Peace and Truce of God
The Peace and Truce of God was a movement in the Middle Ages led by the Catholic Church and was one of the most influential mass peace movements in history. The goal of both the Pax Dei and the Treuga Dei was to limit the violence of feuding in the western half of the former Carolingian Empire – following its collapse in the middle of the 9th century – using the threat of spiritual sanctions. The eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire did not experience the same collapse of central authority, and neither did England. This movement was also marked by popular participation, with many commoners supporting the movement as a solution to the famines, violence, and collapse of the social order around them.
The Peace of God was first proclaimed in 989, at the Council of Charroux. It sought to protect ecclesiastical property, agricultural resources and unarmed clerics. The Truce of God, first proclaimed in 1027 at the Council of Toulouges, attempted to limit the days of the week and times of year that the nobility engaged in violence. The movement persisted in some form until the thirteenth century.
Other strategies to deal with the problem of violence in the western half of the former Carolingian Empire included the code of chivalry.
Background
Christian laws regarding violence had evolved from the earlier concept of Pax Romana.There was an ecclesiastical discussion of peace for secular authorities as early as 494, in a letter from Pope Gelasius I to Emperor Anastasius, in which he suggested that kings listen to religious authorities before making their judgments. As early as 697, Adomnán of Iona promulgated the Cáin Adomnáin, which provided sanctions against the killing of children, clerics, clerical students and peasants on clerical lands.
Other ecclesiastical measures to protect church property were also observed from the tenth to the eleventh centuries, as evidenced by the Council of Trosly, which explicitly designated the destruction of church property as sacrilege. The controversy flourished in the eleventh century, when secular violence from private wars and personal feuds began to threaten both church buildings and monastic communities throughout Europe.
History
The Peace of God was first proclaimed in 989 at the Council of Charroux. It sought to protect ecclesiastical property, agricultural resources, and unarmed clerics. After the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century, the areas formerly under its control degenerated into many small counties and lordships, in which local lords and knights frequently fought each other for control. The West Frankish nobility benefited from the Carolingian accession and introduced the Capetian, further transforming medieval European society. One of the critical points of this dynastic change is what Guy Bois calls "the mutation of the year 1000," the period being known for its relentless combination of chaos and creativity. Frederick S. Paxton argues that the political and cultural landscape of this period highlights some of the prevailing cultural anxieties and problems around the turn of the millennium, particularly the "unprecedented disorder in governmental, legal, and social institutions." Carolingian society faced a "king incapable of action and a nobility unwilling to act, which led the French people, imbued with a 'national spirit' that was particularly creative in combating political and social ills, to turn to spiritual sanctions as the only available means of limiting violence."While some historians postulate that the Peace of God and Truce of God movements stem from the inability or unwillingness of the highest echelons of Carolingian society to contain the violence and feuds among the Capetian nobles, other scholars argue that a Castellan revolution in the Frankish kingdoms contributed to the problem. According to André Debord, the Peace and Truce movement arose in response to the social and political upheavals resulting from the rapid growth of castle building in the early eleventh century, particularly in Aquitaine. The chaos of the era is attributed to the problem of violent feuds, with castellans and their militias working toward consolidated power and freedom from the overarching political structure of the Carolingian Empire.
By 1030, at the same time that William V, Duke of Aquitaine, William IV of Provence, and Ademar of Chabannes died, county power was overwhelming in Charente. During this period, the county power of dukes and counts was changing, for the building of castles was an inherent consolidation of power. At the same time, "those who possessed county castles had a marked tendency to disobey as soon as the count or duke turned his back on them," so that figures who possessed little traditional power, such as Hugh the Chiliarc, "could cause the most serious trouble to the distinguished duke of Aquitaine."
There were often attacks from the Vikings in this period, who settled in northern areas but continued to raid territory further inland.
The two movements began at different times and places, but by the eleventh century they became synonymous as "Peace and Truce of God". The Germans looked on French 'anarchy' with a mixture of horror and contempt. To preserve the king's peace was the first duty of a German sovereign." The movement, though seemingly redundant to the duties of the crown, had a religious momentum that would not be denied. Holy Roman Emperor Henry III issued the earliest form of this in his empire while at Constance in 1043. Some scholars connect it to the subsequent concept of Landfriede in the Holy Roman Empire, although others suggest Landfriede existed alongside or prior to these movements.
Peace of God
The Peace of God or Pax Dei was a proclamation of the local clergy that granted immunity from violence to noncombatants who could not defend themselves, starting with the peasants and the clergy. The Synod of Charroux decreed a limited Pax Dei in 989, and the practice spread to most of Western Europe over the next century, surviving in some form until at least the thirteenth century.Under the Peace of God are included:
- consecrated persons — clerics, monks, virgins, and cloistered widows;
- consecrated places — churches, monasteries, and cemeteries, with their dependencies;
- consecrated times — Sundays, and ferial days, all under the special protection of the Church, which punishes transgressors with excommunication.
Popular Participation
At the Benedictine abbey of Charroux in La Marche on the borders of the Aquitaine "a great crowd of many people gathered there from the Poitou, the Limousin, and neighbouring regions. Many bodies of saints were also brought there "bringing miracles in their wake". Three canons promulgated at Charroux, under the leadership of Gombald Archbishop of Bordeaux and Gascony, were signed by the bishops of Poitiers, Limoges, Périgueux, Saintes and Angoulême, all in the west of France beyond the limited jurisdiction of King Hugh Capet. Excommunication would be the punishment for attacking or robbing a church, for robbing peasants or the poor of farm animals – among which the donkey is mentioned, but not the horse – and for robbing, striking or seizing a priest or any man of the clergy "who is not bearing arms". Making compensation or reparations could circumvent the anathema of the Church.Children and women were added to the early protections. The Pax Dei prohibited nobles from invading churches, from beating the defenceless, from burning houses, and so on. A synod of 1033 added merchants and their goods to the protected list. Significantly, the Peace of God movement began in Aquitaine, Burgundy and Languedoc, areas where central authority had most completely fragmented.
The participation of large, enthusiastic crowds marked the phenomenon of Pax Dei as one of the first popular religious movements of the Middle Ages. In the initial phase, the mixture of relics, crowds and enthusiasm characterized the movement with an exceptionally popular character.
After a lull in the first two decades of the eleventh century, the movement spread to the north of France with the support of king Robert II of France. There, the high nobility sponsored Peace assemblies throughout Flanders, Burgundy, Champagne, Normandy, the Amiénois, and Berry. The oaths to keep the peace sworn by nobles spread in time to the villagers themselves; heads of households meeting communally would ritually swear to uphold the common peace.
The tenth-century foundation of the Cluny Abbey in Burgundy aided the development of the Peace of God. Cluny was independent of any secular authority, subject to the Papacy alone, and while all church territory was inviolate, Cluny's territory extended far beyond its own boundaries. A piece of land 30 km in diameter was considered to be part of Cluny itself, and any smaller monastery that allied itself with Cluny was granted the same protection from violence. A Peace of God council gave this grant in Anse in 994. The monastery was also immune from excommunications, interdicts, and anathemas, which would normally affect an entire region. Fleury Abbey was granted similar protection. Many Cluniac monks came from the same knightly class whose violence they were trying to stop.
The movement was not very effective. However it set a precedent that would be followed by other successful popular movements to control nobles' violence such as medieval communes.
The phrase "Peace of God" also occurs as a general term meaning "under the protection of the Church" and was used in various contexts in medieval society. Pilgrims traveling on crusades, for example, did so under the "peace of God," that is, under the protection of the Church. This general use of the term does not always refer to the "Peace and Truce of God" movement.
Georges Duby summarised the widening social repercussions of Pax Dei: