I have a new paper on anarchy, available here. Here is the abstract:
Can anarchy produce social order? When government is absent widespread violence and banditry threatens to plunge society into bloody chaos. Such was the case among the inhabitants of the Anglo-Scottish borderlands between the 13th and 16th centuries. The border people pillaged, plundered, and raided one another as way of life they called "reiving." In the face of the threat this lifestyle posed for social order, border inhabitants devised an overarching set of customary rules called the Leges Marchiarum to regulate the reiving system. These `laws of lawlessness' governed all aspects of cross-border interaction and spawned novel institutions of their enforcement including, "days of truce," bonds, "bawling," "broken men," "trod," and deadly feuds. The Leges Marchiarum and its institutions of enforcement produced social order amidst anarchy along the border.
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