The title of this chapter alludes to a stimulating book published in 1983, Law and Revolution. The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. In it Harold J. Berman, a distinguished historian of law, argued that the origins of a distinctive, systematic western legal tradition can be traced to the papal revolution of the High Middle Ages and in particular to the emergence of the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church. Despite some criticism, on the whole it justly earned high praise. Although the book is concerned with the nature and implications of canon law in general rather than with specific issues, on the matter of the clergy and armsbearing Berman's title happens to be perfectly apposite, for during these two centuries the law of the Church on this subject was profoundly altered, and never since then has the Church returned to the earlier prohibition.

The Breakthrough

We can pinpoint quite precisely when the revolution in law regarding clerical armsbearing began: in the Holy Land in the years 1119–1120. After the spectacular initial conquests of the ‘First Crusaders’ (Edessa and Antioch in 1098, Jerusalem in 1099), their successors, particularly King Baldwin I of Jerusalem (1100–1118), went on to take Acre in 1104, Tripoli in 1109, and Sidon and Beirut in 1110 – the entire Palestinian coastline, in fact, save for Ascalon and Tyre. Huge gaps remained, however.