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In the Autumn of 1681, towards the close of the worst plague epidemic to hit early modern Lower Styria, a dispute between the Žalec market-town councillor Johann Christoph Pilpach and Ferdinand Baron Miglio from the nearby Plumberk manor erupted into violence. With the help of soldiers whom Pilpach acquired from the Counts of Strassoldo from Krško in Carniola, he raided Miglio's manor during his absence, threatening to serve him lead 'cherries' (bullets), for which the nobleman avenged himself by ransacking the market-burgher's house in Žalec. This paper analyses the rather unusual, active enmity between two socially unequal adversaries through traditional practices of conducting and settling disputes, which also enables a look at other social relations among this conflict's main actors. Due to very fragmentary sources, it is unknown what set it off, although Pilpach's ransacking of the manor suggests that it might have been due to Miglio's debts to the affluent market-burgher. Perhaps their dispute was connected to the one between the baron and the Fraziolis, the former administrators of his manor, or to a dispute the Fraziolis or Pilpachs might have had with the Žalec market-burgher family Galič (Galitsch), the new administrators of Plumberk. The ensuing violence is better documented. Pilpach's raid on Plumberk manor was co-organised by his son-in-law, Gregor Rozman, who sought help from the Strassoldos. While the exact nature of their relationship with the counts is obscure, it had to be close for an important noble family to lend its soldiers to two market-burghers. Maybe the Strassoldos' help was also related to disputes they themselves might have had with Miglio. Pilpach's social capital was quite possibly further predicated on the marriage of a lesser line of the Valvasor noble family to the Pilpachs from Žalec in early 1680. These connections most likely levelled the field once the market-burgher's dispute with the baron broke out into violence. Miglio's response in September 1681 essentially mirrored Pilpach's actions: ransacking his home under arms, threats with violence and death, stealing his horses, killing his poultry, etc. Maybe the equal response was completely by chance, but, conceivably, the expected reciprocity of violence in enmities also played a role. In the end, Miglio had to justify his actions in court as a measured response to an affront. The violence was exacerbated when Pilpach opted for a recourse to law, after failing to obtain satisfaction (restitution of honour and damages) from Miglio for the attack. Pilpach's attempt to serve a writ to the baron ended with Miglio almost cudgelling the messenger to death, rejecting the attempt as insolence. Despite going to court, the settlement of their dispute or at least the violence seems to have been extra-curial, as was common in enmities among the elite. Likewise, the only intervention by princely authorities seems to have been a demand that Miglio accept the writ, even though violent enmities or feuds broke the provincial (and Imperial) peace and, which was even more critical, attacks on the socially superior upset the social order. There were certainly no grave consequences for Pilpach, who is attested as the Žalec market-town judge in 1684. All of this suggests that the social differences between him and Miglio were formal rather than factual, underpinned by Pilpach's close connections to influential noble families and, probably, also by the fact that the Miglios' rise to nobility was rather recent. His 'equality' with the baron in their enmity probably also helped Pilpach to improve his social standing. Although it is unknown when exactly peace between the baron and Pilpach was made, the plague that decimated Žalec in 1683 seems as a plausible mitigating factor. In any case, in early 1684, Pilpach's wife Ursula Elisabeth and his former enemy Jakob Galič, Miglio's administrator of Plumberk, became godparents to a child of one of their market-town neighbours. This indicates that their enmity was over, most likely following or as part of the peace made between Pilpach and Miglio, since settlement generally included 'all the people' of the conflicting parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the position of nobility in Slovenia, Croatia and Slavonia before and after the Great War. The focus is on the transition to the Yugoslav state. The new regime treated the nobility as adversaries in political, social and national respect; noble titles were abolished and landed estates diminished by the land reform. Even though it cherished personal and family ties, the aforementioned nobility did not organise itself in associations, like their counterparts in Austria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how the Counter-Reformation decrees were enforced in practice, and it presents a document dealing with the specific situation in Carniola. The general imperial mandate issued on June 20th, 1631, was part of the second wave of Ferdinand II’s Counter-Reformation, which began with the 1627 establishment of a new Counter-Reformation committee and reached its apex with the adoption of the 1628 patent on the conversion or expulsion of Protestant nobility in Inner Austria. The mandate provides historiography with good insight into the (non-)implementation of the decrees adopted three years prior to that. In it, the emperor observes that some Protestants converted to Catholicism and others moved abroad. Nonetheless, some non-Catholics remained in Carniola, there were many “lax Catholics” among the converts, and some of those that had moved away returned home without the required permission. The Counter-Reformation committee that supervised the religious situation in the country imposed specific deadlines for the conversion or expulsion of Protestants. The key two external proofs of conversion included performing confession, which the convert demonstrated with written proof, and receiving communion. The Protestants that did not convert to Catholicism had to sell their land, pay a tenth of what it was worth (except for the members of the estates), and leave all Ferdinand’s lands. The slow implementation of the decrees shows that the emperor’s threats and sanctions did not have a significant intimidating effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents perceptions of health and life patterns which were placed among the Carniolan elites until the middle of the 18th century in terms of physical and mental well-being, as well as health prevention and cure. The article is mainly based on numerous mentions of illness and treatments in the diaries of the baron Franz Heinrich of Raigersfeld (1697–1760), but similar patterns can be found among all nobility. His records are also a source for studying culture and attitudes towards health in the provincial environments of Trieste, Gorizia and Ljubljana in the first period of Theresian modernization in the Habsburg territories. In Carniola, health care improved rapidly even before the reforms. Authorities have raised health concerns to the top of the priorities. The number of doctors, surgeons and pharmacists has increased. Improvements were first enforced in the provincial centers, but till the end of the 19th century not in all strata of the population. So far, the state has interfered mainly with orders and prohibitions, while the organization of public health and education were still far behind. The Raigersfeld’s family has kept pace with the times with most cultural innovations, including health care. She followed the modern thesis that the disease is largely caused by unhygienic life. Every physical activity was recognized as important for health, but they did not yet think about intensive recreation. Raigersfeld’s notes, however, are sparing with words on nutrition. However, in medical theory and in everyday life, moderation in diet played an important role and a rational and modest diet has long been recommended by local doctors. Elites understood these warnings, but they were often not followed even by chronic patients. Although descriptions of dishes are lacking, it is obvious that in the 18th century, provincial elites were still getting on the table unhealthily large amounts of protein and fat, which certainly led to chronic diseases. The low-calorie and low-fat diet enjoyed by the burgeois and the lower classes was not in the forefront even among the Raigersfelds. Local elites provided themselves with the best doctors and surgeons, depending on their financial capabilities. The city physicians had a lucrative business with the treatment of the nobility. Many of them became rich and established friendly relations with patients, making the bond between the attending physician and the patient closer than it should have been. Especially when, as specialists for them they produced forensic medical examinations and thus navigated between diagnoses and the expectations of the parties in order to maintain their own credibility for the force. The members of the elites had relatively clear ideas about the symptoms and tr eatment of some of the most common diseases. Ther e were frequent cases of mental illness and disorders, as well as chronic diseases (gout, sciatic etc.), death due to severe lung and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, etc. It was fashionable to seek help in domestic and foreign health resorts (Padua). Their treatment in the middle of the 18th century is described by Raigersfeld himself with detailed descriptions of his wife’s death (1752) and his life’s decline (1759/1760). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the characteristics of the preserved documentation, the study of the nobility in Castile in the Central Middle Ages requires the consultation of numerous collections of charters, since there are hardly any noble archives in that period -the few that are known have been conserved in monastic archives -. For this reason, the reconstruction of kinship ties and lordships and properties is extremely laborious and requires the consultation of scattered and disconnected documentation. This article explores the preserved documentation to study a very large family group, the Rojas, between approximately 1200 and 1350. The origin of the documents is analyzed and also their types from the point of view of historical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a case study on a member of Austrian Resistance Movement O5, Baron Nikolaus von Maasburg, and his relatives. Nikolaus and his wife Countess Christiane de Ceschi a Santa Croce lived during WWII in their Castle Bizeljsko where they kept a radio station. With its help they were contacting British intelligence. They were a part of the non-partisan resistance movement against Nazism in Slovenia. Nevertheless, they supported partisans in weapons, munition, food provisions, and horses and paid taxes. In the castle they were hiding Slovene families and a Jewish friend, in spite of the fact that they had two small children. In the castle they held meetings with other Slovenian aristocrats as Windisch-Graetz and Attems as well as Count Georg von Thun and Hohenstein, a member of the Austrian resistance movement from Vienna. Six family members, even though one of them was a partisan and they all supported partisans with money, medicine, weapons, including the most eminent amongst them prince Gottlieb von Windisch-Graetz, were killed by the political secret military service Ozna, later known as Udba in 1945 or 1946. The article discusses their resistance and life after World War Two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social History, Family History and Political History converge on this article, in which we try to analyse how the house of Alba was formed, and progress in the trajectory of social ascent the house of Alba experienced from the 13th century -when they were members of the oligarchy of Toledo- until 1531, when the Duchy was created for Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the Great. In this process, marital alliances with more prestigious aristocratic families, such as the Enríquez and the Benavente, played a prominent role, and subsequently, in the sixteenth century, marriages between close relatives with some degree of consanguinity became recurrent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting in the mid-1400s, aristocratic families and rural communities, as well as individual people, turned to the jurists of Padua's Studium requesting a high number of legal opinions to be used in solving jurisdictional controversies. Conflicting opinions about law and local customs, about the extent to which communities were allowed to carry out armed resistance, and about the procedures in force in courts of law may be found in these consilia, often engendered by a feud. The contribution sets offfrom this kind of literature to show-in contrast with customary "oppositional" interpretations of the relationship between Roman-canon law procedures and customs-how aristocratic and rural communities quickly adapted to a new interpretation of feud conflicts in the course of the late Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]