Peace of god

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In the early 11th century, the Peace of God movement spread across Europe. It attempted to stop feuding by making nobles swear oaths to let the arms rest on certain days. These oaths were taken on holy relics and a breach would bring spiritual punishment incl. excommunication.

The Peace of God movement was an act of desperation in parts of Europe where the authorities were unable to maintain order. It originated in France where central power under King Henri I (1031-1060) had shrunk to just the Ile de France (see recent post).

The (“German”) Emperor Henry III (1039-1056) borrowed some elements of the Peace of God movement. In 1043 he held a Synod where he assembled the nobles of Swabia. He first forgave every trespass committed against him. And then through prayers and exhortations he achieved a mutual reconciliation amongst all the Swabians present. They in turn forgave each other any trespass committed against them.

These peace happenings were repeated all across the country. The chronicler Hermann of Reichenau described the outcome as “a peace unheard of for many centuries that the king confirmed in an edict”.

The last sentence matters most: “confirmed by edict”. In other words, irrespective of the religious pomp, Henry III did order peace or more precisely banned feuding by secular law. There were only two rulers in Western Europe at this point who had enough centralised power to do that, the Duke of Normandy and the Emperor.

When people quote Voltaire’s quip that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire in relation to the 11th century, they could not be further from the truth. Leaving aside that the term Holy Roman Empire only coming into usage 200 years later, by 1044 the Empire was indeed sacred, led by a sacred ruler, it had inherited the ambitions of the Roman empire, and it was very much an empire, the most powerful and coherent political entity in Western Europe.

More on Henry III in Episode 26f of the History of the Germans

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The role of a medieval king is not only to expand the reach of Christianity, but also to bring peace and justice to his lands. In the 11th century the call for peace gets louder and louder, in particular in France. Peace is not so much the absence of large international war. What the population suffered most from were the incessant feuds between rival lords. When two rival lords had a disagreement, they rarely went on to fight it out as men. No, no, no, that would actually be dangerous. Much better to burn down the rival’s fields and murder his peasants. Unarmed peasants could not inflict much harm on an armoured rider and when the rival lord comes with his equally well-equipped men, you can always race back into the safe stone castle you had just built.

The simple equation is more stone castles equals more feuds equals more peasant misery. A king who wants to have peace in his lands needs to do one thing first and foremost, which is preventing his nobles from building castles. In an ideal world only the king would build and man castles. However, the 11th century is far from being an ideal world.

The world is particularly far from the ideal in France. King Henri I (1031-1060) is considered one of the weakest French kings in history. He was off to a bad start since he had to give the duchy of Burgundy to his brother Robert, shrinking the already modest royal possessions even further. Check on the map. The light blue bit is the only part of France King Henri I directly controlled.

His brother was not one of Henri’s most pressing problems. He also had to deal with his overbearing magnates. The two most irritating ones were the Counts of Anjou (dark green) and the Counts of Blois-Champagne (yellow) who would usually fight each other. Count Fulk III “the Black” of Anjou was famous for building castles. He is said to have built almost 100 of these, mostly in stone, the ruins of which are still terrifying.

Then you had the Dukes of Normandy (dark brown) and the Dukes of Aquitaine (mid green) who were a bit further afield from Henri’s direct zone of control, but often intervened in the struggles. New powers rose as well like the Counts of Flanders and the Counts of Toulouse. But even the magnates were not able to maintain order much beyond their castle walls, which meant every little count, baron or castellan built his own castle(s) and went merrily along brutalising the villeins. In this chaotic environment the Peace of God or Truce of God movement gained traction. The idea was to bring the perpetrator of violence to heel by threatening them with sanctions meted out by heavenly intervention. The Church took the lead and held several councils, the first in Le Puy in 975, but then quite regularly during the early 11th century with a frenzy of activity in the 1030s, the millennium of Christ’s passion and potential date for the arrival of the antichrist.

According to the monk Adhemar, these events were religious festivals where the bishops would whip the crowd into a frenzy through a generous display of relics and calls upon the saints to intervene. The warriors in presence would then declare their intention of making war on those who violate the peace of God. These attempts of pitching an army of saintly warriors has more than the whiff of crusaders to it and indeed the crusader movement incorporates elements of the Peace of God movement. It takes them to its logical conclusion which is sending the most violent and aggressive thugs out of the country. That being said, these holy armies or more accurately holy militias were rarely successful against the battle hardened Seigneurs.

That is why from the 1030s onwards a more manageable Truce of God was sought. The concept was that the lords would make vows on powerful relics promising to suspend warfare during the weekend, Saturday to Monday or even Wednesday to Monday as well as on high days and holy days. If they breached this obligation, they would be subject to all sorts of spiritual sanctions like banning from mass up to full excommunication. The imposition of these sanctions as well as the whole management of the Treuga Dei was initially in the hands of the church, mainly the bishops and abbots who regularly suffered from incursions by secular lords. The Abbey of Cluny became a key sponsor and coordinator for the Treuga Dei.

The Treuga Dei was needed most in the parts of France where central power was weakest. The dukes of Normandy whose duchy was tightly run were able to maintain public order by themselves without having to take recourse to the church.

Equally by 1035 the empire did (yet) not feel the need for a Treuga Dei. The central power was strong under Henry III and entirely capable to prevent feuds and control the construction of stone castles.

The continuation of this story is in Episode 27 of the History of the Germans

Map by Zigeuner – Own work, from France about 1035, in William R. Shepherd, The Historical Atlas, 1911 Data from the same and: Olivier Guyotjeannin, Atlas de l’histoire de France IXe-XVe siècle, Paris, 2005 François Menant, H. Martin, B. Merdignac & M. Chauvin, Les Capétiens – Histoire et dictionnaire 987-1328, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1999