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214 General History of Europe their quarrels among themselves, and they found their chief interest in life in so doing. 343. The "Truce of God." The horrors of this constant fight- ing led the Church to try to check it. About the year 1000 several Church councils in southern France decreed that the fighters were not to attack churches or monasteries, churchmen, pilgrims, mer- chants, or women, and that they must leave the peasant and his cattle and plow alone. Then Church councils began to issue what was known as the " Truce of God," which provided that all war- fare was to stop during Lent and various other holy days as well as on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of every week. During the truce no one was to attack anyone else. Those be- sieging castles were to refrain from any assaults during the period of peace, and people were to be allowed to go quietly to and fro on their business without being disturbed by soldiers. If anyone failed to observe the truce, he was to be excommuni- cated by the Church. This meant that if he fell sick no Christian should dare to visit him ; on his deathbed he was not to receive the comfort of a priest, and his soul was consigned to hell if he had refused to repent and mend his ways. It is hard to say how much good the Truce of God accomplished. It is certain that many dis- orderly lords paid little attention to the truce and found three days a week altogether too short a time for plaguing their neighbors. 344. The Kings finally get the Better of the Feudal Lords. We must not infer that the State ceased to exist altogether during the centuries of confusion that followed the break-up of Charle- magne's empire, or that it fell entirely apart into little local governments independent of each other. The king, solemnly anointed by the Church, was always something more than a feudal lord. The kings were destined to get the upper hand be- fore many centuries in England, France, and Spain, and finally in Italy and Germany, and to destroy the castles behind whose walls their haughty nobles had long defied the royal power.