s; and one monster, near Macon,
living as a hermit, enticed unwary travellers into his den and there
slew and devoured them! When found out he had a pile of forty-eight
human skulls, those of his victims. In the midst of this horrible state
of affairs the bishops and abbots of all parts of France met in council
and decreed punishment upon whoever should carry arms, and upon whoever
should use violence against defenceless persons, merchants, monks, and
women; not even the refuge of the altar was to protect him who disobeyed
this decree. Raising their hands to heaven all those present cried out,
_Pax! pax! pax!_ in witness of the eternal peace compact, the _Paix de
Dieu_--the Peace of God. Wars had caused much of their distress, and the
kingdom was indeed weary of war, but the millennium had not yet
come,--philosophers still tell us that it is "just beyond the sky
line,"--and the Peace of God was ineffective.

Failing to suppress war, the Church next sought, with more practical
wisdom, to modify its horrors. In 1041 was proclaimed the _Treve de
Dieu_--the Truce of God. All private feuds were to cease during the
period from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, under penalty of fine,
banishment, and exclusion from Christian communion. Then the days of the
great feasts were included in the period of truce, as well as Advent and
Lent. "Churches and unfortified cemeteries," says the chronicler Ranulph
Glaber, "as well as the persons of all clerks and monks, provided they
did not carry arms, were put under the perpetual protection of the Truce
of God. For the future, when making war upon the seigneur, men were
forbidden to kill, to mutilate, or to carry off as captives the poor
people of the country, or to destroy maliciously implements of labor and
crops." This last provision in particular is very interesting. Of
course, powerful barons broke the truce again and again; but it was
there as a real moral force of restraint, and the Church did not forget
to contend for its observance, so that it must have had some effect. To
no class in society could peace have been more welcome, more essential,
than to women, always the sufferers in war.

We have left to the last one most important question in considering the
moral influence of the Church. Surely, the sanctity of the marriage tie
is one of the foundation stones of morality and of civilization; upon it
rests the home, where woman has always found her greatest and surest
happiness