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Rh Rembrandt's noble masterpieces he soon evolved a new method of painting, and it is only in works produced after this time that Troyon's true individuality is revealed. When he became conscious of his power as an animal painter he developed with rapidity and success, until his works became recognized as masterpieces in Great Britain and America, as well as in all countries of the Continent. Success, however, came too late, for Troyon never quite believed in it himself, and even when he could command the market of several countries he still grumbled loudly at the way the world treated him. Yet he was decorated with the Legion of Honour, and five times received medals at the Paris Salon, while Napoleon III. was one of his patrons; and it is certain he was at least as financially successful as his Barbizon colleagues.

Troyon died, unmarried, at Paris on the 21st of February 1865, after a term of clouded intellect. All his famous pictures are of date between 1850 and 1864, his earlier work being of comparatively little value. His mother, who survived him, instituted the Troyon prize for animal pictures at the École des Beaux Arts. Troyon's work is fairly well known to the public through a number of large engravings from his pictures. In the Wallace Gallery in London are "Watering Cattle" and "Cattle in Stormy Weather"; in the Glasgow Corporation Gallery is a "Landscape with Cattle"; the Louvre contains his famous "Oxen at Work" and "Returning to the Farm"; while the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other galleries in America contain fine examples of his pictures. His "Vallée de la Toucque, Normandy,” is one of his greatest pictures; and at Christie’s sale-room in 1902 the single figure of a cow in a landscape of but moderate quality fetched £7350. Émile van Marcke (1827–1891) was his best-known pupil.

TRUCE OF GOD, an attempt of the Church in the middle ages to alleviate the evils of private warfare. Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, as the life-benefices of the later Carolingian kings were gradually transformed into hereditary fiefs, the insecurity of life and property increased, for there was no central power to curb the warring local magnates. The two measures which were adopted by the Church to remedy these conditions—the pax ecclesiae or Dei and the treuga or treva Dei—are usually both referred to as the Truce of God, but they are distinct in character. The latter was a development of the former.

The pax ecclesiae is first heard of in the year 990 at three synods held in different parts of southern and central France at Charroux, Narbonne and Puy. It enlisted the immediate support of the regular clergy, particularly the vigorous congregation of Cluny, and of William V. of Aquitaine, the most powerful lord of southern France, who urged its adoption at the Councils of Limoges (994) and Poitiers (999). The peace decrees of these various synods differed considerably in detail, but in general they were intended fully to protect non-combatants; they forbade, under pain of excommunication, every act of private warfare or violence against ecclesiastical buildings and their environs, and against certain persons, such as clerics, pilgrims, merchants, women and peasants, and against cattle and agricultural implements. With the opening of the 11th century, the pax ecclesiae spread over northern France and Burgundy, and diocesan leagues began to be organized for its maintenance. The bishop, or count, on whose lands the peace was violated was vested with judicial power, and was directed, in case he was himself unable to execute sentence, to summon to his assistance the laymen and even the clerics of the diocese, all of whom were required to take a solemn oath to observe and enforce the peace. At the Council of Bourges (1038), the archbishop decreed that every Christian fifteen years and over should take such an oath and enter the diocesan militia. The idea that peace is a divine institution seems to have given rise to a new name for the peace, the pax Dei, or peace of God.

The treuga or treva Dei, the prohibition of every act of private warfare during certain days, goes back at least to the Synod of Elne, held in the Pyrenees in 1027, which suspended all warfare from noon on Saturday till prime on Monday. Like the pax ecclesiae it found ardent champions in the regular clergy, especially in Odilo (962-1049), the fifth abbot of Cluny, and soon spread over all France. It penetrated Piedmont and Lombardy in 1041 and Normandy in 1042. By this time the truce extended from the Wednesday evening to the Monday morning in every week and also, in most places, lasted during the seasons of Lent and Advent, the three great vigils and feasts of the Blessed Virgin, and those of the twelve apostles and a few other saints. The treuga Dei was decreed for Flanders at the Synod of Thérouanne (1063) and was instituted in southern Italy in 1089, probably through Norman influence. The bishop of Liege introduced it in Germany in 1082, and three years later a synod held at Mainz in the presence of the emperor Henry IV. extended it to the whole empire. It does not appear to have secured a firm footing in England, although its general provisions were incorporated in the laws of the land (1130-1154). The popes took the direction of the matter into their own hands towards the end of the 11th century as they realized the necessity of promoting peace among Christians in order to unite them successfully in the crusades against the Mahommedans; and the first decree of the Council of Clermont (1095), at which Urban II. preached the first crusade, proclaimed a weekly truce for all Christendom, adding a guarantee of safety to all who might take refuge at a wayside cross or at the plough. The Truce of God was reaffirmed by many councils, such as that held at Reims by Calixtus II. in 1119, and the Lateran councils of 1123, 1139 and 1179. When the treuga Dei reached its most extended form, scarcely one-fourth of the year remained for fighting, and even then the older canons relating to the pax ecclesiae remained in force. The means employed for its enforcement remained practically the same: spiritual penalties, such as excommunication, special ecclesiastical tribunals, sworn leagues of peace, and assistance from the temporal power. The Council of Clermont prescribed that the oath of adherence to the truce be taken every three years by all men above the age of twelve, whether noble, burgess, villein or serf. The results of these peace efforts were perhaps surprisingly mediocre, but it must be borne in mind that not only was the military organization of the dioceses always very imperfect, but feudal society, so long as it retained political power, was inherently hostile to the principle and practice of private peace. The Truce of God was most powerful in the 12th century, but with the 13th its influence waned as the kings gradually gained control over the nobles and substituted the king's peace for that of the Church.

A few bishops, notably Gerard of Cambrai (1013-1051), seem from the first to have opposed the peace laws of the Church as encroaching on royal authority, but the lay rulers usually co-operated with the ecclesiastical authorities in encouraging and maintaining the Truce of God. In fact, the emperor Henry II. and the French king Robert the Pious discussed the subject of universal peace under church auspices at Monzon in 1023. By the 12th century, however, the ecclesiastical measures had proved ineffectual in coping with private warfare, and secular rulers sought independently to diminish the number and atrocity of private wars within their own domains. The provisions of the Truce of God were often incorporated bodily in municipal and district statutes such as the laws of Barcelona (1067). The emperor Henry IV. approved (1085) the extension of the truce to the whole land, and in 1103 royal laws entirely prohibiting private warfare in the empire replaced the Truce of God. In France royalty acquired little by little a preponderant influence over feudalism and used its increased prestige to substitute for the Truce of God the peace of the state. Louis VI., Louis VII. and Philip Augustus