Insulting the Volyn nobility in everyday life (the second half of the 16th – the first half of the 17th century)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of the research. The study aims to show how the Volyn nobility communicated with other social strata in early modern everyday life and, at the same time, to find out what «Big people» meant by the concept of insult and how they reacted to it. This approach will allow us to deepen our understanding of the everyday life of the Volyn gentry. The methodological basis of the work is general scientific and scientific-historical methods. The methods of induction and deduction, as well as analysis and synthesis of source information, were useful for the study. Thanks to the methods of microhistory, it was possible to analyze and understand the behavioral models and the appearance of an insult in the everyday life of the nobility. The scientific novelty of the article is that it uses source materials that were not previously featured in historiography. In addition, the author examines the nature of insults and the way the Volyn nobility responded to them in the second half of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries. It is shown that even though the gentry belonged to the higher classes of society, their needs and interests required constant contact with the «Other», which repeatedly ended in the clarification of relations in the courts. Conclusions. Insult was an essential component of the everyday life of the Volyn nobility in the early modern period. The sources allowed us to distinguish the two most common reactions of Volyn nobility to insult. The verbal form of response depended on the nature of the conflict and the status of the defendant. The first behavioral model was observed during the confrontation of the nobility with their equals. It was common to emphasize the protracted nature of the confrontation. The second one became apparent when the nobility suffered insults from lower social strata. In this case, the insult was reinforced by appropriate verbal turns of phrase. It was quite common for a representative of the Volyn gentry in the early modern period to appeal to legal norms at such moments, emphasizing their privileges. These manifestations made it possible to study how «Big people» defined themselves, determining their place in society. The insult by the Volyn nobility was perceived in the categories of encroachment on their status in society, which entailed the beginning of the trial and that pointed to her legal consciousness. The very concept of insult at the level of action included many things - from a spoken word and a gesture to an act of violence.
Author: Oksana Karlina
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4412007111