Pacifism and Crusade in Ramon Llull

Pacifism and Crusade in Ramon Llull

Ensenyat, Gabriel (Department of Catalan Philology, Universitat de les Illes Balears)

Quaderns de la Mediterrània, Vol.9 (2008)

Abstract

One of the aspects of Ramon Llull that has usually been emphasised is the peaceful nature of his missionary projects. However, it is also true that the Blessed Ramon expressed the need to undertake crusades against the “infidels” and he even devoted whole works to this issue, mainly after 1292, with the writing of the Tractatus de modo convertendi infideles and the Quomodo Terra Sancta recuperari potest. These two brief texts were later developed in the Liber de fine (1305) and in the Liber de acquisitione Terrae Sanctae (1309), in which Llull, now a theoretician of the war against the “infidels”, sets out concrete strategic plans to carry out a large-scale offensive against Islam.