When Was Violence Legitimate? Feuds and Just War in Early Medieval Germany - Medievalists.net

"Max Weber famously argued that one of the hallmarks of a modern state was a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a defined territory. Within the compass of the law of war, Weber's insights have been associated with the legal tradition of ius ad bellum. This is the concept that governments retained the exclusive authority to declare legitimate war."

"One of the arguments made by scholars seeking to demonstrate a fundamental distinction between the governmental and legal traditions of the Roman Empire and early medieval Europe is the supposed breakdown in the content of the ius ad bellum after the end of imperial rule, so that the right to wage war was diffused widely throughout the upper strata of society."

Violence in early medieval Germany operated within frameworks of honour, law, and claims to legitimacy rather than being pure chaos. Feuds and warfare were often justified through social and legal norms that distinguished acceptable conflict from criminal aggression. Max Weber's notion of the state's monopoly on legitimate physical force connects to the Roman legal ius ad bellum, where the state determined lawful warfare and punished rebellion. Scholars argue that after imperial collapse the Roman unitary ius ad bellum fragmented, allowing upper elites broader rights to wage war. The debate centers on whether medieval political structures lacked an abstract state and practical control over military legitimacy.

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