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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.

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SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Very happy to have participated at this conference and grateful for the feedback on my paper, which made me rethink an important aspect of pardoning feuds. More on that in a future post.

Man with glasses reading a paper at a conference next to a monitor with slides.

Man presenting a paper at a conference, with slides on the monitor. Several peasants are fighting with swords on the copperplate engraving on the slide.

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

(*Due to the brevity of most of these sources, the use of violence may have been omitted in some cases and the actual number was higher. That no violence had been used in a feud is explicitly stated in only 5% of all cases.) (9/9)

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

Consequently, the prince-bishops' mediation of private enmities helped sustain the social legitimacy of violence in settling disputes long after feuding had been proscribed in 1495. (8/9)

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

What is important here, however, is that well into the 16th c., the use of arson and other forms of violence in feuds evidently did not by itself preclude obtaining princely safe conduct or pardon. (7/9)

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

Conversely, putting someone’s grapevines to the axe (or killing their animals) took more time and had to be a coordinated effort if it was to be more than symbolic, so it is unsurprising that it was rarely used even in the wine-rich Lower Franconia. (6/9)

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

Cheap and easy to use, arson was a favourite weapon among plebeians, even if its use in feuds had been prohibited since the High Middle Ages. Able to cast a family into beggary within minutes, whether directed at its home or economy, it was already highly efficient as a threat. (5/9)

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

Violence was not used only against immediate neighbours, as even peasants could be very mobile. One villager carried out arson - or had it carried out - against an enemy, who lived almost 90 km away when the feud started. (4/9)

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

While in almost half of the recorded cases violence was specified only as ‘attack’ or ‘damage’, arson was used in another 40% of these cases. Far more rarely, feuders also resorted to chopping down their enemies’ vineyards or slaughtering their livestock. (3/9)

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

The threat of violence inherent in declarations of enmity seems to have generally been enough in enforcing one's claims or rights, considering that the actual use of violence was recorded in only about about a quarter* of the almost 200 safe conducts and pardons for feuding from the 1500s. (3/9)

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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)

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SOCRESTA - Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany @socresta.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Profile banner: copperplate engraving by Hans Sebald Beham, Peasants' Brawl from The Peasants' Feast or the Twelve Months, 1547 (Wikimedia Commons, original in The Met). SOCRESTA logo by Naja Gajzer and Žiga Oman, original letters from a late 15th-c Wurzburg safe-conduct register (StaWü) (3/2)

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

as it amplified its publicity, with the threat of violence – commonly arson – inherent in defiances finally necessitating her friends’ and the community’s mediation. Though perhaps driven by despair, Anna displayed agency beyond the confines of her gender and social status. Firm Anna. (11/11)

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

than the pardon’s brevity lets on. Issuing the letter of enmity may also indicate a lack of support; excluding the person who wrote it (for pay?), as she was unlikely lettered herself. In her position, declaring a feud against the village not so much exacerbated the dispute, (10/11)

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

Women largely used gossip, slander and verbal assaults against their enemies, although lesser physical violence such as punches, stone throwing or hair-pulling was also common. Publicising the enmity by declaring a feud might therefore point to a situation which was much more dire for her (9/11)

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

So why is Anna the only woman in the pardons for feuding in 16th-c. Würzburg? Her destitution may have been the reason. Litigation was expensive and if out-of-court practices of mediation and settlement failed to work to her advantage, perhaps declaring a feud was her only option. (8/11)

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

it long remained a successful way of pressuring one’s enemies to give into one’s demands, especially with concurrent litigation. By publicising the dispute it also got the local community and authorities to intervene and help reach a settlement. (7/11)

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

Despite her status and regional conventions, Anna stood her ground like many men, defending herself, her reputation and/or meagre property, by any means available. While declaring a feud could be dangerous even before it was criminalised in 1495, (6/11)

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

Although her pardon is very taciturn, as they all are, it provides a few glimpses of 1500s social relations. Considering their nicknames, Anna and Hans were probably at the margins of village life, an old man and a ‘trembling’ woman. (5/11)

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

Anna does not seem to have resorted to violence, nor did anyone on her behalf, and the parties soon settled following the intervention of their friends and local officials. After their petitions to the prince-bishop, Anna was pardoned for her transgression and likely fined. (4/11)

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

In 1544, following some dispute with Old Uncle Hans, Anna Applin or Zitteranna from the village of Hohenstadt declared a feud against him and the village of Wunau, where he lived, including with a ‘letter of enmity’ (veindsbriff) as a formal defiance (better known as Absage). (3/11)

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

This makes Franconia similar to late medieval Upper Bavaria (cf. C. Reinle), whereas women more often feuded in early modern Brandenburg (cf. J. Peters, M. Mommertz). Information from elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire remains scarce. (2/11)

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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) 🧵

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

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union (EU) or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the EU nor the REA can be held responsible for them. (2/2)

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

It is at this point too soon to tell if the end of remissions for feuding mirrors some Echter’s crackdown against the practice or if the prior decline might have already also been the result of other avenues of redress becoming cheaper or safer for disputants to use. (3/3)

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

While there was a steady overall decline of these remissions in the 1500s, and they stopped after Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn was elected prince-bishop in 1573, contrary to entrenched belief the practice itself weathered both the Peasants’ War and the civil wars of the 1540s and ‘50s. (2/3)

Graph showing the decline in the average annual number of remissions (pardons) for feuding per decade in the Prince-bishopric of Wurzburg in the 1500s.

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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.

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