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The paper analyses blood feud as a legal custom of the system of conflict resolution in Inner Austria during the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period. Based on legal customs, common law, and early modern criminal law the analysis is applied to a case of blood (homicide) settlement in Upper Carniola (Gorenjska) in the 17th...
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Context 1
... the rule in practice. Still, at least a year had to pass before pardon could be granted and at least six months for homicides committed in self-defence if the perpetrator did not settle (zůuertragen) with the victim's kin. Self-defence could also be pardoned by the authorities in whose jurisdiction it took place. The Procedure further stipulated, that when settling blood in cases of self-defence the victim's kin could not demand more (weregild) from the perpetrator than his assets could meet, as was supposedly often the case. Therefore the authorities and courts had to approve of the settlement fi rst (LGK 1535, 15). These were common concerns with settling blood elsewhere (Frauenstädt, 1881, 141). The purpose of these stipulations was to avoid blood feuds that would continue or erupt otherwise. The custom had remained a reality in practice, novelties such as limiting it only after outlawry had been ruled or in cases of self-defence notwithstanding, as they remained only normative prescriptions for a while to come (Frauenstädt, 1881, 123-126). As the Bled and Pleterje (given below) cases attest, at least some Carniolan provincial and patrimonial courts still followed the old legal custom in homicide cases at least as late as the 17th ...
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Taking a long-term view of the history of crime and punishment problematises any straightforwardly progressive narrative of the history of punishment as one of increasingly humane attitudes. Punishment in the Middle Ages was about retribution, but also about compensation and the restoration of social order. The strong parallels between sin and crim...
Citations
... 26 evropskih skupnostih: od Črne Gore ( Boehm, 1984, 54-62, 121-142, 191-227;cf. Ergaver, 2016;Ergaver, 2017) do Islandije ( Heusler, 1911, 38-124, 213-242;Miller, 1990, 179-299;Byock, 2007), od Italije ( Povolo, 2015;Faggion, 2017;Rampanelli, S. (2017), Korzike ( Wilson, 1988), Francije ( Carroll, 2003;Carroll, 2011;Carroll, 2015;Smail, 1996;Geary, 1994;Barthelemy et al., 2006), Španije ( Casals, 2017), Nizozemske ( Van Caenegem, 1954, 280-307) in Škotske ( Brown, 2003, 43-64) do Svetega rimskega cesarstva ( Frauenstädt, 1881, 105-173;Brunner, 1992;Althoff , 2004, 136-159;Roach, 2012, 360-365;Oman, 2016, 81-91), na tak način so reševali spore tudi med pripadniki različnih slojev, med plemiči, vaščani ali med mesti ( Oman, 2017;Mihelič, 2015). Na razširjenost tega običaja po vsem svetu je opozoril že Westermarck, ki je v svoji študiji postregel še z nekaj zanimivimi podatki iz Arabskega sveta (1906, 484), Mauss za Avstralijo, Afriko in Ameriki (1996, 14-18). ...
The article, on the basis of a comparative and interdisciplinary research of a case study of vengeful murder and acquittal from 1401 in Landar (Slavia Veneta or Slavia friulana), analyses the transformation of the social system of control and the exercise of the justice on the turn from the Middle Ages to the Modern period. The case study clearly shows the characteristics of the common practice of dispute resolution system and juridicial trials, that allowed vengeance if the side of the perpetrator was not prepared to negotiate for peace making. Although the present case already shows elements characteristic for judicial proceedings of the Modern period, the judicial process and the judgment itself have been conducted in accordance with customary law. The article also comparatively shows how the legislation changed in the early modern period, with special regard to the events in the Holy Roman Empire and the Venetian Republic. In addition to fiscal and military reorganization, the centralization of justice was of fundamental importance in the efforts of European rulers to establish supreme control over the entire territory under their jurisdiction. In order to achieve this goal, however, the rulers had first to restrict, by means of legislation and other coercive means, the arbitrary conflict resolution system by custom. For this purpose, they established a judicial system, i. e. punitive control over both, individual, influential families and clans, as well as the population in general. The state inquisitorial trial rites, introduced in most Western and Central European countries, in the early modern period lead to an important novelty: the state judicial apparatus has earned the right of prosecution ex officio. While earlier, in the so-called adversarial law, the judicial investigative process may only be led after the lawsuit of the affected communities, in the inquisitorial procedure the judicial trial was initiated by the central judicial authorities, which was the primary reason for their creation. In some more remote areas, such as Montenegro and Albania, which were examined in the article as comparative areas, the custom of conflict resolution system, vendetta or osveta, has preserved deep in the 19th Century. Especially the study of this custom confirms our thesis, that this was not only a European (medieval) custom, but a system of conflict resolution known to all worldwide communities.
... 26 evropskih skupnostih: od Črne Gore ( Boehm, 1984, 54-62, 121-142, 191-227;cf. Ergaver, 2016;Ergaver, 2017) do Islandije ( Heusler, 1911, 38-124, 213-242;Miller, 1990, 179-299;Byock, 2007), od Italije ( Povolo, 2015;Faggion, 2017;Rampanelli, S. (2017), Korzike ( Wilson, 1988), Francije ( Carroll, 2003;Carroll, 2011;Carroll, 2015;Smail, 1996;Geary, 1994;Barthelemy et al., 2006), Španije ( Casals, 2017), Nizozemske ( Van Caenegem, 1954, 280-307) in Škotske ( Brown, 2003, 43-64) do Svetega rimskega cesarstva ( Frauenstädt, 1881, 105-173;Brunner, 1992;Althoff , 2004, 136-159;Roach, 2012, 360-365;Oman, 2016, 81-91), na tak način so reševali spore tudi med pripadniki različnih slojev, med plemiči, vaščani ali med mesti ( Oman, 2017;Mihelič, 2015). Na razširjenost tega običaja po vsem svetu je opozoril že Westermarck, ki je v svoji študiji postregel še z nekaj zanimivimi podatki iz Arabskega sveta (1906, 484), Mauss za Avstralijo, Afriko in Ameriki (1996, 14-18). ...
The article, on the basis of a comparative and interdisciplinary research of a case study of vengeful murder and acquittal from 1401 in Landar (Slavia Veneta or Slavia friulana), analyses the transformation of the social system of control and the exercise of the justice on the turn from the Middle Ages to the Modern period. The case study clearly shows the characteristics of the common practice of dispute resolution system and juridicial trials, that allowed vengeance if the side of the perpetrator was not prepared to negotiate for peace making. Although the present case already shows elements characteristic for judicial proceedings of the Modern period, the judicial process and the judgment itself have been conducted in accordance with customary law. The article also comparatively shows how the legislation changed in the early modern period, with special regard to the events in the Holy Roman Empire and the Venetian Republic. In addition to fiscal and military reorganization, the centralization of justice was of fundamental importance in the efforts of European rulers to establish supreme control over the entire territory under their jurisdiction. In order to achieve this goal, however, the rulers had first to restrict, by means of legislation and other coercive means, the arbitrary conflict resolution system by custom. For this purpose, they established a judicial system, i. e. punitive control over both, individual, influential families and clans, as well as the population in general. The state inquisitorial trial rites, introduced in most Western and Central European countries, in the early modern period lead to an important novelty: the state judicial apparatus has earned the right of prosecution ex officio. While earlier, in the so-called adversarial law, the judicial investigative process may only be led after the lawsuit of the affected communities, in the inquisitorial procedure the judicial trial was initiated by the central judicial authorities, which was the primary reason for their creation. In some more remote areas, such as Montenegro and Albania, which were examined in the article as comparative areas, the custom of conflict resolution system, vendetta or osveta, has preserved deep in the 19th Century. Especially the study of this custom confirms our thesis, that this was not only a European (medieval) custom, but a system of conflict resolution known to all worldwide communities.
Still today, historiography questions whether the purpose of oaths of fealty (fidelitas), dedicated to the Venetian Republic by Istrian towns from 12th Century, was to conclude friendships between the equal communities or was just a form of alliances against common enemies, or were even the subordination of Istrian towns? Insofar as it was actually a matter of concluding alliances even after the feuds, later vents clearly testify in support of the fact that those oaths of fealtywere the first step towards the later Venetian subordination of Istrian towns, the basis of the process which ended only in 1420. This paper argues that the above events should be understood and interpreted in accordance with then prevailing system of conflict resolution and within the framework of the ritual: homage, fealty, peace (homagium, fidelitas, pax).
Category: 1.01 Original scientific paper Language: Original in Slovenian (Abstract in Slovenian and English, Summary in English) Key words: vengeance, enmity, feud, vendetta, nobility, Carniola, Styria, Istria, Radovljica, Dovje, Bled, Fram, Slivnica, Vurberk, Ravno polje, Voličina, Ptuj, Koper/Capodistria, seventeenth century Abstract: With cases of conflicts among nobility in seventeenth-century Carniola, Styria, and Istria, this paper outlines the long survival of vengeance as the customary system of conflict resolution and presents its adaptation to social, political, and legal changes in the early modern period. The primary focus is on the most noticeable and most infamous stage of the custom of vengeance, namely, the state or relationship of enmity. In customary conflict resolution, enmity sanctioned the limited used of violence (including retaliatory homicide), with the intention of forcing the offending party to provide satisfaction, settle an injustice or give in to certain demands. This paper is focused on conflicts among nobility.
Based on a conceptual historiographic and semantic analysis of the fundamental terminology of the ritual of vengeance, this paper presents an attempt to provide researchers with a linguistic, conceptual, and methodological framework for the study of vengeance as the customary system of conflict resolution in premodern Europe. For this purpose the key terminology, which also has abundant synonyms, has been collected in the accompanying septalingual glossary. While predicated on, foremost, European Medieval sources and studies thereof, the dissemination and interrelation of the universal human custom make the paper applicable for other areas and periods.
