IMC 2024: Sessions

When is it permissible for soldiers to seize the resources of their opponents, either for survival or to deny them to the enemy? Does it matter how those resources are obtained or used? Can such concerns be separated from the moral or spiritual values of combatants?

The interplay of extreme violence and extreme piety, characteristic of medieval conflict, remains a challenge to modern understanding and continues to feed into distorted images of the medieval world. Taking spoils of war, be it victuals and livestock, treasures or captives for ransom, formed a central dynamic element of medieval conflict. Unlike lands and titles, movable wealth occupied a unique place in medieval warfare and society, demarcated by its immediacy and mobility. Spoils flowed from frontiers and battlefields to the centres of secular and religious authority. Traversing national and international boundaries as well as diverse geographies, war spoils communicate histories of cross-cultural contact. Bringing into focus challenges both practical and ideological, the issue of spoils will be discussed with a view towards illuminating new avenues into understanding medieval warfare, justice, and faith.

Participants include John France (University of Swansea), Daniel Franke (Richard Bland College of William & Mary, Virginia), John Hosler (Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) and Connor Wilson (Manchester Metropolitan University).