Maščevanje kot pravni običaj sistema reševanja sporov na Slovenskem v zgodnjem novem veku : doktorska disertacija

slovenian

doktorska dela

2018

Univerza v Mariboru, Filozofska fakulteta

The doctoral dissertation titled Vengeance as Legal Custom in the System of Conflict Resolution in the Slovene Lands in the Early Modern Period discusses the legal custom of (blood) vengeance with a comparative analysis of modern anthropological and historiographical studies, mainly of legal anthropology and legal history. These studies have defined vengeance or feud in premodern European and other societies as a legal custom of conflict resolution and social control, with a tendency towards maintaining social order and peace. The custom of vengeance in a culture of honour demanded requital for a suffered injustice, including the use of limited violence. This is the custom's function as conflict resolution. In feuding societies it was necessary to publicly announce the injustice suffered, which enabled community intervention in the conflict, since the community or its authorities, both political and judicial, strived towards reconciliation between the feuding parties and towards the restoration of the social equilibrium, i. e. order and peace. This is the custom's function as social control. The research of the custom of vengeance in the Slovene lands in the early modern period is predicated on both archival and published sources as well as historiographic literature. However, the understanding of the social relations given therein is only possible by the application of a comparative analysis of modern anthropological and historiographical studies of vengeance. The analysis is necessary, since no systematic research of the custom of vengeance had so far been done for the Slovene lands for any period. Until very recently Slovene historiography had also heavily relied on mostly outdated older studies of German historiography. This required giving particular attention to modern research of vengeance, as well as a critical analysis of the history of its use in the Holy Roman Empire until the eighteenth century, predicated on the comparative analysis of modern studies. Hence, an analysis of the process of the custom's codification during the Middle Ages was required, and especially an analysis of society's and the authorities' relationship with vengeance following its prohibition and consequent delegitimisation in society at large in the early modern period. The comparative analysis of modern studies and early modern sources from historic Slovene lands has confirmed the existence and the use of the custom of vengeance in this territory among all social orders, from subjects to nobility. The custom is attested in seventeenth-century sources of the Lordship of Bled and the Town of Ptuj, as well as other archival sources from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Carniola and Styria, and partially in historiographic literature, although it generally failed to adequately analyse the custom. The existence of the custom of vengeance among all social strata in early modernity puts the Slovene lands within the broader European and universal social and legal context. Since studies show that the custom is universal, the analysis of vengeance in the Slovene lands during the early modern period can be of use to the research of the custom of vengeance in societies in other areas and periods.

08.08.2023