iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

When archives move, historians follow. Happy to be reunited with my sources, now that their residence has finished its long migration from Würzburg to Kitzingen. Let’s see for how long I’ll have the reading room practically all to myself.

A path leads to a building in the distance under overcast skies. Various plants grow on either side of the path, on its left a street lamp and an wiry outdoor art installation.

A wall of light grey brick with the inscription Staatsarchiv Kitzingen (State Archives Kitzingen).

A reading room with several desks. Trees and cloudy skies can be seen through the large windows. A sixteenth-century register lies on the desk in front.

011

SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

A short 🧵on the use of violence in feuds among non-nobles in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg. These feuds largely acted as mundane legal claims - more on this in a future thread - to be enforced through private violence rather than (solely) judicial means. (1/9)

141

SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Plebeian feuding in the #earlymodern Prince-bishopric of Würzburg was a male affair. Of the over 150 pardons for declaring or conducting a feud from the 1520s-70s, only one was issued to a woman, while three men were also pardoned for issuing defiances over claims of their kinswomen. (1/11) 🧵

153

SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

The Würzburg data provides the thus far richest proof that plebeian feuds (Fehden) and their mediation by the state continued well after the practice was banned in the Holy Roman Empire in 1495, as is demonstrated by princely remissions (Landshuldung) or ‘pardons’ for feuding. (1/3)

Graph showing the number of remissions (pardons) for feuding in the Prince-bishopric of Wurzburg in the 1500s.

102