SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany

When archives move, historians follow. Happy to be reunited with my sources, now that their residence has finished its long migration from Würzburg to Kitzingen. Let’s see for how long I’ll have the reading room practically all to myself.

Very much looking forward to presenting some research findings at the German History Society conference in Stirling in September.

A short 🧵on the use of violence in feuds among non-nobles in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. These feuds largely acted as mundane legal claims - more on this in a future thread - to be enforced through private violence rather than (solely) judicial means. (1/9)

Consequently, the prince-bishops' mediation of private enmities helped sustain the social legitimacy of violence in settling disputes long after feuding had been proscribed in 1495. (8/9)

A short 🧵on the use of violence in feuds among non-nobles in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. These feuds largely acted as mundane legal claims - more on this in a future thread - to be enforced through private violence rather than (solely) judicial means. (1/9)

Conversely, putting someone’s grapevines to the axe (or killing their animals) took more time and had to be a coordinated effort if it was to be more than symbolic, so it is unsurprising that it was rarely used even in the wine-rich Lower Franconia. (6/9)

A short 🧵on the use of violence in feuds among non-nobles in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. These feuds largely acted as mundane legal claims - more on this in a future thread - to be enforced through private violence rather than (solely) judicial means. (1/9)

Violence was not used only against immediate neighbours, as even peasants could be very mobile. One villager carried out arson - or had it carried out - against an enemy, who lived almost 90 km away when the feud started. (4/9)

A short 🧵on the use of violence in feuds among non-nobles in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. These feuds largely acted as mundane legal claims - more on this in a future thread - to be enforced through private violence rather than (solely) judicial means. (1/9)

The threat of violence inherent in declarations of enmity seems to have generally been enough in enforcing one's claims or rights, considering that the actual use of violence was recorded in only about about a quarter* of the almost 200 safe conducts and pardons for feuding from the 1500s. (3/9)

SOCRESTA explores how ordinary people used violence and the law to settle their disputes, by focusing on the 16th-c Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. This German polity offers a unique window into early modern social relations, state dynamics, and the history of the feud or Fehde. (1/2)

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union (EU) or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the EU nor the REA can be held responsible for them. (2/2)

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

than the pardon’s brevity lets on. Issuing the letter of enmity may also indicate a lack of support; excluding the person who wrote it (for pay?), as she was unlikely lettered herself. In her position, declaring a feud against the village not so much exacerbated the dispute, (10/11)

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

So why is Anna the only woman in the pardons for feuding in 16th-c. Würzburg? Her destitution may have been the reason. Litigation was expensive and if out-of-court practices of mediation and settlement failed to work to her advantage, perhaps declaring a feud was her only option. (8/11)

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

Despite her status and regional conventions, Anna stood her ground like many men, defending herself, her reputation and/or meagre property, by any means available. While declaring a feud could be dangerous even before it was criminalised in 1495, (6/11)

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

Anna does not seem to have resorted to violence, nor did anyone on her behalf, and the parties soon settled following the intervention of their friends and local officials. After their petitions to the prince-bishop, Anna was pardoned for her transgression and likely fined. (4/11)

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

This makes Franconia similar to late medieval Upper Bavaria (cf. C. Reinle), whereas women more often feuded in early modern Brandenburg (cf. J. Peters, M. Mommertz). Information from elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire remains scarce. (2/11)

The Würzburg data provides the thus far richest proof that plebeian feuds (Fehden) and their mediation by the state continued well after the practice was banned in the Holy Roman Empire in 1495, as is demonstrated by princely remissions (Landshuldung) or ‘pardons’ for feuding. (1/3)

While there was a steady overall decline of these remissions in the 1500s, and they stopped after Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn was elected prince-bishop in 1573, contrary to entrenched belief the practice itself weathered both the Peasants’ War and the civil wars of the 1540s and ‘50s. (2/3)