ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates that medieval Europe was not merely violence-oriented but also knew sophisticated conceptions and ideals of peace. It outlines how and why political writings on peace emerged at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries before examining Dante's Roman' vision of peace and Wyclif's spiritual' critique of just war theory. Wyclif's vision of peace is, by contrast, not political in that it concerns not so much the actual conditions of a political community as the spiritual aspirations of individual Christians. Twentieth-century research, however, has shown that medieval intellectuals were cognizant of political thought and that medieval culture was far from being monolithically bloodthirsty. The rediscovery of Aristotelian political philosophy was once hailed as the Aristotelian revolution' in the history of Western political thought, which allegedly marked the advent of modernity. Aristotelian political philosophy was obviously free from any Christian influence and provided an entirely new and indeed rival perspective on the human community.
