Kotecki Radoslaw, Maciejewski Jacek, Ott John S. (eds.) Between Sword and Prayer: Warfare and Medieval Clergy in Cultural Perspective

Brill, 2017. — 546 p.Between Sword and Prayer is a broad-ranging anthology focused on the involvement of medieval clergy in warfare and a variety of related military activities. The essays address, on the one hand, the issue of clerical participation in combat, in organizing military campaigns, and in armed defense, and on the other, questions surrounding the political, ideological, or religious legitimization of clerical military aggression. These perspectives are further enriched by chapters dealing with the problem of the textual representation of clergy who actively participated in military affairs. The essays in this volume span Latin Christendom, encompassing geographically the four corners of medieval Europe: Western, East-Central, Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean.Radoslaw Kotecki, Ph.D. (2013), Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, is Adjunct at that university. He has published essays on medieval church and cultural history, and is co-editor of several volumes, including Ecclesia et Violentia (Cambridge Scholars, 2014). Jacek Maciejewski, Ph.D. (1996), is full Professor at Kazimierz Wielki University, Poland. He has published extensively on the Polish medieval episcopacy. He is the author of three monographs, including Episkopat polski doby dzielnicowej, 1180-1320 (Societas Vistulana, 2003), and Adventus episcopi (UKW, 2013). John S. Ott, Ph.D. (1999), Stanford University, is Professor of History at Portland State University. He is co-editor of The Bishop Reformed (Ashgate, 2007), and the author of Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050-1150 (Cambridge University Press, 2015).