The Hidden Entrance

In ancient societies, the most important social relationship was kinship. Family interests came before all else. Harm done to one person was considered an attack on every member of their family; revenge for an injury inflicted on one person targeted the perpetrator's family members.

Blood feuds had existed in many countries and regions, and they had been legal. This was not limited to Europe; Asia was no exception.

The murder of one's father was an irreconcilable hatred; a child who did not avenge their parents was unworthy of the name. Early medieval laws merely offered another option: accepting compensation to settle the grievance.

As a medieval European legal proverb went, "Either accept the spear or buy off the spear." Duels were a customary form of blood-feud revenge, and one of the ways men settled their grudges.

Yet after the fifteenth century, most European countries strictly prohibited blood feuds. Any crime had to be tried and sentenced by the state's judicial authorities. But this view was not entirely accurate, because in most rural areas of Europe, state law remained little more than an empty formality until the end of the nineteenth century. Most European villages still relied on "village rules" to settle disputes.

Public executions did not serve as the warning those in power imagined. On the contrary, they became entertainment. In many parts of France, once someone broke village rules, their face would be smeared with honey and covered in feathers. Wearing a nightcap, holding a long wooden pole, and riding backward on a donkey, they would be paraded through the village. This kind of public humiliation was immensely popular; villagers even treated it like a small festival.

Nobles were not publicly beheaded, while burning witches became another village carnival. Two villages might become hereditary enemies over some minor quarrel,