Books by Peter Partner

Based on extensive research in Italian archives this study explores the papal bureaucracy at a time when the Pope was among the most powerful European rulers. The men who ran the Papacy then were an important and talented group who included luminaries of humanist literature and scholarship, distinguished church leaders, and influential statesmen.

What makes a war 'holy', and who decides that it is? This title examines the origins of holy war, and how it affects the modern world. It shows how the ideal of the crusade, 'God's War', came to permeate medieval Christendom, and how it influenced later Western societies, especially in their attitudes to colonialism.