Bloodfeud in Scotland 1573-1625: Violence, Justice and Politics in an Early Modern Society

Partly because it had largely disappeared at an early stage in the development of literacy in Europe and partly because it has never been a fashionable topics for historians, the bloodfeud has been subject to more research from anthropologists than historians. The result is that more is known about feuding amongst the tribes of 20th-century Sudan or between the warlords of Lebanon than about the feuding in pre-modern Europe. The bloodfeud was a late survival in Scotland and this has ensured that it is better documented than in other European societies. This study of the Scottish evidence shows its relevance to the wider European community to which the Scots belonged; reveals much about the nature of the bloodfeud in general; and explores the changes in the community which brought about its suppression. -- "This is one of the most important books to have been written on the history of early modern Scotland in recent years. [..]. Dr. Brown's conclusions rest on the analysis of some 365 feuds drawn from the period 1573-1625, though most occurred before 1610 [..]. The most common causes of individual feuds were disputes over landownership - especially over boundaries, fishing rights, peats, teinds and church seating - yet these are more significant as reflections of the broader destabilizing influences at work in the fabric of Jacobean society, and particularly in the changing character of landownership. [..] [The thesis] represents a major contribution to the dialogue about the two pairs of symbiotic but double-edged relationships which underpinned early modern Scottish society - court and country, lordship and kinship - and their vital intermingling in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It strikes at the root of one of the most secure myths of Scottish history - the reassertion of monarchy under James VI - but also restates it, in more sophisticated terms." (Michael Lynch, University of Edinburgh)