Within the context of the multiform struggle against the enemies of the Church during the pontificate of Pius V (1566-1572), the question of the warlike values of the nobility, in charge of the conduct of military operations against infidels and heretics all over Christendom, becomes a fundamental issue. Hence a necessary reformation of the armies and, above all, of their commanding officers (as reform was traditionally associated with the crusades) in the spirit of the Post-Trent ideal. As the pope was sending in France a military corps to sustain Charles IX's third war against the Protestants, a first experiment of religious supervision of the papal troupes was assigned to a small group of Jesuit chaplains and a handbook of the Christian Soldier was written for this opportunity by the Jesuit Possevino. However, this Counter-Reform model of war, experimented at first in 1569, had a universal goal. It was not only aimed at obtaining a " disciplinarization " of the catholic armies as more generally discernible in the Counter-Reform framework. It was intended to transform the chivalrous prototype of the noble soldier into an ethic of the service of God, the culture of a the " miles christianus ", and associated with a purpose of military efficiency : the victory was, in fact, a gift of God to those who embrace this crusade and its reformed spirit. The victory of Moncontour, celebrated in Rome with great enthusiasm, took place in this perspective.
