ABSTRACT
Contrary to current historiographical consensus, the Peace of God movement constituted a profound set of anomalies: it used relics to mobilize large crowds of commoners before whom weapons-bearers took oaths restricting their violence, under threat of spiritual sanctions. It explains these anomalies by considering the Pax Dei as an apocalyptic millennial movement inspired by the advent of two major apocalyptic dates: 1000 Anno Domini, and 1000 Anno Passionis. Participants experienced these messianic assemblies as a moment where they became a new “chosen people.” One can then understand the unusual dynamics of the later eleventh century as driven by the (inevitable) failure of the peace’s apocalyptic expectations.
