Early Modern Peasants

Based on a synthesis of the empirical scholarship on England and Germany, this paper demonstrates that in both regions, rural socio-economic developments c.1200–c.1800 are similar: this period witnesses the rise to numerical predominance and growing economic significance of the ‘sub-peasant classes’, which had a growing impact on the market as a result of their increasing market dependence, and from which towards the end of the period a rural proletariat emerged. Against the influential theory of Robert Brenner, it is argued that the period c.1200–c.1400 cannot really be categorized as ‘feudal’ according to Brenner’s definition; and ‘agrarian capitalism’ does not adequately describe the socio-economic system that obtained by the end of the sixteenth century. A genuine transition to capitalism is only evident from after c.1750, and can be found in Germany as well as in England; it is predicated both on ideological shifts, and the evolution of the rural proletariat, which is only found in large numbers by or after c.1800.

The renowned late Slovene legal historian Sergij Vilfan mentioned a 'peculiarity' among sixteenth-century Carniolan peasants, referred to as grundstöer (devastation) in the sources, which was used to avenge homicide by destroying the perpetrator's property instead of killing him as in blood feud. Throughout his career, Vilfan remained somewhat unsure about whether grundstöer was distinct from the 'German(ic)' legal institution of Wüstung (devastation), used to sanction homicide the same way. The analysis presented in this paper, predicated on recent research on vengeance, establishes that they were essentially the same institution, a part of and originating from the legal custom of (blood) feud as an ancient system of conflict resolution.

http://zdjp.si/en/

The paper analyses blood feud as a legal custom of the system of conflict resolution in Inner Austria during the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period. Based on legal customs, statutory law, and early modern criminal law the analysis is applied to a case of blood (homicide) settlement in Upper Carniola (Gorenjska) in the 17th century. Two things in particular emerge: the long survival of this legal custom and the tendency of blood feud for peace. Both put Inner Austria in these matters firmly within the broader European legal context.

http://zdjp.si/en/

Errata:
- statutory law instead of common law on pp. 153, 155–156, 158, 162,  167.

Following the stages of the custom of vengeance, this paper reconstructs conflict resolution among commoners in the Habsburg Duchy of Carniola in early modernity, focusing on the subjects of the Upper Carniolan Lordship of Bled in the first half of the seventeenth century. Disparate cases show that in the Eastern Alpine countryside the rites of enmity and peace had changed little since the Late Middle Ages. Despite the gradual implementation of early modern criminal legislation and growing state interference in the local judiciary, the latter continued to resolve conflicts, including homicide, in cooperation with the community. Remnants of traditional conflict resolution can still be found in the late nineteenth century.

http://zdjp.si/en/

Errata:

P. 681: Andreas Trost, not Tros.

Estudio del proceso de ocupación hispanocristiana (1) y de la comunalización del terrazgo cerealista (2), fenómeno de gran importancia en Extremadura y quizás en otras regiones castellanas, algo no estudiado aún. El ejemplo de Holguera permitió constatar por primera vez que se comunalizaba el terrazgo cerealista permanente y no espacios comunales cultivados de modo irregular.