Abstract
This chapter reviews both traditional and revisionist interpretations of the 'peace of God' movement in order to have a better understanding of its connection with eleventh-century reform as well as its repercussions for eleventh-century society. The 'peace of God' has been seen as something of a 'war on war', in other words, as a reaction to the disorder that resulted from the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire during the later ninth and tenth centuries. Among the chief difficulties in assessing both the nature and the significance of the 'peace of God' is that of the documentary evidence. In many ways what is most striking about the 'peace of God' has little do with the promotion of 'peace' at all. Rather it is the fact that churchmen were able to begin to persuade the ruling classes to accept their dictates and thereby prove their fitness to exercise power.
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