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Based on a conceptual historiographic and semantic analysis of the fundamental terminology of the ritual of vengeance, this paper presents an attempt to provide researchers with a linguistic, conceptual, and methodological framework for the study of vengeance as the customary system of conflict resolution in premodern Europe. For this purpose the key terminology, which also has abundant synonyms, has been collected in the accompanying septalingual glossary. While predicated on, foremost, European Medieval sources and studies thereof, the dissemination and interrelation of the universal human custom make the paper applicable for other areas and periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the tradition of vendetta and the peace-making process that were a part of a customary legal tradition of rural kinship communities in Montenegro and Albania. The custom was preserved throughout the centuries as both Venetian and Ottoman administration acknowledged the existing legal customs. However, in some cases the customary peace-making custom proved itself to be more efficient than the diplomatic intervention in the dispute resolution. The Venetian authorities on several occasions ordered the rural kinship communities in the coastal area to make customary peace with their neighbours in hope of preventing vendetta and feuds from developing immense proportions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood revenge is a system of social control that regulates violence and leads towards reestablishment of social equilibrium through dispute resolution. The custom of blood revenge and peace-making within patriarchal egalitarian communities of Montenegro, Northern Albania as well as some other neighbouring areas was preserved in praxis at least until the end of the 19th century, the oral tradition regarding the customs, however, even longer. The tribal leaders who were the mediators and the arbiters in dispute resolution held the key role in dispute resolution in patriarchal egalitarian communities. With mediation of the leaders of the tribal communities the truce (besa) between the feuding parties was reached, that enabled the parties to enter the arbitration, where the assembly of arbiters deliberated on the sum of the composition and the number of the new family bonds between the parties; marriages and / or godfatherhoods and brotherhoods. The concluding symbolic gesture of peace is the kiss of peace between the parties. The peace-making consists of three phases and all phases include symbolic words, gestures and objects that indicate similar ritual structure as it was present in public contractual agreements in the Medieval Europe. The similarities indicate common origins of some European legal traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]