The People and Public Opinion in the Eleventh-Century Peace Movement

Abstract

I N the few existing treatises in the English language on the Peace and Truce of God, the popular aspects of the movement and its connection with the development of public opinion have scarcely been mentioned.' Another phase of the subject deserving attention is the relationship between the unusual public sentiment for peace in France and similar aspects of the early crusading period in the same regions. In this brief survey, it is intended merely to show the remarkable development of popular interest and cooperative public action in the eleventh-century peace movement, without entering into technical distinctions and detailed histories of the various types of peace institutions. France, the region par excellence of Crusades, of the Peace and Truce, of revival preachers and councils, and of similar popular enthusiasms, must be the basic field of interest and research; the period under consideration is mainly the eleventh century. Although the Peace of God originated during the late tenth century, its major development came in successive waves of revival and reform that swept over France during the first half of the eleventh century. Meanwhile the peace movement had assumed a more effective form, the Truce of God, and eventually a combined Peace-