[61] Ibid. ii. 57 sq.
[62] Du Cange, loc. cit. p. 124 sqq. Honoré de Sainte Marie, op. cit. p. 186. Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 75.
[63] Du Cange, loc. cit. p. 125 sq.
Closely connected with the feudal system was the practice of private war. Though tribunals had been instituted, and even long after the kings’ courts had become well-organised and powerful institutions, a nobleman had a right to wage war upon another nobleman from whom he had suffered some gross injury.[64] On such occasions not only the relatives, but the vassals, of the injured man were bound to help him in his quarrel, and the same obligation existed in the case of the aggressor.[65] Only greater crimes were regarded as legitimate causes of private war,[66] but this rule was not at all strictly observed.[67] As a matter of fact, the barons fled to arms upon every quarrel; he who could raise a small force at once made war upon him who had anything to lose. The nations of Europe were subdivided into innumerable subordinate states, which were almost independent, and declared war and made treaties with all the vigour and all the ceremonies of powerful monarchs. Contemporary historians describe the excesses committed in prosecution of these intestine quarrels in such terms as excite astonishment and horror; and great parts of Europe were in consequence reduced to the condition of a desert, which it ceased to be worth while to cultivate.[68]
[64] The right of private war generally supposed nobility of birth and equality of rank in both the contending parties (Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis, lix. 5 sq. vol. ii. 355 sqq.; Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V. i. 329). But it was also granted to the French communes, and to the free towns in Germany, Italy, and Spain (Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes, ii. 348).
[65] Du Cange, loc. cit. pp. 450, 458.
[66] Ibid. p. 445 sq. Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 341. von Wächter, Beiträge zur deutschen Geschichte, p. 46.
[67] We read of a nobleman who declared war against the city of Frankfort, because a lady residing there had promised to dance with his cousin, but danced with another; and the city was obliged to satisfy the wounded honour of the gentleman (von Wächter, op. cit. p. 57).
[68] Robertson, op. cit. i. 332.
The Church made some feeble attempts to put an end to this state of things. Thus, about the year 990, ordinances were directed against the practice of private war by several bishops in the south of France, who agreed to exclude him who violated their ordinances from all Christian privileges during his life, and to deny him Christian burial after his death.[69] A little later, men engaged in warfare were exhorted, by sacred relics and by the bodies of saints, to lay down their arms and to swear that they would never again disturb the public peace by their private hostilities.[70] But it is hardly likely that such directions had much effect as long as the bishops and abbots themselves were allowed to wage private war by means of their vidames, and exercised this right scarcely less frequently than the barons.[71] Nor does it seem that the Church brought about any considerable change for the better by establishing the Truce of God, involving obligatory respite from hostilities during the great festivals of the Church, as also from the evening of Wednesday in each week to the morning of Monday in the week ensuing.[72] We are assured by good authorities that the Truce was generally disregarded, though the violator was threatened with the penalty of excommunication.[73] Most barons could probably say with Bertram de Born:—“La paix ne me convient pas; la guerre seule me plaît. Je n’ai égard ni aux lundis, ni aux mardis. Les semaines, les mois, les années, tout m’est égal. En tout temps, je veux perdre quiconque me nuit.”[74] The ordinance enjoining the treuga Dei was transgressed even by the popes.[75] It was too unpractical a direction to be obeyed, and was soon given up even in theory by the authorities of the Church. Thomas Aquinas says that, as physicians may lawfully apply remedies to men on feast-days, so just wars may be lawfully prosecuted on such days for the defence of the commonwealth of the faithful, if necessity so requires; “for it would be tempting God for a man to want to keep his hands from war under stress of such necessity.”[76] And in support of this opinion he quotes the first Book of the Maccabees, where it is said, “Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the sabbath day, we will fight against him.”[77]