviii.
[94] Ibid. 181
[95] For example at Ibid. 141
[96] Ibid. 181.
[97] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 123
[98] In accordance with Gratian and Raymond of Pennaforte.
[99] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 136-7.
[100] Ibid. 15
[101] Ibid. 155
[102] Romans 13:4 quoted in Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, II/II Quest. XL, Art.1 cited in Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War, 28
[103] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 3
[104] Ibid. 123, n3.
[105] Ibid. 123-7
[106] Ibid. 123
[107] Ibid. xxvii
[108] John Mark Mattox, ‘Henry V: Shakespeare’s Just Warrior’, War, Literature and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, 12/1, Spring/ Summer 2000, available from http://www.wlajournal.com/12_1/Mattox.pdf accessed on 12 January 2009
[109] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 79
[110] For example at Ibid. 3
[111] Ibid. 123-7
[112] Mattox, “Henry V: Shakespeare’s Just Warrior”
[113] Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War, 123
[114] Anon., Gesta Henrici Quinti, 99
[115] Ibid. 3
[116] Mattox, “Henry V: Shakespeare’s Just Warrior”
