The Dispatches on War (Part VII)

continued from The Eclipse of the Cresent

The dominance of Europe over most of the world started in earnest in the sixteenth century and by the end of the seventeenth century, it was complete. The emergence of Europe on the world scene would be a remarkable feat of overcoming economic obstacles, political problems, the hurdles of technology and but importantly, it would be the triumph of effort and the ability to take calculated risks. Nothing better exemplifies the European voyages of discovery and exploration more than the slogan “God, Glory and Greed”. Though reasons for venturing beyond the limits of the European continent were often based on the premise of bringing the civilizing virtues of Europe to the rest of the world, the yearning for personal glory and the motivation for personal profit would make sure that God, in this trinity of justifications, would always come last.

After the disappointing end of the crusades in which the Europeans had failed to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Europe found itself in a situation where the power and the influence of the papacy was questioned, but where the power of the church was still evident. Though the church had suffered a political set back and its influence and prestige were tarnished, the failure of the crusades meant that the monarchy of Europe, was beginning to explore the limits of its power vis-à-vis the church and was now, more confident of resisting the influences of the popes in the matters of politics. The crucible in which this struggle was playing out was greatly affected by European exposure to Islam in the east and of the establishment of trade links between the Italian peninsula and the Levant. The trade between the Middle East and Europe, via Italy, revived the process of commerce within Europe itself and in doing so brought about many financial benefits to the Italian city states, such as Venice, and Florence, which dominated the trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Even though commerce and the means of manufacturing had existed in Europe before the crusades, this economic industry of Europe was geographically limited and politically fragmented. The greatest impact of the crusades upon the European trade was not in breathing a new life into the lungs of a European economy, but in pushing Europe out of its regional economic constraints towards a global economy. The emerging nature of this global economy was visible in the exhortations of Pope Urban II but its geo-political significance was lost in the early religious and political imperatives, which would underlie the European response to the Declaration of Claremont. After all, it was not the need to serve God as much, but the greed for riches and the glory of fortunes, which was primarily responsible for recruiting the early crusaders under the moralizing banner of Rome.

The European trade links with the Middle East would have an unintended consequence and as this trade became profitable, it would create its own political dynamics. The first Europeans to take advantage of this flourishing trade were the citizens of the city-states of Italy. As mentioned earlier, the Italian city-states had a strong monopoly on the trade between Europe and the east and thus, these city-states profited economically and politically. The first, tangible signs of the growing European awareness of the existence of a global economy started to manifest, when the Italian merchants started to realize that politics should not hinder economic activity, but rather that political power should be used as a leverage to create a more conducive environment for continued and sustainable economic growths. Out of this realization, of the power of the economy over politics, the Italian merchants would force upon the ruling nobility a series of agreements, which would weaken the power of the rulers and the end result of this would be that the Italian politics would gradually, become a handmaiden to the interests of the Italian economy.

The Italian economy’s creeping sway over the politics was not necessarily a case of a mutual compact, between the political elites and the economic bourgeoisie over an equitable distribution of taxes and privileges gained from paying taxes. The growing power of the Italian merchants made it very difficult for the ruling nobility of Florence and Venice to ignore their counsels and political concerns. Initially, the political-economic understanding was that for the payment of taxes, the rulers would provide a political umbrella of security and protection. The need for a politically secure and stable environment, by the merchants, was based on the reality that political uncertainties were the biggest obstacles to the growth of trade, and the acquisition of profits, and in the early stages, the rulers had agreed to this conditionality on the expectation of taxes from a grateful bourgeoisie.

As the European trade prospered and the scope of the trade increased beyond the regional confines of political territorialities, there arose a need to regulate this trade via a mechanism of laws, which were consistently applied across the continent and thus, not subject to the vagaries of the local political struggles of powers. This aim of harmonizing the European trade in a highly regulated structure benefited, though in an unintentional sense, from the grant of the first university charter, by the Holy Roman emperor Charlesmagne, to the Italian city of Bologna in the middle of the 1200s. Charlesmagne, confronted with the daunting task of managing his dominion and implementing his writ, had to rely on still nascent but a growing bureaucracy. It would be the officials of Charlesmagne, who would petition the emperor to allow them the intellectual freedom to debate the political problems and therefore, rationalize the best solution towards a more efficient administration of the Holy Roman Empire.

The intention behind the gift of a charter to Bologna, for the creation of a university, was originally not to further the understanding of knowledge itself, but to allow the officials of the Holy Roman Empire a place, where they could analyze the political issues without the fear of transgressing any religious prohibitions. The Holy Roman Catholic church, under its political papacy, was still insisting on a seamless blend of politics, with its spiritual doctrines and therefore, saw any deviation from such a prescription as an act of blasphemy against the church. The administrators of the Holy Roman Empire quickly realized the dilemma of governing a political entity on the basis of a religious understanding and in the implementation of their political responsibilities, soon came to the conclusion that religion could never be a viable substitute for a legal code required to effectively govern an empire.

Hence, the purpose of the first university was not to impart education, but to act as a school, where the officials of the empire could go for professional development and study the theoretical aspects of government and politics, which would be then put into reality via laws that would be created to administer the empire. It was from this concern and need that political Europe became aware of the vast body of Greek and Roman legal thoughts residing in the libraries of Moorish Spain and became interested in absorbing its lessons. The works of Aristotle on politics and the nature of constitutions, and the Justinian Code was, brought to Europe and the commentaries of Muslim and Jewish scholars on these treatises were translated into Latin. Once this literary and intellectual bridge was created with Spain; the exposure and acceptance of the classical works of Europe was once introduced into the political lexicon of medieval Europe, the value and the efficacy of creating enclaves of intellectual freedom of thought in Europe could not be underestimated.

It was, thus, a political imperative based on a temporal need for better governance, which would force the European political thought to reach beyond the strictures of religion and in the process, unwittingly, usher in the reformative forces of the renaissance. As the Europeans would re-discover the treasure trove of classical knowledge, there was a European scholarly migration to Cordoba, Baghdad and Cairo and within this development, there was a tendency to allow for the creation of more universities as the monarchies of Europe started to realize the practical benefits of politically astute and trained bureaucracies in the administration of their realms. The islands of intellectual thoughts, which appeared scattered all across Europe, helped to establish an environment of free and liberated exchange of knowledge and information, without the fear of a religious rebuke from Rome.

Therefore, the establishment of universities would play a crucial role in affecting a rift, between the doctrines of the church and the politics of Europe. The early universities of Europe would offer the first arguments for the separation of religion and politics, but in challenging the power of the church, over every aspect of the European life, they would inoculate a tradition of dissent in favor of a secular rationalism. This trait of seeking a rational explanation hereby, signaled a desire to doubt the dogmatic nature of the church’s power, but it did not, yet, question the doctrine of the church. Just as the Holy Roman Catholic church was digesting this new European willingness to confront its influence and it was attempting to answer its skeptics, which resulted naturally from the different interpretations of a secular knowledge and a religious knowledge, it was forced to deal with the consequences of the Black Death, which swept Europe in the mid-fourteenth century.

Ironically, it would not be the liberal traditions of questioning and challenging the prevailing logic in Europe as witnessed in Europe’s universities, but the Black Death, which would finally imprint the mark of renaissance upon the European mind. Again, it is instructive to remember that just as the universities, were the product of politics; the Black Death’s arrival in Europe was due to an economic reason. The first symptoms of the Black Death occurred on the Mediterranean island of Sicily in 1347 and though, Europe would suffer many repeats of the epidemic, it was the first brush with this pestilence that would leave its most lingering impressions in Europe. The Black Death originated in China and through the Silk Route, over a period of time, found its way to the markets of the Middle East. It would eventually reach Europe via the sea lanes of commerce, which were making the Italian city-states immense profits and from Italy, the infection of the European population by the Black Death would progress along the trade routes that linked Italy, with the rest of Europe.

The destruction wrought upon Europe and its influence in, for all practical purposes, ending the last vestiges of feudalism in Europe, was so lethal because of the fact that its greatest effect was located, and to some extent limited, to the cities which dotted the trade routes within Europe. In this sense, since the power of the church in Europe was also, coincidently, urban based and the political-religious influence of the church was articulated from the urban centers of Europe, the confluence of these two circumstances created a Biblical retribution, as far as the church was concerned, because the arrival of the Black Death in the cities of Europe, would invariably precipitate a decline in the influence of the church. The explanation behind the phenomena was a simple one, but its implications on the power and the influence of the church was ruinous.

The misfortune of a city falling to the ravages of the Black Death meant that it was automatically isolated from the rest of Europe, as the trade caravans opted to by-pass it and most people, afraid of contracting the disease itself, restricted their travels to the infected city. The nature of this involuntary quarantine, which European cities suffered as the result of being infected by the Black Death, also implied that all communications between the city and its outlaying regions was severely curtailed. With the collapse of effective communications, the ability of Rome to remain abreast of developments in Europe and to vocalize its response to its papal powers was also restricted. What made this possibility even more threatening to papal authority, as far as Rome was concerned, was that the cities also had universities located within them and these universities were always seen by the church as a bastion of anti-church rhetoric and it was from these universities that the most potent challenge to the temporal powers of the church was manifesting itself.

In fact, as events would prove it, the threat perception of the Holy Roman Catholic church was painfully accurate. As the Black Death showed no signs of lessening its deadly affect on the populations of Europe, the ignorance about the nature of disease prompted speculative theories as to its origins. One of the origins ascribed to the pestilence was that it was a curse of God and through this plague; God was punishing the seemingly sinful people of Europe, who gone astray from the teachings of the gospels. The church favored this theory, as a justification for the deaths caused by the plague and the reason behind this was to regain the lost political influence of the church by exploiting the genuine fears of the people.

However, instead of forcing the Europeans into a state of moral submission to Rome and making them meekly reaccept the authority of the church, as the final arbiter and saviors of their souls, the church’s explanation was greeted, with a series of questions by an increasingly incredulous population. The frequently asked question, to which the church had no answer, was if the disease was punishment from God upon the people for their wicked ways, what reason was there for God to punish the supposedly innocent and chaste people also? Since the Black Death seemed to harbor no religious bias and was afflicting the members of the clergy and killing them, the popular imagination took this as an implicative sign of the church’s own loss of piety in failure to adhere and exemplify the importance of the gospels through its own actions. The inability of the church to furnish a credible answer to this question would see its influence and authority plummet in Europe and from which it would never recover.

Another sub-textual trend in European history, which would influence the rise of Europe as a global economic power, would be the political civil wars of consolidation and the rise of the monarchial states in Europe. Just as the Black Death had caused a decline in the political fortunes of the church in Europe, it also sounded the final death knell for feudalism in Europe. The feudal structure of power was already tottering in Europe after the crusades had ended, as a large number of feudal lords and barons were killed in the Holy Land fighting the Muslims. The barons who survived and returned to Europe discovered that the powers of the kings had grown tremendously, politically and financially, during their absence as the kings of Europe had entered into covenants with the newly emerging class of European bourgeoisie. The reliance of the European monarchs on the financial taxes of a European middle class and the political compromises, which monarchies of Europe had made in lieu of gaining those taxes, saw a representative presence of the European business interests in the councils of politics.

Therefore, it was unavoidable that with the leading merchants of Europe acting as the economic advisors to the kings and being the products of European universities themselves, they all shared a similar vision of Europe governed by a common legal code which ensured a state of political stability, that would enable a sense of economic security and make the realization of profits, generated from a free and open trade regime, more secure. In this endeavor, to make Europe adopt a singular codex of legal and economic laws, one of the most pivotal factor was that since these royal advisors were merchants themselves, they traded with one another and since they also had studied at the universities, they also understood the Roman legal codes and were in agreement over the need of a simplified legal structure of power in Europe which would end the discrepancies in European politics, which were hindering the prospects for economic growth.

Another reason, which complimented this idea was, the political ambitions of the European monarchs to unify their lands. The European monarchies were strengthened by the absence of the feudal barons during the crusades and the eventual death of the barons in the crusades. The process of national unification, under a consolidated power, had already started as the crusades were winding down, and the though the power of the feudal barons was greatly diminished, the feudal resistance continued with the support of the papacy in Rome. The church was extremely antithetical to the idea of political power vested in strong monarchies and instead, favored the concept of political power shared amidst the kings and their feudal barons. The church’s support for such an arrangement resulted from its political machinations, which wanted to use the influence of the church, as a fulcrum in the power struggles involving the kings and barons. The political power of the church was actually based on its political influence and as the church was militarily weaker than the monarchies, its only hope of maintaining its influence in the politics of Europe was to ensure that the fledgling European monarchies’ attempts in the consolidation of political power would be a failure.

With this stratagem in mind, the church supported the continuation of the feudal system of politics in Europe. Hence, out of the two hurdles in the way of the creation of monarchial states in Europe; feudal political power and the Holy Roman Catholic church, the removal of the influence of the church seemed to be more problematic. The power of the feudal barons was, in comparison, relatively easy to dispense with and the end of the feudal power in Europe did not come through wars, though the wars helped in the ending it, but it came from an event in European history known as the “military revolution”. The origins of the military revolution lay in the crusades, which had exposed the Europeans to gunpowder and cannons and impressed upon them the usefulness of technology in warfare. As these technologies were imported into Europe, and later perfected and improved within Europe itself, the greatest implication of the military revolution resided in the marriage of technology, with military tactics and it would be this union, which revolutionized the European politics.

The revolutionary nature of the military revolution was that it fostered specialization in warfare, as weapons became more technical and required the soldiers to train on them in order to master their use. This development led to the creation of standing armies, as the specialization of warfare meant that wars were becoming technological in their orientations and needed trained soldiers to fight them. With the creation of standing armies, the reliance of the European kings on their feudal vassals to provide manpower in times of war also lessened and with this, the political importance of the feudal baron came to an end. The other aspect of military revolution, which benefited the monarchs at the expense of the barons, was that the acquisition of weapons became costly due to the technology involved in their manufacturing. The rising costs of weapons meant that, in order to buy them, it was necessary to have the financial means to purchase them and in this sense, as the European kings improved their taxation methods, they would gradually gain an advantage over the barons in the ability to fight and win wars.

The church could not be militarily defeated, as its raison d’etre of power of was of a spiritual nature, and the only viable option left, was to discredit the political influence of the church as a means towards ending its meddling in European politics. Therefore, it would be a feat of political engineering, notably by France, that would deal Rome a mortal blow and in wake of the Black Death and the rising influence of the secular enclaves of European thoughts; the universities, the church would be forced into a defensive posture. The attempts by France to remove the influence of the church, from its internal politics, would usher a situation in which the influence of the church was not only removed from secular politics, but it also politically and spiritually divide the church against itself. This was the Great Schism, when the religiously integrity of the church was questioned and church’s own moral authority was finally proven as being no different from the secular morality of politics.

The most serious challenge to the authority of the church originated over the issue of taxation. The church had always interfered in the temporal affairs of the European monarchies, but it had resisted the influence of secular politics in its own internal affairs. The Holy Roman Catholic church was determined to use its spiritual authority as a leverage to establish for itself a position of primus inter pares in the secular politics of Europe. Within, this quid pro quo, the church had reserved unto itself the right of the clergy to be excused from taxes and it had a very good reason to seek the exclusion of the clergy from being taxed by the monarchs of Europe. The power of taxation suggested a writ of the state, which had to be obeyed and this power of the state, politically, explicated the idea that clergy, who were taxed, and through them the church, ipso facto, was under the secular laws and influence of a temporal power.

The crisis started in the early 1300s, when the Philip IV of France decided to tax the clergy in France and the reason behind this decision was to fund the French war efforts against England. Pope Boniface VII, refused the clergy of France to be taxed, but Philip was determined to end the influence of the church. The matter of the taxing the clergy might have seemed as an inconsequential one, but infused within this idea was the more overarching issue of the political writ of a secular power vis-à-vis the church. Just as Boniface VII saw this as an open affront to the papacy, to Philip the possibility of capitulating before the church was unthinkable, because that would have negated his own political authority as a king. Boniface responded to the challenge by issuing a papal declaration asserting the supremacy of the papal spiritual powers over both the church and the state.

Philip, not willing to allow the pope to deny him the right of taxation upon the members of the clergy in France, was fearful that in the ongoing crisis, Boniface might excommunicate him. In what must surely rank as one of the most inspired acts of pre-emption in history, Philip decided to send a group of his soldiers and kidnap the pope and bring to back France, where Boniface would tried in a court for treason against France. Though the pope was captured by the French soldiers, he was soon rescued by the Italians but to Boniface that was of no importance as he would soon die from the shock of his capture at the hands of the French. Philip had through his audacity severely weakened and the church and to make certain that church’s influence was rejected from secular politics, Philip influenced the cardinals to elect a Frenchman as the next pope.

Once the new pope, Clement V, was elected he embarked on a program of creating a majority of French cardinals in the curia and in what seemed as an appeasement to the rule of Philip IV, Clement moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon. Theoretically, Avignon was still located within the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, but was separated from the French lands by a river. It was this geographic facet of the Avignon papacy that created the impressions that Avignon popes were French prisoners and this further eroded the influence of the church. However, there was a marked opposition within Italy to the continuation of the papacy in Avignon and under pressure from the Italian nobility, Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome and soon afterwards, died in 1378. The next pope’s selection would be based on the political consideration of naming an Italian cardinal as the pope and this time, the Italians were determined to end the French influence on the papacy. An Italian was finally chosen as Pope Urban VI and under his patronage, the reconstituted majority of the Italians cardinals in the curia forced the remaining French cardinals to flee to France.

French cardinals, as soon as they reached the security of French political protection, claimed that they had been forced to appoint an Italian as a pope under the duress and thus, Urban VI’s election was not legitimate. As if to impress this sentiment, with a practical realization, the French cardinals elected a Frenchman as the de jure pope, with the title of Clement VII. With Urban VI still remaining as a pope in Rome, there were now two popes both claiming to be the rightful heir to the papacy. The interesting aspect in this crisis to remember is that this secular-religious controversy was taking place as the Black Death scythed its way across Europe and as the church was making a mockery of its spiritual values by pandering to political interests, the secular arguments calling for the ejection of church influence from politics gained greater acceptance. The straw that broke the camel’s back was, when the European populations suffering under the Black Death witnessed the indifference of the church to their problems, while it engaged in political intrigue. The division caused in the church by the Great Schism, exemplified by the existence of two popes, finally unmasked the hypocrisy of the church leadership’s claims of being better than secular rulers of Europe due to their mantle of spiritual powers.

The loss of church’s influence, due to this crisis, created an institutional concern within the hierarchy of the church and it was decided, by the cardinals, that if this situation was allowed to continue, it would severely undermine the institutional cohesiveness of the church. Consequently, to solve the problem, both Clement VII and Urban VI’s claim as being the rightful pope was denied by a council of the cardinals and a new pope was elected. With the appointment of Alexander V as the new pope, there were now three popes as Urban VI and Clement refused to accept step down as popes and church was further plunged into its most serious crisis of existence since the times of the Roman emperors.

It was becoming increasingly evident to all concerned, as Europe watched in amazement the specter of three popes claiming the right to be called a pope, that the solution to this crisis would be of a political nature. The solution to quandary was that it was decided to dispose all of the three popes, by a show of military power, and to elect a new pope and thus, Pope Martin V was elected. The papacy of Martin V saw a diminishing of the church’s power and influence, because in accepting the intervention and decision by the Holy Roman Emperor in ending the Great Schism, the church was finally forced to accept the fact that it had to share temporal power, with the rest of European monarchies from a position of relative political equality and not from a status of moral authority. The reality of the church’s preference for political gain over spiritual guidance, as seen in its actions during the period of Great Schism (1305-1417) tore away the last vestiges of its moral influence in Europe and in doing so, finally ended the influence of the church in European politics.

It is instructive to note that the European attempts at the creation of national monarchial states gained steam in the 1400s, and the reason was that the church was no longer a political player in Europe as it concentrated in healing its internal divisions, which it had self-inflicted upon itself during the Great Schism. Thus, as the church retreated from the political life of Europe and sought to revitalize its religious doctrine and reorganize itself, the possibility of removing its influence from politics proved easy, as the church itself seemed to be focusing less on politics and thus, created a vacuum in the political arena that was filled by secular politics. Hence, once the church had abandoned the political field, the monarchs of Europe were determined to ensure that there would be no revival of church’s influence in European politics.

Therefore, it was within this historical context that the first European voyages of discovery were undertaken. In the 1400s, as the European trade became better regulated through a series of common laws and as the early nation-states emerged with clearly defined writs of legal power, the only last remaining obstacle towards the realization of increased profits, by the European merchants, was to break the Muslim monopoly on the spice trade. The most viable alternative to by-passing the Muslim dominated trade routes, was to find a sea passage to India and this economic enterprise would be a private venture. The majority of the monarchs in Europe, were not interested in seeking a sea route to the Indies, because as mentioned earlier, they were engaged in the wars of nation building and saw any financial resources diverted from this primary concern as being a waste of money.

The unlikely support for finding the trade route to the Indies and of the bourgeoisie’s attempts in this endeavor would come from the church itself, which was gradually beginning to see these voyages as means to revive its declining fortunes. The church had arrived at the conclusion that it was no longer possible, and more importantly feasible, to shore up its lessening influence in Europe, but it could balance the decline of its influence in Europe by gaining adherents to its faith outside of Europe. With this in mind, the church started to support these voyages as means of maintaining some semblance of its influence in Europe and as a result would realign and influence European interests. Via this confluence of a religious-political interest with a commercial interest, the church and the European bourgeoisie entered into an awkward alliance, which would be sourly noticed by the kings of Europe.

This newly emerging reality of European politics confronted the kings, with a dilemma. The monarchs of Europe had to keep their merchants happy in order to extract taxes from them and yet, they were watchful of the church’s political ambitions in Europe. The monarchies of Europe could not afford to antagonize either the church or the powerful bourgeoisie without risking their own political interests. Since confrontation and conflict was not the preferred path towards a possible solution, it was mutually agreed that there would be a compromise. In return for taxes paid on a regular basis, the monarchs of Europe would not intervene in the commercial ventures of exploring trade routes to the Indies and it was also agreed that as long as the church did not intervene in European politics, it was free to establish its influence outside of Europe without any political interference. Hence, with this mutual understanding in place, it was not long before the first ships to discover a sea route to the Indies would set sail, with the self-interested promise of “God, Glory and Greed” to civilize the non-European world.