Nonviolence Read Online Free PDF Page B

begun at a 975 meeting in an open field outside the city walls of Le Puy, which is today in France. From the beginning the movement was not reallyabout peace. The meeting was called by the Church to discuss the raiding and looting of Church holdings by noblemen leading peasant armies. The noblemen were forced to take an oath that they would no longer commit such acts of aggression against Church property. If they broke their oath the penalty was excommunication. But the threat was also backed up by considerable military might.
    The meeting in Le Puy was considered a great success, and others followed on the same model. To attack Church property— buildings, clergy, livestock, crops, olive trees, peasants while harvesting—was a crime against the pax dei. Sometimes widows, orphans, and others considered to be defenseless were also included in the protection of the Peace of God. Some fifty years later, either coming out of the Peace of God movement or running alongside it—historians disagree on this point—a movement arose called truega dei, the Truce of God.
    A truce is not a peace. The Truce of God movement did little to end war but did a great deal to establish the power of the Church. The Church declared a moratorium on warfare during holy days just as it had ordered abstinence from sex and red meat on those days. Since holy days made up more than half the days of the year, including every Sunday, the Truce of God meant that by Church orders, under threat of excommunication, a king who was engaged in a war had to constantly lay down his sword for a day or two in mid-campaign. This alone made the Church far more powerful than it had ever been.
    This strengthened Church enforced its authority to stop violence not only by the threat of excommunication but by mobilizing powerful armies, which it used to wage war to chastise “peacebreakers” who had violated Church truce days. Among the combatants in these Church armies were clergymen killing for peace, a just war. These armies, sometimes called peace militias, unleashed terror on populations, razing whole castles and slaughtering peasants who had fled to the protection of the castle ramparts. In one incident the peace militia massacred fourteen hundred men and women. Sometimes peace-breaking lords would retaliate and slaughter hundredsof clergy. They were two opposing dominions, the religious and the secular, rallying military might to fight for power.
    How far Christianity had come from the time when a Christian, by definition, took no part in warfare. Until the eighth century, clerics had been barred from combat, even in a “just war.” After that they were allowed to accompany troops to celebrate mass, hear confessions, and perform other priestly functions. Even in the eleventh century clerics were forbidden to bear arms. But as the Church asserted its power, it took on more military functions, provisioning armies, conscripting soldiers, and finally leading campaigns. Some priests went into battle with clubs, because they believed it was unchristian to wield a sword. After all, Augustine had argued that Jesus was not really talking about loving one's enemies but simply loving the reflection of God that was within them. A priest could love the reflection of God within someone and still club that person to death, which was more moral than stabbing or chopping him to death.
    By the early eleventh century, Christians were venturing the opinion that not only was violence acceptable but that killing pleased God when done in the cause of the Church. The killing of “false Christians” pleased God and was not to be considered homicide. Then in 1063 Pope Alexander II wrote Wilfred, Archbishop of Narbonne, that there were two exceptional circumstances under which killing people was permissible: in punishing crimes and in stopping aggression. He offered an example of stopping aggression: stopping the Saracens, a somewhat pejorative Western term for Muslims. In fact, by the