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The paper deals with a case study of 1686 vendetta in Koper, based on original archival documents from judicial bodies of the Republic of Venice and narrative material from the protagonists in the feud. It regards a classic case of vengeance due to the conflicts between various noble kinship groups, formed on the idiom of honour. The reason for the vengeance was a forbidden or at least an unwanted marriage between representatives of two noble families that escalated into the homicide of one relative of the married woman. After an almost three-year lasting, apparently unsuccessful negotiations for the conflict settlement, a retributive homicide of the most prominent representative of the perpetrator’s family took place, which was performed by a maternal uncle of a third family, connected by kinship. It is interesting how the local, and especially the central political judicial authorities intervened in the feud (faida) after the first homicide, in accordance with the principles of the customary system of conflict resolution, by encouraging and lastly forcing the parties in the feud to make peace. However, the attempt to integrate the customary system of conflict resolution into a court settlement apparently failed in this case, as precisely the prevention of the customary system of conflict resolution with a (seeming) state guarantee of security and with force things led to an uprising, caused by an intentional break from the traditional values of honour and roles of kinship connections. Nonetheless, in accordance with the customary system of conflict resolution, the vengeful homicide alone might have been perceived as an established and socially acknowledged end of the conflict. It was based on the fundamental social principle of gift giving, namely that the given gift should be returned, and the insult should demand suitable retribution. The implementation of a strict inquisitorial judicial procedure might have nonetheless prevented possible retaliation after a vindicatory homicide, as is also shown in the judicial practice in other Central and Western European countries of that time. Along with great social changes in the second half of the 15th century, a centralization of justice came about, in addition to fiscal and military reorganization, that was of fundamental importance in European rulers’ efforts to establish supreme control over the entire territory under their jurisdiction. In order to achieve this goal, however, the rulers first had to restrict, by means of legislation and other coercive means, the system of arbitrary conflict resolution by custom. For this purpose, they established a judicial system, i.e. punitive control over both individual influential families and clans, as well as over the population in general. The state judicial apparatus earned the right of prosecution ex officio, whereas the trespasses became individualised. While earlier, in the so-called adversarial law, the judicial investigative process was only able to be led after a lawsuit from the affected communities, in the inquisitorial procedure the judicial trial was initiated by the central judicial authorities, which was the primary reason for their creation. The state inquisitorial trial rites introduced in most Western and Central European countries from the 16th century onwards, which substantially differed from the ecclesiastical inquisitorial procedure (from the 12th century onwards), led to an important innovation. It was precisely the complex inquisitorial judicial rites that were assigned to be exercised by the (state) judge with nearly limitless jurisdiction, including the implementation of torture in all phases of the judicial procedure, which gradually took over the mediatory role of the community in feud and fundamentally disrupted the traditional relationships of values of honour and kinship connections. Studies of early-modern Europe have shown the changes that took place starting from the late 16th century. The introduction in various European countries of authentic inquisitorial procedures, which limited the right to defence and the intervention of the parties concerned, represented a significant step forward in limiting at least the bloodiest developments of feud. From France to England, to Germany and Italy, the new procedures were characterized not so much by ex-officio initiation of trials as by the public jurisdictional nature that the trials took on. With this intrusion and with the legal and ideological criminalisation of feud and blood feud the ruler or the state gradually took away the judicial jurisdiction from former holders of (local) authority: the nobility. Thereafter, the supreme right to revenge and pardon was in the hands of the ruler (state), which also signifies that this was the means of attaining of absolute power. However, the case of the 1686 vendetta in Koper is a good example of how lasting and entangled was this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]