The Peace of God,the ‘weakness’ of Robert the Pious and the struggle for the German throne, 1023–5

The author of The Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai accused Bishops Berold of Soissons and Warin of Beauvais of overstepping the boundaries of episcopal authority and usurping royal rights by promoting the Peace of God and attributed their initiative to the weakness of King Robert the Pious. This paper argues that the author was misrepresenting the situation to hide the vulnerability of the bishop of Cambrai during the succession of Conrad II. Instead, Berold and Warin's peace council was patronized by Robert the Pious and was a symptom of French royal assertiveness in the period 1023–5. The reasons for the Cambrai author's distortions are to be found in the significance of kings in the rallying of support on a local and regional level.