As a result of this practice of private war, Europe reverted to a condition of primitive barbarism. Every land was filled with fightings and violence. “Every hill,” as one pictures it, “was a stronghold, every plain a battlefield. The trader was robbed on the highway, the peasant was killed at his plow, the priest was slain at the altar. Neighbor fought against neighbor, baron against baron, city against city.” In the midst of this universal anarchy the Church lifted a protesting voice. Toward the end of the tenth century there was started in France a movement which aimed at the complete abolition of private war. The Church aspired to do what had been done by pagan Rome. It proclaimed what was called the Peace of God. It commanded all men everywhere to refrain from fighting and robbery and violence of every kind as contrary to the spirit and teachings of Christianity. But it was found utterly impossible to make the great feudal barons refrain from fighting one another even though they were threatened with the eternal torments of hell. They were just as unwilling to surrender this highly prized privilege and right of waging private war as the nations of to-day are to surrender their prized privilege and right to wage public war. Then the leaders of the clergy of France, seeing that they could not suppress the evil entirely, resolved to attempt to regulate it. This led to the proclamation of what was called the Truce of God. The first certain trace of this movement dates from the year 1041.[687] In that year the abbot of the monastery of Cluny and the other French abbots and bishops issued an edict commanding all men to maintain a holy and unbroken peace during four days of every week, from Wednesday evening till Monday morning.[688] Every man was required to take an oath to observe this Truce of God. The oath was renewed every three years, and was administered to boys on their reaching their twelfth year. This movement to redeem at least a part of the days from fighting and violence came gradually to embrace all the countries of Western Europe. The details of the various edicts issued by Church councils and popes vary greatly, but all embody the principle of the edict of 1041. Holydays, and especially consecrated periods, as Easter time and Christmas week, came to be covered by the Truce. The Council of Clermont, which inaugurated the First Crusade, extended greatly the terms of the Truce, forbidding absolutely private wars while the Crusade lasted, and placing under the ægis of the Church the person and property of every crusader.