518 claudio povolo
this system as a whole would seem to have been inhospitable to any
attempt at schematization or synthesis, unless one considers the legal and
cultural features that animated it while also providing a subtle internal
logic. giving coherence to this extremely fragmented institutional system
was a legal order focused on the ius comune that brought together the
disparate legal traditions of roman law, custom, local statutes, and canon
law. Maintaining this coherence was a diverse class of jurists made up of
scholars, lawyers, and judges, who provided a practical and theoretical
framework capable of assuring the effectiveness and continuity of the sys-
tem. all the legal bodies, from the small feudal courts to the large urban
and ecclesiastical tribunals, worked to uphold the values and major inter-
ests of a society based on class divisions and an order centered on honor
and maintaining peace.18
the cultural and legal aspects of justice, filtered through the jurispru-
dence of the ius comune jurists, in fact reflected the values of a society
animated by kin groups and the ways that they measured their worth
in terms of honor and status.19 while status defined a kin group and its
social position, its aspirations and tensions were expressed in the idiom
of honor.20 through legal institutions developed by ius comune jurists, the
practices of justice in fact reflect conflicts that were driven by the complex
language of honor. even where it was not readily visible, honor was like
a deeply buried nerve that animated conflicts and, above all, constructed
the social dimension of kinship.21 Violence and honor were also so closely
connected because of the close relationship between the physical person
and honor: every offense to a person’s honor had to be repaid with physi-
cal violence.22
18 antonio Manuel hespanha, Introduzione alla storia del diritto europeo (bologna,
2003), pp. 67–85.
19 over the course of the medieval and modern periods, social groupings defined by the
patrilineal line emerged and grew stronger, accompanied by practices of exclusion from
inheritance of wealth. when there was a clear political power in a territory, this tendency
also influenced the transmission of privileges and titles, david warren sabean and simon
teuscher, “Kinship in europe: a new approach to Long term development,” in david
warren sabean, simon teuscher, and J. Mathieu, eds., Kinship in Europe: Approaches to
Long-Term Development (1300–1900) (oxford, 2007), pp. 10–11.
20 James casey, La famiglia nella storia (bari, 1991), pp. 53–84.
21 gerd schwerhoff, “social control of Violence, Violence as social control: the case
of early Modern germany,” in roodenburg and spiernburg, eds., Social Control in Europe,
1:233–39; anton blok, Honour and Violence (Malden, 2001), p. 9.
22 “the ultimate vindication of honour lies in physical violence and when other means
fail the obligation exists, not only in the formal code of honour but in social milieux which