Projects / Programmes
Plebeian Dispute Settlement in Baroque Inner Austria: Between Feud and Criminal Law
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
feud, dispute settlement, violence, conflict, law, plebeians, early modernity, social and cultural history, rural history, gender roles, emotions, Slovenia, Austria, Inner Austria, Holy Roman Empire
Researchers (1)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
35237 |
PhD Žiga Oman |
Historiography |
Head |
2021 - 2023 |
94 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
This proposal will address the continuities and changes to plebeian dispute settlement between feud and criminal law in early modern Inner Austria between 1650 and 1780. The project aims to understand the role of custom and law in plebeian enmities and the feud's gendered aspects and emotional regime in an age of growing state interference in local communities, regarded as the time 'after the feud'. The state-of-the-art shows that the investigation of feud in the early modern Holy Roman Empire, including Inner Austria, is a largely neglected field of research, particularly plebeian feuds, the period after 1650 and the feud's social dimension, including gender and emotions. With the notable exception of Italy, the same is generally true for other European historiographies. This project will fill in the gaps in the inquiry, with an original analysis and interpretation of various sources. The research in the Empire thus far has been limited by narrow legalist and semantic interpretations of feud (Fehde), viewed as a rigid legal custom restricted to the (medieval) nobility, ignoring that it was a complex social practice of dispute settlement used by all strata that survived well after its prohibition in 1495. The project goes beyond the present historiography by using the most up to date methodological and theoretical approaches in order to unpack the social dimension of dispute settlement. Its main source are court protocols in combination with other records (pleas for safe conduct, letters of pardon etc.), coeval legislation and treatises by jurists, theologians and other thinkers. Archival research will be carried out in several archives (Graz, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, Vienna). Due to the expected large number of archival visits, the researcher has already conducted a preliminary survey and prepared a detailed work plan, including the dissemination of his results in international research fora. Although the project is ambitious requiring the survey and thorough analysis of extensive sources, the detailed work plan and its rationale will ensure a successful inquiry. The project's key deliverables will be the publication of two original science papers for international peer-reviewed journals and completion of a science monograph, the organisation of an international science conference and establishment of a research blog. This project will provide a significant contribution to the development of the science field - historiography, addressing not only a hitherto neglected field of inquiry in Slovenia, but provides original and up to date research, which makes a significant contribution to European history more broadly. It is envisaged that the investigation will be useful to other humanities and social sciences, using similar theoretical and methodological approaches, providing new insight on important topics such as violence, law, the state and the emergence of modernity.
