100 Law and Morality Abroad (to ca. ad 1550)by the bughat authorities would be recognized as lawful in their area of
control. At the conclusion of hostilities, defeated rebels were entitled to
have their weapons returned to them. Not until the nineteenth century
would the Eu ro pe ans devise a comparable doctrine, under the label of “rec-
ognition of insurgency.”
By the late eleventh century, questions about Muslim relations with the
Dar al- Harb became less challenging from the legal standpoint, as they be-
came more serious from the military perspective. For it was then that the
Eu ro pe an states began to go onto the off ensive against the Islamic world. It
would now be the turn of the Eu ro pe ans to fi nd some way of justifying ex-
pansive, off ensive policies. In the absence of a general doctrine comparable
to that of the Islamic Dar al- Harb, giving automatic license to war against
infi dels, the challenge would be a daunting one.
Eu ro pe an Expansion in the Crusading Era
Medieval Eu rope was an energetically expansive society. Its outward push
was in no fewer than four directions: southeastward, into the Holy Land of
the eastern Mediterranean; to the southwest, for the recovery of Spain from
the Muslims (the Reconquista, as it was known); to the northeast, spreading
Christianity into the Baltic areas; and fi nally to the northwest, where hardy
Scandinavian voyagers settled Iceland, Greenland, and even (if only just
briefl y) mainland North America. For all of these activities, the hardiness of
the pioneer and the bravado of the warrior were greatly in demand. So too,
however, were the skills of a more subtle and unobtrusive group of persons:
lawyers. One of the challenges facing medieval lawyers was to determine the
legal bases for these various external adventures. Th is was especially prob-
lematic for two of the four regions of expansion: the Holy Land and north-
eastern Eu rope. An important part of the lawyers’ task was to decide what
kind of entitlement to govern was possessed by the preexisting rulers— who
in all cases were non- Christians. In dealing with these vital issues, natural-
law doctrine was summoned to assist.