Feudal Relationships

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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I am not an expert but some of the comments in Intelligence gathering are stretching my understanding of the social fabric of Mythic Europe.

My understanding is that just about everywhere something like the Feudal System is in effect, where superiors are obligated to look after inferiors, while the inferiors are supposed to owe service to the superiors. God is at the top, followed by Kings and Popes, and so on down to peasants/bondsman are at the bottom.

And to some degree legally, the inferiors are under the control of their superiors, and thus the inferiors and their actions are the responsibility of the superiors.

Even in inter-personal relationships, such as parent and child or master and apprentice, the actions of the child/apprentice reflect upon and are the responsibility of the parent/master.

I have always though Covenants were arranged in a similar fashion - the grogs enjoy the amenities and protections of the Covenant grounds, and in turn owe service to the Covenant's masters (the Magi). Thus a grog's actions reflect upon the Magi, and technically are the Magi's responsibility,
Usually this isn't much so long as they stick to the Covenant grounds, but should a grog leave the Covenant grounds and do stuff, it is implicit that the Magi at the very least approved, if not actively directed the grog. At least in the legal sense.

So woe-betide if the grog interferes with another magus or Noble.
My understanding is that as the superior, the Magus is by default responsible for the inferior's (aka grog's) actions. The mage would have to defend the grog's actions, and it is really embarrassing admitting that you have lost control of your inferior. Few would admit to such a weakness.

At least, in the back of my head that is the way I have been playing it up to now (there was one asset that was prepare to be disposable, but that should be a rarity).

Am I significantly wrong?

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The feudal system, if described as a pyramid with the king on top owning everything and layers of vassal underneath owing him service is really only found in a couple of places. Essentially if the Normans have invaded it, you'll find it there. The problem for historians is this means English history, which is taken as normative, has this weird system other people do not use.

Basically land tenure is messy, and, no, if my peasant does something stupid its not my fault, unless the guy who is offended has the power to make it my fault. So, for example, if Bob, a merchant from Ghent, rips me off, I can't just go to the noble of the town he lives in and demand my money from the noble. I might be able to argue a court case against the merchant.

Unless, and this is based on real dealings, I'm a noble too, and I say "Hey, you merchants from . Ghent? Bad news. I'm stealing money from all of you until I get back what Bob owes me. If you're annoyed by that, take it up with Bob." and then they go home and go "What the heck, Bob? All my stock got taken because of you! See you in court!"

Mostly, at the village level, I can get my pound of flesh out of the guy and his family. but I can't get his noble to pay for stuff. I likely can't even see his noble. So, this deals with your parent / child and master / apprentice: families can be forced to pay for the dumb stuff their members do in some places.

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I am not a historian but I've done some looking at feudalism in the Kingdom of Georgia. As Timothy said it can be complicated. Lot's of different classes of non-nobles with lots of different rights and responsibilities. The articles comparing it to French feudalism tended to focus on the nobility but the general idea seemed to be the idea of a generic feudal system is outdated due to so many regional and temporal variations.

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I will not contradict anything already said, just add a little on specific points.

The idea of sovereignty only appear under the French religious wars in 16C. Before that there was no hierarchy of power, and no single line (pyramid) of delegated power. Medieval nobles and church officials had limited powers and specific rights and responsibilities, in a messy mesh of dependencies.

A point of particular interest is, whatever the local mesh of men of power, what bearing does it have on the covenant,.Surely it depends. If the magi pretend to be a noble household, they will likely be treated like everybody else. If they try to be something else, whether weird wizarss og egalitarian modernists, they would likely be outcasts and treated without respect.

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The feudal system had been used in France by the Normans from the time they first settled there in about 900AD. It was a simple, but effective system, where all land was owned by the King. One quarter was kept by the King as his personal property, some was given to the church and the rest was leased out under strict controls.

The King was in complete control under the feudal system (at least nominally). He owned all the land in the country and decided to whom he would lease land. He therefore typically allowed tenants he could trust to lease land from him. However, before they were given any land they had to swear an oath of fealty to the King at all times. The men who leased land from the King were known as Barons, they were wealthy, powerful, and had complete control of the land they leased from the King.

Barons leased land from the King that was known as a manor. They were known as the Lord of the Manor and were in complete control of this land. They established their own system of justice, minted their own money, and set their own taxes. In return for the land they had been given by the King, the Barons had to serve on the royal council, pay rent and provide the King with Knights for military service when he demanded it. They also had to provide lodging and food for the King and his court when they traveled around his realm. The Barons kept as much of their land as they wished for their own use, then divided the rest among their Knights.

Under the feudal system, Knights were given land by a Baron in return for military service when demanded by the King. They also had to protect the Baron and his family, as well as the Manor, from attack. The Knights kept as much of the land as they wished for their own personal use and distributed the rest to villeins (serfs). Although not as rich as the Barons, Knights were quite wealthy.

Villeins, sometimes known as serfs, were given land by Knights. They had to provide the Knight with free labor, food, and service whenever it was demanded. Villeins had no rights. They were not allowed to leave the Manor and had to ask their Lord’s permission before they could marry. Villeins were poor. This was life under the feudal system.

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The arrangement which created a vassal was known as 'homage' as they often knelt before their particular feudal lord and swore an oath of loyalty, for which, in return, they not only received the land but also their lord's protection if and when required. The promise of protection was no small matter in times of war, when there were frequent raids from hostile neighbouring states, and when there was a perpetual danger of general banditry. Protection also came in the form of legal support and representation if a vassal found himself in a civil or church court. A tenant usually handed down their tenancy to their heir although it was sometimes possible to sell the right of tenancy to a third party, provided the lord who owned the land agreed.

Another type of relationship in feudal societies, especially in medieval Germany and France, involved the allod, an inalienable property, i.e. one that could not be taken back. This form of ownership meant that the landowner owed no feudal duties to any other person. An allod could be inherited freely according to the usual law of the land. To begin with, the income from allodial estates was not even liable for taxes paid to any other sovereigns

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This is quite possibly the best (short) answer you can get, sadly. A lot of people (myself not excluded) like to bandy about the F-word (Feudalism, obviously), but it meant - and means- different things to different people, depending on when and where. IIRC Lords of Men spends a few pages on a super condensed version.

Also please remember, that a single person can have Oaths of Fealty to multiple lieges. Usually not a problem, until these lieges got to war against each other.
And under some systems, you could owe loyalty to a liege for only some of your holdings. See the mess, with the King of England being also the Duke of Normandy (Duc d'Normandie?) - a title held in vassalage under the King of France, who would insist that his vassal owed Fealty for all of his holding, while said vassal... disagreed. Violently.
And those are both European interpretations, from the same period. Going beyond that just gets messier.

As far as I can tell, if you can think up a twist, there's probably been a war fought over it, if sometimes only between minor nobles.

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To a first approximation, there is no such thing as "Feudalism".
Or rather, that word has been (retroactively) applied to a number of somewhat different systems, and there is no consensus on exactly what "feudalism" means, or if any particular system counts as feudalism.

Just about the only thing one can be sure of is that there were plenty of exceptions to each and every general rule back then.

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I probably shouldn't have alluded specifically to the "Feudal System", but I am Anglo-centric.

Just trying to express the idea that just about everybody in ME is in a web of obligations to those above them and responsibilities to those below them. And an ME person's actions reflect in both ways (Sins of the father, the parens must take responsibility for the apprentice's actions, and I am still wrapping my head around bastardry).
I thought that the commonness of the Personality Trait "Loyalty" amongst Grogs would argue in favour of the above idea.

I didn't think I needed to mention that the ideal is rarely in practice and there are local variations.

I was about to add that stories like "who will rid me of this turbulent priest" has coloured my thinking, but I was beaten to the punch.

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I've read history books arguing that the traditional definition of feudalism was a renaissanance anochronism to understand fuedal history at the time. It by and large existed only in some places for a brief period of time, and is very, very messy in other countries. The definition of feudalism we're taught in school has probably done more damage to understanding actual medieval history because it's such a basic and powerful conceit that colors and filters all understanding of primary sources.

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A good summary of the history of the term is in the introduction of Marc Bloch's "La société féodale" from 1939. This book made history itself, and tries tp analyze and summarize the features of the society of the medieval kingdoms of Germany, France and England.
Such a book of course had no intention to provide an encompassing analysis of laws and rights. For such analysis you need to go to the Latin medieval law texts and their interpretation - and that goes far beyond the scope such a forum can encompass.

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Thank you! I tried to explain that and failed so very much that I noticed it.

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