From warriors to Lords - historians I need your help

[Finchbearer]

I’m hoping to ask both armchair and professional historians alike out there to give me a bit more of an insight into the shift into the fully fledged feudal system (in England) where we go from locals paying a warrior to be well kept in return for protection, to the land owning gentry that would be set to become the landowning Lords who would have tenant farmers on their land.

General questions I have that I’m struggling to get a grasp of by just looking online are:

What were the causes of the this shift?
What was the warrior culture like before we had the feudal system?
Was this going from the Dark Ages to the early Medieval age?
What was a post-warrior culture like for common folk?
How and why did it go from paying a warrior, to those warriors becoming gentry?
What were both the political and social implications of the shift?

Any other knowledge you can offer will be appreciated.

Help…please!

 

[ThinkerX]

Ugh...

at the risk of the wrath of Skip Knox...

The biggie for England was the pullout of the Roman Empire. That created a power vacuum, which was filled by local warlords.

Prior to that, the Romans kept order with a standing army. Standing armies are expensive. When they pulled out, standing armies became unaffordable - hence the local strongman with a sword.

Feudalism wasn't much fun for common folks. There were abundant peasant and serf revolts stemming in part from mistreatment, as the gentry tended towards the thuggish side.

 

[Finchbearer]

They were pretty much all thugs weren’t they. The ye olde gangsters of their day.

I think I’m struggling with understanding how we got from knights / warriors, which must have been as you say after the Romans finally upped and left, to the landed gentry who kept tenant farmers and how this system specifically worked and changed, because I’m writing a fantasy world inspired by this time period where I’ve imagined that there is still a polytheism (think Anglo-Saxon mythology) and no mono-theism, where there is still a warrior culture, almost a post-tribal culture but with the established system of decentralised landed gentry…

 

[pmmg]

I suspect part of it was, when you pay someone to solve your security and warfare problems, you get left with people who are good at intimidation and warfare deciding who gets to control the land. Kind of like, get rid of one problem, gain another one.

Expanding a little.... If you have a situation, where strong men start to appear, those strong men start to contest, some banding together, some getting pushed out, and such. After a period of time, some start to become leaders over others, and if that happens enough times you might get a King. The King, of course, wants people loyal to him, so he might start dividing things up to those loyal and feudal appears.

Course, there are probably thousands of things that all contributed, like invasions forcing local communities to band together, and contests of over resources. If you remove the Mono-theistic aspect of the culture, you are removing a very large part of who these people were, and how that shaped their development. Who could know how it would really form in a different set of circumstances. But many things are universal. Strong man rule is pretty base.

 

[Finchbearer]

That’s why I’d like to properly understand the exact political events surrounding this shift because if I understand that to a better extent then in theory I can imbue my fantasy world with a semi-realistic system.

I’m specifically writing a peasant set of characters and a noble set of characters and so I need to be able to create a story that feels utterly immersive and inspired by real events.

What is a ‘strong man rule?’

 

[pmmg]

What is strong man rule?

Kind of the idea, that at the base level (tribal), the strongest, and most willing to conduct violence, ends up in charge, for somewhat obvious reasons. As tribes organize around a strong man, and then compete with other tribes, some start to rise to the top and gain more people. The larger his force, the larger his influence.

As time passes, some of these that have absorbed others start to become their own little enclaves and tribes, and as they compete with others, things like nations and kingdoms start to form. Eventually, the strong man is not really the one in charge, perhaps the wealthiest is, or one with the most political skill, but at its base and origin was a strong man who started the ball rolling.

Strong man rule may also reappear of course, if there is a big war, people might want a strong man to fight it, or such. Its not unusual for strong men to gain power in less stable areas of the world.

It does not matter if it poly-theistic, or mono-theistic, or any thing else really. Human nature will still allow for strong man rule to shape the way things are formed.

 

[Finchbearer]

Okay I understand that at a base level. Dictators come to mind in a modern sense, warlords in a historic sense - with varying degrees of intellect and political prowess.

 

[pmmg]

In your story, you are a bit past Tribal, but the influences would still be there.

As a community formed, the Strong Man would offer protection, and keep those other tribes from invading, but he also needs farms and villages, and good birthrates and such. So...he gets organized (or replaced by someone who can), and in time, you have a ruling class and a peasant class. This probably feeds on itself, cause if one is a peasant, who teaches them how to be a ruler? and if one is a ruler, he probably passes his skill on to very few.

Time stretches out, and a lot of things grate and sift, and sooner or later, there is a king, a set of obvious lords the King has some allegiance from, and a peasantry who accepts this as the way things are. Its symbiotic, peasants are protected, and rulers are supported (with a lot of grumbling each way, of course). Then there is just the great negotiation that endlessly plays out....how much can I get from them before they revolt, and how much will I take, before I need a new king? But it can easily drift Feudal.


I hesitate to add, but the Vikings Series is an example of Strong Man Rule organization. And its a bit far along. Such that, some who just have skills might rule instead. King Eckbert is not personally a strong man, but he is willing to send strong men out to get his way. He's a good example of one who is in a strong man system, but is there because of other skills. And Bjorn is very personally strong, but I suspect Ivar will best him (I am not finished with it) cause Ivar is more willing to do wicked things, and has followers who can be his thugs. Aethelwulf is a strong man King. So is Harald, Lagertha, and Haraldson, and many others. Ragnar is as well, but he has many other skills the others don't.

 

[Finchbearer]

I understand where you’re coming from, but you are talking in very broad terms as to what the feudal system basically was (and still is to this day). Peasants to my understanding were not simply poor people, they were very specifically farmers, of who many farmed tenanted land to which they were not allowed to leave. There were a few different systems in place for peasants working the land and a land owner as such, that being Manorialism, a literal Lord of the Manor, a Monastorial system, so peasants working the land for a monastery and the wider community amongst others. This is a very specific type of relationship between two classes of people I’d like to know more about, terminology, maybe some dates, and mostly that shift from ‘warrior’ to ‘gentry’.

I am certainly taking inspiration from Scandinavia for my world, but I am not asking about their political history, which is very different to that of ours, fortunately for them.

I’m still hanging on for AELowan and Skip to chime in should they wish to

 

[Mad Swede]

You might want to re-phrase your question to one about political structures in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England.

The Anglo-Saxon political structures were very similar to those in the Viking territories, in that people belonged to a clan or kindred. The head of a family was a male freeman who had the right to bear arms, owned his land on behalf of his family, had the support of his clan/kindred and access to the law. (Such land ownership is known as allodial title.) All such families were equal, at least in theory, but they owed duty (money or service) to an overlord. What happened over time was that one or more of these lords eventually became what we would now call kings over a given area, and this finally led to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. It's important to note that the king did not have unlimited power, he needed the support of the lords and freemen to enforce his policies.

When Cnut conquered large parts of eastern England he had to delegate much of his authority to local lords, because his empire was too large for him to rule it in the way Anglo-Saxon and Viking kings would normally do. Instead, Cnut appointed advisors to do his work for him and this changed the balance between the king and the lords.

When Edward the Confessor became king he didn't change much, He'd been brought up in Normandy and tried to appoint other normans as advisors. Unfortunately, Cnut's previous advisors retained much of their influence and the result was quite a lot of political conflict, which eventually led to William of Normandy's invasion.

The Norman conquest resulted in the exile or death of many leading Anglo-Saxon lords and freemen, but not their daughters. The Normans by and large took over existing lordships (and later many married those Anglo-Saxon daughters) so for the average freeman or peasant life didn't change much. Norman political structures were slightly different, in that William maintained that he owned the whole land and that his barons held tenure in return for military service, so-called feudal tenure. That in turn meant that freemen too owed service and there were restrictions on how land could be passed on to others.

With time the obligation to provide military service was replaced by so-called scutage (i.e. tax). That meant that children could inherit their fathers lands and titles, since they no longer needed to be able to provide military service to the king.

Eventually feudal tenure was abolished (shortly after the Restoration if I remember correctly) and replaced by what was called socage tenure, which is effectively freehold ownership.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

One key is that nobody was alive then to KNOW the exact way things came to be and why; we can only extrapolate on what we know. And from what I know, there was such a wide variance in what folks call "feudal" that you almost have to start by defining that. I won't even wade into the details, I've forgotten more than I know since I haven't dealt with feudal much in the last twenty years of world building. And Skip will probably jump in, and I bow to his knowledge in these fields.

 

[skip.knox]

First, you can be realistic without needing to be historically accurate. Those two concepts need not be synonymous. You could consider going for realism first--by which I mean writing a story in which the characters behave in ways that make sense within the context of the story. You could at the same time start learning some history and snagging out bits that seem to complement what you're creating. It's another approach, anyway.

As for the landed gentry (specifically English, not found on the Continent), that's sixteenth century. There's a *huge* literature on the topic and I'm a few decades behind on the conversation. Last I checked there were still competing explanations on just about every point: origins, what the term really meant, how it developed over the next couple of centuries, significance, all of it. Maybe some of that is more settled now, but be prepared: it's a deep slough.

Also, tenancy in England has its own hsitoriography. It overlaps with the rise of the gentry, but is complex enough to warrant its own literature.

In any event, it's not medieval, it's early modern. The whole narrative is complicated by a couple of factors: the Reformation and the discovery of the New World. Not to mention the so-called military revolution consequent (partially) upon the use of gunpowder and particularly the advent of handguns.

I don't know how much of that you feel you need to know in order to write a fantasy story. Or how deep the knowing needs to go. But it's all very late medieval and mostly early modern. It's complex enough without needing to cycle back to Saxons or Normans or even Plantagenets.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’ll try to unpick the responses:

You might want to re-phrase your question to one about political structures in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England.

It is probably more so this time period I am interested in, especially in terms of that transition from Anglo-Saxon to 1066 when I think there is that shift from tribal to feudal, from warriors to noblemen. But I’d like to know more about that specific relationship between the peasants (farmers) and those who owned the land that was being farmed. Serfdom was probably what I should have mentioned.

I realise Christianity probably had something to do with it, but the political landscape was also becoming more centralised. My world is imagined as if Christianity never existed (and mythological beasts along with magic are very real).

I have a hard time grasping timescales how this relationship evolved. Farmers were needed, people needed to eat, so how did that system evolve in conjunction with large areas of land becoming acquired by warriors, then later those linages becoming knights and the nobles / gentry. I’m writing a character who is a tenant farmer, so this way of life is something I want to understand more about.

I am more interested in the medieval era than early modern although that does come into play when I am thinking about Manorialism.

On historical accuracy - I probably threw you off with incorrect terminology, like ‘landed gentry’, but see I think of that as coming in during the late medieval period - I’m probably wrong then on that. I’d like to be able to write well, and for me to write well for this world I’m building I need it to have those details that either feel familiar or otherwise realistic enough to make sense. It doesn’t need to read like a historical reference book.

 

[Finchbearer]

You might want to re-phrase your question to one about political structures in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England.

The Anglo-Saxon political structures were very similar to those in the Viking territories, in that people belonged to a clan or kindred. The head of a family was a male freeman who had the right to bear arms, owned his land on behalf of his family, had the support of his clan/kindred and access to the law. (Such land ownership is known as allodial title.) All such families were equal, at least in theory, but they owed duty (money or service) to an overlord. What happened over time was that one or more of these lords eventually became what we would now call kings over a given area, and this finally led to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. It's important to note that the king did not have unlimited power, he needed the support of the lords and freemen to enforce his policies.

When Cnut conquered large parts of eastern England he had to delegate much of his authority to local lords, because his empire was too large for him to rule it in the way Anglo-Saxon and Viking kings would normally do. Instead, Cnut appointed advisors to do his work for him and this changed the balance between the king and the lords.

When Edward the Confessor became king he didn't change much, He'd been brought up in Normandy and tried to appoint other normans as advisors. Unfortunately, Cnut's previous advisors retained much of their influence and the result was quite a lot of political conflict, which eventually led to William of Normandy's invasion.

The Norman conquest resulted in the exile or death of many leading Anglo-Saxon lords and freemen, but not their daughters. The Normans by and large took over existing lordships (and later many married those Anglo-Saxon daughters) so for the average freeman or peasant life didn't change much. Norman political structures were slightly different, in that William maintained that he owned the whole land and that his barons held tenure in return for military service, so-called feudal tenure. That in turn meant that freemen too owed service and there were restrictions on how land could be passed on to others.

With time the obligation to provide military service was replaced by so-called scutage (i.e. tax). That meant that children could inherit their fathers lands and titles, since they no longer needed to be able to provide military service to the king.

Eventually feudal tenure was abolished (shortly after the Restoration if I remember correctly) and replaced by what was called socage tenure, which is effectively freehold ownership.

MadSwede can I ask you a bit about Scandinavia?

Do you know what the farming culture was like in the 5th and 6th centuries? If there was an established culture of Kings at this point then did they allocate land or did the land just belong to those who had lived on it for years? I know that’s a very general question and it would have been different in different areas.

And what was this sort of post tribal culture like? Christendom hadn’t arrived yet had it or was it just beginning to filter through?

 

[Rexenm]

Warriors, are based on art, not religion. However, if a knight were to be religious, then the army would more. There is the idea that the salesman, or the layman, worked for peace between this two feuding systems...Sol, the ideas of the gentleman, as they became, were very much based on an adjutants. The story of the alchemists, (were) broken by the poor; the children got leprosy, (which) became the black plague. There were many wars fought, in England, because of racism. The europeans, had a better idea of it, from studying under the Romans….The crown ruled in many places, but the child ruled in Islam. If you take the Art of War into account, and how the serpents mark the map, then you see how the Anglican church was formed.

What were the causes of the this shift?
What was the warrior culture like before we had the feudal system?
Was this going from the Dark Ages to the early Medieval age?
What was a post-warrior culture like for common folk?
How and why did it go from paying a warrior, to those warriors becoming gentry?
What were both the political and social implications of the shift?

As far as this goes, that is all my brain has bits for. There was a dark ages, but before the original sin, God said let there be light - but then he separated the light from the darkness, and saw that it was, ‘Good.’

 

[Mad Swede]

MadSwede can I ask you a bit about Scandinavia?

Do you know what the farming culture was like in the 5th and 6th centuries? If there was an established culture of Kings at this point then did they allocate land or did the land just belong to those who had lived on it for years? I know that’s a very general question and it would have been different in different areas.

And what was this sort of post tribal culture like? Christendom hadn’t arrived yet had it or was it just beginning to filter through?

First things first. The Anglo-Saxon society in England did not evolve from tribal structures. It has similar roots (modified by Anglo-Roman societal norms) to Viking society, and was based on the idea of a clan or kindred.

Norse clans were (in modern terms) extended families which included distant cousins(by blood and by marriage), which is why Swedish still has specific terms for different degrees of cousins. The clans might own and farm land across a wide area. The land did not belong to the king, nor was it allocated by him. Members of such clans were all freemen, and the head of the clan was the one who represented the clan at meetings of the king's ting (the clans also had their own tings). Men and women had approximately equal rights and both had a say in clan decisions (decisions which got made at the ting). The clans elected the king (as was the case in Anglo-Saxon England), which meant that whilst the son of the (late) king might take over after his father it was not a given. The clans could also vote the king out of office if they didn't agree with his policies or decisions. Christendom didn't change this much when it reached Scandinavia in the mid 900s AD.

 

[Finchbearer]

Huh, and there is me thinking that the Angles and the Saxons were made up of various tribal groups…

Tribe is surely just another word for clan? There may be some distinctions, I mean clan gets far more associated with the Picts and the Highlanders of Scotland, but I am unsure of the translation there.

Interesting that farmers were described as ‘freemen’.

 

[skip.knox]

>Tribe is surely just another word for clan
Nope. As MadSwede pointed out, clans are about kindred groups. Tribes are something else (varies by society). And neither are directly explanatory of legal conditions of farmers (which can be free, semi-free as in serfdom, tenancy, or slaves). Also, none of that has to do with feudal relations but has more to do with manorialism.

If you are looking for historical accuracy, you're in for some serious book reading. It's a fascinating topic and there are some excellent books on it, but it's not something you're going to learn from casual conversation.

 

[pmmg]

So what would you be if you lived in the confines of a Clans territory, but were not kindredly related? Cause I am sure there must have been many of those.

 

[skip.knox]

Sure, lots of people like that. They simply were not clan members.