# Alternatives to feudal system



## Aldarion (Nov 6, 2019)

OK, I might write an article about this someday...

Feudalism is well-known in fantasy settings, as that is what western barbarians came up with after sacking Western Roman Empire. It also appeared in Japan and few other places. In fantasy, however, almost every medieval-ish state is feudal: exceptions are few and far between. Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are feudal, Nohr and Hoshido from Fire Emblem are feudal.

However, medieval does *not* mean feudal. There are alternatives, but all of them require a certain level of continuity between setting's antiquity and present. In other words, feudalism historically often (though not always) forms when there is a break between ancient and medieval periods which results in forced simplification of political system.

Most obvious alternative is the simple continuation of ancient society. In real world, we see this in Eastern Roman Empire after fall of the West, as well as pre-Islamic-invasion Frankish Kingdom of Merovingian dynasty, and pre-Justinianic-reconquest Ostrogothic Kingdom. All these states maintained sophisticated state apparatus of the Ancient Roman Empire, including educational system, centralized state bureocracy and so on. In the East, China always had a very sophisticated state apparatus.

Second possibility is state-controlled decentralization. This is what we see in Roman (Byzantine) Empire after islamic invasions of 7th century. The Emperor and state bureocracy still maintained control and ability to - in theory at least - make and unmake provincial governors / thematic generals at will. At the same time however, those governors received significantly greater powers so as to better deal with islamic invasions.

Third possibility is state feudalism. We see this in Roman (Byzantine) Empire of Komneni period. Empire in this period was feudal, but almost all major families had personal connections to the ruling dynasty. In fact, rank within state hierarchy was determined by kinship to the Emperor. Many feudal lords actually _were_ members of the Komneni family. As a result, they aimed to fulfill their ambitions primarily within the system. However, once Komneni family was replaced by Angeloi, and especially after sack of Constantinople in 1204. (but even before that), there was little to nothing to prevent them from carving out their kingdoms. Further, fact that _pronoia_ grants could be passed onto inheritors meant that, much like in Western feudal models, many troops simply refused to appear for service.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 6, 2019)

As I see it, Feudalism [however you define it personally] is often the go-to setting because it doesn't require complex world-building for a reader to understand. Power being held and passed down from Nation to Regional to Local to the Personal [or not] is an easy line to draw.
If your story isn't about a struggle for power [political, geographic etc.], then it can be little more than a pretty backdrop to sage the story in front of.
I liked the way the D&L Eddings had many different forms of societal structure in their Belgariad World. Pseudo -Viking, -Roman, -French/English Medieval, -Mongol and others were all there rubbing up against one another.
And I've been watching a series on the history of China, that shows that things could be very differently organised.


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## Yora (Nov 6, 2019)

I'm intrigued by having a setting work on a Bronze Age palace economy. Which is somewhat challenging to research, but seems to have a lot of similarity with communist dictatorships. it's a planned economy where all agricultural harvest goes to the palace and then apparently gets distributed to the people, and industry is state owned as well. These forms of government preceded the appearance of money, though continued well after that too.
Which raises great questions about how travelling heroes who are not visiting dignitaries get their food and supplies. Are there even stores and markets in such a world? Do taverns exist?


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## Aldarion (Nov 6, 2019)

CupofJoe said:


> As I see it, Feudalism [however you define it personally] is often the go-to setting because it doesn't require complex world-building for a reader to understand. Power being held and passed down from Nation to Regional to Local to the Personal [or not] is an easy line to draw.
> If your story isn't about a struggle for power [political, geographic etc.], then it can be little more than a pretty backdrop to sage the story in front of.
> I liked the way the D&L Eddings had many different forms of societal structure in their Belgariad World. Pseudo -Viking, -Roman, -French/English Medieval, -Mongol and others were all there rubbing up against one another.
> And I've been watching a series on the history of China, that shows that things could be very differently organised.



Indeed. Although I should note here that possibly _the_ fantasy series of all time - _Lord of the Rings_ - includes absolutely no feudal societies. Gondor uses Byzantine system I discussed above, Rohan is a tribal monarchy, maybe even chiefdom. Rivendell is a city-state, Beornings appear to have some kind of tribal organization. Mordor is a theocracy but is otherwise similar to Gondor. And so on.


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## Yora (Nov 6, 2019)

The shire is an anarcho-syndicalist commune...

You could say that this is one of the shortcomings of the worldbuilding in Middle-Earth that tries to hide socially controversial aspects of the book's message. There is never any indication of how government actually works and how society is structured. It's a simplistic, and I would personally even say naive narrative of "When we get a proper king again, everything will be fine like in the good old days." No mention of what that actually means for non-nobles. Sauron and Saruman want to modernize and pursue progress, and in this black and white world this is the full explanation for why they are evil and kill and destroy everything in their path.
The Lord of the Rings does never say anything about the way normal people are governed. Either because Tolkien thought they do not matter, or because it would have spoiled his shining white vision of how absolute monarchy is the solution to all problems. I am trying to think really hard, and I can only one think of one character who is a commoner, which is Sam. Who is a simpleton who can't think of anything more important and rewarding in live than serving his master.
Nobody can dispute the historical significance of The Lord of the Rings but when you start thinking critically about socio-economic worldbuilding and portrayals of power and governance, the implications are pretty appalling.
I think it's prime example of the importance to put real thought into the political system of your world, especially when the story is about good and bad rulers.


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## Aldarion (Nov 6, 2019)

Yora said:


> The shire is an anarcho-syndicalist commune...
> 
> You could say that this is one of the shortcomings of the worldbuilding in Middle-Earth that tries to hide socially controversial aspects of the book's message. There is never any indication of how government actually works and how society is structured. It's a simplistic, and I would personally even say naive narrative of "When we get a proper king again, everything will be fine like in the good old days." No mention of what that actually means for non-nobles. Sauron and Saruman want to modernize and pursue progress, and in this black and white world this is the full explanation for why they are evil and kill and destroy everything in their path.
> The Lord of the Rings does never say anything about the way normal people are governed. Either because Tolkien thought they do not matter, or because it would have spoiled his shining white vision of how absolute monarchy is the solution to all problems. I am trying to think really hard, and I can only one think of one character who is a commoner, which is Sam. Who is a simpleton who can't think of anything more important and rewarding in live than serving his master.
> ...



Actually, Tolkien never goes into much detail because (surprise surprise) his sources never go into much detail. You have to understand that Tolkien, as much pain as he went through to make his world at least plausible if not realistic, was still writing mythology, not history. Because of that, he also used typical mythological / mythical / fairy tale tropes: heroes and heroic combat (combat scenes from Middle Earth read less like historical combat and more like _Illiad_ or other heroic epics), good king returns (Aragorn) and so on. This includes lack of specific details: not going into GRRM-esque detailling of the world not only helps flow of the story, but also helps develop that sense of a mythical times long past. But there is enough to understand his inspirations and draw from there. For example, it is mentioned somewhere (either by JRR or Christopher Tolkien) that King of Numenor and later of Gondor was legally limited only by tradition and his duties as understood. Even Council was primarily advisory body. To modern mind, that sounds preposterous and dangerous both, as whole system of governance is basically in hands of one person; there is no division of power (legislative/executive/judiciary triade). But historically, in Roman (Byzantine) Empire which was an actual inspiration for such a system, matters were much more complex: while legal limitations were nonexistent, there existed significant cultural and customary limitations on ruler's powers. Rulers were expected to hold to a certain standard; divine right to rule - Emperor was God's emissary on Earth - was not only a _right_ but also an _obligation_, as Emperor had to be just_._ Emperors defined legal system but were also limited by it. Emperor was always watched - by the Senate, by the army, by the people (of capital and provinces alike), and if he was seen as not fulfilling his duties, he would be quickly replaced. In Gondor, likewise, if King was believed to not be in the right, he could be limited through extralegal means - even if that includes rebellion. And when King died without a clear heir, Council could elect one: Council of Gondor crowned Earnil instead of Arvedui, and after Earnur died they did not elect new king as they feared a civil war.

That "naive narrative" you mention is a conscious choice of emulating precisely the sort of heroic epic that _Lord of the Rings_ is based on. We have enough sources of "good king returns": _Odyssey_ where eponymous character returns to reestablish law and order on Ithaca; King Arthur returned to claim the throne of England, albeit as a boy; there is also Horus in Egyptian religion, and of course Jesus who will return at the end of the time.

Tolkien also empathically _does not_ hold absolute monarchy as a solution to all problems. I have already explained how King of Gondor was not an absolute monarch in practice, even if he was one in theory. We also see this in other places: when Fingolfin wanted to attack Angband, he was _voted against_ and the attack was abandoned; that is very much _not_ absolute monarchy, in either theory or practice. In Nargothrond, Finrod was reluctant to help Beren because he feared his people would not follow him, and he was right - it seems that Nargothrondrim had rather Byzantine understanding of monarchy where people had right to remove theoretically absolute power of the monarch whenever they felt the need to. Later on, they disobeyed orders of another king to bring down the bridge. Gondolin does have close-to-absolute monarchy, but anything serious still requires consent of both King and the Crown Prince, as Hurin and Huor needed permission of both Turgon and Maeglin to leave. Tolkien's monarchs in general are limited by the common law, like in (perhaps mythical) Anglo-Saxon England before Norman invasions. And in Brethil, Hurin gets jury trial, and they appear to have no real monarch.

And one place which is actually Tolkien's vision of idealized world, Shire, is not absolute monarchy in either theory or practice:

_The Thain was the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms; but as muster and moot were only held in times of emergency, which no longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more than a nominal dignity._
_The only real official in the Shire at this date was the Mayor of Michel Delving (or of the Shire), who was elected every seven years at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Midsummer. As mayor almost his only duty was to preside at banquets, given on the Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals._

You may want to read these as well:
Gondor, Byzantium, and feudalism
A Discussion of Law in Middle-earth

Of Thegns and Kings and Rangers and Things

This is what Tolkien himself had to say on the topic of monarchy:
A Splendid Wickedness and Other Essays
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien


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## skip.knox (Nov 7, 2019)

I'd add, too, that the notion of an absolute monarch was a late development. Or, more correctly, there were claims made by Roman emperors that were carried on in the east but which were heavily modified in the west. The whole "I am the state" thing dates to the 17th century. Medieval kings were far more limited, but in theory and in practice, as Aldarion notes. Indeed, parts of what we accept as normal (and just) government would have been called tyranny in the Middle Ages. To which I have to append my standard medieval disclaimer: it all varied wildly by time and place.


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## Yora (Nov 7, 2019)

I think in most Germanic cultures, kingship was actually an elected office that was chosen by the hereditary nobles at the second level. Very often the constellation of power and influence that made the old king the best choice carried over to his son who inherited his lands diplomatic relationships who then was the strongest contender to be the new king, so you often got something that seemed like a "royal house".
Even when the Normans conquered England, the quote "power resides where men believe it to reside" still applied. Being the legal heir of the old king certainly helped a lot, but when a considerable number of the barons really would rather have had someone else, that point was negotiable. Westeros gets the idea across, but I think in practice both England and especially the HRR were much, much more messy than this highly simplified version.


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## skip.knox (Nov 7, 2019)

>kingship was actually an elected office that was chosen by the hereditary nobles at the second level.
Yes. That's why Henry the Fowler was chosen by a collection of barons (as were a good many of the later Carolingian kings). That evolved later into the system of electors in the Holy Roman Empire. Popes were also elected, and that system got formalized in the 11thc, only slightly earlier than the German system. Inheritance became more deeply entrenched in France because of the extraordinary run of the Capetians, who managed to have male heirs for something like three hundred years or more. That was the theory in England, but of course they cheerfully practiced regicide whenever the barons got unhappy.

Kingship in Leon, Castile, Aragon, Poland, Hungary, Sicily, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Jerusalem, ... there are just so many exceptions and variations and aberrations, it's impossible to say medieval kingship was This or That.  The stereotypes persist not because of their historical accuracy but because the accord with a whole modern mindset about the past. A topic for another day.

(and there was no such thing as feudalism, but that too is best left for a different discussion; this is a fantasy forum, not a history forum!)


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## Gurkhal (Nov 7, 2019)

Personally I am more interested in variations of the feudal system rather than just the standard Norman/French inspired regional warlord.

For to me the good thing with feudalism is that its very, to my knowledge, personal as power can be wielded with, and for, more personal reasons and motives than say a senatorial or direct democracy system where decisions can't be done, normally, by a single person like that but must be processed through many people before action can be taken.

Now that don't of course mean that such systems can't be personal in regards to the use of power but I personally find feudalism to be easier to work with.


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## Aldarion (Nov 7, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> (and there was no such thing as feudalism, but that too is best left for a different discussion; this is a fantasy forum, not a history forum!)



You can have history without fantasy, but you cannot have fantasy without history. I started this topic largely to give people ideas for something other than Stereotypical Medieval Monarchy. If you take a look at Lord of the Rings ripoffs (e.g. _Inheritance Cycle_ etc.), most of them fail to duplicate the sheer diversity of political systems utilized in Middle Earth. Which is a pity, because historical sociopolitical systems can be extremely interesting, and even make for good plotlines (as can be seen from _Lord of the Rings_ and rest of Tolkien mythos, for example; _Videssos_ cycle also utilizes not-typical-medieval-monarchy, seeing how titular country is inspired by Byzantine Empire).



Gurkhal said:


> Personally I am more interested in variations of the feudal system rather than just the standard Norman/French inspired regional warlord.
> 
> For to me the good thing with feudalism is that its very, to my knowledge, personal as power can be wielded with, and for, more personal reasons and motives than say a senatorial or direct democracy system where decisions can't be done, normally, by a single person like that but must be processed through many people before action can be taken.
> 
> Now that don't of course mean that such systems can't be personal in regards to the use of power but I personally find feudalism to be easier to work with.



Feudalism is good because it requires very little administration. As a result, it seems to be a usual fallback whenever a society has suffered a catastrophe, or even when it hasn't (Japan managed to develop feudalism without barbarian invasions, might be interesting to look into that process). Many other systems require formalized education to be effective.


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## skip.knox (Nov 7, 2019)

Agreed, Aldarion. But I want historical knowledge to spark ideas and open possibilities. If I insist too much on historical authenticity, it winds up narrowing possibilities. That's not how guilds worked! No such thing as feudalism! Kings had limited powers! and so on. I don't mind providing explanations if asked (or grousing unasked in parentheses <g>), but mostly I'm in the go-for-it camp.

It does sadden me a trifle to see people eagerly turning to other cultures because medieval Europe is worn out as a source for storytelling. It really isn't. It's just that the Anglo-Norman aspect--and really an odd jumble of 12th-13thcs combined with 17thc bits--utterly dominates people's ideas about what is medieval. It cheered me considerably to read Gavriel's _Children of Earth and Sky_ which puts the reader squarely in the world of the Adriatic, though it's wearing other clothes. That book is an example of the potential lying in places like Sicily or Galicia or Brittany or Silesia or Livonia or ... well, just about any place else in Europe besides jolly old England.

But it's really okay anyway because *I'm* writing those kinds of stories. So there. <grin twice>


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 7, 2019)

I’m not even certain “feudalism” in a classic sense exists in the entirety of my world. Then again, there aren’t any knights either, heh heh. No full plate armor yet, not jousting. Hmm, but all the cultures will develop in as organic manner as I can imagine. I’m sure something will exist of a sort.

I will also agree big time with Skip, Europe is not worn out, three’s piles of potential.


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## Devor (Nov 7, 2019)

Smughitter has a modern feel in a quasi-medieval setting.  For politics, that translates to a king, who sends a herald to the city. The herald interviews people and selects five people that he deems capable of ruling, following a careful process.  The people then have an election to select one of those people as governor.  There are ten governorships, plus two military garrison trade towns.  Finally, there's a province that remains feudal, under the terms of the treaty by which it was annexed.  They provide military support in exchange for trade opportunities but otherwise remain self-governing.


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## skip.knox (Nov 7, 2019)

>not jousting.
But is there the melee? A melee is way more fun than a joust. But there again, how many times is there an actual joust in a fantasy book? The only good example I can come up with--and by good here I mean described in more than a paragraph--is from _The Once and Future King_.


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## Yora (Nov 8, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> The stereotypes persist not because of their historical accuracy but because the accord with a whole modern mindset about the past.


Public perception and common knowledge about the middle ages and really all of history is a product of the 19th century. Which didn't have the purpose to accurately represent those times, but to make the 19th century English, French, and German upper class look like the pinacle of human culture by fabricating lies about anyone else.


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## Aldarion (Nov 8, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> Agreed, Aldarion. But I want historical knowledge to spark ideas and open possibilities. If I insist too much on historical authenticity, it winds up narrowing possibilities. That's not how guilds worked! No such thing as feudalism! Kings had limited powers! and so on. I don't mind providing explanations if asked (or grousing unasked in parentheses <g>), but mostly I'm in the go-for-it camp.
> 
> It does sadden me a trifle to see people eagerly turning to other cultures because medieval Europe is worn out as a source for storytelling. It really isn't. It's just that the Anglo-Norman aspect--and really an odd jumble of 12th-13thcs combined with 17thc bits--utterly dominates people's ideas about what is medieval. It cheered me considerably to read Gavriel's _Children of Earth and Sky_ which puts the reader squarely in the world of the Adriatic, though it's wearing other clothes. That book is an example of the potential lying in places like Sicily or Galicia or Brittany or Silesia or Livonia or ... well, just about any place else in Europe besides jolly old England.
> 
> But it's really okay anyway because *I'm* writing those kinds of stories. So there. <grin twice>



And that is why historical knowledge is important. By understanding what worked, how any why, you not only have much more options to choose from if you decide to go copy-pasta, but it also allows you to create a plausible system of your own (although, if it works, it generally already has appeared - _somewhere, sometime_). To me, too-original systems too easily break suspension of disbelief. And to avoid that, one needs to understand mechanics - and comparison helps with that.

I think most people do not understand medieval Europe very well, if at all. Just to give an example, even today I have found claims that plate armour is "heavy" (properly-made Gothic armour is _lighter_ than mail or lamellar), that European swords are dull (no, they are not) or heavy (European arming sword or longsword is _lighter_ than katana of comparable length). Likewise, the "tyrant king" trope has much more in common with 17th century absolutism (Louis XIV) than with actual medieval monarchy. And that is a problem, because it also projects to modernity. For example, people who believe that _A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones_ is medieval may come to believe that Middle Ages were uniquely violent (no, they were not) or that feudalism is the cause of violence and that such a thing cannot happen today. But in reality, extreme capacity of state for violence is consequence of centralization - violence in Middle Ages was much more _frequent_ than in Antiquity or Modernity, but was also much more _limited_, precisely because there were no centralized states. For ancient Romans, killing ten to twenty thousand people in a battle was a nine-to-five job, in Middle Ages it was nearly unthinkable - not because of ethics, but because of logistics, as most kings could not call on armies large enough, though there were exceptions. Most warfare in Middle Ages were raids, counter-raids, sieges and _chevauchee_, not pitched battles - if you want large pitched battles, you _need_ large centralized states - be it Roman Empire vs Persian Empire, "Byzantine" Empire vs Whatever Caliphate or 100-year-war England vs France, capable of raising armies large enough that typical castles or fortresses do not stand a chance. Hungarian kings by comparison could barely hold nobles in line - Bela IV mustered an army of 60 000 for Battle of Mohi, but that was an extreme case - how extreme you can tell by the fact that 25% of population of Hungary was killed by Mongols. In similarly important Battle of Mohacs, Hungarians mustered an army of 30 000 despite timeframe being closer to AsoIAF one (16th century).


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 8, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> >not jousting.
> But is there the melee? A melee is way more fun than a joust. But there again, how many times is there an actual joust in a fantasy book? The only good example I can come up with--and by good here I mean described in more than a paragraph--is from _The Once and Future King_.



Martin gets into it a bit. Think the prequel shorts do as well. I’m sure I’ve seen some Arthurian-esque old novels that used it, but I don’t recall the names.

 No melee either in my books yet, the yet being key, the cultures just aren’t there. The Silone don’t even have a military structure... yet. It’ll be fun watching the culture evolve once past the first three books.


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## skip.knox (Nov 8, 2019)

I don't remember an actual melee in Martin, though I have to confess that after the third book or so it all sort blurs. It's another great opportunity for storytelling, though. There were actual rules, or at least guidelines <g> and the events were formally called and widely attended. William the Marshal famously made quite a career working the circuit in the late 12thc.

How about a wizard melee? Wheee!


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 8, 2019)

Yeah, The Mountain kills off one bloke in a joust and other fun ensues. Seems like there’s an official melee in there at some point, but I also might be blending history, story, and the prequel shorts, heh heh.

Wizard melee with no magic... (channeling Napoleon in Time Bandits) Little things hitting each other! That’s what I like!

Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, that’s the Martin book! Very different in tone from ASoIaF, more “fun” and lighthearted in comparison. Pretty good read, actually.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 10, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> I don't remember an actual melee in Martin, though I have to confess that after the third book or so it all sort blurs. It's another great opportunity for storytelling, though. There were actual rules, or at least guidelines <g> and the events were formally called and widely attended. William the Marshal famously made quite a career working the circuit in the late 12thc.
> 
> How about a wizard melee? Wheee!



There are melees in Asoiaf but GRRM runs them as a normally free-for-all fight rather than with teams for storytelling purposes. But King Robert is renowned for smashing people into the dirt during melees, or at least he used to do so, and when Catelyn comes to Renly's camp there's a melee where Brienne and Loras are the last ones standing. And there's a melee where Brienne seeks out and beats down the men taking part in a bet on who can get her into bed first, and so on.

But GRRM tends to, in my opinion, focus on jousts and probably because its a bit easier to write and perhaps highlight individual skill in a different way to the reader.


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## skip.knox (Nov 10, 2019)

A melee is not just a free-for-all nor a sort of berserker moment in a battle. It was a set piece, with a defined battlefield area. There were two sides and at a signal they went at it. Sometimes on horse, often on foot. The main activity was to take down someone, not to kill them. Once they yielded, they hied themselves to the sidelines where they were to wait for ransom. A common payment was the armor the fellow was wearing, but other arrangements could be made for a later payment, on the sworn word (his _parole_) of the captive. A good fighter could make decent living this way, but for the most part it was just good fun with plenty of cracked heads and broken arms and the like. Some deaths.

The Church condemned this from the 11thc onward, to little effect. A noble might listen to his priest, but nobody listened to the Church.

Anyway, when I said I haven't seen a melee in fantasy fiction, this is the sort of thing I meant. I have a melee in _A Child of Great Promise_, but it's a rather small one and participation there is brief. I don't have a place for one in _The Falconer_, but maybe I can figure an angle for a short story.


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## Aldarion (Nov 10, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> A melee is not just a free-for-all nor a sort of berserker moment in a battle. It was a set piece, with a defined battlefield area. There were two sides and at a signal they went at it. Sometimes on horse, often on foot. The main activity was to take down someone, not to kill them. Once they yielded, they hied themselves to the sidelines where they were to wait for ransom. A common payment was the armor the fellow was wearing, but other arrangements could be made for a later payment, on the sworn word (his _parole_) of the captive. A good fighter could make decent living this way, but for the most part it was just good fun with plenty of cracked heads and broken arms and the like. Some deaths.
> 
> The Church condemned this from the 11thc onward, to little effect. A noble might listen to his priest, but nobody listened to the Church.
> 
> Anyway, when I said I haven't seen a melee in fantasy fiction, this is the sort of thing I meant. I have a melee in _A Child of Great Promise_, but it's a rather small one and participation there is brief. I don't have a place for one in _The Falconer_, but maybe I can figure an angle for a short story.



That I think depended on the period and the combatants. Generally, when there is a sense that a side is threatening the existence of a whole group (e.g. religious wars, or nationalist/ethnic wars of antiquity - Romans saw as the enemy not a state or governments, but people as a whole - _Carthaginem esse delendam_, but also look at what they did to some of barbarian tribes), you have much more brutal wars. Even in civil wars, casualties in terms of dead were massive.

Which, again, brings to question why exactly people believe feudal era to have been particularly brutal. It was actually much less brutal than most other eras. And that, I think, may answer your question on why actual medieval melee is usually not seen in fiction: fiction adopts medieval _aesthetics_ (especially late Middle Ages with Gothic plate and stuff), yet _mentality_ seems to draw either from antiquity, early modernity, or even full-blown (contemporary, as in, current day) modernity.


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## skip.knox (Nov 10, 2019)

I hope you don't mind if I insist a bit here. A melee is a specific historical thing, belonging to the period roughly 1100 to 1500. Definitely not Roman and definitely not a part of a war, not a form of battlefield combat. A melee was no more part of a wartime battle than was a joust. I say this knowing full well that the term has become much broader in modern times and covers pretty much any sort of brawl. I only want to point out the historical aspect, in case anyone is interested.

As for what people believe about the European Middle Ages, that's a whole other thread. As one who taught medieval history for 35 years, I would have a hard time being brief on the topic.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 12, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> A melee is not just a free-for-all nor a sort of berserker moment in a battle. It was a set piece, with a defined battlefield area. There were two sides and at a signal they went at it. Sometimes on horse, often on foot. The main activity was to take down someone, not to kill them. Once they yielded, they hied themselves to the sidelines where they were to wait for ransom.



I am well aware of how a real melee worked, and I believe that so does GRRM. This is an example of changing something for the benefit of the story as opposed to ignorance of how something worked. And isn't that always what we say in regards to world building? Does it benefit the story or how does it work with the story?


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## skip.knox (Nov 13, 2019)

Sure, totally understood.Changing things around is the core premise of my Altearth, so I can hardly object to the practice.

But my original and continuing question is, are there examples of an actual melee in fantasy fiction? The response so far would indicate not really. Kinda, sorta, but no one who has really taken advantage of that medieval institution.

Now that the topic as drifted around for a while, I find myself wondering if there were comparable practices in, say, India or Japan. That is, formalized encounters that were part war games and part status rituals.


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## Aldarion (Nov 13, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> Sure, totally understood.Changing things around is the core premise of my Altearth, so I can hardly object to the practice.
> 
> But my original and continuing question is, are there examples of an actual melee in fantasy fiction? The response so far would indicate not really. Kinda, sorta, but no one who has really taken advantage of that medieval institution.
> 
> Now that the topic as drifted around for a while, I find myself wondering if there were comparable practices in, say, India or Japan. That is, formalized encounters that were part war games and part status rituals.



Oh, warfare in Japan was definitely formalized. I haven't really studied it, though (with the exception of _ninjutsu_ traditions, and even that was not much), so these might help:
Review on JSTOR
Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan
A Brief History of the Samurai


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## skip.knox (Nov 13, 2019)

Thanks for the references, Aldarion. Warfare in most cultures is formalized in one way or another. What I was curious about (only idly so) is institutions like the joust or the melee, which took place outside of war. Some variant of jousting existed in India, IIRC, but I've not heard anything about a melee. It'd be cool if one of these other cultures had some other convention, other than one-to-one jousting or the sort of duel-en-masse than was a melee.

(aside: one great benefit of emeritus status is that I still have access to JSTOR!)


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## Aldarion (Nov 13, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> Thanks for the references, Aldarion. Warfare in most cultures is formalized in one way or another. What I was curious about (only idly so) is institutions like the joust or the melee, which took place outside of war. Some variant of jousting existed in India, IIRC, but I've not heard anything about a melee. It'd be cool if one of these other cultures had some other convention, other than one-to-one jousting or the sort of duel-en-masse than was a melee.
> 
> (aside: one great benefit of emeritus status is that I still have access to JSTOR!)



I am not sure Japanese ever utilized couched lance technique which would have been required for joust. Samurai culture was more focused on archery, as opposed to Western European "close in, smash heads" type of warfare. Spear and lance, if used at all, would likely be used with overhand or underhand stabbing technique, as opposed to European couched lance technique (Byzantine cataphracts also utilized spear for stabbing, though they may also have used couched lance as well). Closest thing to jousting for Samurai would likely be Yabusame, which was a mounted archery competition:
Yabusame - Wikipedia

There is also this, but I found no more details:
Untitled Print of a jousting tournament in Japan - Montanus (1669)


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## Magicat (Nov 18, 2019)

Yora said:


> I'm intrigued by having a setting work on a Bronze Age palace economy. Which is somewhat challenging to research, but seems to have a lot of similarity with communist dictatorships. it's a planned economy where all agricultural harvest goes to the palace and then apparently gets distributed to the people, and industry is state owned as well. These forms of government preceded the appearance of money, though continued well after that too.
> Which raises great questions about how travelling heroes who are not visiting dignitaries get their food and supplies. Are there even stores and markets in such a world? Do taverns exist?


The Inca culture is interesting. They were a very well-organised, using research into managing micro-climates in the Andes to increase production (you can visit their "research station"), and collected surpluses in great stores along many of the 000s of kilometres of tracks they laid down The best example we saw was at Olleyantambo. They used "soft" power to enlarge their empire  "here are all the benefits of joining with us, but if you don't we'll thump you". So yes, there were stores, and markets. Travellers could use the system of tracks.  Our visit to Peru made me think about different government systems. The key to the success of Peruvian pre-Inca cultures was sophisticated management of water, this is also true of Cambodia.


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## skip.knox (Nov 18, 2019)

Given that the "feudal system" never really existed, I'm curious as to what specifically people think of as alternatives to it. Not just naming another culture, but specifics. 

Let's take something like liege loyalty. This is where a lord has multiple overlords. This happened when Baron X got one piece of land from Duke A and another from Count B. That Duke and Count might one day come into conflict was nearly guaranteed. If they fought--at law or on the battlefield--where do Baron X's loyalties lie? This led to scenarios that seem silly to us, such as Baron X fielding a dozen knights over to Duke A while another score take the field with Count B. Even then, where does the Baron serve in person?

That's where the liege oath came in. When swearing fealty to Duke A, for instance, he might add (the Duke would insist) that he recoginzed the Duke as his liege lord, to serve him in person, be it at court, at law, or in battle. 

So, there's a specific. Do other cultures have an alternative? 

If you're not searching for an alternative to liegemen (we get the word allegiance from this), what other aspects of medieval socio-political systems are you looking for? Color me curious.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 18, 2019)

I don't know for sure if this is what you're looking for but to me feudal system at its core means;

That local power and control, including perhaps most importantly taxes and military, has been delegated from a central authority to a single hereditary position in the local area combined with an theoretical obligation for the local power holders to supply the central authority with local resources when needed but otherwise allowing a great deal of freedom in the operation of local power.

Hence alternatives to this arrangement means alternatives to feudalism. I may get blown out of the water but to me this is what is says when I think of "feudalism".


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## Prince of Spires (Nov 19, 2019)

I think that the impact of most of the different forms of government that are used is limited, except for where writers explore some of the more extreme outliers. For a protagonist visiting a local lord, does it really matter if that lord is a Baron who got his title at birth and who owes allegiance to some Count or if that lord is a provincial governor appointed by a central government for a short period of time? In most cases, the behavior of this local lord can be exactly the same. 

You could of course go more extreme, and then it can start to matter. One alternative I haven't seen mentioned is have a company run the country. For instance, the British East India Company was a large colonial power and had a private army which, at its height was larger than that of the United Kingdom. And yet it was a publicly traded company. Lots of room for conflict there.


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## Aldarion (Nov 19, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> Given that the "feudal system" never really existed, I'm curious as to what specifically people think of as alternatives to it. Not just naming another culture, but specifics.
> 
> Let's take something like liege loyalty. This is where a lord has multiple overlords. This happened when Baron X got one piece of land from Duke A and another from Count B. That Duke and Count might one day come into conflict was nearly guaranteed. If they fought--at law or on the battlefield--where do Baron X's loyalties lie? This led to scenarios that seem silly to us, such as Baron X fielding a dozen knights over to Duke A while another score take the field with Count B. Even then, where does the Baron serve in person?
> 
> ...



"Feudal" system, as commonly understood, is a chain-effect land-based system. King gives land to large magnates in exchange for service, who give it to smaller magnates in exhcnage for their service, who then give it to landed knights in exchange for _their _service, who then have peasants and retainers of their own...

It is actually quite easy to change this socioeconomic system into something different:
1) Removing the intermediary between the state and the soldiers; essentially, have state give land directly to soldiers. This is what was done in Roman Empire during Middle Byzantine period, where soldiers received land (income from it) in exchange for military service (the _themata_ system). Similar system (_pronoia_ grants) existed in Late Byzantine period, but never achieved the extent of thematic system and mercenaries (unfortunately) remained the primary troops of Late Byzantine military.
2) Changing the nature of income. If state is more advanced, e.g. Antiquity or Late Middle Ages / Renaissance, you can give soldiers _income stream_ instead of land - this was done with _pronoia_ grants I referenced earlier, as (unlike thematic system) these could include income from mills, trade, road taxes and similar.
3) Having state utilize more sophisticated (not necessarily better, mind you) system, such as standing coin-paid military. This too can then be varied, and/or combined with systems 1) and 2):
- 3a) Centralized standing military where only central government has professional forces (e.g. Classical Roman Empire).
- 3b) Distributed standing military where each province / county raises, equips and maintains its own forces (similar to _themata_ system)
- 3c) Distributed standing military where each city equips its own forces and places them at disposal to central government
- 3d) Varied standing military where various factors - independent cities, counties, feudal lords, Church - maintain their own standing forces
-- 3d1) Central government still has its own military (according to models 1) or 2)) but it is only a small portion of total armed forces of the state
-- 3d2) Central government / ruler is a feudal lord and raises his own forces according to one or more of already-noted systems
-- 3d3) Central government has no forces of its own

Of course, this is just general things. There could also be specifics:
1) Is service hereditary? If so, is land hereditary as well or ruler can (legally, if not necessarily in practice) transfer servicemen from one piece of land to another?
2) How important are mercenaries? Does state hire people from abroad for some or all of needed functions, or relies on its own populace and resources?
3) Anything else you can think of.

Note that, while I was writing about military service above, _any_ kind of service can be modelled according to those lines. _Pronoia_ grants in Byzantine times were also used to support state functionaries (administrators, bureocrats etc.), not just soldiers.


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## Yora (Nov 19, 2019)

I think feudalism appears as a result of having people united under one ruler, but this kingdom not having the administrative infrastructure required to govern it. When the king does not know what's going on in much of the country, communication between the regional administrations and the royal court takes forever, and the royal court does not have the capacity to process all the national finances, a decentralized hierarchy with extremely autonomous local and regional governments is the only viable choice.
"Just pay the taxes for your domain and send me soldiers when I call for them. As long as you do that, you can run your domain how you want."


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## Aldarion (Nov 19, 2019)

Yora said:


> I think feudalism appears as a result of having people united under one ruler, but this kingdom not having the administrative infrastructure required to govern it. When the king does not know what's going on in much of the country, communication between the regional administrations and the royal court takes forever, and the royal court does not have the capacity to process all the national finances, a decentralized hierarchy with extremely autonomous local and regional governments is the only viable choice.
> "Just pay the taxes for your domain and send me soldiers when I call for them. As long as you do that, you can run your domain how you want."



Precisely. But how often do you see feudal structures even in millenia-old empires that may well could have developed something more sophisticated? Feudalism develops when there is no necessary infrastructure to support other governmental systems.

Also, speed of communication has nothing to do with it. Roman Empire worked just fine without feudalism _and_ without fast communications. _Reliability_ of communication, however...


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## Yora (Nov 19, 2019)

The best example of feudal structures outside of medieval Europe I can think of is Japan before the 17th century. A period were central government pretty much collapsed and it was every lord for himself. Of course they had alliances in which weaker lords pledged loyalty to more powerful ones, but those were often out of convenience and not necessarily very stable. Go a couple of centuries back and you find a Japan that was much more centralized with an administration modeled after the Chinese system.

I'm not too familiar with Russian history, but I believe they also had feudal structures in place. I think Russia was never centralized before that, but it's a gargantuan area with a low population. Again a situation where centralized administration is not feasible.

Though this does make me really curious about Poland. Poland has neither the remoteness of Russia, nor was it ever part of the Roman Empire. They had a pretty sophisticated form of government when they were the biggest and most powerful country in Europe, but a lot of what I heard sounds like it was rather different from how monarchies in western Europe worked.


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## skip.knox (Nov 19, 2019)

The posts so far have feudalism being essentially about the army--military service in exchange for land (or other source of income for the soldiers). And that really is ubiquitous in fantasy. It's either a nobility supplemented by peasant levies, or it's some modern army system run by the state. Every once in a while there's a story with a city-state, but that's mainly just the state-run system hiring mercenaries rather than having a standing army. It would seem the field is ripe for alternatives there.

Some secondary elements identified above include taxes and administration. The key theme of the feudalism trope is decentralized authority. And one of its key requisites is the hereditary principle. Both of these, too, offer possibiliites, it seems to me.

Are there other aspects of feudalism people would like to add to the list?
And do you have any specific alternatives in mind?


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## Aldarion (Nov 19, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> The posts so far have feudalism being essentially about the army--military service in exchange for land



That is definitely not what feudalism is about. As I have already noted, there are several ways to have military service in exchange for land that are decidedly _not_ feudal in nature. As you yourself noted, key aspect of feudalism is decentralization and hereditary principle. But even then, you can have decentralized, land-based system that is not feudalism (e.g. Byzantine _themata_ and _pronoia_ systems).

EDIT:
Personally, I would define feudalism through:
* Decentralization of authority: central state simply isn't capable of running things, and has to sell out its duties to the highest bidder. Thus private personages - feudal lords etc. - become intermediaries between the government and the common people.
* Layering of authority: said decentralization is done according to a pyramidal hierarchy. And it is not enough for this hierarchy to be pyramidal - after all, the same holds true for modern-day "representative democracies" - but rather, pyramidal itself has to be relatively steep with multiple very defined levels. Just having a king and a masses is not feudalism, it is chiefdom.
* Centrality of land: land is the "currency", and regardless of existence and spread of monetary economy, land is - directly or indirectly - the basis of wealth.
* Centrality of family: family is the basic social unit in any functioning society, but in feudalism family has not only social / societal, but also important political role. It is the basis of political power and relations. One's power is drawn largely from one's heritage; if land is not inherited but rather given by the state, system is _not_ feudal.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 19, 2019)

Aldarion said:


> That is definitely not what feudalism is about. As I have already noted, there are several ways to have military service in exchange for land that are decidedly _not_ feudal in nature. As you yourself noted, key aspect of feudalism is decentralization and hereditary principle. But even then, you can have decentralized, land-based system that is not feudalism (e.g. Byzantine _themata_ and _pronoia_ systems).



I have to disagree on the part that land-for-service wasn't the core of feudalism.

The exchange of land for military service was to my knowlege the core of feudalism. Just because this wasn't a unique thing to feudalism don't mean that it wasn't the core part of it. The difference between the feudal and Byzantine scenarios with land for military service was that in the case of feudal society this military service was combined with control over taxation and, unless I'm mistaken, local judicial authority, which together gives us the feudal lord; sword, coin and law (I forgot to mention this in my post above) under the control of a single person in a local area. And that by, in my opinion overuse of the land-for-service system the king ended up unable to prevent this power from being passed on hereditary until it became the normal system to run things. In Byzantium, to my knowledge, the land-for-service arrangements never allowed the soldiers to also put taxation and law under their permanent control and so feudal power didn't develop..



Aldarion said:


> EDIT:
> Personally, I would define feudalism through:
> * Decentralization of authority: central state simply isn't capable of running things, and has to sell out its duties to the highest bidder. Thus private personages - feudal lords etc. - become intermediaries between the government and the common people.
> * Layering of authority: said decentralization is done according to a pyramidal hierarchy. And it is not enough for this hierarchy to be pyramidal - after all, the same holds true for modern-day "representative democracies" - but rather, pyramidal itself has to be relatively steep with multiple very defined levels. Just having a king and a masses is not feudalism, it is chiefdom.
> ...



Seems like a pretty good definition to me, althoug I would be somewhat questioning on the centrality of land part.


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## skip.knox (Nov 19, 2019)

Specialists do not agree among themselves as to what "truly" constituted feudalism, so it's no surprise there are disagreements here. 

I was more interested to hear what people *think* feudalism was about. That is, what's the stereotype in your mind, no matter how superficial or wrong you might think it is. I'm not really interested in that, either, but in how this understanding informs someone's desire to break away, to have an alternative. 

To put it another way, what specifically do you want to set aside or transform? And why? Is it because it's over-done (in your own estimation)? Or because it's done badly? Are you looking for alternatives in order to create something new? Or are you simply looking to avoid a trope?

Because the really interesting aspect to me is to look at those alternatives, to look at what we're trying to do differently, what parts are worth keeping (or at least not worth changing) and what parts seem really important to transmute. You can't really do something different from an abstraction. You can't come up with an "alternative to the feudal system." You have to get down to specifics. If power isn't inherited, why isn't it? What's the alternative? If notions regarding nobility are to be set aside, what replaces them? If land-for-service is out, what's in? (Aldarion has a couple of proposals there)

There are likely some perceptions of feudalism that go beyond the narrow scope so far discussed. I'd love to hear about them.


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## Gurkhal (Nov 19, 2019)

Well, if things goes through with my new project, then I'll likely be mixing feudalism with ancient Greek and Italic city-state systems.

But as an example of what could be done is of course ancient Greece with its many different ways to organize a large number of city states. For while a single Greek city-state is probably rather straight-forward to organize, largely, when you've got a bunch of them together and try and make them all pull together in the same direction, creative solutions are often needed.


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## skip.knox (Nov 20, 2019)

I don't think the Greeks ever pulled in the same direction! The new project sounds fun!


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## Gurkhal (Nov 20, 2019)

Alexander the Great got more than half of them in Greece proper to pull in his direction for a couple of years, so I think that's about as close we get. 

Jokes aside the new project is indeed something that I find interesting and combines several parts. Its essentially throwing the Mediterranean Normans into a pre-Roman Empire Classical Antiquity world.


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## skip.knox (Nov 20, 2019)

The de Hauteville boys ftw!


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## Gurkhal (Nov 20, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> The de Hauteville boys ftw!



Indeed. 

I'll probably throw in other medieval cultures and kingdoms as well but the Normans seems like a solid foundation. Among other reasons that they are probalby more relatable than Eastern Romans to a modern audience and that they are probably more sympathic than the Christian Iberians or the Crusader Kingdoms, to a modern audience. And yes, want a grey story and not a evil-vs.good story but to keep the reader interested there needs to be some sympathic people and there the, to my understanding, relatively tolerant and cultured Normans comes in.

Might be that I mix them up with some Late Antiquity Western Roman Empire as well, but then we're going into details.


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## Yora (Nov 20, 2019)

I learned that Poland had a system in which the nobles, who made up about 10% of the population, had more or less a modern democracy. With their own parliament and the king being more like a president. For everyone else it was regular medieval peasantry.
I would assume it's a ham fisted criticism of the dangers of voter suppression if I read it in a book, but as a form of aristocracy taking power from the king it does make sense.


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 26, 2019)

When I think feudalism lots of little things come to mind, but the base is a lord of some sort handing over control of territory for the promise of fealty. There are cultures in the Sister Continents which might evolve into a version of this sort of base system organically... it’ll be interesting.


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## skip.knox (Nov 26, 2019)

So to summarize again, most people when asked to say what feudalism was, will say pretty much that--land in exchange for military (or other) service. Terms and conditions may vary, but that's the common theme.

Which leads me to my question: why do people so often say they are looking for an alternative? Because I see very few fantasy books that actually make feudalism part of the story. Sure there are kings and dukes and fealty of whatever sort fits the plot, but land-for-service seems such a narrow and dry topic, I find it difficult to think this is really what they're impatient with. There is something people feel has been overworked. Something to do with the Middle Ages. And I'm not convinced "feudalism" is it. Rather, I think the term serves as a marker for other things. Not sure what.


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 26, 2019)

I’m with you, it might just be the basic bad rap that the word holds, cliche or whatever. People seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to it, much like people clamor for something other than “medieval”. The basic idea is sound, so no doubt it will exist in multiple kingdoms in my world in a variety of forms. So many varieties of governance, I’m just trying to make sure they all feel organic.



skip.knox said:


> So to summarize again, most people when asked to say what feudalism was, will say pretty much that--land in exchange for military (or other) service. Terms and conditions may vary, but that's the common theme.
> 
> Which leads me to my question: why do people so often say they are looking for an alternative? Because I see very few fantasy books that actually make feudalism part of the story. Sure there are kings and dukes and fealty of whatever sort fits the plot, but land-for-service seems such a narrow and dry topic, I find it difficult to think this is really what they're impatient with. There is something people feel has been overworked. Something to do with the Middle Ages. And I'm not convinced "feudalism" is it. Rather, I think the term serves as a marker for other things. Not sure what.


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## skip.knox (Nov 26, 2019)

Yeah, well, I have the same question about that term, medieval. Countless times I've heard someone say they don't want to write yet another story set in medieval Europe. My response is, what exactly are you picturing? Rome in the 6th century? Bruges in the 12thc? Foix? Lombardy? Pomerania?

I don't push the point, but I'd bet dinars to douvets that if the interlocutor could be specific, it would be a mash-up of Tudor England, maybe a bit of Bourbon France, with a throwback to the Plantagenets. Perhaps a dash of the Bruces and Balliols and Stuarts (especially if it's fantasy romance).  It's no more "medieval Europe" than American history consists of cowboys. 

But I'm ok with it. Leave me the rest of the Middle Ages. It's a big playground.


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## Demesnedenoir (Nov 26, 2019)

You are braver than me, I don't bother to dig deeper. heh heh.

Now days when I hear medieval, I think Bruce Willis with an assortment of weapons.


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## skip.knox (Nov 26, 2019)

Bruce Willis with an assortment of weapons is always a win.


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## Aldarion (Nov 27, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> Yeah, well, I have the same question about that term, medieval. Countless times I've heard someone say they don't want to write yet another story set in medieval Europe. My response is, what exactly are you picturing? Rome in the 6th century? Bruges in the 12thc? Foix? Lombardy? Pomerania?
> 
> I don't push the point, but I'd bet dinars to douvets that if the interlocutor could be specific, it would be a mash-up of Tudor England, maybe a bit of Bourbon France, with a throwback to the Plantagenets. Perhaps a dash of the Bruces and Balliols and Stuarts (especially if it's fantasy romance).  It's no more "medieval Europe" than American history consists of cowboys.
> 
> But I'm ok with it. Leave me the rest of the Middle Ages. It's a big playground.



Personally, I define medieval as feudal. Which is to say, anything from Arab invasions in 7th century to... whenever land stopped being the primary measure of wealth in a certain country,


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## Gurkhal (Nov 29, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> So to summarize again, most people when asked to say what feudalism was, will say pretty much that--land in exchange for military (or other) service. Terms and conditions may vary, but that's the common theme.
> 
> Which leads me to my question: why do people so often say they are looking for an alternative? Because I see very few fantasy books that actually make feudalism part of the story. Sure there are kings and dukes and fealty of whatever sort fits the plot, but land-for-service seems such a narrow and dry topic, I find it difficult to think this is really what they're impatient with. There is something people feel has been overworked. Something to do with the Middle Ages. And I'm not convinced "feudalism" is it. Rather, I think the term serves as a marker for other things. Not sure what.



I think that people use feudalism as a shorthand for medieval Europe. If I wrote a story set in Merovingian Francia then most people would probably consider to to be essentially as feudal as a start set in 12th century England. Even if the set-ups would reasonably be pretty different regarding the political order. 

And no, I can't myself explain this in detail so I could be wrong here.


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## Aldarion (Nov 29, 2019)

Gurkhal said:


> I think that people use feudalism as a shorthand for medieval Europe. If I wrote a story set in Merovingian Francia then most people would probably consider to to be essentially as feudal as a start set in 12th century England. Even if the set-ups would reasonably be pretty different regarding the political order.
> 
> And no, I can't myself explain this in detail so I could be wrong here.



That is true. I have written on definition of feudalism here. You will notice that this still leaves many different possible setups - you have variations in power and influence of central government, in number, power and influence of highest order of feudal landowners, in number of "steps" in the pyramid, in legal structure of the government (does king have theoretically unlimited power? Or is he limited by parliament? If latter, who is in parliament? Etc.)., in military structure (importance of free yeomen vs importance of feudal banderias, presence or absence of central royal army, structure and size of royal army, military recruitment (professional troops vs semi-professional vs draft)), in economic structure (is land sole or primary measure of wealth, or are feudal lords also active in mercantile and production endeavours) and so on.


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## skip.knox (Nov 29, 2019)

Venice was definitely medieval and definitely not feudal. The pagans of eastern Europe, from the Abodrites to the Letts, were medieval but not feudal. But I agree that for most people the two words are treated indifferently as synonymous.

I'm still puzzling over what about that world some people find so overdone as to need alternatives. Many authors have shown that you can be squarely in the pocket and still be both original and compelling.  *shrug*


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## Aldarion (Nov 29, 2019)

I think the reason is because most people have idea of "Medieval = Feudal = specific type of feudalism", and it is so ingrained that they have trouble recognizing something different even when it does appear. Gondor for example is definitely not a feudal society, yet it is often treated as such.


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## Pemry Janes (Nov 30, 2019)

Maybe, when people say feudal, they are thinking more of an aesthetic rather than a system around which a society is organized.


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## skip.knox (Nov 30, 2019)

Pemry Janes, I think you're close to the mark, especially when the discussion turns on looking for alternatives to medieval or feudal. I think it has to do with castles, with the (mostly British) levels of rank, an obsession with protocol and ritual, usually though not always some sort of organized religion (usually though not always oppressive), peasants (gotta have peasants), knights, and so on. If the list could be detailed, it'd be something of a mash-up over several centuries with a large dollop of straight up nonsense thank-you-very-much Sir Walter Scott.

IOW, they're looking for an alternative that doesn't exist objectively, but which is quite real in the imagination of most folks, readers as well as writers. I think that accounts for why it proves difficult for many to come up with alternatives.

I sometimes wonder if writers in India long to find alternatives to those tired old Hindu tropes. Or a Chinese writer looks to break out of imperial Chinese conventions. Are, say, Vikings new and fresh to them? Or do the Western tropes not resonate deeply?


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## The Dark One (Dec 2, 2019)

Admittedly I've just skimmed this thread but I have several comments:

The Roman empire, like most empires of antiquity, had a slave based economy which provided most of the value (resources and leisure) for the ruling elite (including citizens). The Romans didn't need to invent feudalism because they had slaves.  

The medieval period (in Europe) was simply the time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD) and the early modern period (approx. 1470 AD, but there are many opinions on this). Feudalism (however understood) is a politico-economic system which has manifested in numerous cultures across the globe at different times. It has many features but the main ones (across time and location) are: a pastoral / agricultural economy requiring land; allocation of land in exchange for fealty/military service; rulership by a warrior caste; a belief system designed to legitimate the socio/political arrangement (ie a divinely appointed order).

So, the medieval period was a time (in history) but it wasn't necessarily feudal - depending on your location - and there were any number of degrees and types of feudalism over a 1000 years in Europe. Russia was still feudal up to 1917, and having been there last year, I'd suggest it still kinda is outside the two big cities.

In my view it is the belief system which makes feudalism such a well used trope for fantasy. The feudal mind believed in magic (whether ecclesiastic or non-ecclesiastic - usually both). Accordingly, it is the feudal mind that writers employ when characterising their worlds, and such minds are most believable in an appropriate socio-economic setting with the attendant social arrangements, weapon technology and customs.

Of course, the realities are far more complex...


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## Aldarion (Dec 2, 2019)

The Dark One said:


> In my view it is the belief system which makes feudalism such a well used trope for fantasy. The feudal mind believed in magic (whether ecclesiastic or non-ecclesiastic - usually both). Accordingly, it is the feudal mind that writers employ when characterising their worlds, and such minds are most believable in an appropriate socio-economic setting with the attendant social arrangements, weapon technology and customs.



Ancient Romans and medieval people who did not have feudal system (e.g. Byzantines) believed in magic as strongly as people in feudal societies did... nothing special about feudalism there.


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## skip.knox (Dec 2, 2019)

Also, at least among learned Christian theologians in the Middle Ages, there was a strong case made that there was no such thing as magic. Miracles yes, but magic and wizards and witches and such-like were either the superstitions of the ignorant or were deceptions of Satan. Granted the population of "learned Christian theologians" was a rather narrow slice, but it was there. 

But I agree with Aldarion that there's no relationship between a political-economic system (feudalism) and a belief in the supernatural.

I also agree with The Dark One in that it's the belief system that fantasy writers draw upon, but that it's not the belief system of the Middle Ages. Rather, it's the beliefs we moderns have about the Middle Ages that forms the trope.


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## The Dark One (Dec 3, 2019)

I didn't say other cultures didn't have belief in magic - of course they did. It's just that the age of faith (The High Middle Ages in Europe) probably saw the most intense belief in magic from an authoritative quasi-legal perspective.

Certainly prior to Aquinas's scholasticism, the church was quite happy to embrace the architecture of pagan belief that was so hard-wired into the populace (to whom they were still evangelising). The paganization of the church included: the creation of patron saints for specific purposes (like the pantheons of the past); prayer as incantation; the re-conception of the crucifixion as a form of sacrifice; and the consumption of the host as symbolic of the consumption of the sacrificed. Very powerful stuff to the medieval mind on the cusp of Germanic/Viking pagan belief/praxis and the monotheism of the Christian church - which needed to be expressed in terms meaningful to minds steeped in centuries of polytheism and a very different relationship with the gods.

An orthodox version of the paganised church was allowed but the Dominicans and later the Jesuit Inquisition grew ever more ruthless in the extermination of heresy as the monotheistic narrative strengthened. 

So, most medieval historians would tell you that there was a very strong link between feudalism and a belief in the supernatural, whether that be orthodox faith or heretical, non-ecclesiastic magic. Interestingly, the rise of Satanism/witchcraft in this era was (I believe) very much a product of the usual human reflex; ie, wherever you find an extreme, you will always find its antithesis.

Of course, this is all very complex history and my attempt at a nutshell is a massive over-simplification.


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## Futhark (Dec 5, 2019)

skip.knox said:


> I was more interested to hear what people *think* feudalism was about. That is, what's the stereotype in your mind, no matter how superficial or wrong you might think it is. I'm not really interested in that, either, but in how this understanding informs someone's desire to break away, to have an alternative.



The classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof(1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.
Feudalism - Wikipedia

This is the stereotype that I think of, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with this definition, if we must define feudalism.  There is a lot of room to play with.  Being called up for war, raiding when times were tough, trading horses and training warriors.  The problem in fantasy with regards to feudalism is, IMHO, that it’s often used like a stage backdrop.  The implications of living in this socio-political setting are ignored.  However, this is simply poor world building, not an issue with feudal societies.  Many books get away with this however, as it’s not a significant part of the story, and that’s all well and good.

The thing that really irks me is what I call ‘The Sheriff of Nottingham’ Syndrome.  It’s basically the ‘Aristocrats Are Evil’ trope, mixed with a bit of ‘I want your land, lady, and cattle’.  The story is invariably about the dispossessed hero reclaiming his inheritance and learning some valuable thing.  I want a story about Shire-Reeves, or Sheriffs, chasing Redcaps or responding to domestics involving Kobolds.  Or a great general being made a Duke.  Or a wizard child befriending the dragon in the moat. Anything but the evil elite.  The medieval era has many rich and varied ways that things were done.  Why not explore them more?

The final thing that makes me want to break away is that ‘medieval’ and ‘feudalism’, while actually being two seperate things to me, seem to be thrown in a bag, smashed to bits, plucked out and pieced together on a whim.  It does not make for an internally consistent construct for the story, nor for an interesting or original fantasy world.  And this seems to get the easy pass too often.  Probably because people think they know what it was like, thanks to the saturation of Eurocentric culture, literature, and media.  We are becoming a global community, and I believe that to be competitive (if that’s your goal) in the fantasy genre, one must research the vast array of humanity’s attempts to organise and govern themselves.  Creating compelling new worlds requires alternatives to counterfeit feudal systems.

Little Note - I am very tired.  I have no idea how much sense I made, if any.  Good night.


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## Yora (Dec 5, 2019)

Futhark said:


> The thing that really irks me is what I call ‘The Sheriff of Nottingham’ Syndrome.  It’s basically the ‘Aristocrats Are Evil’ trope, mixed with a bit of ‘I want your land, lady, and cattle’.  The story is invariably about the dispossessed hero reclaiming his inheritance and learning some valuable thing.  I want a story about Shire-Reeves, or Sheriffs, chasing Redcaps or responding to domestics involving Kobolds.  Or a great general being made a Duke.  Or a wizard child befriending the dragon in the moat. Anything but the evil elite.


"But that's what it's all about! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony."


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## skip.knox (Dec 5, 2019)

I agree, Futhark. You've hit on a key element, the evil elite. Especially if we add an oppressive and all-powerful religion. I agree, too, that most people regard feudal and medieval as synonyms; they also take manorialism for granted (hah! pun!), so the result is definitely a grab-bag from which the writer draws willy-nilly believing they're being consistent and historical.

I agree further about wanting stories to be told about other kinds of people in other kinds of situations. Stories that aren't about saving the world, but just saving one city, or one farm, or one child. Stories that are important to the people involved but not necessarily to the rest of the world. One reason why I like writing in Altearth is because the depth and the obscure corners are already there; I need only (only!) write a story that shines a light there.

I'm not sure if it gets the easy pass, though, or else there would not be so many people asking for "an alternative to feudalism." 

I do have one thing to say about the elite in fantasy, though. They all seem too privileged to me. They're on easy street, and the only time things get bad is because of the Evil Brother or Tyrannical Father or Dangerous Rival messes things up. There are some genuine stories to be told about, say, a noble family that married badly or borrowed too much and have fallen on hard times. The landless knight is a late medieval stereotype. There's wonderful domestic dramas in arranged marriages, especially if the marriage goes too far up or down the social scale. There are tremendous adventures to be had in something like a pilgrimage.  In short, there's a richness on which authors can draw. The stereotypes under which most of us labor (I include myself, outside my own areas of knowledge) keep us from seeing and using that richness.

I think that's why people look for the alternatives. It's not so much alternatives to specific elements of the Middle Ages as it is a search for alternatives to world-building that is shallow and inconsistent enough to leave the reader dissatisfied without quite knowing why.


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## Yora (Dec 6, 2019)

I came across this peace about Social Structure in the Bronze Age. I don't know anything about that site or the author, and there don't seem to be any sources. But nothing of the things that are stated seemed to clash with what I already know on the subject, and it gives very plausible answers to various questions that I had for a while.
Not a source to quote in academic papers, but I think for fantasy worldbuilding this is really quite good information.

It seems to be part of a longer series on the development of civilization, but I can't find a list of all articles on that site.


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