Vigilantes - History

History

Several groups and individuals have been labelled as vigilantes by historians and media. Vigilantes have been central to several creative fictional works and in some cases have been depicted as heroes and retaliatory forces against wrongdoers.

Vigilantism and the vigilante ethos existed long before the word vigilante was introduced into the English language. There are conceptual and psychological parallels between the Dark Age and medieval aristocratic custom of private war or vendetta and the modern vigilante philosophy.

Recourse to personal vengeance and duelling was considered a class privilege of the sword-bearing aristocracy before the formation of the modern centralized liberal-bureaucratic nation-state (see Marc Bloch, trans. L. A. Manyon, Feudal Society, Vol. I, 1965, p. 127). In addition, sociologists have posited a complex legal and ethical interrelationship between vigilante acts and rebellion and tyrannicide.

In the Western literary and cultural tradition, characteristics of vigilantism have often been vested in folkloric heroes and legendary outlaws (e.g., Robin Hood). Vigilantism in literature, folklore and legend is connected to the fundamental issues of dissatisfied morality, injustice, the failures of authority and the ethical adequacy of legitimate governance.

During medieval times, punishment of felons was sometimes exercised by such secret societies as the courts of the Vehm (cf. the medieval Sardinian Gamurra later become Barracelli, the Sicilian Vendicatori and the Beati Paoli), a type of early vigilante organization, which became extremely powerful in Westphalian Germany during the 15th century.