MaŠČevalni umor in oprostilna sodba v landarju leta 1401 med obredom maŠČevanja ter akuzatornim in inkvizitornim sodnim procesom

The article, on the basis of a comparative and interdisciplinary research of a case study of vengeful murder and acquittal from 1401 in Landar (Slavia Veneta or Slavia friulana), analyses the transformation of the social system of control and the exercise of the justice on the turn from the Middle Ages to the Modern period. The case study clearly shows the characteristics of the common practice of dispute resolution system and juridicial trials, that allowed vengeance if the side of the perpetrator was not prepared to negotiate for peace making. Although the present case already shows elements characteristic for judicial proceedings of the Modern period, the judicial process and the judgment itself have been conducted in accordance with customary law. The article also comparatively shows how the legislation changed in the early modern period, with special regard to the events in the Holy Roman Empire and the Venetian Republic. In addition to fiscal and military reorganization, the centralization of justice was of fundamental importance in the efforts of European rulers to establish supreme control over the entire territory under their jurisdiction. In order to achieve this goal, however, the rulers had first to restrict, by means of legislation and other coercive means, the arbitrary conflict resolution system by custom. For this purpose, they established a judicial system, i. e. punitive control over both, individual, influential families and clans, as well as the population in general. The state inquisitorial trial rites, introduced in most Western and Central European countries, in the early modern period lead to an important novelty: the state judicial apparatus has earned the right of prosecution ex officio. While earlier, in the so-called adversarial law, the judicial investigative process may only be led after the lawsuit of the affected communities, in the inquisitorial procedure the judicial trial was initiated by the central judicial authorities, which was the primary reason for their creation. In some more remote areas, such as Montenegro and Albania, which were examined in the article as comparative areas, the custom of conflict resolution system, vendetta or osveta, has preserved deep in the 19thCentury. Especially the study of this custom confirms our thesis, that this was not only a European (medieval) custom, but a system of conflict resolution known to all worldwide communities