Editing Feud (section)

===History===
Blood feuds were common in societies with a weak rule of law (or where the state did not consider itself responsible for mediating this kind of dispute), where family and kinship ties were the main source of [[authority]]. An entire family was considered responsible for the actions of any of its members. Sometimes two separate branches of the same family even came to blows, or further, over some dispute.

The practice has mostly disappeared with more centralized societies where [[law enforcement]] and [[criminal law]] take responsibility for punishing lawbreakers.

====Feuds in Antiquity====
===== Ancient Greece =====
In [[Homeric]] [[ancient Greece]], the practice of personal vengeance against wrongdoers was considered natural and customary: "Embedded in the Greek morality of retaliation is the right of vengeance... Feud is a war, just as war is an indefinite series of revenges; and such acts of vengeance are sanctioned by the gods".<ref>{{citation |first=John Gwyn |last=Griffiths |title=The Divine Verdict: A Study of Divine Judgement in the Ancient Religions |year=1991 |page=90 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-09231-0}}</ref>

===== Hebrew Law =====
In ancient [[Hebrew law]], it was considered the duty of the individual and family to avenge unlawful bloodshed, on behalf of God and on behalf of the deceased. The executor of the law of blood-revenge who personally put the initial killer to death was given a special designation: ''[[go'el haddam]]'', the blood-avenger or blood-redeemer ([[Book of Numbers]] 35: 19, etc.). Six [[Cities of Refuge]] were established to provide protection and [[due process]] for any unintentional manslayers. The avenger was forbidden from harming an [[:he:רוצח בשגגה|unintentional killer]] if the killer took refuge in one of these cities. As the ''Oxford Companion to the Bible'' states: "Since life was viewed as sacred ([[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 9.6), no amount of [[blood money (term)|blood money]] could be given as recompense for the loss of the life of an innocent person; it had to be [[lex talionis|"life for life"]] ([[Book of Exodus|Exodus]] 21.23; [[Deuteronomy]] 19.21)".<ref>{{citation |title=The Oxford Companion to the Bible |first1=Bruce M. |last1=Metzger |first2=Michael D. |last2=Coogan |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195046458/page/68 68] |isbn=978-0-19-504645-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195046458/page/68 }}</ref>

==== Early Confucianism ====
Confucius had demanded vengeance for the killing of parents, older brothers, and friends, and viewed this as a matter of duty.<ref>{{citation|title=The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism|first=Max|last=Weber|publisher=Free Press|year=1951|page=169|isbn=9780029344507}}</ref> ''[[Book of Rites]]'' quotes Confucius saying: "(a son whose parent was killed) should sleep on straw, with his shield for a pillow; he should not take office; he must be determined not to live with the slayer under the same heaven. If he meet with him in the marketplace or the court, he should not have to go back for his weapon, but instantly fight with him."<ref>{{citation|title=Sacred Books of the East|first=James|last=Legge|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1910|volume=27|chapter=The Than Kung|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sacred_Books_of_the_East/Volume_27/The_Lî_Kî/Book_II}}</ref>

====Feuds in the Middle Ages and Renaissance era====
[[File:1673 Heintz Wettstreit auf der Ponte dei Pugni in Venedig anagoria.JPG|thumb|[[Ponte dei Pugni]] ('Bridge of Fists') in [[Venice]] was used for an annual fist fight competition between the inhabitants of different zones of the city.]]

=====Medieval Europe in general=====
According to historian [[Marc Bloch]]:

{{blockquote|The [[Middle Ages]], from beginning to end, and particularly the [[feudal]] era, lived under the sign of private [[revenge|vengeance]]. The [[Blame|onus]], of course, lay above all on the wronged individual; vengeance was imposed on him as the most sacred of duties ... The solitary individual, however, could do but little. Moreover, it was most commonly a death that had to be avenged. In this case the family group went into action and the ''faide'' (feud) came into being, to use the old Germanic word which spread little by little through the whole of Europe—'the vengeance of the kinsmen which we call ''faida''', as a German canonist expressed it. No moral obligation seemed more sacred than this ... The whole kindred, therefore, placed as a rule under the command of a [[chieftain]], took up arms to punish the murder of one of its members or merely a wrong that he had suffered.<ref>[[Marc Bloch]], trans. L. A. Manyon, ''Feudal Society'', Vol. I, 1965, p. 125–126</ref>}}

[[Rita of Cascia]], a popular 15th-century Italian saint, was canonized by the [[Catholic Church]] due mainly to her great effort to end a feud in which her family was involved and which claimed the life of her husband.

=====Northern Europe=====
The [[Celts|Celtic]] phenomenon of the ''blood feud'' demanded "an eye for an eye", and usually descended into murder. Disagreements between [[clan]]s might last for generations in Scotland and Ireland.

In [[Scandinavia]] in the [[Viking]] era, feuds were common, as the lack of a central government left dealing with disputes up to the individuals or families involved. Sometimes, these would descend into "blood revenges", and in some cases would devastate whole families. The ravages of the feuds as well as the dissolution of them is a central theme in several of the [[Icelandic saga]]s.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lindow |first1=J. |title=Bloodfeud and Scandinavian Mythology |url=https://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~alvismal/4feud.pdf |publisher=Freie Universitãt, Berlin |access-date=24 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030526094341/https://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~alvismal/4feud.pdf |archive-date=26 May 2003 |url-status=live }}</ref> An alternative to feud was ''[[blood money (term)|blood money]]'' (or ''[[weregild]]'' in the [[Norsemen|Norse]] culture), which demanded a set value to be paid by those responsible for a wrongful permanent disfigurement or death, even if accidental. If these payments were not made, or were refused by the offended party, a blood feud could ensue.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=William Ian |title=Bloodtaking and peacemaking : feud, law, and society in Saga Iceland |date=1990 |location=Chicago |isbn=0226526801 |access-date=}}</ref>

Violence was common in [[Viking Age]] [[Norway]]. An examination of Norwegian human remains from the Viking Age found that 72% of the examined males and 42% of the examined females had suffered weapon-related [[Injury in humans|trauma]]. Violence was less common in Viking Age Denmark, where society was more centralized and complex than the [[clan]]-based Norwegian society.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bill |first1=Jan |last2=Jacobson |first2=David |last3=Nagel |first3=Susanne |last4=Strand |first4=Lisa Mariann |title=Violence as a lens to Viking societies: A comparison of Norway and Denmark |journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology |date=September 2024 |volume=75 |doi=10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101605 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416524000369#b0870|hdl=10852/114115 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>

In [[Iceland]], blood feuds occurred until the 16th century.<ref>{{cite book |contributor=Helgi Þorláksson |contribution=Atrocious Icelanders versus Basques. Unexpected violence or not? |date=2017 |last1=Irujo |first1=Xabier |last2=Miglio |first2=Viola |title=Jón Guðmundsson lærði’s True Account and the Massacre of Basque Whalers in Iceland in 1615 |location=Reno, Nevada |publisher=Center for Basque Studies. University of Nevada, Reno |isbn=9781935709831 |page=90–92 |url=https://www.academia.edu/46954316/J%C3%B3n_Gu%C3%B0mundsson_l%C3%A6r%C3%B0i_s_True_Account_and_the_Massacre_of_Basque_Whalers_in_Iceland_in_1615}}</ref>

===== Holy Roman Empire =====
At the [[Holy Roman Empire]]'s [[Diet of Worms (1495)|''Reichstag'' at Worms in 1495 AD]], the right of waging feuds was abolished. The [[Imperial Reform]] proclaimed an "eternal [[public peace]]" (''[[Ewiger Landfriede]]'') to put an end to the abounding feuds and the anarchy of the [[Robber baron (feudalism)|robber baron]]s, and it defined a new [[standing army|standing imperial army]] to enforce that peace. However, it took a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted.<!-- non-reliable source <ref>{{NNDB|id=399/000096111|name=Maximilian I|accessdate=2012-07-26}}</ref> -->{{citation needed|date=August 2015}} In 1506, for example, knight Jan Kopidlansky killed a family rival in [[Prague]], and the town councillors sentenced him to death and had him executed. His brother, Jiri Kopidlansky, declared a private war against the city of Prague.<ref>{{cite news |title=Krvavá msta Jiřího z Kopidlna |url=https://www.novinky.cz/historie/clanek/krvava-msta-jiriho-z-kopidlna-40387536 |work=Novinky.cz |date=6 March 2022 |language=Czech}}</ref> Another case was the [[Nuremberg v. Konrad Schott von Schottenstein|Nuremberg-Schott]] feud, in which Maximilian was forced to step in to halt the damages done by robber knight Schott.

===== Spain =====
In the Spanish [[Late Middle Ages]], the [[Basque Country (greater region)|Vascongadas]] was ravaged by the [[War of the Bands]], which were bitter partisan wars between local ruling families. In the region of [[Navarre]], next to Vascongadas, these conflicts became polarised in a violent struggle between the Agramont and Beaumont parties. In [[Biscay]], in Vascongadas, the two major warring factions were named Oinaz and Gamboa. (''Cf.'' the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines]] in Italy). High defensive structures ("towers") built by local noble families, few of which survive today, were frequently razed by fires, and sometimes by royal decree.

====Samurai honours and feuds====
In Japan's feudal past, the [[samurai]] class upheld the honor of their family, clan, and their lord by ''katakiuchi'' ({{lang|ja|敵討ち}}), or revenge killings. These killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. While some vendettas were punished by the government, such as that of the [[Forty-seven Ronin]], others were given official permission with specific targets.