ABSTRACT
Bearing in mind the ambivalent attitudes of early Christianity toward peace, and the legitimization of the state’s right to resort to the use of force, this chapter elucidates papal policy and the degree of support it enjoyed from the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1217) up to the pontificate of John XXII (1316-34). It is the thesis of this study that the pursuit of peace among Christian rulers in the service of the crusade - which eventually did not materialize - was yet another symptom of, if not a factor, in the decline of papal leadership in the late Middle Ages.
