The right to conquer - Legitimising Conquests in the early and high Middle Ages

Conquests required legitimation. This project aims to show that this is also true for the earlier Middle Ages (c. 500 - c. 1150), thus refuting the prevailing scholarly views on this issue. By demonstrating that the military expansion of rule required justification this work is poised to make significant contributions to the study of the concept of 'conquest', of war, and sovereignty in this period. Moreover, this project adds important new knowledge to medieval studies, where the legitimation of military conquests has failed to garner critical attention.

The focus on narratives of conquest reveals what the frequency of military conflict in the period and contemporary expectations of rulers to prove themselves in war concealed: the need to justify wars of conquest and the violent seizure of rulership – to God and to one's own people, but sometimes also to third parties. It seems that for medieval rulers it was essential to counter the suspicion that greed inspired armed conflict, especially when war led to the acquisition of new lands and the extension of their rule. Contrary to popular belief, the idea of a just war was regularly invoked in the early Middle Ages, and this project examines how this notion related to other ideas, such as the fight against barbarians, the defence of the faith, or even holy war.

Beyond unearthing the prevalence of a legal-moral discourse on conquest and the bodies of knowledge that shaped it, the project also identifies the narrative strategies and arguments used to legitimise and sometimes delegitimise such conquests. In doing so, the project studies how underlying political ideas interacted, competed, or merged with one another and how one or the other became more or less popular at particular times. This examination of the discourse of conquest is based on extensive source materials. The focus is placed on historiographical works, which will be contextualised by poetry, letters and documents, hagiographical evidence, normative sources and theological treatises. Methodologically, the project is grounded in a combination of approaches from the history of ideas and narratology.

The geographical focus is on the Frankish and East Frankish-German Empire, whose rulers repeatedly distinguished themselves as conquerors. Among the most prominent are Clovis I, Charlemagne, Henry I and Otto the Great, around whose lifetimes the first periods in this study are grouped. Another covers the period of the first two Crusades, which created new forms of legitimacy by combining war and conquest with pilgrimage and penance.