The guest lecture by prof. Kurt Villads Jensen (Stockholm University): Medieval warfare – can we learn from it today?
May 5th, 2020, 15.00, Collegium Humanisticum, C 0.39.
Kurt Villads Jensen – a professor in medieval history and director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at Stockholm University. Author of 152 publications, including articles, book chapters, and books. A current or former member of many scholarly institutions and associations, among others the Danish Research Council for the Humanities and the Nordic Board for Periodicals in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Referee to the National Science Centre of Poland. His main research interests focus on ideological and practical aspects of crusades, warfare throughout history, history of the Church and Jewish history, as well as Scandinavian history in a broad European context.
Medieval warfare – can we learn from it today?
The attempts to regulate warfare are very old and can be found in ancient Greek and Roman sources, in the Bible and works of early Christian commentators. Authors of these texts tried to draw a distinction between just and unjust wars, but it was only in the mid-12th century, that these ideas were combined and developed into a consistent theory about legal and theological aspects of warfare. This theory has not changed fundamentally but is still discussed in all military academies in the Western world.
At the same time, there has been immense development in military technique, already in the Middle Ages and constantly, also today. But this does not seem to have influenced theories about warfare. We make war differently than in the Middle Ages, but we think about war in the same manner. Why is that?
The presentation will discuss theories about the war in the Middle Ages, and to which extent technical developments had any connection at all to the ideas about war.