Produced by Geoff Horton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A Tale of the Eleventh Century
By
George Henry Miles
With an Introduction By
John C. Reville, S.J., Ph.D.
New York
Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.
London: B. Herder
"The Truce of God" by our American novelist and dramatist, George HenryMiles, is not only a romantic and interesting story, it recalls one ofthe most striking achievements of the Middle Ages.
After the tide of barbarian invasion, Goths and Vandals, Heruli,Burgundians and Franks had swept away the edifice of Roman civilization,had it not been for the regenerating influence of Christianity, anotherempire as cruel would have risen on the ruins of Rome. No other powerwould then have ruled but the sword. The sword was king, and receivedthe worship of thousands. Now and then a ruler appeared like Theodoric,Charlemagne, the Lombard Luitprand, who used the sword on the whole forjust and beneficent ends. And because these warrior kings, even in themidst of their conquests, brought some of the blessings of peace totheir subject peoples, these peoples welcomed their sway. Peace was,then as now, one of the world's needs.
Although the eighth, ninth and succeeding century were not without theirbrighter sides and were not those totally Dark Ages they have beenrepresented by the enemies of the Church, nevertheless, seeds of evilpassions, which in spite of her endeavors the Church had been unablecompletely to stifle, lingered in the hearts of those strong-limbed,strong-passioned Teutonic races which had succeeded to the tasks andresponsibilities of pagan Rome. Those races did not have Rome'sorganizing power. By force, it is true, in a great measure, but forceintelligently applied, but also by patience, by an instinct for justiceand for order, Rome had welded her vast empire into a coherent whole.Rome really, and effectively ruled. She had authority, she had prestige,she was respected and feared, until the fatal day when, for her vicesand tyranny, she began to be hated. That day her fate was sealed.
The Teutonic races lacked the power of organization. They were strongand comparatively free from the vices of Rome; they had a rude sense ofjustice. But that very sense and instinct for that one essential ofordered life drove the individual to take the execution of the law andof justice into his own hands and to claim his rights at the point ofthe sword. The result can be easily imagined. The sword was never for along time thrust back into the scabbard. Incessant wars, not at thebidding of the ruler, nor sanctioned by the voice of public authority orfor the public welfare, but for private ends, for revenge, for greed andbooty, were waged throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
The civil government, or the empty simulacrum that went under the name,seemed powerless, for the simple reason that the strong arm of either aCharlemagne or a Charles Martel too seldom appeared to check theculprits, or because the civil government itself only added fuel to theflame, by the encouragement it gave to license and violence by its ownevil example.
But society had to protect itself. Conscious of its danger, and that itwas doomed to destruction, if some remedy were not found, it evolved inthe tenth and the following century, not an absolutely efficaciousremed