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

Abstract 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.