HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE JUST WAR IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE EARLY WESTERN EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES

Abstract

The purpose of this article is the conceptual systematization of the key features of the just war phenomenon in the political and legal discourse of the Western European Early Middle Ages. The author showed that during the early Middle Ages in the West, the development of the concept of just war took place gradually under the dominant influence of Christian orthodoxy, which largely eliminated early Christian concepts of pacifism and adapted ideas about the legality and justification of war as a form of violence limited by law and religion. It was found that the foundation of early medieval ideas about a just war was primarily an ethical assessment of violence. The Christian Church, based on the teachings of Augustine, took the initiative in determining the role of war in society and tried to regulate it or at least minimize its excesses, directing military actions in a more or less socially acceptable direction (the fight against non-believers, heretics, apostates, enemies of the church, etc.). In the course of the development of the early medieval political and legal discourse, certain signs of a just war were elaborated: 1) waging war by a Christian ruler in the name of protecting the state and faith: in a just war, preference is given to defensive (protective) goals; 2) waging war for the Christianization of neighboring (as a rule) barbarian peoples, their conversion to the bosom of Christian civilization; 3) a war that has a just cause (protection of land, rights, subjects, etc.); 4) a war, including an internal one, conducted under divine sanction (justice is usually on the side of the winner); 5) a war in which the participation of the clergy as combatants is excluded, while its interests, as well as the interests of the church, are protected in priority order; 6) the war is waged with the aim of establishing lasting peace, without the threat of complete destruction of the enemy, the escalation of violence is denied; 7) a war waged by a proper subject of law (as a rule, a state), which represents a state, against another state, which excludes internal wars as wars waged by improper subjects (denial of civil strife within the country).