The language of vengeance: A glossary of enmity and peace

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 confl ict 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.