What are Blood-Feuds? The Prototype to War.

The first thing to be done to understand what blood-feuds are is to define the word. Obviously, the word is actually two. “Blood”, refers to death and then “feud”, well the definition is debated. I happen to find the definition proposed by John Michael Wallace-Hadrill in his book The Long-haired Kings to be almost reliable. He wrote;

“We call it first the threat of hostility between kins; then, the state of hostility between them; and finally, the satisfaction of their differences on a settlement on terms acceptable to both. The threat, the state, and the settlement of that hostility constitute feud but do not necessarily mean bloodshed.”

This article is based on a video essay posted on YouTube in 2020. Click HERE to watch.

My only question about this definition is the issue of settlement. I do not agree that for a conflict to be labeled as a feud, it has to have an agreeable settlement.

Wallace-Hadrill did bring up a good point though. Feuds do not necessarily mean bloodshed. There can be family hostility without death but when there is death, we can attach the word blood to the word feud.

Blood-feuds are not isolated to a certain part of the world or even a certain time. They happened in all historical societies. In fact, they still happen now. What usually comes to mind for me is current 3rd world intertribal warfare but actually, these deadly feuds between families were and still are almost everywhere.

I think a great microcosm to understand blood-feuds is medieval Iceland. I write this because of the fantastic contemporary literature on the subject and because of its unique history.

Between its settlement in the late 9th and early 10th century until its Norweigen Rule in the 13th century, Iceland was a freestate of independent family clans. These clans had sovereignty over themselves and there was a very minuscule centralized government. This is really important because for feuds to actually persist into blood-feuds, there has to be a lack of presence of a centralized authoritative legal enforcement.

So in the case of the Freestate of Iceland, and many other examples, there was no centralized legal enforcement because this task was too hard to accomplish and they thought justice was done through the act of blood-feud. At the time and it was actually expected of people to take revenge on another family if it has inflicted harm onto the clan.

Revenge, for those who practiced blood-feud, came from a righteous and a moralistic part of the psyche. The majority of people thought feuds and clan-wars were legitimate retributive actions.

There are a number of things that could initiate a blood-feud. Many interclan disputes could, of course, be settled in more peaceful ways but a feud happened when there was a lengthy series of retaliation.

In order for this to arise, there must be a deep sense of family honor within the culture. With family honor, the disputes between two individuals from two different tribes are not just an offense to the individuals but of their collective clan. These attacks and counterattacks lead to a strong sense of vengeance and this is precisely why it is so difficult to settle blood-feuds in a way to please both parties. Blood-feuds are active for years, decades, and generations. They truly are the prototype for inter-state warfare.

There are two ways these conflicts end. There is either a compromise of both parties involved or a defeat and compromise of only the losing family-clan.

In many cultures throughout the world, there was something along the lines of “Blood Money”. This is a legal solution to the killing of another man. The killer or the family of the killer would pay a certain amount of money to the harmed family.

This, of course, requires a dampening of the concept of family honor to admit what your family member did was a wrongful act in need of a financial sacrifice. Something to point out though is that Blood Money is not usually something to use in the middle of a clan-war. It is rather a tool that can be utilized to stop a retributive counter-attack from the harmed family which may lead to a blood-feud.

Something I am left wondering is, how far can we stretch the definition? Are massive wars, started because of family retributive actions, blood-feuds?

In this case, blood-feuds are not just what we would call petty clan wars but also such massive events like the Wars of the Roses. Maybe there really is a difference when it comes to the size of the events. Such a large style of warfare has completely different dynamics. It can not really be called a blood-feud if those fighting are not fighting for or connected to the rival families but rather their allegiance is only for their state.

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