Kaar Alexandra, Wirtschaft, Krieg und Seelenheil. Papst Martin V., Kaiser Sigismund und das Handelsverbot gegen die Hussiten in Böhmen

The monograph at hand is the revised version of Alexandra Kaar‘s dissertation, which was completed at the University of Vienna in 2017. It deals with a subject that has often been touched upon in the older literature, but that has never been treated systematically on its own: The trading bans that were issued by the papal and imperial authorities during the Hussite Wars 1420–1436. The author’s stated goal is to improve upon a purely instrumental view that judges the trading bans’ effectiveness as a strategical tool in warfare; instead, she is interested in the wider cultural and ideological context of religious embargo politics in the late Middle Ages and what we might learn from it about the way in which rulership in this period functioned.

The book is divided into six chapters. Instead of a single introduction, Kaar has opted for two separate chapters that extend over almost 100 pages and deal with the necessary preliminaries for the study at an almost excessive length. First, she discusses the terminology used to describe the various economic measures against the Hussites in the older literature and concludes that the term “trading ban” is the most accurate when compared to the language of the original sources (pp. 14 –22). Then, to provide context for her topic, she sketches the development of a “papal embargo” against economic activities with non-Christians and “heretics” in canon law since the twelfth century (pp. 22–41).

The following chapter deals with the state of research and the research questions for the study: First, Kaar gives an overview over Bohemia’s economic relations in the early 15th century and the course of events of the Hussite Wars until 1436 (pp. 42–65), as well as comments on the available literature on the subject (pp. 75–80). She then goes on to explain her own methodology and course of action for the next chapters. Her goal is twofold: In part one of the analysis, she focusses on the economic and political dimensions of the trading bans (pp. 81–82), and in part two she interprets the trading bans through the lens of cultural history as a process of symbolical communication that created social meaning, e.g. the confessional identity of the Holy Roman Empire that tried to distinguish itself from “heretics” (pp. 82–83).

In a third step, both approaches are synthesized into a description of the trading bans as an exercise of late medieval government (pp. 83–84). Having thus established her research program, Kaar gives an overview over the source material for the study: There is almost no serial data that could help to reconstruct the flow of goods in and out of Bohemia for the period of time studied, therefore the monograph deals mainly with qualitative sources, e.g. normative texts and diplomata (pp. 84–106). This paragraph also discusses various methodological problems in interpreting different genres of medieval sources in a very thorough manner; it would be a great resource for teaching undergraduates.

The three subsequent chapters implement the agenda established above in rich empirical detail (pp. 107–302). A concluding chapter (pp. 304–326) summarizes the results of the study: It is almost impossible, according to Kaar, to judge the effectiveness of the trading bans due to the fragmentary nature of the source material and the difficulties of quantifying various factors in the late medieval economy. Understanding the trading bans as a form of symbolical communication that branded certain economical activities as sinful in the service of medieval government, though, gives rich insights into the history of late medieval everyday life at the intersection of the history of politics, religion, and mentalities. A very helpful appendix with all mentioned place names and their respective counterparts in German, Czech, Polish, Slovak and Hungarian (pp. 327–331) closes the book.

This book is a very dense read, very thoroughly researched and written in rather technical prose. The somewhat inaccessible presentation of the content does not, however, substantially distract from the monograph’s great merits. On the whole, Kaar’s great efforts bear rich fruit: Her systematic reflection of terminology and methodological problems and her application of cultural history to the analysis of economic measures significantly advance the literature on the subject, which has hitherto been treated in a rather superficial and positivistic way as a footnote to a more general history of the Hussite Wars.

Economic sanctions of one kind or another have been a part of warfare since antiquity and continue to be so in the modern age. Understanding their function in a broader cultural horizon is therefore a crucial aspect of research on the “Cultures of War” and one on which not yet many studies exist. Alexandra Kaar’s case study for the Hussite Wars is a very valuable contribution to our knowledge about the history of this important military instrument. It can be recommended to anyone interested in the late medieval crusades against Bohemia as well as to historians who work on the relationship between the late medieval economy and rulership.