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

Descripción del proyecto

El feudo y la ley en la Alemania del Renacimiento

El principado episcopal de Wurzburgo ofrece una ventana única a las relaciones sociales de principios de la Edad Moderna, la dinámica estatal y la historia de los feudos en Alemania. El equipo del proyecto SOCRESTA, que cuenta con el apoyo de las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, investigará cómo los campesinos, burgueses y nobles menores resolvían sus disputas tanto por la violencia como por medios legales entre 1500 y 1600. Centrándose en el principado episcopal de Wurzburgo, en el proyecto se explorará cómo el género y la clase social moldearon estos conflictos, así como el papel del Estado en su mediación. SOCRESTA, el primer estudio sistemático sobre el uso de la violencia y la ley por parte del pueblo llano tras la prohibición de los feudos en el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico en 1495, cuestiona la idea tradicional de que los feudos eran un privilegio exclusivo de la nobleza.

Objetivo

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.