Faculty & Staff Authors

Nakashian, C. (2018) "Ungirded for battle: knightly conversion to monastic life and the making of weapon-relics in the Central Middle Ages" and "Orderic Vitalis and Henry of Huntingdon: Views of Clerical Warfare from Inside and Outside the Cloister", in Kotecki, R., Maciejewski, J., & Ott, J. S. (Eds.). Between sword and prayer : warfare and medieval clergy in cultural perspective (Ser. Explorations in medieval culture, volume 3). Brill.


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. Contributors are Carlos de Ayala Mart nez, Genevi ve B hrer-Thierry, Chris Dennis, Pablo Dorronzoro Ram rez, Lawrence G. Duggan, Daniel Gerrard, Robert Houghton, Carsten Selch Jensen, Radoslaw Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, Ivan Majnaric, Monika Michalska, Michael Edward Moore, Craig M. Nakashian, John S. Ott, Katherine Allen Smith, and Anna Waśko.

Kaeuper, R. W. (2017). Prowess, piety, and public order in medieval society : studies in honor of richard w. kaeuper. (C. M. Nakashian & D. P. Franke, Eds.) (Ser. Later medieval europe, v. 14). Brill.


Richard Kaeuper's career has examined three salient concerns of medieval society - knightly prowess and violence, lay and religious piety, and public order and government - most directly in three of his monographs: War, Justice, and Public Order (Oxford, 1988), Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), and Holy Warriors (Penn, 2009). Kaeuper approaches historical questions with an eye towards illuminating the inherent complexities in human ideas and ideals, and he has worked to untangle the various threads holding together cultural constructs such as chivalry, licit violence, and lay piety. The present festschrift in his honor brings together scholars from across disciplines to engage with those same concerns in medieval society from a variety of perspectives. Contributors are: Bernard S. Bachrach, Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Samuel A. Claussen, David Crouch, Thomas Devaney, Paul Dingman, Daniel P. Franke, Richard Firth Green, Christopher Guyol, John D. Hosler, William Chester Jordan, Craig M. Nakashian, W. Mark Ormrod, Russell A. Peck, Anthony J. Pollard, Michael Prestwich, Sebastian Rider-Bezerra, Leah Shopkow, and Peter W. Sposato.

Nakashian, C. M. (2016). Warrior churchmen of medieval england, 1000-1250 : theory and reality. Boydell & Brewer.


Christianity has had a problematic relationship with warfare throughout its history, with the middle ages being no exception. While warfare came to be accepted as a necessary activity for laymen, clerics were largely excluded from military activity. Those who participated in war risked falling foul of a number of accepted canons of the church as well as the opinions of their peers. However, many continued to involve themselves in war - including active participation on battlefields. This book, focusing on a number of individual English clerics between 1000 and 1250, seeks to untangle the cultural debate surrounding this military behaviour. It sets its examination into a broader context, including the clerical reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the development of a more comprehensive canon law, and the popularization of chivalric ideology. Rather than portraying these clerics as anachronistic outliers or mere criminals, this study looks at how contemporaries understood their behaviour, arguing that there was a wide range of views - which often included praise for clerics who fought in licit causes. The picture which emerges is that clerical violence, despite its prescriptive condemnation, was often judged by how much it advanced the interests of the observer. Craig M. Nakashian is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University-Texarkana.