ABSTRACT
The Peace of God was designed to protect certain classes and their possessions, thus limiting legitimate objects of attack. The Peace of God, as a formal movement, antedated the Truce of God, though its prescriptions were later tacitly assumed to be included in the Truce. The Church's effort to infuse this attitude into the knightly class is exemplified by two restrictions, apart from those of the Peace of God, which it attempted to impose on feudal war. Students of medieval chivalry make a distinction among three forms of knightly ethics: between feudal and religious chivalry, and between these types and romantic chivalry. Only when the customs of feudal chivalry were infused with a religious idealism did a truly Christian ethic of knighthood appear. In citing the origins of the chivalric code it is necessary to reiterate the point already made with regard to the Peace of God.
