Dan
Scribe
Hi,
I have been pondering a concept for a book that I am working on, and in it there will be quite a lot of noble houses, gaining their nobility in a number of ways - Ancient houses of nobility (bloodline), marriages, gifted titles from Kings & Queens, and so on and so forth.
To distinguish, for example, a house of which has no ancient roots, nor history tied with it, except in lets say a gift from a King for a task well accomplished, to that of a house which has had a solid, untarnished bloodline for five hundred years, and is descendant from a royal bloodline; I had come to the conclusion that I could have a number of laws that govern what can, and cannot be done by houses at different levels.
A few things I had imagined would be limits on crest designs, especially for the houses which are new in creation - Perhaps limiting creatures, and specific colours; another is music, I had envisioned a musical instrument that has only one string, each string on every instrument is tuned to a specific note (from low - to - high), so one could not create an overly complex melody, nor a melody containing chords from a single instrument, and each Nobel house would have a small melody that goes with it's crest, and motto.
Now a newly created house would be allowed, under law to have a melody made up of only one instrument; a family that has been going for say one-hundred years, and has many great parts in history would be allowed two, or more instruments to construct their family melody, along with further allowances in what they can do with their crests, and perhaps motto's (I may just leave this as is, or perhaps a law limiting certain words, and lengths).
Now, from what I have read so far, I believe that in medieval times it was required for a man of any importance to seek a license from the King to 'crenelate' - one could have a large protected house, but not a large house that looked like a castle. In fact I have read it was quite pompous with a lot of actions being taken purely to show off power, and to stick-one to the neighbours, so to speak.
So, I think that the above would be a good way to take that further, and to have a very strict code for controlling the upper-classes which sit under the household on the throne.
Now, if I may ask for opinions, criticism, and other such stuff - Does this sound like a realistic idea for Medieval England? (11th century - 15th century ~).
P.s. I haven't read a lot into this area, yet. So I may have gotten a few facts wrong, if I have, and you notice then please let me know as I shall go read up on those areas.
EDIT: I may have posted this in the wrong section, perhaps I should have posted it under 'research'. I had envisioned a thread upon which I could receive feedback to further build my world, but perhaps that doesn't necessitate it being under 'world building'. Sorry if that is the case.
I have been pondering a concept for a book that I am working on, and in it there will be quite a lot of noble houses, gaining their nobility in a number of ways - Ancient houses of nobility (bloodline), marriages, gifted titles from Kings & Queens, and so on and so forth.
To distinguish, for example, a house of which has no ancient roots, nor history tied with it, except in lets say a gift from a King for a task well accomplished, to that of a house which has had a solid, untarnished bloodline for five hundred years, and is descendant from a royal bloodline; I had come to the conclusion that I could have a number of laws that govern what can, and cannot be done by houses at different levels.
A few things I had imagined would be limits on crest designs, especially for the houses which are new in creation - Perhaps limiting creatures, and specific colours; another is music, I had envisioned a musical instrument that has only one string, each string on every instrument is tuned to a specific note (from low - to - high), so one could not create an overly complex melody, nor a melody containing chords from a single instrument, and each Nobel house would have a small melody that goes with it's crest, and motto.
Now a newly created house would be allowed, under law to have a melody made up of only one instrument; a family that has been going for say one-hundred years, and has many great parts in history would be allowed two, or more instruments to construct their family melody, along with further allowances in what they can do with their crests, and perhaps motto's (I may just leave this as is, or perhaps a law limiting certain words, and lengths).
Now, from what I have read so far, I believe that in medieval times it was required for a man of any importance to seek a license from the King to 'crenelate' - one could have a large protected house, but not a large house that looked like a castle. In fact I have read it was quite pompous with a lot of actions being taken purely to show off power, and to stick-one to the neighbours, so to speak.
So, I think that the above would be a good way to take that further, and to have a very strict code for controlling the upper-classes which sit under the household on the throne.
Now, if I may ask for opinions, criticism, and other such stuff - Does this sound like a realistic idea for Medieval England? (11th century - 15th century ~).
P.s. I haven't read a lot into this area, yet. So I may have gotten a few facts wrong, if I have, and you notice then please let me know as I shall go read up on those areas.
EDIT: I may have posted this in the wrong section, perhaps I should have posted it under 'research'. I had envisioned a thread upon which I could receive feedback to further build my world, but perhaps that doesn't necessitate it being under 'world building'. Sorry if that is the case.
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