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5 - Rethinking the Feud

from Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2023

Stuart Carroll
Affiliation:
University of York
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Summary

Feuding was a custom in many German-speaking lands well into the seventeenth century. Though the legal Fehde was criminalized in 1495, the practice continued to be widespread at the end the sixteenth century. I suggest five broad chronological patterns governing interpersonal violence. First, we see a continuation of the legal institution of the Fehde in the first half of the sixteenth century. Matters were considerably worsened by the Reformation. This was followed by a period of peace following the Religious Peace of Augsburg. But an explosion of elite violence in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, which peaked only in the 1610s, points to a third phase. There are grounds for thinking that the adoption of duelling by the elite formed part of a general pattern of rising violence in this period. The boom in litigation after 1555 is therefore indicative less of a decline than of growing social strains and conflict. The upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War altered the emotional field and privatised violence. The final phase suggests that the civil war had long-term effects and that elite violence, in particular, was only gradually brought under control during the early decades of the eighteenth century.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Rethinking the Feud
  • Stuart Carroll, University of York
  • Book: Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe
  • Online publication: 12 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009287319.007
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  • Rethinking the Feud
  • Stuart Carroll, University of York
  • Book: Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe
  • Online publication: 12 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009287319.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Rethinking the Feud
  • Stuart Carroll, University of York
  • Book: Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe
  • Online publication: 12 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009287319.007
Available formats
×