Truce of God

The Truce of God was a suspension of the warlike activity during certain periods of the year organized during the Moyen-âge in Europe by the Catholic church (historically, it longest took the form of a truce lasting of Wednesday evening at the Monday morning, like all the Avent, the time of Christmas, the Lent and the Temps Pascal).

More largely, the Peace and Trève of God were a movement of the Church of attempt at control of feudal violence by the application of religious sanctions. This movement constituted the first organized attempt at control of the civil society in medieval Europe by non-violent means. The truce of God makes following the movement of the Paix of God begun in 989 with the Concile from Charroux, begins with the Synod from Elne (where council from Toulouges) in 1027 and survived in forms varied until the 13th century.

Overall picture

The movement of the Truce of God was a weapon of the arsenal of the Church the purpose of which was to christianize and to pacify the feudal structures through non-violent means.

After the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, the royal authority is not capable any more to only answer the new challenges represent the invasions of IXe century. The Carolingian army is cut for an offensive strategy: the annual campaigns force the neighbors with the respect (they end besides up paying a tribute). This heavy logistics cannot answer the fast and ceaseless raids of buckwheats or the Vikings of which the principal asset is mobility. Consequently defense must be dealt with locally. At the 10th century, the castles proliferate sometimes with the contempt of any legality, their owners exerting protection and domination on the territories neighborhood.

This change, poses problem because it would imply that the pleasure of the grounds passes from a land elite to a warlike elite. Cutting is not linear: with the son of the donations the great land and buildings are extremely parcelled out and dispersed at long distances and the zone on which the chatelnery exerts its protection is perforated autonomous enclaves, which the lord claims to subject to same the royalties and same justice as his churls. Consequently the claim of the right of round of applause and justice on the grounds of church or laic owners whose goods and incomes are threatened, involves a strong dissatisfaction, the more so as the lords do not hesitate to use of violence and intimidate or maltreat the peasants or deliver themselves to plundering what does not fail to make assemble dissatisfaction in the population.

When the Church suffers from the local conflicts, the clergy then holds a council and invitations were sent to noble surroundings. If those came, the clergy exposed the Reliques saints at their disposal in large pump and made use of it like means of psychological pressure to incite them to promise the Truce of God.

However, it is not rare that the noble ones are not presented to the council, or do not hold their promises. In certain areas, the promise of peace was to be renewed regularly. In a general way, the movement of the Truce of God was not very effective, but had created a precedent on which other movements of control of the violence of noble would come to build like the common medieval S, or the Croisade S.

the Peace of God

With the approach of the year millet a strong movement of restoration of the religious authority is in hand. The writings of the time (Chronic S, accounts of miracles) describe crowd beseeching the help of the saints to the approach of the An millet. Raoul Glaber proposes the violence of the lords and misfortunes of times (the Ergotisme or badly of the burning ones who strikes in Aquitaine into 994 is perceived as a divine punishment) which involves large gatherings around relics of saints limousins. The ecclesiastics joined together in council to answer these gatherings will exploit this movement to impose the peace of God. If the Peace of God is based on a popular movement in its first phase (989-1010), it then profits from the support of the king Robert II the Piles and of the nobility who see a means there of structuring and to pacify the kingdom. The oaths establish a legal and land compromise between laic armed and ecclesiastical: they institutionalize the seigniory. The fight of the Church against violences seigneuriales assoit also by the decisions of its councils the new social order organizing the company in three order S.

The application of the decrees is guaranteed by the solemn undertaking, the oath of peace, that the participants in the councils lend themselves and that they endeavor to obtain the large ones. The constrained oath those which swore it to respect their engagements.

To force the recalcitrant ones, three types of solutions could be employed:

justice: the Church endeavors to revalorize the negociations and the recourse to justice. With the council of Poitiers, one decides that the conflicts will have to be carried in front of the legal authority of the area. In Limoges, it is decided that the disagreements will have to be regulated by peace in this assembly and not by violence with the outside. The oath of Vienna seeks before very regulating the dispute by the dialog and the dialog, and increasing the jurisdiction of the bishop.
spiritual sanctions: the prelates sacrilize the conciliar precedents. With those which will observe these precepts, the bishops will grant the discharge of their sins and the eternal blessing, but they will launch curses and excommunications against those which refuse to obey the episcopal instructions, against those which dispute the ecclesiastical properties and which refuse to rely on the judgment of the princes and the prelates. The Church mainly used the anathema (major excommunication), the Excommunication or the Interdit (deprivation of the spiritual goods (religious offices, crowned ground burial, sacraments)), which spreads and which becomes the principal weapon of the bishops. These curses are only provisional, the goal being to bring the faulty ones in front of justice.
the armed force: the Church also can makes use of it if need be, if the other means had not been followed effects. We can quote for the example Guy of Anjou, bishop of Puy, which has constrained all its diocesans to swear peace under the threat of the weapons. The need for armed defense could be related to the real weakening of the royal capacity, then ducal, since the beginning of Xe century.

It is not a question of a universal peace, but thus especially of a movement aiming at protecting the goods from Church. It is by no means question of regulating the right of war, neither to prohibit in a general way the spoils of the private wars, nor to withdraw to the peasants from the misdeeds of one supposed trained knighthood of militate uncontrolled. For example, with the Council of Limoges in 1031, the decisions relate to only the only right of the Church and it is thus not question of the law and order. With Vienna, it is not a question to prohibit the private war, but to limit the effects of them to these only which are implied there (thus people of war). In particular the peace of God does not aim at limiting the war between princes and the oath of Verdun on Doubs (about 1020) evokes the illegal castles which it is necessary to besiege with the king, the count or the bishop, authorizing the lifting of unpleasant for this type of actions. The swearer is exempted of his oath when it takes part in the ost of the king, the counts or the bishops, but it will owe however enfreindre sauvetés of the churches, “except if” one refused to him to sell the vivres necessary to him. On the whole, the oaths of the peace of God, authorize a certain number of exactions and act less on general peace than on the introduction of a company in 3 states or the role of each one is better and better defined.

Moreover, the oaths very often have a period of validity: for example, that of Verdun-on-the-Doubs forced the swearers only during seven years.

The movement stops at the borders of the Lotharingie where the authority of the Ottonien S made it possible to guarantee safety.

The movement of the truce of God

The peace of God took part in the introduction of the feudal order, but little in medieval peace. The movement rebounded in 1027, in Catalonia where Oliva de Besalù the bishop of Vich very related to Cluny launches the Truce of God with the Synod of Elne (known as council of Toulouges, 1027), then in 1033 a synod with Vich, its own diocese. It introduces a temporal concept: the exactions and combat are prohibited Sunday.

To Vic, the truce is defined as protection of the Christians for the liturgical periods, and raises of the only clergy contrary to the peace which concerns the count and the bishop. To Vic, one finds the triptych of Charroux: the crowned space of the thirty steps around the church, the unpleasant ones not to maltreat, neither to strip them their clothing, nor of their wax (article of Puy, this time). As for the oath of Vienna, it is also necessary to take guard with the mules and mules and not to destroy houses: this time, one protects from advantage the life and the work of the peasants: this same promulgating council as No Christian does not kill another Christian, because that which kills a Christian it is the blood of the Christ who it répend; so however one kills wrongfully, which we do not want, it will be necessary to pay for that a fine according to the law. . It is this movement, more than peace of God who in the facts founds medieval peace.

It is as during this period as the movement (of Peace-Truce) is institutionalized, taken in hand exclusively by the reforming clerks, bishops and monks. At the time of the councils of second half of XIe century, are promulgated at the same time provisions of peace and truce, the two institutions being from now on dependant.

The Truce of God is not the only non-violent means used by the Church: she manages for example to add religious oaths in the oaths of vassalage, adding a surplus of authority which made it possible to channel violences. One can see in this the concerted combination of the spiritual authorities ( potestas ) and secular ( auctoritas ) which build the Christian government since the 5th century.

Evolution of the movement

The peace and the truce of God are not the only tools used by the church for moraliser the control of the knighthood: she introduces also religious concepts into the oaths of vassalage.

By the Peace of God, the Church does not seek to prohibit the war and to promote peace: it moralise the peace and the war according to their objectives and of its interests. It is in that the Peace of God constitutes an important preparatory stage of the formation of the idea of crusade. The dukes and counts find enough being able to take again in hand the movement of peace: in 1047, in Normandy, the Peace of God becomes the peace of the duke (council of Caen); in 1064 in Catalonia, it becomes the peace of the count. In same time, peace is internationalized, extending to the adjoining countries from France: Germanic Catalonia, England, countries. Papacy consolidates finally the movement: Urbain II, former monk clunisien, takes again at the time of the council of Clermont (1095) the provisions promulgated with the councils of peace. It invites all the Christians there to observe between them a perpetual peace and with going to fight the heretic. Thus Peace leads to the Croisade. Even with the crusades, the movement guaranteed not completely peace in the medieval occident: of return of crusade the knights hear with being all the more respected and feel free to punish those which would be put across their interests. However many are those which in spite of the protection of the church see their good despoiled during their absence. This being, the crusades make it possible to create military Ordres, where the knights adopt a monastic life, becoming true soldiers of Christ.

XIIe century, at the same time as it is period of rebuilding of the royal capacity, sees changing the movement of Peace. During first half of the century, the king takes again in hand the royal field, making move back the ambitions of the lords of the manor. In same time, the Church and the papacy of which call to the civil authorities (king and princes) to ensure the legal prerogatives again. It is within the framework of this restoration of the royal authority that Louis VII recovers the institution of Peace in 1155: the Peace of God becomes the Peace of the king.

See too

External bonds

historical Document

a truce of God in the South of France in XIe century

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