Peace, Holy War, and the Medieval Knight

Purpose of Study: The Peace of God movement of the eleventh century was originally meant to limit knightly violence away from Church lands. The first edicts of the peace movement - no stealing of livestock, no sacking of the Church's lands, and no harming unarmed clergymen - demonstrated this. Throughout the century more edicts were added to it, extending protections to the peasantry and merchants along with creating days of peace that must observed and no man could bear arms on those days. The purpose of this study is to prove that these edicts led to the development of chivalry as they intertwined with ecclesiastical power and knightly literature between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Procedure: To show that the edicts of the peace movement led to the development of chivalry, a large variety of sources were studied from decrees of the Peace of God/Truce of God to papal letters and other ecclesiastical documents. It was also important to include the crusades because it was the first sanctioning of knightly violence on a wide scale and it gave birth to the Christian knight. In order to gather support for each crusade and the development of the Christian knight further, the Chansons de Gestes were also studied. However, as the twelfth century progressed knightly values began to change, which were shown in the Arthurian romances and gave birth to the chivalrous knight. Findings: The tenets of self-defense being permitted, protection of non-combatants, and all knights must serve a penance from the Peace of God/Truce of God were evident in nearly every source I studied. These tenets combined with the increased piety that came about from the popular piety movements of the eleventh century that allowed a gradual spread of the Cluniac and Gregorian reforms made the concept of crusade a reality. The crusader preaching utilized these tenets to sanction knightly violence so that knights were given the opportunity to acquire absolution as warriors of God. The Chansons de Gestes reflected the same sentiments of fighting and dying for God. However, this changed after Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae in 1136, which introduced the knightly values of individuality, tournament, and courtly conduct. This gave birth of the chivalrous knight that allowed knights to no longer fight for God but instead fight for these new values. Conclusion: The tenets of the peace movement influenced and evolved knightly values over the span of eleventh and twelfth centuries. It defined whom to attack and whom to defend. The knightly literature demonstrated this so that knights would emulate fighting for God and eventually for their individual beliefs. All of these factors led to the development of chivalry from an ecclesiastical and secular standpoint, not one or the other as other scholars have argued.