Likewise it has declared that we are to be put into possession of the said land and that it is to be handed over to us, on account of your contumacy, because you have not been willing to appear before the same court on the days which were assigned to you. Moreover, it has declared that you shall be held and required to restore the said land in whatsoever way we wish to receive it, with few or many, in peace or in anger, in our own person, by right of lordship. Likewise it has declared that you shall restore to us all the expenses which we have incurred, or the court itself has incurred, on those days which were assigned to you, or because of those days, and has condemned you to repay these to us.[334] Moreover, it has declared that the nobleman Gerald d'Armagnac, whom you hold captive, you shall liberate, and deliver him free to us. We demand, moreover, by right of our lordship that you liberate him. We call, therefore, upon your discretion in this matter, strictly enjoining you and commanding that you obey the aforesaid sentences in all things and fulfill them in all respects and in no way delay the execution of them. 39. The Peace and the Truce of God War rather than peace was the normal condition of feudal society. Peasants were expected to settle their disputes in the courts of law, but lords and seigneurs possessed a legal right to make war upon their enemies and were usually not loath to exercise it. Private warfare was indeed so common that it all the time threatened seriously the lives and property of the masses of the people and added heavily to the afflictions which flood, drought, famine, and pestilence brought repeatedly upon them. The first determined efforts to limit, if not to abolish, the ravages of private war were made by the Church, partly because the Church itself often suffered by reason of them, partly because its ideal was that of peace and security, and partly because it recognized its duty as the protector of the poor and oppressed. Late in the tenth century, under the influence of the Cluniacs [see p. 245], the clergy of France, both secular and regular, began in their councils to promulgate decrees which were intended to establish what was known as the Peace of God. These decrees, which were enacted by so many councils between 989 and 1050 that they came to cover pretty nearly all France, proclaimed generally that any one who should use violence toward women, peasants, merchants, or members of the clergy should be excommunicated. The principle was to exempt certain classes of people from the operations of war and violence, even though the rest of the population should continue to fight among themselves. It must be said that these decrees, though enacted again and again, had often little apparent effect.