Peace and Truce of God

The Peace and Truce of God was a medieval Church movement that sought to limit violence by protecting noncombatants, church property, and designated days from warfare.

Peace of God: A movement that placed noncombatants and their property under ecclesiastical protection from violence. It established protected people and places through public oaths and church sanctions.
Council of Charroux: A regional church council held in Aquitaine in 989 that issued early Peace of God canons. Its canons are among the earliest surviving formal statements of the movement's protections.
Odo of Cluny: A tenth-century abbot of Cluny associated with early efforts to promote the Peace of God. He helped bring ecclesiastical and monastic authority to early peace initiatives.
Chivalry: A medieval code of conduct associated with knights, combining martial obligations with Christian and social ideals. Church efforts to restrain violence contributed to ideals governing how Christian warriors should behave.
Feud: A prolonged cycle of retaliatory violence between families, groups, or their allies. Peace initiatives aimed to interrupt the cycles of retaliation characteristic of feuding.
Truce of God: A medieval Church initiative that prohibited fighting on specified days and seasons. It extended restraint from protected targets to periods when warfare was forbidden.
Aquitaine: A historical region of southwestern France that became a major center of the Peace of God movement. The movement's earliest documented councils appeared in this region.
Guy of Anjou: A bishop of Le Puy associated with promoting the Peace of God in southern France around 975. His regional preaching and assemblies helped establish the movement before Charroux.
Just war theory: A tradition of ethical reasoning about when war may be fought and how it must be conducted. Both address limits on violence, though the movement focused on protected people, places, and times.
Royal justice: The administration of law and punishment by a monarch or royal government. It relied on secular authority, unlike peace rules enforced principally through church institutions and communal oaths.

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Council of ClermontRelated: The council redirected ideals of restraining Christian violence toward warfare abroad.