how did the nobles treat their personal servants.

[Russ]

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!

 

[valiant12]

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.

 

[Caged Maiden]

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.

 

[skip.knox]

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.

 

[Caged Maiden]

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.

 

[Gurkhal]

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

 

[valiant12]

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.

 

[Caged Maiden]

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.

 

[ThinkerX]

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).

 

[Gurkhal]

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".

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Caged Maiden]

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.

 

[ThinkerX]

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.'

 

[valiant12]

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?

 

[Caged Maiden]

@ 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.

 

[ThinkerX]

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.

 

[valiant12]

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.

 

[X Equestris]

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.

 

[Russ]

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.

 

[valiant12]

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.