Medieval Period · 1139
Crossbow
Unchivalrous Warfare and Social Upheaval
In 1139, the Second Lateran Council — a gathering of Catholic bishops in Rome, convened by Pope Innocent II — issued Canon 29, a formal ruling denouncing the "murderous art" of crossbowmen and archers as "hateful to God." Using the weapon against fellow Christians was forbidden. Using it against non-Christians remained fine (the ethical line was firm about who could be killed, less so about how). The panic had a practical edge. A crossbowman could be trained in a few weeks, whereas a longbowman needed years of practice. Worse, a crossbow bolt could punch straight through a mail hauberk, the knee-length shirt of interlinked iron rings that knights wore as body armour. The whole feudal arrangement — in which armoured nobility on horseback dominated the battlefield and everyone else stayed in their lane — suddenly looked negotiable.
The ban had little bite. Enforcement fell to bishops and kings who mostly ignored it. England's Richard I and later the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II deployed crossbowmen openly, and the weapon spread across European armies and the crusades. The condemnation survived mostly as rhetoric about "dishonourable" warfare rather than as working law.
What the Church was really guarding wasn't only piety; it was the feudal order of honour-bound combat. The crossbow won. The ethics of war have been argued ever since.
The ban had little bite. Enforcement fell to bishops and kings who mostly ignored it. England's Richard I and later the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II deployed crossbowmen openly, and the weapon spread across European armies and the crusades. The condemnation survived mostly as rhetoric about "dishonourable" warfare rather than as working law.
What the Church was really guarding wasn't only piety; it was the feudal order of honour-bound combat. The crossbow won. The ethics of war have been argued ever since.