Peace and Truce of God

[6] 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

[12] 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.

[17] At the Benedictine abbey of Charroux in La Marche on the borders of the Aquitaine "a great crowd of many people (populus) gathered there from the Poitou, the Limousin, and neighbouring regions.

[18] 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.

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.

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.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries many a village grew up in the shadow of the church, in the zone of immunity where violence was prohibited under peace regulations.

[23] Ademar is a monk of Saint-Eparchius of Angoulême, who spent time at Saint-Martial in Limoges and was a historian, liturgist, grammarian, and artist.

Landes, known for his work on apocalyptic currents of thought around the year 1000, argues that conciliar activities in Limoges and other areas of Aquitaine are crucial to understanding the role of the God's Peace movement as a whole because of the combination of apocalyptic attitudes toward the end of the tenth century and the popularity of penitential practices for natural and man-made disasters.

This process of projection radically transforms Valeria's pagan fiancé Stephen from a local nobleman's son into the powerful duke of the Gauls, a mirror image of William V (993–1030), with his pilgrimage to Rome, his devotion to Martial, his love of the church and of peace.

Elsewhere Martial exorcises Exodus, the demon leader of a diabolic band, so named because he loved strife and dissension – the very personification of that bellicose temperament so rampant among the warrior class, the great enemy of the Peace of God.

[27] Performing many supposed miracles along the way, and ending feuds between many different types of people, this tour helped Pope Urban II's declaration of the Truce of God in 1095 become implemented in Flanders and its surrounding area more quickly.

[30] Proclaimed in 1027 at the Council of Toulouges, the bishops attempted to limit the days of the week and times of year that the nobility engaged in violence.

[30] It confirmed permanent peace for all churches and their grounds, the monks, clerks and chattels; all women, pilgrims, merchants and their servants, cattle and horses; and men at work in the fields.

And now that you have promised to maintain the peace among yourselves you are obligated to succour your brethren in the East, menaced by an accursed race, utterly alienated from God.

Advances in metallurgy made it possible to engrave inscriptions and images of sacred symbols on helmets, swords, shields, the saddle and bridle of a horse.

[34] In addition to the Peace and Truce of God movement, the clergy used other nonviolent, though less direct, methods of controlling violence.

Those who violated this prohibition were to be punished as peacebreakers (fractores pacis) by the king's officer and the elected bishop of le Puy-en-Velay.