Beginning in the late tenth century in Southern Francia, bishops in concert with local secular magnates agreed upon rules to protect certain classes of people (for example, peasants and unarmed clergy) and property (for example, churches and church lands) from violence and exactions, an institution known even at the time as the Peace of God; within a few decades, the protection was applied to certain periods of the week and the year in the Truce of God. By the end of the eleventh century, versions of the Peace and Truce are found from Catalonia to Normandy to Flanders. It enjoyed an afterlife in German Landfrieden and in imperial and French royal ordinances. This slim volume appears in a new series devoted to “concise critical overviews of the latest research” on topics in medieval European history for scholars and students. It meets that aim by surveying briskly the complex history and historiography of the Peace, with plentiful citations to the original sources and key studies. But the author manages much more. By presenting early medieval analogues (chapter 1) and later medieval developments (chapter 3), he is able to show what is distinctive about what was happening around the year 1000 and why this classic Peace is so significant for what came after. This is a concise overview with a clear argument.

While the Peace drew on aspects of Carolingian ideas of peace, it was much more restricted, grounded in a long history of consensual agreements (pacts) rather than grand notions of hierarchy and order; sixth-century Gallic councils provide better antecedents than do ninth-century capitularies. And while some of the elements of the classic Peace and Truce lasted into the twelfth century and beyond, it was increasingly institutionalized with regular procedures and revenues, and increasingly used by kings in their efforts at lawmaking. Indeed the strongest original contribution of this volume is Koziol's insistence that the Peace is an essential part of the history of legislation. In contrast to the overly ambitious reform program of the Carolingians, the Peace was “good legislation . . . It aimed at the achievable” (69). As for its initial cause, he argues that the Peace was a response not so much to an increase in violence but to an increase in lordship, especially in the context of the absence of a unitary political authority in certain regions. It was realistic and achievable because it did not try to outlaw lordship and violence but rather channeled them; since lords saw the imposition of the Peace as in their own interest, enforcement did not rely on princely authority, which would have been insufficient in any case. But princes did learn how to use the Peace, as cover for policies, as an opportunity to perform leadership, and as a way to experiment with creating laws. They ultimately turned it into something “that had little to do with God, or even the Church” (94).

Koziol weighs in in a clear-headed fashion on the many earlier debates surrounding the Peace, usually showing that there are elements of truth on both sides, with disagreements arising from regional differences on the one hand, and the variety of sources on the other. Was it a movement or program, or instead a series of unconnected occurrences? While local contexts are always relevant, the consistent nature of the provisions links the different instances of the Peace, even where direct influence cannot be proven. Was it a popular movement? The monastic nature of the evidence gives pause, but skepticism can be taken too far. Was there a millenarian element? It was present but not omnipresent. Was it ecclesiastical or secular? The sanctions of the early “episcopal” Peace went well beyond excommunication, and the later “royal” Peace was often couched in explicitly religious language. Was it connected to the “feudal revolution?” Yes, but not in the simple way that it has often been. One theme that he does not address in depth is mentioned only in the work's penultimate sentence: the place of the Peace in the history of the laws of war. By exploring the afterlife of the classic Peace, he makes possible a reevaluation of that connection—one that is often noted but has never been adequately explained. The conventions of the series in which the volume appears lead to some flaws: microscopic maps; a limited, idiosyncratic annotated bibliography; and no index. Hartmut Hoffmann, Gottesfriede und Treuga Dei (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1964) remains the essential study of the sources, and Thomas Head and Richard Landes, eds., The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992) will still prove useful for historiography and translations. But Koziol's volume is now unquestionably the best thing in English on the Peace of God.