DEALING WITH CROSS-BORDER CONFLICTS IN BOHEMIA DURING THE REIGN OF THE PREMYSLID DYNASTY: TO THE PERSPECTIVES OF THE CZECH LEGAL MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Abstract

In this paper, the authors present a legal-historical analysis of conflicts and their solutions in Bohemia during the reign of the Přemyslid dynasty. It takes into account the methodological incentives which were introduced to the legal medieval studies by a so-called “performative turn” that helped to direct the interest of social science to the typical forms, symbolic contents and social functions of human behaviour. As opposed to the existing research tradition which aims at the political and power-related links, the authors try to cross the narrow boarders of their expertise and approach the conflicts in society in a more complex manner than how it was presented by the previous legal historiography. The focus of attention used to be primarily on all kinds of courts or tribunals of various instances, however, current historians aim more and more often at institutions and techniques that resolved disputes out of court. Therefore, this paper targets the disputes settled out of the system of courts, mainly those that involved a cross-border element and were dealt with either at the central level of political representations or at the level of regional elites. Although the issue of a “conflict society”, which occurs throughout the social hierarchy, cannot be described in a single monograph, the authors tried at least, in accordance with the current trends, to present the subject of their research in an exemplary analysis.