# how did the nobles treat their personal  servants.



## valiant12 (May 7, 2015)

i'm sure that everyone have noticed that kings and other people with political power receive disproportionately more attention from historians than the people who washed there dishes, cook their food, babysit their children, etc. Can somebody please give me some information how to write realistic master-servant relations.
Things that interest me;
-are servants in industrial societies treated better than those in preindustrial
-what kinds of skills and traits would be most sought-after when hiring a servant.
-how much is a servant paid compared with a factory worker, foot soldier, mercenary, blacksmith, woodcutter, etc


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## X Equestris (May 7, 2015)

As far as the relationship, it would have varied.  Some would treat their people well, others wouldn't.  Just like your boss at work might be nice to his employees, or he might be a jerk.


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 7, 2015)

Couple of questions

1. Are we talking early industrial before significant labor laws or are we talking newer industrial with labor laws?

2. What kind of servant are we talking about? Cooks need one skill butlers need another.

3. The pay question again depends on the servant, their skill, and experience.


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## Russ (May 7, 2015)

This is a very complicated and interesting question.

First I have to agree with XE above, a lot of it is personality driven on both ends.

It is hard to generalize about "preindustrial" because it covers just so much area (Romans, Egyptians, Medieval France, Vikings etc) but I would suggest that preindustrial societies treated servants better (my area is medieval primarily) because the relationships were personal in nature and often multi-generational, and with industrialization we began to see the idea that workers or people as disposable economic units come into vogue which allowed employers to act more harshly and treat people as sub human.

Medieval nobles (in particular) were well trained in the idea of noblesse d'oblige (sp?), the idea that for their god given exalted position they had many responsibilities to the people they ruled over.  And while there were notable exceptions who get a lot of attention, many nobles did indeed work very hard and even sacrifice for the good of their subjects.  This was particularly true in central europe.

If you are hiring a personal servant the skills vary with the role.  In cultures where nobles were illiterate, or close, tutors or book keepers were highly valued.  People who could administer your holdings effectively were very highly sought after and often very well rewarded.  People who could cook well and good story tellers, poets and artists often were highly sought after.

Nobles are also usually concerned with their legacy, so good tutors/educators for their children were very important and valued.  I think this trend stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the end of the medieval period at least.

Pay would be all over the map because "nobles" were of very different levels of wealth.  One noble family  might have very small holdings and be dirt poor, while others might have money to burn, and pay would vary with that.  A king or emperor (usually) could pay much more than a local knight.  If you need more details on this I could have a look and find you some comparisons for the middle ages if you give me some context to work with.


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## Jabrosky (May 7, 2015)

Russ said:


> It is hard to generalize about "preindustrial" because it covers just so much area (Romans, Egyptians, Medieval France, Vikings etc) but I would suggest that preindustrial societies treated servants better (my area is medieval primarily) because the relationships were personal in nature and often multi-generational, and with industrialization we began to see the idea that workers or people as disposable economic units come into vogue which allowed employers to act more harshly and treat people as sub human.


I would argue that would hinge on whether pre-industrial societies saw the servants as fully human. If those servants were from, say, different nationalities (especially ones with a history of conflict with their superiors'), in many cases that might have affected the treatment they received for the worse. I'm not even all that sure the modern industrial perception of laborers as "subhuman" would have even developed had industrialization not started in certain countries that had already, er, regressed in their benevolence towards human laborers since the medieval period, if you get my drift.


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## Russ (May 7, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> I would argue that would hinge on whether pre-industrial societies saw the servants as fully human. If those servants were from, say, different nationalities (especially ones with a history of conflict with their superiors'), in many cases that might have affected the treatment they received for the worse. I'm not even all that sure the modern industrial perception of laborers as "subhuman" would have even developed had industrialization not started in certain countries that had already, er, regressed in their benevolence towards human laborers since the medieval period, if you get my drift.



I agree wholeheartedly.  As I stated the term "pre-industrial" is just crazy big.  My background is European  history from ancient Greece to today, with a good deal of US history in the later period.

And he did say servants.  In Rome or Greece, most of the people doing work from non Greco-Roman nations would have been slaves.  Slaves are a completely different story.


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## valiant12 (May 7, 2015)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> Couple of questions
> 
> 1. Are we talking early industrial before significant labor laws or are we talking newer industrial with labor laws?


early industrial



> 2. What kind of servant are we talking about? Cooks need one skill butlers need another.



i'm mostly interested in maids at the moment.Tutors, nannies, cooks, butlers are also interesting but the character i work on at the moment work as a maid.



> 3. The pay question again depends on the servant, their skill, and experience.[



let's say somebody with no special skills


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## valiant12 (May 7, 2015)

> If you are hiring a personal servant the skills vary with the role. In cultures where nobles were illiterate, or close, tutors or book keepers were highly valued. People who could administer your holdings effectively were very highly sought after and often very well rewarded. People who could cook well and good story tellers, poets and artists often were highly sought after.



Which was more important loyalty or being good at your job?


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## Russ (May 7, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> i'm mostly interested in maids at the moment.Tutors, nannies, cooks, butlers are also interesting but the character i work on at the moment work as a maid.



Ah, now this helps a lot.  Maids have traditionally been very low on the food chain, very low indeed.  In fact medieval records are rife with references to maids and scullery maids being just a small step up from prostitutes.  Nannies are very different than maids, they were entrusted with people's children and often formed very close bonds with the lady of the house, a very important advantage.  Tutors if they could teach highly sought after skills to your heirs have been worth their weight in gold throughout history.

The value of loyalty v. skill varied by position and environment.  If you never heard a secret and just washed the laundry loyalty was no big deal.  If you kept the books of the house, or lived in a time when outsiders were trying to harm your employers by bribery or other means, loyalty was much more important.


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

What are your opinions on the following:
-How would non human races treat their human servants
-How would  human treat their non human servants
-How would human mages treat their mundane servants


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## X Equestris (May 8, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> What are your opinions on the following:
> -How would non human races treat their human servants
> -How would  human treat their non human servants
> -How would human mages treat their mundane servants



I think it's too vague to say for certain without knowing more about the cultures involved.  And even in cultures were it tends towards one extreme of treatment or another, there will be a few people who defy that norm.


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## wordwalker (May 8, 2015)

Human/nonhuman and mage/nonmage are more factors to work in when you go through all the above reasonings about how the master and the master's society view all of this. 

A servant could be treated even worse if the master sees them as a "lowly" race or "mere muggle," or worse still if the servant's race is powerful enough to be a rival to the master's race. (A people that have always been "inferior" would get off better than a member of a defeated or a recently-rising enemy race.) Then again, more responsible or loyalty-seeking masters could see all of that as just more reasons to get past the barriers and win proper respect with their servants.

Meanwhile a servant who's known for racial _advantages_ (like the elven tutor who could guide whole generations of nobles) might be treated very well indeed-- but also have to watch out for getting above their place or seeming like a threat.


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## Russ (May 8, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> What are your opinions on the following:
> -How would non human races treat their human servants
> -How would  human treat their non human servants
> -How would human mages treat their mundane servants



This really calls for pure speculation, which is I guess why we call it spec fic.  

My guess on this is really no better than yours.  I think this is where your creative drive as an author has to take over.

My guess though is that there would be huge variability.  Have a look at how people treat their dogs for instance and look at the wide range of behaviours you see.


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

wordwalker said:


> Meanwhile a servant who's known for racial _advantages_ (like the elven tutor who could guide whole generations of nobles) might be treated very well indeed-- but also have to watch out for getting above their place or seeming like a threat.



i think dwarfs will be better employee than classical elves - more down to earth, less arrogant, better work ethic, better at maintaining weapons and dwarven cooks are probably better.


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## Russ (May 8, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> i think dwarfs will be better employee than classical elves - more down to earth, less arrogant, better work ethic, better at maintaining weapons and dwarven cooks are probably better.



Yes, but how do you keep them sober? ;-)


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## skip.knox (May 8, 2015)

I suggest you have the stick at the wrong end.

Rather than asking how nobles (a class that encompasses every sort of human character) treated servants (another class that encompasses every sort of human character), ask instead how *your* noble treats his/her maid. No matter what sort of relationship you envision, there's historical precedent for it. You don't need to make the history believable, you just need to make the story believable.

That's for fantasy. If you are writing historical fiction set in a particular time and place, then find yourself a comfy chair at the library. You have a lot of reading to do!

I'll add this much. "Maid" is pretty much a post-medieval term, at least in the sense we usually envision. It comes from "maiden" which means unmarried, and derives from a time when young women went from the farm into the city to enter into employment in private homes. Think 17thc and later. While nobles did employ maids, so did middle-class people, especially in the 19thc.

In a medieval noble house, there tended to be female serfs who had household duties. They often were simply called servants (from Latin _servus_), though variations on maid did exist then as well. They also were often just called "girl". Same for the boys, btw. Knecht, garcon, serving boy. Oh, and lots of modifiers (e.g., stable boy).

But if they're serving dwarves or elves, you have carte blanche to invent whatever the story needs.


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

> I'll add this much. "Maid" is pretty much a post-medieval term, at least in the sense we usually envision. It comes from "maiden" which means unmarried, and derives from a time when young women went from the farm into the city to enter into employment in private homes. Think 17thc and later. While nobles did employ maids, so did middle-class people, especially in the 19thc.


The world where  my story take place is post-medieval with some roman, medieval germany, byzantine and maybe some other elements.It's very much work in progress at the moment, but im sure that the term maid dont sound too modern for that world.


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

Russ said:


> Yes, but how do you keep them sober? ;-)


Dwarves drinking more than other races is elven propaganda
Either that or they drink so much that the alcohol in their bloodstream kill all viruses and bacteria giving them the umunity they need to live underground with high population density,
or they drink due to peer pressure


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

skip.knox said:


> But if they're serving dwarves or elves, you have carte blanche to invent whatever the story needs.


Humans are serving humans, at least that's the plan at the moment.


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## Devor (May 8, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> Dwarves drinking more than other races is elven propaganda



It sure is!  It's a bigotted stereotype!  It's based on the assumption that beer drinkers are nothing but alcoholics, while wine drinkers are "sophisticated."  It's real world, anti-German, anti-Irish, anti-beer drinking country bigotry at it's most obtuse.

At least Tolkein knew better.  The elves in Mirkwood were the original fantasy drunkards.  Damn wine drinkers . . .

I joke, but unfortunately there's probably some truth in that.


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## Russ (May 8, 2015)

Devor said:


> It sure is!  It's a bigotted stereotype!  It's based on the assumption that beer drinkers are nothing but alcoholics, while wine drinkers are "sophisticated."  It's real world, anti-German, anti-Irish, anti-beer drinking country bigotry at it's most obtuse.



Yeah but the beer drinkers have way better songs than the wine drinkers.  Not even sure they can sing with their pinky extended like that!


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## valiant12 (May 8, 2015)

Devor said:


> It sure is!  It's a bigotted stereotype!  It's based on the assumption that beer drinkers are nothing but alcoholics, while wine drinkers are "sophisticated."  .


Another stereotype- drinking beer is manly, and wine drinkers are snobs.
 The unfortunate implications comes when the manly race is presented as way smarter than the more feminine or vice versa.


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## Caged Maiden (May 8, 2015)

I just want to say one more thing about servants, since I have a pretty functional understanding of at least Renaissance master-servant relationships.  

A noble family had a household and that household was comprised of staff.  A lord and lady (of moderate resources) and their four children would have not only a nanny, cook, kitchen boy, cooks (not to be confused with the one running the show, but the other younger ones who helped out), and a couple maids who kept things tidy and cleaned, but they would also have higher-ranking servants.  Actually, the cook is a higher-ranking one, too.  They'd have a stable master (if not a stable boy) if they kept a carriage and team, a hunter (or more than one to keep the table full of food), and maybe even a steward to oversee the daily running of the estate and its money-earning businesses.

Now, I'm only mentioning the class divide between servants because some of those people are middle-class.  They have their own lodging and maybe wear livery.  Livery was a great honor, because liveried servants often shared a lot of benefit of their noble masters.  okay, so let's talk about serving-class persons' attitudes.  They weren't the begrudging, winging people often portrayed in movies.  Servants worked hard because they had honor, too.  A steward was proud to serve his lord and enjoyed privileges because of his station.  Same thing with a liveried kitchen-worker.  When she went into town to buy things at market, her colors (either a band on her arm or a garment, etc.) broadcast "don't mess with me".  Of course, livery wasn't an everlasting thing, but whatever, it's a pretty great concept.

If you're looking at a similar time period, what is it?  like 1700?  1750? 1800?  The later you go, the more industrialization changes the world.  Where servants were hard workers and almost extended and respected (though subservient) members of families in the 1570s, by 1800, servants were expected to take rickety stairs through the interior of the house and never be seen by the master.  In fact if a housemaid screwed up and was caught doing her duties by the master entering a room, she was instructed by the head maid to stand stock still with her eyes on the ground, until the master passed and then she should dart silently from the room, back through her secret panel or hidden staircase, and not be any more bother.  Weird how time changes things, but that's what happens when there's a larger disparity between haves and have nots.  In Medieval times, human lives weren't worth much, but as soon as the plague hit, suddenly, threshers and plowers were paid as much as eighteen times what they were prior to the plague.  The middle class rose form the ashes of the Black Death and it changed Europe for centuries.  But as the Industrial Age opened, and populations again climbed, and factories hired women and children and men desperate enough to risk their lives for money, the poor again fell into a form of slavery, paid and "free" but subhuman and undervalued.

If you're looking to establish a maid, the best kind of maid to be was a lady's maid because her duties were simple.  Dress her lady, comb hair, bathing, attending in public, and the lady's maid was a direct reflection of the lady, so she was usually dressed well.  But that servant didn't exist in all time periods.  A head maid was the lady in charge of the household in Edwardian and Victorian periods.  She held the keys to the house, got to decide which house maids did which terrible jobs, and was relatively powerful.  She might be the only "maid" to ever be allowed face time with the lady of the house (not the lord, who didn't probably want anything to do with household items).  

In the Medieval period and Renaissance, hiring servants was easy.  My sister's daughter is sixteen and needs a job, will you take her, since I know you're looking for a lady's maid for your daughter?  Sure.  Now, the servant daughter will grow up in the household.  If she proves herself a good worker and easy to get along with, she'll have a job for life.  When the noble daughter marries, she'll take her maid with her.  The maid can marry, too.  When the maid has children, they will be incorporated (depending on their ages), into the married noblewoman's household as  kitchen boys, stable boys, shepherds, weavers, corders, maids, washerwomen, whatever.  They'll have jobs.  And if they work hard and do well, they'll be elevated when their times come.  Depending on their parents' occupations, say the maid-daughter married the new noble-husband's steward, her children may be able to buy apprenticeships.  Perhaps the maid's daughters will not have to work there, but will be wed to tradesmen in guilds.  Maybe her daughters will be alewives, the wives of freelords (men who own small parcels of land independently without a noble lord over them--yeoman in England), or perhaps they'll work alone as seamstresses or even tailors (late 1500s saw women employed as tailors, sewing garments for other women).  

A maid can have a lot of aspirations, so she need not be confined to simply "the girl who makes my bed and brushes my hair".  She can be envious of the head maid, unhappy with her treatment, thrilled to be employed and away from her drunkard father, aspiring to be made head maid, biding her time until she can marry a tradesman and begin her own family, etc.


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## skip.knox (May 8, 2015)

Excellent information from Caged Maiden. It's worth noting, too, that all the members of the household were routinely referred to as the "famiglia". That's Italian but a similar ethic can be found all over late medieval and early modern Europe. The servants were part of the family. They were not kin, but they were closer than neighbors and certainly more than just employees. This naturally did not mean they were treated well (any more than being kin meant that). But it helps emphasize the difference between relationships in that era and the employer/employee relationships of more modern times.


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## Caged Maiden (May 9, 2015)

What modern people don't understand is that there was a sense of duty that we no longer (in this age of feeling entitled) have.  Food was a commodity when fields only produced a sixteenth of what they do today, animals were expensive and their maintenance more than most people could afford, and hunting was prohibited by the wealthy to reserve their game for themselves.  Working for a noble family meant security for the people not born into wealthy families.  It meant a future they wouldn't ordinarily have.  Some young men and women went to noble estates periodically, say, for the summer, to warp and weave, or make wine, or whatever trade the noble estates produced for income, and they returned home at the end of the season, back to too-crowded family homes.  For those servants who remained living with their noble families, becoming part of a household, the work was considerably easier.  Also, it was a mistress' duty to furnish garments (made by her, sometimes) for her staff.  There were laws regarding that, even.  A young maid might spend part of her day cleaning the house, but she would also spend time with the ladies in the household and the mistress, depending on the rank of nobility (remember, only the WEALTHIEST had great estates with many servants, most had only a few), knitting, embroidering, sewing, etc.  Those were social times, like quilting circles, and they often were friendly, filled with gossip.  

I think most of what people today don't understand was how the estate worked and what size estate was appropriate for the various nobles.  Nobility is a misunderstood concept.  Knights weren't noble.  Free lords weren't noble. Yet both could assemble sizable estates.  After the Renaissance, or during it actually, but certainly after, many nobles were land poor.  They had land, but were basically poor, because the rising patrician class had more physical wealth (which was why they controlled so much of Europe despite their un-noble blood.  Where once only the nobility inter-married, to keep wealth, suddenly, an oil baron from the US became a sought-after wife for the English nobility who were broke, but had royal lineage in their history.

I think it's a general misunderstanding of station, wealth, nobility, and the social structures that  lead to misinformation found all over the internet that people continue to broadcast though they've done no actual research on the subject, and it's one of my pet peeves in fantasy.  Not that i think fantasy ought to mirror our own history, but it perturbs me when the misnomers are continuously referenced as "how things were" when usually, it's unwittingly reiterated with no actual understanding of how or why it worked in the first place.  I think as writers, it's fine to "take the pieces we like" but in the end, a social structure has to make sense and as soon as we change a few key elements of that, we have sort of thrown the structure out the window.  This isn't a complaint about anyone in particular, merely an observation by a person with a deep respect for history.

In one of my stories, I have a prince MC, and he travels the countryside for a couple chapters, trying to drum up support for his war.  He has to meet with his dukes and ask for soldiers because the nobles are hoarding soldiers to protect themselves and unwilling to part with too many men.  I try to keep my stories light and not write war, but it was nasty business and a king needed the support of his nobles, or he wouldn't have anything.  So, that was a little way I tried to show feudalism work in a historical yet fantasy context, despite most people thinking royalty simply took what they needed.  Nobles were fickle and selfish sometimes.  They flipped allegiances, even, in places near borders.  Noble alliances could crush kings.  Or bolster foreign forces.  Or stop a marching army ever reaching its target because it had to pass through a land with nobles who didn't want to allow peaceful passage and were willing to burn their own fields to ensure the army couldn't scrounge food to feed its forces.  Tricky business, really, but really interesting.


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## Gurkhal (May 9, 2015)

Thank you Caged Maiden for some great posts! I shall take this to my heart.


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## valiant12 (May 9, 2015)

> Nobility is a misunderstood concept. Knights weren't noble. Free lords weren't noble. Yet both could assemble sizable estates. After the Renaissance, or during it actually, but certainly after, many nobles were land poor. They had land, but were basically poor, because the rising patrician class had more physical wealth


Is this due to factors outside of their control like kings trying to increase their personal power on the expense of the nobility and inflation cause by wars, epidemics and the influx of gold from the americas?
Or the nobles were very irresponsible with the money they have, spending more than they earn on luxuries and things they don't really need and less on education, long term investments, new technologies, etc.


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## Caged Maiden (May 9, 2015)

Okay, Let's go through a history of a fictional family, to try to explain, that might be easiest.  Let's say in the Medieval times, Count Bigbritches owned a sizable estate, a "county' ha!  He had a big area of fields, a forest to hunt, and a few scattered villages, where villagers sheared his sheep, corded and dyed his wool, and then his steward oversaw the selling of said wool to foreigners, merchants and other cities in the same country.  Okay, so on his land, he had a little family of tenents.  They owned nothing, worked the fields and in the wool industry, and they had mostly full bellies, but lived in a squat cottage they didn't own and they in turn, were paid in food and goods and a little money every year.  

Fictitious family, run by Mr. Serf, worked hard and probably didn't get far in life.  When the plague hit, half the countryside died.  After the plague, Mr. Serf suddenly became a hot commodity.  Count Bigbritches' lands went fallow for two years because there weren't enough field workers to work them.  Instead, they produced all the wool they could.  The count still had to pay his taxes, so he sold off small parcels of land he couldn't farm, and Mr. Serf bought a little chunk of that land.  

Years go by and Mr. Serf dies, leaving the land to his son, John Freedom.  But in John's lifetime, he's able to use his money from his own little chunk of land, to buy up a bigger parcel of land from a neighboring dead nobleman.  He moves his family to that land and he leaves his initial parcel to his daughter, in dowry.  So John Freedom's daughter, Mary, becomes Dame Mary when she marries a knight who didn't have land of his own.  Still a small chunk of land, it's a good gain for an un-landed knight, and Dame Mary and Sir Husband raise three children to adulthood (not because the rest of their progeny died, but because people had less children after the plague and they spent more money on their kids, to offer them better futures).  So Sir Husband's oldest son became his land heir, while his younger son got an apprenticeship with a local guild (maybe as a turner or carpenter, or cordwainer, making expensive shoes.  Sir Husband's daughter was married to the neighbor, a tavern keep, because she had a nice dowry, and she moved to town and became an alewife, a respectable businesswoman who worked in her husband's business and made money.  Now, Sir Husband's eldest son, the one with the land, bought up a little more of Count Bigbritches' estate when Bigbritches' son needed cash. He had a good amount of land when he passed it all to his son, Freelord Nextgeneration.  And his eldest son built up a little more land.  His daughter, Elizabeth, was married to another Freelord's son, and her dower portion joined the freelord's estate, and together, Elizabeth and her husband lived in a modest estate (hiring the local townsfolk to oversee their lands and small herd) and accumulated a fair amount of wealth.  They had six children, let's say.  One stood to inherit, two daughters each needed a dowry, but because they had money, they bought marriages with neighboring young men with cash, and the younger sons went into trades with apprenticeships.  One of those sons became a tailor and he grew wealthier through his lifetime of work, and the other became a merchant in the local town, selling nobles' goods to foreign traders who would ship the products to France.

So, while Johnny Merchant is busy selling goods for Count Bigbritches' descendants, he has neither their tax burden, nor their responsibility to supply the king with trained men.  When war breaks out, (the current) Count Bigbritches has another tax levied against him to fund the king's war, and already his estate is barely keeping afloat.  What's he going to do?  his home is in disrepair, his lands are half of what they once were, and his people are finding better employment in trades in bigger towns.  He doesn't have tenants or serfs anymore, so he has to *gasp* keep paying people to work his land, because he's not likely to get himself out in the field and plow.  Meanwhile, Johnny Merchant is doing pretty well for himself.  So well, a young lady named Countess Sixth (the sixth daughter of a count) sends him a message (rather, her father does) proposing a marriage for the "benefit" of both families.  Now, Johnny Merchant doesn't gain a noble title with his sixth of a count's lands, but he gets a nice estate in dowry, so he accepts.  From then on, he's still Mister Merchant, but his wife forever retains her title of Countess Sixth.  He's got a noble wife.  When his son, Little John, is of age, he's sent to school and to foster, and he comes back home with an education and a good head for business, and he picks up where his father left off, accumulating more wealth.  His daughter, (still common) Anne, has a good dowry.  It's enough to catch the eye of Baron Big, the son who inherited from his father a broken, small estate in need of a cash infusion.  See, his estate was doubly taxed during the war, and when his father dies, the "death tax" (yes, a real thing) nearly wiped him out.  But with Anne's cash, he could buy a new flock.  Anne, now Baroness Anne, has a nice estate, a lucrative connection overseas with traders (from her father) and she's able to hire a steward for the property, and move to the city, where her Baron husband joins her family business and becomes a trader himself. 

Meanwhile, Count Bigbritches' sons have sold off what they could, defended their estate from neighbors who wanted to take a piece, and basically fought with each other to grab whatever was left in the bottom of the barrel after the taxes about ruined it all.  They've got land, but it's in such a wild state, their fields aren't worth much and their flocks have been eaten, and their woods have been over-hunted (and they couldn't hire men to ward off poachers), and they're in a sad state.  They're land poor, though they have higher titles than Baroness (a minor title) Anne.  Baroness Anne and her family are doing well because I guess like today, they diversified.  They've got not too much land to pay for, and another business that gives them cash flow, and they're doing alright with a nice house in the city and an estate in the country.

Hope that gives you an idea of how nobles become land poor.  It happened a ton.  In Italy, the middle class was more powerful than the nobility for that reason.  The Medici were traders and bankers.  They ended up marrying kings because they had the wealth other nobles didn't have, so they became noble by buying marriages and their cash helped elevate them to an unparalleled position.

They even had a pope or more than one. Impressive for a family that didn't have land in the beginning.

So it wasn't merely squandering resources.  It wasn't just taxes.  It wasn't poor planning.  It was a set of circumstances that were sometimes out of the nobility's control. But it hurt them when the middle class decided they had enough resources to make their own way, no longer reliant on nobles to support them.  It's said the Plague ended feudalism and I agree with that.  it took time, but in a matter of three generations, Europe had shifted and the middle class became a real thing, where it never existed before.  As that ball kept rolling, gathering steam, it was unstoppable.  By 1600, the nobles were almost obsolete in many ways.  In the 1800s, into the 1900s, you see nobles who did make it, and they often had to intermarry with non-nobles for cash.  Some sons wed American daughters, and their families disapproved, still too proud for that sort of thing, but undeniably it was a symptom of the noble lifestyle that was in the 1700s ostentatious, but unsustainable.  Of course, my story is fictitious, but I've read similar stories in my research about post-plague Europe, and in some places, things changed relatively quickly, in a couple generations.  You have to remember, the plague hit pockets of people.  It could wipe out whole families and leave others.  Land went vacant in a lot of cases, with heirs unable to pay taxes.  I could go on about this forever.

Another thing that goes along with this was that the peasant revolts took their toll.  I didn't include that in my story, but many serfs simply revolted.  The poor realized they were an asset and they stopped being peasants.  There were a number of such revolts, the earliest (don't quote me) in England in 1433, only forty years after the plague.  So there you go, in one generation, people went from burying their dead by the cartload, to being the emerging middle class. The nobility were dinosaurs in a respect.  They didn't evolve.  Those who were most successful joined in the middle class pursuits, but others simply couldn't change fast enough to keep up.  If you look at foreign real estate today, you can find old mansions for sale for less than Justin Timberlake paid for his house.  Imagine owning a duke's house for 2mil with a grand yard, but no more farmland.  Or you can buy a historical castle (all updated) on the Rhine for 11mil.  No one wants it, because the taxes will kill you and there's no way to make money off the land anymore.  What were they supposed to do?  Herd sheep in the yard and pay a reasonable wage to gardeners?  It wasn't happening.  So now, they're still for sale, with a huge tax bill and in disrepair in a lot of cases.

Thank you for sitting through my condensed version of post-plague social history.  This is in no way complete, but it's mostly accurate and based on my research I've done personally (because who doesn't want an old historical estate?).  In fact, some of those old homes were simply given away.  The taxes were built up so high no one could ever get out from under it, so they dumped it on the government and moved away, retaining their titles, but no longer tied to their soul-sucking land.

  Remember, "thanks" keep me writing.


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## ThinkerX (May 9, 2015)

Something like what Caged Maiden describes is one of the driving elements of the novella series I am working on.

Large empire, with a 'national' (roman legion) type military, but also including a lot of noble born knights in armor. 

Other places were settled by common born veterans awarded land and citizenship for service.  Yes, said land could be in the boondocks, half swamp, or come with annoying goblin neighbors, but still land.  Because veterans were settled in groups, and because unlike the nobility, they were not adverse to manual labor, this created pockets of wealthy commoners in the empire.  Biggest example here is Equitant, a province settled by veterans, now renown for its wealthy merchants and artisans.  Economic powerhouse of the empire.

Add a decades long devastating war.  Noble estates almost depopulated by the legion recruiters.  Huge numbers of veterans being awarded land for service, or receiving skilled training.  Either way, they don't need to go back to the estates.  Fewer serfs means much of the estates goes fallow...except...

...merchants from Equitant are having their younger sons and daughters tour these estates, with an eye towards overlooked opportunities and marriage.  Yes, they're citizens, which conveys some rights - but nobles get more.  They get a modicum of built in authority and privileges.  So a lot of the old estates are changing hands or being broken up.

One of the MC's in my series is a lady from Equitant on just such a mission - touring a series of estates and fiefdoms, looking over the economic opportunities...and prospective husbands, mostly poor, but all with excellent (?) pedigrees.  

One of her companions is a destitute bastard knight who sold the land he won during the war in an effort to pay the bills back home.

Another is a former serf turned legionary turned petty magician who sold his land to finance his magical education (or maybe not, his backstory is fluid - he could have valid claim to a patch of blood soaked scrubland).


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## Gurkhal (May 9, 2015)

Excellent posts! 

But now here comes a question, Caged Maiden, were there any attempts by the nobility to turn the tide against them? Because for my own work I would be fairly interesting in a way that feudalism survives plagues and this kind of things without resorting entirely to a magic wand and just say that "its fantasy so it works this way".


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## Jabrosky (May 9, 2015)

Caged Maiden said:


> In one of my stories, I have a prince MC, and he travels the countryside for a couple chapters, trying to drum up support for his war.  He has to meet with his dukes and ask for soldiers because the nobles are hoarding soldiers to protect themselves and unwilling to part with too many men.  I try to keep my stories light and not write war, but it was nasty business and a king needed the support of his nobles, or he wouldn't have anything.  So, that was a little way I tried to show feudalism work in a historical yet fantasy context, despite most people thinking royalty simply took what they needed.  Nobles were fickle and selfish sometimes.  They flipped allegiances, even, in places near borders.  Noble alliances could crush kings.  Or bolster foreign forces.  Or stop a marching army ever reaching its target because it had to pass through a land with nobles who didn't want to allow peaceful passage and were willing to burn their own fields to ensure the army couldn't scrounge food to feed its forces.  Tricky business, really, but really interesting.


From what I recall from my high school world history class that quite a number of revolts and periods of national breakdown were instigated by what might be called "nobility" or "gentry" against the central government, rather than the bottom-up peasant uprisings we stereotypically imagine when we hear the word "revolt". It was as if their point of contention was less resisting oppression than becoming oppressors themselves. But then maybe my memory of that class is getting rusty.


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## Caged Maiden (May 10, 2015)

Nobles during certain periods of time were very naughty.  Many had royal cousins and thought they ought to be next in line of succession.  Beyond just having an eye on the throne, many more were not above storming a neighbor's land and taking what they wanted.  After the crusades, many lower-ranking nobles fought tirelessly among themselves, so much they had to pass laws saying it was illegal to kill neighbors' peasants and burn their fields.  Tournaments were just one outlet for those men who had nothing better to do than utilize their learned battle skills.  At least they had some semblance of "rules" unlike picking fights with neighbors.

I love the part in Borgias, when Sforza's cousin is all willing to let France march an army through her land, pulling her troops and denying Rome her men, because she's perfectly happy to watch Rome fall.  Of course, plague in Naples got its turn in the end to take a whack at France, but it's interesting to view history as principalities, rather than the modern countries we think of today.  Germany had a ton of that, local princes all jockeying for position, trying to amass as many men and as much wealth as possible, because failure to do so meant the neighboring prince would just march in and take your little kingdom.  

BTW, if you ever have a chance to watch Borgias on Netflix and have a real interest in history converted for television, I'd totally recommend it.  A lot of it's personal stories of the adult children of the pope, but the politics present in the Church and in the nobility are fascinating and it's really well done as far as a dramatic story that shows the deeper issues of war, not just battles.  I'm not debating inaccuracies right now, but if anyone here is writing a story about religious politics and military and  social politics of a republic, it's a really good source for ideas.  I think it's set in the 15th century, but the ideas would work for fantasy settings and the elements for me were really dramatic without being over the top.


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## ThinkerX (May 10, 2015)

I have some uppity, scheming nobles as well.  Another of the themes in the novella series, and overall.

My main Empire, Solaria, shared a common border with Traag, a much more malevolent nation.  Once upon a time, certain of Solaria's nobility effectively defected to Traag, and took their provinces with them.  Others schemed against the Emperor, taking a dim view of an expanded imperial bureaucracy and predominance of uniform imperial law.  Things blew up, and for a long while, there was a sort of patchwork quilt of border fiefs between Traag and Solaria, constantly feuding against each other. These petty wars served as an outlet for aggressive nobles of both sides.

After the Traag War ended, though, Solaria reigned supreme over those lands and most of Traag as well.  This situation came to an end.  Nobles found themselves prohibited from starting wars for 'fun and profit,' so to speak.  Imperial law is being imposed, which much of the aristocracy views as 'unwarranted interference.'  Combined with the changing class situation - fewer serfs and more citizens - and much of the aristocracy is well...really unhappy, and looking for imperial candidates to 'put things right.'


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## valiant12 (May 10, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Other places were settled by common born veterans awarded land and citizenship for service.  Yes, said land could be in the boondocks, half swamp, or come with annoying goblin neighbors, but still land.  Because veterans were settled in groups, and because unlike the nobility, they were not adverse to manual labor, this created pockets of wealthy commoners in the empire.  Biggest example here is Equitant, a province settled by veterans, now renown for its wealthy merchants and artisans.  Economic powerhouse of the empire.


Why aren't the veterans using the conquered goblins as slave workers?


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## Caged Maiden (May 10, 2015)

@ Thinker X I really like how you've incorporated some of what I was talking about.  I know for me, I don't particularly deal with a lot of politics in my fantasy series, but my WiP is almost all politics of that nature, and I've grown a new resect for the consistency of structure, even if it's an underlying issue in fantasy stories.  By that I mean, a book focusing heavily on politics was never something I thought I'd like to read, but now that I've written one, I'm more inclined to read stories focusing on those elements within the story's context.  Thanks for sharing.


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## ThinkerX (May 10, 2015)

> Why aren't the veterans using the conquered goblins as slave workers?



In some places they did.  In other places, the prevailing attitude was goblins were too different, too treacherous to be kept around even as slaves.  Hard truth is settling a new 'untamed' area requires lots of hard work.  The conquering aristocrats of old didn't want to bother with that, and so assumed lordship of already civilized cities and fiefs.



> @ Thinker X I really like how you've incorporated some of what I was talking about. I know for me, I don't particularly deal with a lot of politics in my fantasy series, but my WiP is almost all politics of that nature, and I've grown a new resect for the consistency of structure, even if it's an underlying issue in fantasy stories. By that I mean, a book focusing heavily on politics was never something I thought I'd like to read, but now that I've written one, I'm more inclined to read stories focusing on those elements within the story's context. Thanks for sharing.



With the novella series I'm currently working on - especially this particular novella - imperial politics is hard to avoid, because much of it takes place in the imperial palace.  None of the MC's are all that important politically, but to get anywhere they have to interact with more powerful figures, each with agenda's of their own.  In the course of this, they keep blundering across elements of an imperial assassination plot with Lovecraftian overtones.  

I have read a lot of fantasy novels, many of them taking place partly or wholly 'at court.'  Very few of these managed to convey the full sense of 'court' - as in enough officials to run the nation, each with his or her plots, and swarms of servants and guards to serve/protect said officials, many of whom have their own petty schemes.  This novella is my effort to deal with that:  I have scads of characters from members of the imperial family to cellar-men to artists to liaison's (a position I deliberately mangled), to unruly aristocrat's.  Some make one appearance, others two or three or four.  (Hopefully, I don't have too many characters )

The next novella in the series (my July NaNoWriMo project if there is such a thing) takes place on the chief estate of a major aristocratic noble family.


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## valiant12 (May 11, 2015)

How factors like the religion which the master\mistress of the estate follow, where the master is new money or old money, how good the servant is at his or her job would affect the master-servant relations.


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## X Equestris (May 11, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> How factors like the religion which the master\mistress of the estate follow, where the master is new money or old money, how good the servant is at his or her job would affect the master-servant relations.



As far as religion, for most of the Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority of the population was Catholic.  Later on, after the Peace of Augsburg (which ended the religious struggle between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and an alliance of Lutheran Princes) lords in some places, like Germany, could choose their religion, and their subjects were expected to follow.  Of course, how you deal with religion in your fantasy world is your choice.


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## Russ (May 12, 2015)

X Equestris said:


> As far as religion, for most of the Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority of the population was Catholic.  Later on, after the Peace of Augsburg (which ended the religious struggle between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and an alliance of Lutheran Princes) lords in some places, like Germany, could choose their religion, and their subjects were expected to follow.  Of course, how you deal with religion in your fantasy world is your choice.



Quite right, either expected to follow or GTFO.  Plenty of migration on religious basis after the 30 years war.


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## valiant12 (May 12, 2015)

Russ said:


> Quite right, either expected to follow or GTFO.  Plenty of migration on religious basis after the 30 years war.


Would adding considerably more religious freedom break the willing suspension of disbelief?
The central religious dogma in the old world ( the equivalent of our Europe, North Africa, Levant and Arabian peninsular) is that all gods and goddesses are real and you can worship however you want even non human gods and malevolent ones. The big exception is worshiping the god of darkness, and the punishment is death. Some lords respect that, other expect the servants in there household to worship the god they personally worship. The duchess who is one of the main character is somewhere in the middle , she doesn't force her opinion on her underlings, but she is definitely more respectful toward the people who worship the same aspect of the same goddess.


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## Russ (May 12, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> Would adding considerably more religious freedom break the willing suspension of disbelief?
> The central religious dogma in the old world ( the equivalent of our Europe, North Africa, Levant and Arabian peninsular) is that all gods and goddesses are real and you can worship however you want even non human gods and malevolent ones. The big exception is worshiping the god of darkness, and the punishment is death. Some lords respect that, other expect the servants in there household to worship the god they personally worship. The duchess who is one of the main character is somewhere in the middle , she doesn't force her opinion on her underlings, but she is definitely more respectful toward the people who worship the same aspect of the same goddess.



I don't think so.  History is full of cultures/times/places and religions that were tolerant of a wide variety of beliefs.

I think those kind of cultures are refreshing to explore and be reminded about.


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