PEACE OF GOD. — The disintegration of the Carolingian Empire caused the disappearance of that program of peace and justice which Charlemagne had identified with the imperial mission and entrusted to his successors in the Empire. The feudal world that dominated all Europe in the tenth century was filled with wars. Conflicts arose around the grants that princes made to their vassals of comital offices and beneficiary lands: the organization of the fief demanded continuous struggles—struggles between vassals and their princely lords, struggles between vassals and vassals, struggles within the fief itself. The authority of the princes could not impose itself; there were neither courts nor arbiters. Violence prevailed; every order, decision, or action immediately assumed the appearance of an extralegal act of violence. The Church proceeded rigorously: it inflicted severe penalties on anyone who killed; it prohibited vengeance and punished those who killed in revenge; it prohibited the usurpation of the property of churches and monasteries and punished those who violated the prohibition; the same applied to those who damaged ecclesiastical lands and killed or captured the peasants attached to them. Indeed, the Church extended the notion of sacrilege, applying it to all ecclesiastical property without distinction, and proclaimed anathema against anyone guilty of II.
The evil would seem to have been more serious in certain regions of France, since in 989, at the diocesan Council of Charroux (Poitiers), the bishops launched anathema against those who violently seized property from churches, those who robbed the property of the poor, and those who committed violence against churchmen. The following year a similar problem was discussed at the Council of Le Puy: the bishop summoned the neighboring bishops and the feudal lords of the region. Here too ecclesiastical penalties were imposed on all who committed violence against churches and ecclesiastics, then against those who harmed the peasants by taking their horses and livestock, and against those who robbed merchants on the roads. At Le Puy the bishops assembled the feudal lords and required them to swear to observe the conciliar decisions; when they refused, the Church’s dependents were called upon, and by force of arms they imposed them upon the recalcitrants. The idea of imposing peace upon feudal lords through religious penalties spread and gradually became more refined. In 997 it was the duke of Guyenne who, urged by the bishop, convened a council at Limoges: after issuing a proclamation similar to those of Le Puy and Charroux, the feudal lords present were invited to swear to a pact of peace and justice. At Poitiers, in 1000, the duke of Guyenne attended the Council: in order to impose peace in the region, it was established that every dispute over the usurpation of land should be decided judicially before the duke; if the procedure failed, the feudal lords would enforce the right of the injured party against the oppressor by force of arms. King Robert, too, around 1010, assembled bishops and feudal lords at Orléans to impose the preservation of peace through ecclesiastical penalties, because the Capetian monarchy lacked the strength to give effect to its laws.
Thus, outside royal action, the decisions taken at Le Puy in 990 continued to be adopted in the various French councils, with the feudal lords swearing to respect church property, sacred persons, the unfortunate, and merchants. At Verdun-sur-Doubs in 1016, bishops, nobles, and commoners swore to observe a broad formula intended to protect, in addition to churches, rural populations, agricultural property, and the animals necessary for cultivating the fields. A similar oath was imposed in 1023 at Soissons by the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Reims; in 1026 at Poitiers, and then at Bourges and Limoges. By then there was no council in the land of France at which similar proclamations, based on the love of God and neighbor, were not issued. It was called P. di D. because, in the name of God, peace had been announced to men of good will. Often, certainly, these were fleeting enthusiasms; often the person who swore was not one who was prepared never to do so. In several places, voluntary militias under the authority of the bishops were organized to combat violence with violence: thus, at Poitiers in 1038, the archbishop required all the faithful who had reached adulthood to observe the peace and to hasten under arms to fight anyone who violated II.
The p. di D. protected the Church and the weak, but it did not prevent war from continuing to rage. Therefore, in 1027, at the diocesan Synod of Elne (Roussillon), the question was raised of how to suspend warfare during certain periods: the pact (trenge) was established that no one should fight from Saturday evening until Monday morning; thus Sunday, the Lord’s Day, was respected. The idea developed rapidly: in 1041, at a Council of the province of Arles, it was decided that the Trenge Dei, as it came to be called, should last from Wednesday evening until Monday morning, thereby protecting the days of the Passion. Notice of the decision, which met with approval, was sent to the various dioceses: at the Council of Montrioud (Lausanne), it was decided to place under the protection of the truce not only the final four days of the week, but also the entire period of Advent and all of Lent until the octave of Easter; later, other councils included the days of Pentecost, the feasts of the Virgin, and those of certain saints, such as s. John the Baptist, s. Lawrence, and s. Michael.
From France these canons passed into Italy and Germany. There the idea was received and disseminated by the Emperor Henry IV, who at Constance in 1043 spoke in a church to a conciliar assembly to proclaim the dies indulgentiae. This institution does not seem to have been enthusiastically received by the Papacy, as a local initiative. In 1070, Alexander II wrote to Cunibert, bishop of Turin: «De treva Dei noviter intenta, specialem poenitentiam iniungere nolumus, quia in canonibus non habetur». Only at the Council of Clermont in 1095 did Urban II adopt it and proclaim it an official institution of the Church.
The influence of the peace of God and the truce of God should not be exaggerated. The organization of diocesan militias and the use of force to combat violence in practice brought dangerous consequences: excommunications and interdicts were not, generally, sufficient weapons for repressing violent men. Order and social peace were strengthened as the authority and material power of monarchs increased: feudal anarchy gradually disappeared within the great territorial organisms because the princes imposed their authority by force of arms, and violent men were struck down as enemies of the monarchical order. Thus, for example, this occurred in France during the twelfth century, thanks to the development of the Capetian monarchy; in Italy and Germany, it was the emperors who proclaimed territorial peace; in Italy peace would finally be implemented by the Lords of the fourteenth century; in Germany feudal anarchy would disappear only with the formation of the great States after the sixteenth century.
BIBLI: L. Hubert, Studien zur Rechtsgeschichte des Gottesfriedens und Landfriedens, Ansbach 1892; C. W. Gorris, De Deubbelden over oorlog en de benoemingen voor vrede in de elfde eeuw, Rimigen 1912; Mac Kinney, The people and public in the eleventh-century Peace Movement, in Speculum, 5 (1930). Vedi references in: F. Cognasso, La genesi delle Crociate, Turin 1934; C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzuggedankens, Stuttgart 1933, pp. 75–77, 327–31; A. Fliche-V. Martin, Hist. gen. de l'Église, VII, Paris 1946, pp. 483–513.