Government system problems

[Lohengrin]

Hi guys, first post here. I'm not quite new to the forum, I just never bothered with posting. Usually I read everything and prefer to solve problems by myself but well... now I realized that I can't do everything alone, so if you guys could help me I'd appreciate (I'll try to keep it simple).

I've always read lots and lots of books, and something that always bothered me was how the story would take place in a small region, or a side of a continent, but the problems were huge. I mean, seriously, the bad guy is goint to take over the world, but apparently just that small side of the continent would try to stop the bad guy.
So I decided to write a book which would take place in an entire world, and it was working pretty well until I had to decide how my nobility would relate to each other. How would they live, how much respect did they get, and how much their king would influence the society.

I tried researching about feudalism, but that was not what I was looking for. The Kings seemed to weak to me, with no real power, and the Lords held almost all the power. They were pretty much tiny Kings in their own lands. So I broadened my research, backwards and forward.

And here is the problem, I never seem to find exactly what I'm looking for. Everything about rome talks about the senate, or the empire and their armies, but never about where and how nobility did survive. The same happens when I search about the Renaissance. Here it gets worse, I don't even know what happened to the nobility in this period, what I found out is that the Kings took most of their power, which then culminates in the Absolutism, but exactly what happened to the nobility? Did they turn into rich merchants? Did they still have armies? How exactly could a Lord influence a King?

So you see, I don't like feudalism because Kings are too weak, but I also don't like the Renaissance because then nobility was to weak. And I can't choose between both of them, I would like something between, but I can't really create my own system without knowing the answers to theses specific questions.
If someone has also any idea about what government system to use would help a lot.

Thanks a lot, and sorry if the text is too long and probably for mistakes I didn't realize, english is not my main language.

 

[adampjr]

Well, if your world-building, you don't need to copy and paste any existing system into your world. You could fabricated virtually any system you want.

 

[Lohengrin]

Of couse I could create anything, the problem is that it would be too far from reality. I have two extremes, but at the same time I don't have the details needed to create my own system. Everything I come up with doesn't seem really... good, I find flaws or I look back and realize "people would never do that".

 

[CupofJoe]

I tried researching about feudalism, but that was not what I was looking for. The Kings seemed to weak to me, with no real power, and the Lords held almost all the power. They were pretty much tiny Kings in their own lands. ...

On parchment the Nobility may have seemed to have all the power but there were lots of them and only one Crown [usually ]. The role of the crown was to keep a balance that favoured him or her by playing off all those Barons and Earls, Dukes and Knights against one another. The crown could award or removed titles and lands at will, to reward and penalise. The crown may not have had the financial, numerical or military superiority but it was the point of leverage for all of these. Add in to this a strong church that kept getting lands and didn't pay [as many — if any] taxes and would damn you to eternal hell if you opposed them and the whole thing gets very messy. I read recently the Henry VIII did not dissolve the Catholic church structure and start the Church of England because he needed a divorce [but that was a handy political lie to sell to the country] but because 40-60% of his tax income was going to the church and then to Rome... He was broke and needed more money.

...The same happens when I search about the Renaissance. Here it gets worse, I don't even know what happened to the nobility in this period, what I found out is that the Kings took most of their power, which then culminates in the Absolutism, but exactly what happened to the nobility? Did they turn into rich merchants? Did they still have armies? How exactly could a Lord influence a King?

I'm going to think of [Northern] Italy now. The Crown may have had the power but it was the Nobility that began to control trade and make money. Even if they only controlled the ports where goods were traded through and didn't “work” themselves. And don't forget the role of the Church at this time... the Papacy controlled much of Italy directly and used the church to control [or try to] much of the rest of the area. I'm fairly sure the Borgia dynasty [and Medici?] bought and sold the role of pope because of the power and wealth that flowed in to it and the power it could offer to those that supported it. I'm not certain of this but I’m fairly sure that this papal/church corruption was one of the things that stated up the reformation movements [Martin Luther etc.] around Europe.

 

[Devor]

You could expand your search eastward and look at some Asian systems.

((edit - sorry, got rushed there))

For instance, the Japanese and Chinese systems changed repeatedly, from the emperor having no power, to absolute power, to shared power, and so on. India had a number of unusual systems that you could look at as well. Somewhere in there you might find a system that you like for your world.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

The thing that I have found with governments is that they run off of several principles. For a monarchy the best resource I could point you to would be The Prince by Machiavelli and I would find some good crib notes on The Leviathan by Hobbes (that book is long as all get out and drier than the Sahara). Generally for a government that you are describing is impossible. Unless the king has something that the rest of the nobility does not, like control over the magic wielders that are granted to favored nobles or land or money. All you need for the king to have absolute control is for the king to have a power source that would make him absolute.

 

[Telcontar]

Feudalism took a vast number of forms and ran pretty much the entire spectrum regarding where the "real" power sat. A monarch's power depended on a lot of different factors: how much land/money/people they directly controlled (through the lands they held as nobles in their own right), their personal charisma, the traditions of the land (whether they are religiously viewed is a big part of it - religious nobles and people will be more deferential to a monarch whom they believe is somehow a representative of some deity).

In other words, if you think the role of the monarch was too weak in the research you did, change something. Strengthen it. This is fiction; you don't need to hold to real-world structures if they aren't convenient to you. You just shouldn't do anything that completely flies in the face of reason. Given that an author has total control over the reality of the world they write in, all it takes is a bit of cleverness to circumvent anything you don't like.

 

[skip.knox]

Lohengrin asked what happened to the nobility. They survived.

Think of 18thc France, as an example. The nobles were incredibly powerful--that's why the French Revolution went after them. The nobility in Germany were also strong. In Spain, too, and in Poland and Hungary.

Nobles in northern Italy were tamed early. The city-states (Florence, Milan, etc.) forced nobles to maintain residences in the city and to reside there a minimum time each year. That way, no noble could get away with terrorizing from countryside castles, the way they did in Germany. This was largely accomplished by 1400, so the Renaissance Italian cities look quite different from elsewhere.

The nobles even survived the French Revolution and the catastrophes of the Napoleonic era. There's an excellent book by Arno Mayer called "The Persistence of the Old Regime" that shows how very strong the nobles were right up to World War One. Despite all the devastation wrought by that war and its political aftermath, European nobility are still surprisingly strong in ways Americans rarely recognize. You can still see European popular magazines (equivalents of People or Us) where instead of a page at the back with photos of movie stars and pop artists, is a page devoted exclusively to the doings of aristocrats.

They survived. It's easy to kill an aristocrat, but it's damned hard to kill aristocracy.

 

[SeverinR]

Just a short answer, as I am not studied in goverments.

Almost any goverment will work for a short period, how long is short? decades to a couple hundred years.

 

[Lohengrin]

@skip.knox
I didn't know that about the French, I just thought that well, french nobility just didn't pay taxes... But this power, where did it come from? I realize that by now feudalism is not used anymore and we already have the mercantilism. Society was money based, which lead me to the question "Were they rich merchants?". In this point the King had a standing army, so what's left for for them? To rent their lands?

@AMCupofJoe
I really like the idea of adapting this Italian system. To put all the big Lords in a city (for any reason I can create) so I have a huge country, but I have a political polo with all the deceiving and the politcs.

@AMDevor
I actually did have a look about the Japanese system. I have a book about how Tokugawa rose to the Shogunate and his relationship with Nobunaga. Nobunaga changed his lands and put him in the north, but Tokugawa still got very rich, so Nobunaga summoned him to Edo. That's a cool thing to put into my world, but this dynamic reminds me a lot of the "Ned Stark gets summoned to King's Landing to be the King's Hand" although for different reasons.

@PMSeverinR
That's a great point. Maybe I can have a nobility that works the way I can simply because of a really strong king (need a reason for that though) and when he dies, things start to fall apart.


Thank you for the replies guys, it's really helping with ideas. o/

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Lohengrin, so far as I know about the French system during the 1800s they were not necessarily rich merchants but more like Mitt Romney living off of their investments without actually putting forth much effort.

 

[Shockley]

Essentially, in the period between feudal monarchy and absolutism we have something known as 'New Monarchy,' which is where the king became dominant over the nobles. My main area of study was this process in France and England, so I'm not qualified to talk about anywhere else. I'll stick to England, as France is kind of boring (the king just purchased so massive a mercenary army that the nobles buckled).

'New Monarchy' starts in England with Edward IV, who after the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses began to consolidate royal authority by building a new bureaucracy. This coincided with the development of a capital economy - by fostering ties with merchants (the king makes sure the nobles pay what they owe, the merchants bankroll the king) the king was able to create a successful counter-balance to the nobility. There was another group developing alongside the merchants - the gentry - who were wealthy landowners who lacked noble titles. These merchants and gentry, who were now in the good graces of the king, were able to secure royal appointments/educations for themselves and their children, and it would be this new middle class that would fill the new royal bureaucracy.

This was how men like Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell got their start.

So, after the Battle of Bosworth Henry VII recognized that he needed to limit the power of his vassals (the 'over mighty subjects,' to use the parlance of the time) in order to secure his dynasty. So, the 'civilian' (I use this term since the nobles of this time were mostly military leaders) bureaucracy was expanded. This was not enough, so Henry pursued several projects:

- There was a process of the time called 'livery and maintenance' or sometimes 'bastard feudalism.' Essentially, the local nobility only had to provide so many soldiers to the king via their feudal obligation - it wasn't a percentage of their men, but an actual number. So a local baron might might be able to raise a thousand men but only owe the king ten - this creates an imbalance of power. So, what Henry did was two-fold: One, he would fine the shit out of any nobleman who used his retainers for illicit purposes. Two, he made the nobility pay for licenses to keep/maintain their retainers. So the nobility started preferring smaller groups of retainers in order to control them better (avoid fines) and save money (licensing fees).

This also meant that any time the retainers went crazy and killed a peasant, the king benefited by receiving the fine. If the nobleman wanted to expand his entourage, the king benefited by receiving a lump sum of cash for the licenses. So, it decreased the power of the nobility and meant that any attempt to expand their power would result in the king's wealth (and thus his power) increasing.

- Legal reforms: The Court of Star Chamber was a body of individuals who the king trusted to pursue his political agendas in the court system. Due to the rise of the merchants/gentry in the burgeoning bureaucracy, most of the members of the Court of Star Chamber were merchants, priests, gentry, etc. - that is, people not necessarily open to favoring the interests of the nobility.

The Court of Star Chamber was coupled with the use of Justices of the Peace. Henry made them royal appointments, and expanded their authority within the shires. While previously the peasantry might have had to rely on their local nobility to resolve disputes, arbitrate agreements, etc. they could now turn to the royal court via the Justice of the Peace.

- The Wars of the Roses: The destruction of the 'over mighty subjects' really started with the Wars of the Roses, as they ended up killing each other off in order to take the throne. The two most powerful houses were, undoubtedly, the House of Lancaster and York. The House of Lancaster, save Henry Tudor, was destroyed in battle and assassination. The House of York, while winning on the battle field, ended up succumbing to internal disputes (notably, Clarence's rebellion and the problems of the Princes in the Tower). Henry Tudor (Henry VII) had the good fortune of marrying Edward IV's daughter, so by coming to the throne he essentially united the two most powerful noble families into one and made that powerful family the royal line.

The only family that could have really competed with Lancaster and the York was the Nevilles, but the head of the family miscalculated during the Wars of the Roses. Originally a supporter of the Yorkists, he defected to the Lancastrians and was killed at the Battle of Barnet.

- Inclusion: Possibly the most important step Henry VII made was allowing the nobility to actually rule the realm. He opened up finance meetings, involved them in the drafting of degrees, etc. This was stuff that Henry VII liked doing and stuff his merchant bureaucrats liked doing, but it was just too boring for the nobility who figured it would be battle and conquest and things of that nature - so in the long run, most of them lost interest in the national government, preferring to stay on their own lands. Not serving in London, many of them lost the ability to curry favor with the king, develop their popularity, etc.

 

[Lohengrin]

@PMShockley
Wow that was amazing. It answered several of my questions, and it also created more questions haha xD

Something that bothers me a little is about where did they actually live. I know nobles had their own houses in London, so how much time did they spent there? I imagine that London was the center of pretty much every major activity in England so how exactly did they manage their lives in those Estates and in their houses in London?

 

[Shockley]

Actually, most of them wouldn't have had homes in London. They would have kept to their estates, by and large. Even the particularly powerful gentry/merchant bureaucrats had large estates away from London. The Henrys spent the majorities of their reign on procession, going from palace to palace and manor to manor as guests.