Orders, which divided society between those who worked, those who prayed, and those who fought. The duty of the fighters to use their weapons only in defence of the helpless and of the Church was the theme of Abbot Odo of Cluny's biography of the noble St Gerard of Aurillac, and from the end of the century similar ideas were implicit in a series of councils, first in southern France, but by 1030 in northern France too, in which laymen were enjoined under pain of excommunication and heavy penances to observe the Truce of God and not to fight within specified periods. Bishops thus took over the maintenance of order for themselves, though they were less ready to do so, save by the sporadic sentence of individual offenders, in Germany where the monarchy retained much of its authority until the late eleventh century. Besides attempting to limit wars, churchmen bagan to claim the authority to launch them. That war could be meritorious and benefit the souls of those who undertook it was a view first enunciated among Cluniac monks, but it found enthusiastic support from the papacy. In 1064 Pope Alexander II granted an indulgence to those joining the expedition against Muslim Barbastro, and in 1074 Pope Gregory VII attempted by similar means to raise an army for the defence of eastern Christians from Muslim persecution. His preaching fell on stony ground, but in 1095 Pope Urban II renewed the appeal at the Council of Clermont and found an enthusiastic response. Effectively he had set a precedent which made the promulgation of crusades a papal prerogative, one which it would in time abuse. Though kings themselves took part in several of the ensuing expeditions, the authority to license war against the pagan had passed from them to the pope. Their role as war-leaders was thus diminished, particularly when popes began by the end of the twelfth century to claim that all wars fell within their jurisdiction.
The second of the developments within the Church which affected the position of kings consisted of a general change in the character of monasticism. Though broadly following the Rule of Benedict, practice from one monastery to another varied considerably according to local custom but also according to their ability to preserve the essentials of the mon-
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