ENMITIES AND PEACEMAKING AMONG UPPER CARNIOLAN PEASANTS IN EARLY MODERNITY

Following the stages of the custom of vengeance, this paper reconstructs conflict resolution among commoners in the Habsburg Duchy of Carniola in early modernity, focusing on the subjects of the Upper Carniolan Lordship of Bled in the first half of the seventeenth century. Disparate cases show that in the Eastern Alpine countryside the rites of enmity and peace had changed little since the Late Middle Ages. Despite the gradual implementation of early modern criminal legislation and growing state interference in the local judiciary, the latter continued to resolve conflicts, including homicide, in cooperation with the community. Remnants of traditional conflict resolution can still be found in the late nineteenth century.