Noble Power and Violence in the Early Modern Habsburg Erblande : The Feud in Seventeenth-Century Styria

This article contributes to the recent reappraisal of the state monopolization of violence and the pacification of nobility in early modern Europe. Predicated on Styrian evidence, it demonstrates a proliferation of violence among nobles in the seventeenth-century Habsburg Erblande and the survival of the feud. While the medieval institution of the Fehde was abandoned in the sixteenth century, feuding as a social practice survived. Disputants adapted to changes in the law, and the use of violence now required backing by a court to be legal. The Habsburgs had to put up with this as the perpetrators were members of the ruling elite, which made the violence a political problem, not just a question of law enforcement. Dealing with elite violence was a matter of negotiation and mediation, rather than outright repression, and this system contributed to the dynasty’s power.