Medieval age - when ?

**caesar44** · 08-05-2005, 17:17

So , by any standard , Chivalry TW is not the only medieval mod for RTW ...
I thought so

**Hurin_Rules** · 08-05-2005, 23:33

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

One might say that true Medieval Fuedalism didn't occur until the Knight Social class had already been established.

Then it surely didn't start with Charlemagne, right?

It probably didn't start before c. 1100 then too.

The thing that makes this heirarchy unique is the religion. There's never been any other example of such an elaborate system of existence, and Christianity is, IMO, the prime ingredient. It was the church that instilled in people the faith to go along with the system, it was the church that proclaimed knights were a valid persuit (despite Thou Shalt Not Kill) if they would go on crusade, it was the church who permeated all social classes and was the glue that held it together.

You don't consider Japan to have developed a feudal system?

**Aenlic** · 08-06-2005, 01:30

GelatinousCube, I think you're confusing Buddhism with something else, possibly Confucianism or Hinduism. Neither Theravada Buddhism nor Mahayana Buddhism teach anything about a rigid class structure. The rigid caste system in India might be blamed on the Hindu concept of dharma, which is fulfilling one's duty; but Hinduism certainly wouldn't apply to Japan. Confucianism emphasizes an adherence to social structures and civic duty; but again doesn't really apply to Japan. Shinto is a shamanistic/ancestor based belief system which really contains nothing which deals with the idea of rigid social structures and subservience. The feudal structure in Japan wasn't the result of religion.

**Incongruous** · 08-06-2005, 02:31

Could Feudalism have begun by the late Roman Empire?
Or was its start with the conquests of Charlamgne?
Feudalism was a completely millitary concept was it not? where by an overlord would hand out land to his followers in return for that mans own millitary service and his own sub-tenants or retainers. So it has nothing to do with Knights. Is that not correct?

**Hurin_Rules** · 08-07-2005, 19:36

Part of the confusion over the use of the term feudalism is that it can be used in a specific or a general sense. When confined to the former, it can be quite useful: I usually use it only as a system of military organization. But others apply it to everything, from manorialism and a subject peasantry to literature and worldview. So yes, it can mean many things.

**Steppe Merc** · 08-07-2005, 19:42

"Feudalism" was used far before the medieval era. The Parthians had a feudal like society, and many ideas used by steppe nomads (the raising of troops, knights, etc.) became bases for the Medieval knights. Of course, it wasn't as conected to the land as the Medieval Feudalism was.

**Watchman** · 08-07-2005, 23:38

Feudalism, in the meaning I've generally seen it used, is a way to organize social power structures (usually tied to land ownership) in a "militarized" society (ie. one where there is no real difference between social and military elites). It is based on personal loyalty, normally in the form of the underling holding, taxing, adminstering, defending etc. a given area of land for his superior in exchange of military and political support as needed. It is, in practice, a system of "subcontracting" adminstrative and military duties in a pyramid-like fashion - feudal subjects usually can and will enfeoff their holding into even smaller units to their own vassals, who can then do the same and so on and so on as long as it makes sense to further split the area.

Throw in such little details as political marriages, land and titular inheritance, conquest, the fact that most vassals could hold allegiance to more than one superior at once etc. etc. and you very soon end up with a horribly complicated mess of power, ownership, vassalage and obligation relations that in practice tended to give individual lordlings in the web a whole lot of leeway in their actions. Very often a higher lord simply could not count on the obedience of a vassal unless he was personally present with sufficient military power to enforce his requests and orders with straight threat of violence, and it was not in the least unusual for a vassal and a lord to go to war as their interests dictated (William the Conqueror, for example, warred against his nominal overlord the King of France...).

Put short, in a full-blown feudal system "central authority" was bit of a joke unless it referred to the local feudal lord whose authority in turn ultimately rested on his control of fighting men and fortifications. As might be apparent it tended to make kings rather weak.

I've read the European type of feudalism developed from a combination of factors, among them the old Germanic personal loyalty ties, late-Roman manoralism and a pressing need to have networks of fortifications and hard-hitting, standing cavalry to curb the predations of Vikings, Hungarians and Moors, all of them fast-moving and far-ranging raiders and a major pain in the arse for Carolingian Europe.

Other regions used their own versions of the same basic idea, although it should be noted that the hallmark of true feudalism was always a weak or nonexistent (literally or virtually) central governement that has to divide its power and authority among its "barons" to maintain some semblance of statehood. Strong empires and states were almost never actually feudal, although they might well retain or otherwise have landowning hereditary elites more often than not providing military service, for the simple reason that they didn't need to. The kings, emperors or whoever were always keen on wresting the reins of real power from the hands of their unruly vassals whenever they could.

The museum I work in uses a periodization roughly as follows:
Late Roman period 200-400 AD
Migration period 300-500 AD
Merovingian period 500-600 AD (after the ruling dynasty of the Franks if I recall correctly, the same from which Charlemagne was born)
Carolingian period 600-900 AD
Viking period 700-1000 AD
As you can see the periods partially overlap. 'Course, the transitions are very vague anyway and different regions "shifted" at different times...

And then the Middle Ages, which depending on what one counts as a suitably impressive milestone event end in either 1453 (Constantinopole falls to the Ottomans) or 1493(?; not positive of the exact year here) (Grenada falls to the Reconquista and Columbus finds the New World). I think there was also something about a future Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor and King of Castilie-Aragon -Philip IV?- being born around that time - a man whose influence would be felt for most of the next century and of a dynasty that would shape the political landscape of the entire subcontinent for centuries to come (AFAIK the last Habsburg monarch to lose his throne was actually the King of Spain in the 1930s...).

**Watchman** · 08-08-2005, 00:58

Well, I *do* read up on this stuff for fun, and study PolSci. Being able to define things relatively clearly is sort of a prequisite to get that far to begin with.