Threat

Polemicists have proposed various solutions concerning the definition of feud, including banishing the word from discussion. A feud must in one sense be a narrative, told by participant or by observer, contemporary or historian. The De obsessione, in contrast, emphasizes the feud elements in various ways. This is not merely a matter of concentrating on vengeance as a motive, whilst playing down the king's role. Rather, the very construction of the narrative stresses the feud. In the long term the responsibility of king and officials for the maintenance of peace was increasing, the role of the kin diminishing. The key element in the royal effort concerning homicide and theft, therefore, had to be to co-opt the pressures for vengeance, notably through groups created or perhaps confirmed by the king, groups such as the peace-gild. Indeed, the obligation to pursue wrong-doers could be seen as more general, perhaps reinforced by the oath of loyalty owed to the king.