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Social Relations and the State in Renaissance Germany: Feud and the Law in the Prince-bishopric of Würzburg, 1500-1600

Project description

Examining feud and the law in Renaissance Germany

The Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg offers a unique window into early modern social relations, state dynamics, and the history of feuds in Germany. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SOCRESTA project will investigate how peasants, burghers, and lesser nobles settled disputes through both violence and legal means between 1500 and 1600. Focusing on the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg, the project will explore how gender and class shaped these conflicts, as well as the role of the state in mediating them. As the first systematic study of how ordinary people used violence and the law following the 1495 ban on feuds in the Holy Roman Empire, SOCRESTA challenges the traditional idea that feuds were exclusively a noble privilege.

Objective

SOCRESTA is the first systematic exploration of how ordinary people used violence and the law to resolve their disputes in Renaissance Germany after the 1495 ban on feud or Fehde in the Holy Roman Empire. To ensure its feasibility, the project focuses on the Prince-bishopric of Würzburg in 1500-1600. A central German territory, marked by the social upheaval of the Peasants’ War, religious discord of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and aristocratic conflicts, it presents an ideal laboratory for analysing early modern social relations and the state.
SOCRESTA’s objective is to qualitatively and quantitatively investigate how early modern peasants, burghers and lesser nobles characterised, experienced and settled their disputes; how they used violence and the law to pursue their enmities; how interpersonal violence was shaped by gender and class expectations; how effective was the state in mediating disputes and controlling violence.
SOCRESTA adopts a multidisciplinary approach rooted in legal anthropology and comparative social, legal, gender and women’s history and history of emotions to fill significant gaps in the history of feud in early modern Germany. By centring on the lower orders who remain critically underexplored, the innovative project goes well beyond normative discourses and legislation to address actual social phenomena and deconstruct the dominant views on Fehde as a medieval institution and prerogative of the nobility. Thereby, the project also contributes to a broader history of European social relations, the state, violence and the law.
Finally, SOCRESTA’s programme enables the fellow to expand his existing knowledge in the field of history and acquire new techniques, especially in digital humanities, substantially advances his networking and dissemination skills, and enhances his teaching.

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 260 347,92
Address
HESLINGTON
YO10 5DD YORK NORTH YORKSHIRE
United Kingdom

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Region
Yorkshire and the Humber North Yorkshire York
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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