![]() ![]() Was the feud indeed 'quite central to Anglo-Saxon political society', as has been maintained by Paul Hyams and other modern historians? Or should such claims be viewed with skepticism? And is the concept of 'the sacred duty and right of blood vengeance' that has been attributed to the early Germanic-speaking peoples rooted in nineteenth-century concepts of the past, ones that now deserve to be superseded? This essay discusses these questions with special reference to the Old English word 'faehth', which normally means 'act of violence' rather than 'feud', and with additional attention to Richard Fletcher's book 'Bloodfeud', to the situations of intergroup hostility depicted in 'Beowulf', and to the social situation in medieval Iceland, which does not admit of easy comparisons with that in Anglo-Saxon England. ![]()
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