ABSTRACT

No legal or political development in medieval Western Europe is understandable unless it is remembered that the generations here involved looked upon law as a truth to be uncovered, rather than as a command to be enforced. A spirit of belligerency was therefore implicit in Western Europe's official attitude toward other culture realms, and this spirit was activated in the Mediterranean area by the military and ideological aggressiveness of Islam. The intellectual confusion attending the unsound relationship between image and reality has increased during the acrimonious war of nerves that has characterized the relations between the Western democracies and Eastern dictatorships since the close of the Second World War. Mongolian interest in the Christian faith and in an entente with Western Europe was demonstrated again during the rule of Kublai Khan in 1274. The crusades had momentous and multifarious consequences for the course of international relations.