Medieval France
. The movement known as the Peace of God spawned a new movement, in which councils shifted emphasis from protecting classes of people at all times to banning all military activity at certain times of the year (Lent) or week (Thursday sunset to Mondays sunrise). The Truce of God placed less emphasis on popular enthusiasm and more on the attempts of committed elements of the warrior and clerical orders to restore peace: enforcement tended to fall into the hands of the counts, the dukes, and their allies. Although juridically distinguishable, the Truce and the Peace were considered virtually synonomous by contemporaries. Beginning in the late 1020s in the south, the movement found favor among the rulers of western Europe from Spain to Germany during the later 11th century and throughout the 12th.
Had it ever been fully effective, the Truce of God would have severely limited feudal warfare, since any sustained campaign could only operate half the week, and the warriors’ traditional Fields of March would be transformed into the pilgrims’ Lenten road. Even when frequently transgressed, the Truce maintained an important place in public opinion and discourse, and many a ruler could clothe his rivalry with the aristocracy in the rhetoric of enforcing the peace. In fact, by permitting the use of designated armies (comital, ducal, royal) to enforce the Truce, the movement directly contributed to a distinction between public and private rights to the use of violence that, mutatis mutandis, would lead to the formation of that institution with a monopoly on violence: the modern state.
Richard Landes
[See also: PEACE OF GOD]
Cowdrey, Herbert E.J. “The Peace and the Truce of God in the Eleventh Century.” Past and Present 46(1970):42–67.
Erdmann, Carl.
The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall W.Baldwin and Walter Goffart. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Grabois, Aryeh. “De la trêve de Dieu à la paix du roi: étude sur les transformations du mouvement de la paix au XIIe siècle.” In Mélanges d’histoire médiévale dédiés à René Crozet, ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou. 2 vols. Poitiers: Société d’Études Médiévales, 1966, Vol. 1, pp. 585–96.
Hoffmann, Hartmut. Gottesfriede und Treuga Dei. Munich: Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 1964.
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