Arming for God: The Imagery of Spiritual Warfare from the Monastery to the Pulpit, c.1100–1250

Abstract

This thesis examines the emergence of knightly arms and castles as allegories of spiritual warfare in early twelfth-century monasticism, and their reappearance in lay preaching and pastoral care up to c.1250. It investigates the relationship between allegorical spiritual arms and real-world military practice as evidenced in chivalric literature and in modern studies of medieval military history, highlighting how meanings ascribed to arms shifted based on audience. Castle allegories for spiritual warfare are then analysed, demonstrating how the representation of virtues as arms found further expression and audience through repurposing as moralised fortifications.
The emergence of the mounted knight as an allegory for spiritual soldiery in the early twelfth century complicated the scriptural and patristic foundations of medieval spiritual warfare. After exploring this development, the thesis examines virtues ascribed to knightly arms in medieval spiritual arming texts, and their intended meanings for different audiences. It analyses the additions of the horse and lance to the spiritual panoply, exploring how these were employed to convey themes including bodily discipline and heavenly aspiration, first to monastic and later to lay audiences. Castle allegories are then traced from monastic origins to lay preaching and pastoral care, through the differing moralisations of defensive architecture. Fortification imagery witnesses a particularly defensive conceptualisation of spiritual warfare, one especially prescribed for female audiences in the Middle English Ancrene Wisse and related texts.
By situating these allegories within broader monastic and pastoral reform movements, the thesis sheds light on the transmission and adaptation of ideas from scripture and patristic thought to the laity, via the monasteries and schools. It argues that these allegories were not only tools of moral instruction but also reflections of clerical engagement with contemporary military practices, offering new insights into the relationship between medieval religious and chivalric cultures.