FAIDA. — From the German Fehde, it was known in Lombard laws by the term inimicitia or elsewhere by the expression vindicta parentum. It represents the struggle of one family group against another family group in order to redress offenses committed against one of its members. The f. began with a proceeding within the avenging group, which deliberated on the gravity of the offense and injury, and which bound all the members of that group until the vengeance had been materially carried out or compensation had been obtained.
Initially regulated by custom, legislation tolerated and recognized it, but gradually restricted it as the idea of the power of the State advanced, excluding offenses of minimal gravity, which were settled judicially through the public declaration of compensation (compositio), from those of maximum gravity (offenses against the security of the State), the latter extending by absorbing an ever greater number of private offenses. Public offenses were regarded as injuries to the entire people. It followed that the perpetrator of the offense was outlawed and left with impunity to the offense of anyone.
In private offenses, Lombard legislation left open the alternative of requesting judicially the compensation fixed by law or resorting to vengeance. L'incontrando sought to limit as far as possible the use of private vengeance, while in fact recognizing the difficulty of overcoming the custom of his people. But the emperor Charlemagne acted still more forcefully; he expressly appealed to the feeling of Christian brotherhood where he provided (Cap. Aquieg. 802, 32): «ne peccatum accrescat, ut inimicitia maxima inter christianos non fiat, uti suadentes (sic) diabulo homicidia contingens, statumus ad suam emendationem recurrat, totaque celeritate perpetratum malum ad propinquos extincti, digna composizione emendet».
The Church had repeatedly ordained the forgiveness of private offenses and the suspension of vendettas, through the establishment of the Truces of God and the peaces, and through the designation of places of refuge (churches and monasteries) where the guilty or alleged person could take shelter (v. ASILO, DIRITTO di). At the same time, through the clergy and bishops, it worked to establish actual responsibility; and, once this had been ascertained, it invited the offended party and his family to accept compensation in place of private vengeance.
Thus it is especially to the Church and to its work of moral persuasion that we owe the gradual removal from custom of the deeply rooted Germanic practice of private vengeance.