Abstract
Although Balkan and western European kingdoms offer an often-extreme contrast of social, political, economic and institutional contexts, the patterns of criminal activity, including banditry, are very similar. To be sure, much like the Balkans, many parts of western Europe were plagued by crime and public disorder during the period under consideration here. This is particularly true of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which witnessed a notable surge in criminal violence, both in urban centres and rural areas. As we will see below, a large share of the blame for this must be laid at the door of the nobility and of professional soldiers. This, however, is not to say that men from other social groups, most notably poor peasants, were not also heavily engaged in such activities.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Kaeuper 2000; Nirenberg 2001; Brown 2011. For a thorough discussion of English outlawry, see Spraggs 2001. For the earlier period, see Michael H. Burrows, Lower Class Violence in Late Antique West, Phd Dissertation, Leeds: University of Leeds, 2017.
- 2.
Reuter 2006, 40.
- 3.
Dean 2007, 17–51.
- 4.
Cohen 1980, especially 311; Hanawalt 1979, 53–54, 128–134; Clanchy 1980, 46.
- 5.
Hanawalt 1974, 15–16; Postan 1966, 565–570.
- 6.
Hanawalt–Westman 1970, 98–106.
- 7.
See Baldwin 1970, I, 319. Several other examples are given by Murray 1978.
- 8.
Scholars think that this type of criminal association was particularly common during the Middle Ages; Hanawalt 1974, 13; Reuter 2006, 55; Cohen 1980, 327.
- 9.
Hanawalt 2011, 49.
- 10.
See the discussion in Hanawalt 1975.
- 11.
For example, it has been suggested that urban expansion and the conquest of territory by the Italian city-states reduced noble lands and cut into their revenues; see Cherubini 1980, 119, 128–129.
- 12.
In fact, only the eldest of the Folville brothers seems to have avoided being accused of active involvement in crime.
- 13.
For the Folvilles, see in particular Stones 1957, 117–136; McCall 1979, 104–105.
- 14.
For the Coterels, see Bellamy 1964, 698–717.
- 15.
Dean 2014, 28. Attempts were made to restrict the wearing of such signs to those actually in a lord’s service. In England, an ordinance issued in 1389 forbade lords from giving liveries to any men who were not either their household servants or their retainers engaged for life.
- 16.
Several examples are given by Hanawalt 1975, 7.
- 17.
Bellamy 1973, 49; Bellamy 1970.
- 18.
Bellamy 1973, 64; Hanawalt 1975, 10–11; Komornicka 2012, 199.
- 19.
Jamieson 2009, 99–100.
- 20.
For some of these accounts, see McCall 1979, 122 and Jamieson 2009, 106–107.
- 21.
McCall 1979, 122–123.
- 22.
See Jamieson 2009, 101–102.
- 23.
See Caffero 2006; Fowler 1998, 131–148.
- 24.
Caffero 1998, 37–38.
- 25.
McCall 1979, 125–126.
- 26.
Thus, during the reign of Edward III, and particularly in 1339–1340, at least 850 charters of pardon were granted to men who had served in the wars. Another 260 charters were granted in 1360–1361; Hewitt 1966, 30.
- 27.
Widukind of Corvey, Deeds of the Saxons, 69.
- 28.
Jamieson 2009, 103.
- 29.
Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, 199–202 (Trans.: 202–204); Jamieson 2009, 103–105.
- 30.
Fowler 2001, 118–120; Jamieson 2009, 108. See also Riisøy 2015, 49–81.
- 31.
McCall 1979, 96–97.
- 32.
Harding 1973, 90.
- 33.
For the history of the Vehmgericht, see Fricke 2002.
- 34.
Dean 2007, 11, 53–54.
- 35.
Fiesel 1926, 385–412; Schwaab 1981, 398–417; Reuter 2006, 65.
- 36.
Clanchy 1980, 38, 41.
- 37.
Szabó 1977, 88–137.
- 38.
Clanchy 1980, 42–43; Reuter 2006, 60–61.
- 39.
Jusserand 1920, 257–258; Dean 2007, 104–105; Dean 2014, 133; Ekholst 2014, 52.
- 40.
Jusserand 1920, 257; Hanawalt 1974, 2; Hanawalt 1975, 3; Cohen 1980, 310 and n. 13; Ekholst 2014, 53.
- 41.
See for instance the New Chronicle of St Peter of Erfurt, 293, 295.
- 42.
Reuter 2006, 42–45.
- 43.
Keen 1961, 95–96.
- 44.
Seal 2011, 35–40. Earl Godwin, Herewald and Fouke Fitz Waryn were all men of high birth, and their stories were clearly written with an eye to an aristocratic audience.
- 45.
However, it has been shown that the poet has added a rich layer of fantastic exploits and adventures, derived from the popular romances. Among these works, the influence of the Romance of Reynard the Fox or Roman de Renart is particularly strong; Knight–Ohlgren 1997, 668–670.
- 46.
Keen 1961, 53–63; Seal 2011, 40; Burgess 1997, 3–48.
- 47.
Knight–Ohlgren 1997, 670.
- 48.
Hobsbawm 1981, 41.
- 49.
Keen 1961, 145.
- 50.
Keen 1961, 160–173; Hilton 1958, 30–44.
- 51.
Coss 1985, 35–79; Dobson-Taylor 1995, 40; Knight–Ohlgren 1997, 6.
- 52.
Knight–Ohlgren 1997, 184–226, 235–268.
- 53.
Seal 2011, 40–41.
- 54.
Keen 1961, 212–213.
- 55.
See the discussion below.
- 56.
Jeffreys 1974, 161.
- 57.
Pantić 1977, 421–439; Deretić 2007, 29; Milošević–Đorđević 1999, 149. This is a poem describing the imprisonment of Janko Sibinjanin (János Hunyady) by despot Đurađ Branković (1427–1456). It was composed by Rogiero de Pacienca, who had apparently heard that same song from members of a Serbian colony near Naples.
- 58.
Nikeph. Gregoras, Letters, 107–108, no. 32a.
- 59.
Of paramount importance here was the collection of popular poems published in three volumes by Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864). For the history of the study of Serbian folk and heroic songs, see Petrovitch 1915, xvii–xxii; Low 1922, ix–xxi; Milošević–Đorđević 1999, 147–149.
- 60.
Noyes 1913, 1–7; Petrovitch 1915, xxxvii–xxxviii; Milošević–Đorđević 1999, 150–156; Deretić 2007, 29–30; Matthias–Vučković 1987; Popović 1988. For the relation between the Byzantine and south Slavic epic tradition, see Lord 1991, 186–194.
- 61.
Noyes 1913, 1–2.
- 62.
Cvetkova 1982, 304; Pavlović–Marković 2007, 21–30. In general, for hajduks in Bulgaria, see Cvetkova 1971. For Serbia, see Stojanović 1984. According to Zakythinos 1976, 271, similar ‘freedom fighters’ made their appearance in northern Greece immediately upon the Ottoman conquest.
- 63.
Hobsbawm 1981, 71–72; Stojanović 1973, 555–575; Stojanović 1975, 281–295; Stoykova 1980, 273–282.
- 64.
Aravantinos 1996, 32–33; Politis 1973, 29–31.
- 65.
Politis 1973, xxxvi–xxxvii.
- 66.
As, for example, in the case of bandit-songs in nineteenth-century Romania; Vătavu 2016, 159–160.
- 67.
Beaton 1980, 110–111.
- 68.
For the Albanian epic tradition and its relation to that of the southern Slavs, see Kolsti 1990; see also Elsie–Mathie-Heck 2004. An excellent study of Vlach oral traditions, including songs and fairy tales, is offered by Katsanevaki 2014; see also Papazisi–Papatheodorou 1985.
- 69.
Le Roy Ladurie 1979, 428–431; Morin 2016, 199.
- 70.
For a more general discussion, see Vansina 1985.
- 71.
Thomas 1989, 123–124
- 72.
See here the useful comments of Hobsbawm 1981, 129–130.
- 73.
See our comments above.
- 74.
For a detailed discussion of Momčilo’s place in Slavic folktales, see Gjuzelev 1967, 91–109; Nicoloff 1975, 68–69; Bartusis 1980, 217–218; Petrovitch 1915, 186–193; Low 1922, 1–9.
- 75.
Archives de Saint-Jean-Prodrome, 120–122, no. 37; Gjuzelev 2006, 259–264; Bartusis 1980, 210 n. 69
- 76.
Noyes 1913, 187–190.
- 77.
Stojanović 1984, 146–152.
- 78.
Popović 1988, 156.
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Sophoulis, P. (2020). Banditry in the Medieval West and in Popular Legend. In: Banditry in the Medieval Balkans, 800-1500. New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55905-2_7
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