The Feud in Early Modern Germany

Hillay Zmora is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern European History at Ben Gurion University, Israel. His previous publications include Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe, 1300–1800 (2001).

• 1. Introduction: the struggle over the feud in early modern Germany; 2. The rules of the game; 3. Values and violence: the morals of feuding; 4. The wages of success: reproduction and the proliferation of conflicts; 5. Enemies of the state? Feuding nobles, ruling princes, and the struggle for mastery in early modern Germany; 6. The politics of civility: the decay of the feud.

'Ever since Otto Brunner, the phenomenon of the feud in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period has been a constant (and contested) subject-matter in the historiography. But despite all the debates and controversies that have surrounded this theme, the time seems ripe for a new synthesis which, building on recent research, offers overarching interpretations. Such a synthesis is presented by Hillay Zmora … an important interpretation that will stimulate further research of the noble feud in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era.' Sven Rabeler, translated from Historische Zeitschrift