Blood feud as gift exchange: The ritual of humiliation in the customary system of conflict resolution

The article, based on interdisciplinary historiographical and anthropological studies and archival documents, collected folk literature and other documents, will reconstruct the ritual of blood feud with emphasis on the act of humiliation and penance as reflected in documents from Southeast Europe, comparing them with many fragments of medieval European cases, reflecting general ritual structure in the field of public affairs: Homage (gift, first approach), Fides (fidelity, oath, truce) and Investiture (appointment), and, in case of dispute settlement, Pace Perpetua - lasting peace (love, marriage), with particular focus on principles of the so called gift-exchange societies. The hypothesis of this article, based on collected material and on outlined cases, is arguing in favour of the principle of the general ritual structure for all public affairs, in which precisely the gesture of penance and humiliation plays an important symbolic role, especially in the ritual of vindicta, that is in the customary system of conflict resolution.