This lecture was devoted to analyzing the very content of clauses, i.e. the commitments made by kings in the alliances they entered into. It is very difficult to determine the order of these clauses and to reconstruct the internal logic of the texts: in some cases, it is possible, but not always. We have therefore focused on the clauses found in all periods, noting those that are specific to a particular phase or context.
The first category of clauses is of a political nature: to have the same friends and the same enemies, not to conclude a separate peace or maintain diplomatic relations with the enemy, not to incite a third party to intervene, to undertake to inform and denounce plots and consequently to keep certain information secret, to resist an attempt at corruption, or even to refuse the treason in one's favor of a subject of the king to whom one swears an oath. Clauses relating to the royal family, from the middle of the 2nd millennium onwards, show a shift from interpersonal relationships to alliances binding on subsequent generations: following a treaty, the two ruling families were linked forever. The treaty between Hattusili III and Ramses II is striking in this respect: the relationship forged between the two kings was to continue for generations to come, and it constantly referred to the land of Egypt and the land of Hatti, not to the individuals of the sovereigns. It is quite possible that this change explains why the blood rites that characterized the conclusion of alliances in the first half of the 2nd millennium are no longer attested from the 14th century onwards: they demonstrated the personal nature of the commitments, which subsequently faded away. Putting one's own life on the line when concluding a covenant no longer made sense when the agreements entered into also committed the posterity of the contracting parties.
