PACE of GOD
The collapse of the Carolingian Empire led to 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 of Europe in the 10th century was full of wars. Conflicts arose over the concessions that princes made to their faithful of comital offices and benefice lands: the organization of the fief required continuous struggles—struggles between vassals and their princely lords, struggles among vassals themselves, and struggles within the fief itself. The authority of princes could not prevail; there were no courts, no arbiters. Violence reigned; any order, decision, or action immediately took on the character of an extra-legal violent act. The Church acted rigorously: it imposed severe penalties on those who killed; it forbade vengeance and punished those who killed in revenge; it forbade the usurpation of the goods of churches and monasteries and punished those who violated the prohibition, as well as those who damaged ecclesiastical lands, killed, or captured the peasants attached to them. The Church even extended the notion of sacrilege, applying it to all ecclesiastical goods without distinction, and pronounced anathema against those guilty of such acts.
The evil seemed especially grave in certain regions of France, for in 989 at the diocesan council of Charroux (Poitiers) the bishops launched an anathema against those who forcibly seized church goods, those who robbed the poor, and those who committed acts of violence against churchmen. The following year, a similar issue was discussed at the Council of Le Puy: the bishop summoned neighboring bishops and the regional feudal lords. Here, too, ecclesiastical penalties were imposed on those who committed violence against churches and ecclesiastics, then on those who harmed peasants by stealing their horses and livestock, and on those who robbed merchants along the roads. At Le Puy, the bishops gathered the feudal lords and required them to swear to uphold the conciliar decisions; when they refused, the Church’s armed dependents were used to enforce compliance. The idea of imposing peace upon feudal lords through religious penalties spread and developed further. In 997, the Duke of Aquitaine, 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 a pact of peace and justice. At Poitiers in 1000, the Duke of Aquitaine attended the council, and to impose peace in the region it was decreed that any dispute over land usurpation would be decided judicially before the duke; if the procedure failed, the feudal lords would enforce the right against the oppressor by force of arms. Around the same time, King Robert convened bishops and feudal lords at Orléans to enforce the preservation of peace through ecclesiastical penalties, for the Capetian monarchy lacked the strength to enforce its laws.
Thus, outside royal authority, the decisions taken at Le Puy in 990 continued to be adopted in various French councils, with feudal lords swearing to respect church goods, sacred persons, the helpless, and merchants. At Verdun-sur-Doubs in 1016, bishops, nobles, and commoners swore an oath to uphold a broad formula aimed at protecting, in addition to churches, rural populations, agricultural lands, and the animals necessary for farming. A similar oath was imposed in 1023 at Soissons by the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Reims; in 1026 at Poitiers, then at Bourges and Limoges. By now, there was no council in France where such proclamations, based on the love of God and neighbor, were not issued. It was called the *Pace di Dio* because in God’s name peace had been announced to men of good will. Often, however, these were fleeting enthusiasms; often those who swore were not those ready to act righteously. In many places, voluntary militias under the bishops’ authority were organized to combat violence with violence: thus at Poitiers in 1038, the archbishop required all adult faithful to uphold the peace and to take up arms to fight those who violated II.
The *Pace di Dio* protected the Church and the weak, but it did not prevent war from raging on. Therefore, in 1027 at the diocesan synod of Elne (Roussillon), discussion turned to ways of suspending war during certain periods: a pact (*treuga*) was established whereby no one would fight from Saturday evening to Monday morning, so that Sunday, the Lord’s Day, would be respected. The idea developed rapidly: in 1041, a council of the province of Arles decreed that the *Treuga Dei*, as it was called, would last from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, thus protecting the days of the Passion. The decision was communicated to various dioceses and met with approval; at the Council of Montrioud (Lausanne), it was decreed that the truce would protect not only the last four days of the week but also the entire Advent season, all of Lent until the octave of Easter; later, in other councils, the days of Pentecost, the feasts of the Virgin and of certain saints such as St. John the Baptist, St. Lawrence, and St. Michael were included.
From France, these canons spread to Italy and Germany. There, the idea was embraced and spread by Emperor Henry IV, who at Constance in 1043 addressed a conciliar assembly in church to proclaim the *dies indulgentiae*. This institution does not appear to have been welcomed with enthusiasm by the Papacy as a local initiative. In 1070, Alexander II wrote in a letter to Bishop Cuniberto 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 and proclaim it an official institution of the Church.
The influence of the *Pace di Dio* and the *Treuga Dei* should not be exaggerated. The organization of diocesan militias and the use of force to combat violence often had dangerous consequences: excommunications and interdicts were generally not sufficient weapons to suppress the violent. Order and social peace were strengthened as the authority and material power of monarchs grew: feudal anarchy disappeared within the larger territorial bodies as princes imposed their authority by force and the violent were struck down as enemies of monarchical order. This occurred, for example, in France during the 12th 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 be definitively established by the Signori of the 14th century; in Germany, feudal anarchy would disappear only with the formation of the great states after the 16th century.