What purpose did men think war should serve? Many would have claimed that it served none, that it was but the result of the Fall and of sin, and that it brought only harm and hurt to the world. This opinion, which had a long Christian ancestry, was still widely held and propagated in the fourteenth century. It did not, however, go unchallenged. As far back as the late fourth century two men had expressed the view that war should be fought in order to bring about peace and order. One was Augustine, whose ideas were to be fundamental in forming medieval Europe's views on the subject. The other was Vegetius, also a Christian, who likewise regarded war as a means of bringing about peace. His work on war, the De re militari, grew to become the main expression of the ideas of late antiquity on the aims of war and how it should best be fought. Cited in the writings of the Carolingian age, the De re militari began to enjoy a particular vogue during the renaissance of the twelfth century, being referred to as an authority on military matters by writers who had no first-hand knowledge of war. By the late thirteenth century, when the first translations into the vernacular were commissioned (often at the behest of men of a military cast of mind, such as Edward I, who had one made in Anglo-Norman) Vegetius was beginning to enjoy a popularity which was to last until early modern times.