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This paper deals with the topics of violence and enmity both in terms of their traditional and cultural characteristics, as well as in light of the transformations undergone between the 16th and 17th centuries following the measures implemented in various European environments to target above all the alarming phenomenon of banditry, and adopted in consideration of the new-found need for safety and tranquillity. Enmity is typical of all human groups everywhere and at any point in time. And since for long it was often closely related to a distinct dimension of violence, its characteristics and changes reveal the symbolic meanings and values that each society ascribes to conflicts and to the methods of their resolution. In fact, the concept of enmity, deeply intertwined with that of revenge, played an essential role within a society in which a peace-centred order was not only pre-eminent but also constituted as the safeguarding of social hierarchies focused on status, kinship, and honour. In the second half of the 16th century, in the wake of widespread social insecurity and the crisis of political polycentrism that had characterised the mediaeval state, the cultural system of enmity lost its traditional stamp and became, often unawares, a means of extreme violence. This passage is clearly noticeable in the ruthless challenge that the central powers mounted against banditry, enacting a legislation that led to a veritable state of emergency, which among other things entailed an explicit mandate for the use of private violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First of all, the banishment penalty reflected the political and constitutional European polycentrism and its interrelations with a society for a long time animated by conflicts between factions and family groups. To reach a lasting peace between the opponents was indeed an essential moment of the vendetta system, as much as ensuring tranquillity and the safekeeping of the community's values. The system was endowed with a pronounced juridical dimension and it interacted, on the constitutional level, with the role played by the courts and, in particular, trial and customary rites. These were aimed to manage conflicts between opposite groups by pulling away the one who broke social stability through banishment, if necessary. During the Sixteenth century, a series of important social, demographic and economic problems sensibly reshaped the conception of social control and order, and the long-established management of penal justice as well. The banishment penalty, no longer embedded in its traditional constitutional dimension and harshened both in its repressive and rewarding aspects, became an efficient instrument to impose a different political legitimacy. Faced with these transformations, bandits quickly took the physiognomy of actual outlaws, painted as political opponents and, as such, to be dealt with any repressive instrument available [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]