The 'Truce of God.'
45. The disastrous nature of the perpetual feudal warfare and the necessity of some degree of peace and order, had already become apparent even as early as the eleventh century. In spite of all the turmoil, mankind was making progress. Commerce and enlightenment were increasing in the older towns and preparing the way for the development of new ones. Those engaged in peaceful pursuits could not but find the prevailing disorder intolerable. The Church was untiring, as it was fitting that it should be, in its efforts to secure peace; and nothing redounds more to the honor of the bishops than the "Truce of God." This prohibited all hostilities from Thursday night until Monday morning, as well as upon all of the numerous fast days.[74] The church councils and the bishops required the feudal lords to take an oath to observe the weekly truce, and, by means of the dreaded penalty of excommunication, met with some success. With the opening of the Crusades in 1096, the popes undertook to effect a general pacification by diverting the prevailing warlike spirit against the Turks.
At the same time the king, in France and England at least, was becoming a power that made for order in the modern sense of the word. He endeavored to prevent the customary resort to arms to settle every sort of difficulty between rival vassals. By increasing the military force that he had at his command he compelled the submission of cases of dispute to his tribunals. But even St. Louis (d. 1270), who made the greatest efforts to secure peace, did not succeed in accomplishing his end. The gradual bettering of conditions was due chiefly to general progress and to the development of commerce and industry, which made the bellicose aristocracy more and more intolerable.
General Reading.—The older accounts of feudalism, such as that given by Guizot or Hallam, should be avoided as the reader is likely to be misled by them. The earlier writers appear, from the standpoint of recent investigations, to have been seriously mistaken upon many important points. In French, Luchaire, Manuel des Institutions Françaises (Hachette & Co., Paris, $3.00), and Esmein, Cours Élémentaire d'Histoire du Droit Français ($2.00), are excellent.
In English there is Emerton's Chapter XIV on "Feudal Institutions" in his Mediæval Europe, and Adams, Civilization, Chapter IX, devoted especially to the origin of feudalism. Cheyney gives a selection of documents relating to the subject in Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 3.
CHAPTER X
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE
Importance of studying the beginnings of the modern European states.