Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 123, Issue 2, 2010

Modern descriptions of the medieval culture of violence usually lump together two distinct forms of private retaliation: taking blood revenge after a homicide and declaring war (or ‘a feud’) on one’s enemies because of grave injustice done. Without any doubt, this is partly due to the vague or ambiguous terminology in many medieval sources. Even so, in a legal context blood vengeance and feuding were meticulously kept apa Read More

Feuding has for a long time been a subject of considerable interest to historians and social scientists. Recent years have seen major developments in the field, especially in Germany. An indication of the importance of this area of study is not only the increasing number of publications and the variety of approaches, but also the fierce historiographical and ideological debate surrounding it. The present article reviews these deve Read More

historians to view violence, revenge (as a human emotion), and honour as human universals out of which a cultural phenomenon such as feud has arisen in the past and will arise again repeatedly in the future. Various cultures in the past have tried to avert feuding by means of compensation for the original violent act, often involving payment of a certain amount of goods or money. Such practices were codified in texts which Read More

During the Late Middle Ages, faction formation in Flemish cities was largely determined by both international and local political and socio-economic relationships or oppositions and conflicts concerning honour and interests between rivalling elite networks. The ‘factions’ of the Flemish patricians often had a concentric pattern, with a core – usually closely interconnected by means of family ties – and a sympathising periphery, sup Read More

During the late middle ages, public and private aspects of political life were interrelated; the boundaries between these two spheres were vague, and illdefined. However, notwithstanding this interrelatedness, contemporaries did make a distinction between the public and the private. For example, inhabitants of the duchy of Guelders considered their duchy as a political community with a public nature: Guelders was an ind Read More

This contribution examines the function and use of violence by factions in the late-medieval city of Utrecht. In contrast to the existing perception that the power base of these groups consisted mainly of armed followers within the city, recruited on the basis of kinship, social networking, and patronage, this investigation into the violent outbreaks that occurred between 1400 and 1430 shows a slightly different picture. Firstly, f Read More

Party strife between the Schieringers and Vetkopers in late-medieval Frisia west of the river Lauwers is poorly understood. This article initially follows the historiography on party strife in Frisia and then turns to modern discussions on feuding and power distribution in the same territory. It is suggested that we should look at the Frisian party strife between Schieringers and Vetkopers as a more public, more violent, and less loc Read More