Peace, Violence, and Saints, c. 1000–1150

Abstract

Abstract The chapter addresses the so-called ‘Peace of God’ movement, looking specifically at the evidence related to southern France, principally ecclesiastical councils plus some saints’ lives and miracles. Historiographical critiques of earlier interpretations of the Peace movement are rehearsed, noting that it is wrong to see the Church as straightforwardly opposing (lay, knightly) violence; rather, the peace councils constrained some kinds of violence whilst operating clearly within an existing framework of both ecclesial and lay lordship. Moreover, as previous studies have pointed out, the miraculous interventions of saints in this period were themselves quite frequently another form of violence, albeit directed toward the preservation of episcopal or monastic rights. The Peace councils are analysed also for what one can glean of ordinary expectations of lay faith, as are the preambles to charters. The chapter argues that the Peace councils coopted existing, albeit extraordinary, practices of saint worship orchestrated by bishops, and that the principal dynamic of ordinary lay people’s worship of saints was more akin to their relationship to lordship than something opposed to it.