how legal actions can end intensivelymade substantive declarations, the proceedings were at an advanced stage, and the influence on the parties was correspondingly high. If, however, a settlement agreement was concludedbefore a judgment was handed down, the willingness to settle can often be associated with the course of common litigation. The records of the minutes of hearings show which party owed the next step, which not seldom was actually the first step taken towards the opposing party with the intention to reach a compromise. The more obvious the risk of losing, the higher the willingness to negotiate. Doubts about the admissibility of the legal remedy, especially regarding the jurisdiction of the court, frequently manifested themselves at an early stage of the action. Guided by reason, the litigants here seemed to have recognised also personal advantages of the cancellation – cost savings, gaining an instance, to name but two – which they wanted to utilise. A rather brisk and at the same time generous willingness to compromise also emerges in those cases where public proceedings threatened to have a lasting damaging effect on a party’s reputation or could even be generally damaging. In contrast, content-related aspects of the asserted claim or right, i.e. in “doubtful and confusing legal disputes where one could […] more guess than say who was right” (zweifelhaften und verwirrten Rechtshändeln,wo man…mehr rathen als sagen könne, wer Recht habe),17 weremore sustainably fought about; sometimes the parties only years or decades later concluded that it might be more sensible to achieve an amicable arrangement than not to arrive at any foreseeable result. Some examples shall demonstrate that: The people of Weiler and Eichelberg realised the hopelessness of their request already at a point in time when for the first time it was their turn to comment on privileges presented to them. In 1700, the people put up a fight against their sovereign by bringing legal action before the government of Württemberg due to excessive obligations to run errands, to work in the vineyard, to dig up a lake in front of the castle gardens, to 17 In this respect, Balemann, Georg Gottlieb 1780 p. 447. 82 Summary proceedings
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