i think that CK and Vicky two of my favorite games and if they dont make a vicky 2 or ck 2 i will be ok. i still be playing them 20 years from now.
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This really isn't true, and is largely a myth invented by modern historians which distorts the uniqueness of their era. What you are essentially saying is that feudalism was all that mattered and communal and ethnic identity didn't. In fact, while the former is largely a myth (its medieval existence emanating from the texts of 13th century and Ren. lawyers), the latter is well documented and can easily be illustrated by hundreds of contemporary sources.
Read Susan Reynold's Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300 (esp. ch. 8) or the essay "Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm". Read The Making of Europe by Robert Bartlett. Or if you have access, his essay "Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity":
here or
here
In England, the English did care that they were ruled by Frenchies, but by the end of the 1070s almost the entire English landed class south of the Tees were wiped out and had no means of fighting. By the next generation, England was ruled by an aristocracy who thought of themselves as Normans/French AND English and spoke the language, symbolised if not exemplified by Henry I's marriage to Eadgyth (Edith)/Matilda. Probably one of the most important clues of how this worked comes in the historical narratives offered by many English writers (of both English and Norman origin) who take pride in Anglo-Norman unity vis-a-vis the "barbarian" Scots and Galwegians at the battle of the Standard in 1138. See for instance Thomas, English and the Normans
p. 312 (though a number of works by Gillingham discuss this more thoroughly).
That did not prevent thousands of Englishmen in free mercenary companies of fighting for the French if they gave more coin, a well attested fact throughout the history of these nations.
By this time the common identity sense you state was only present amidst the nobility or certain city-states and isolated communities like the Swiss, who in virtue of their own isolation were repelent to foreigners and thus greatly resented when they were ruled by an oppressive foreign prince. For the rest, including the vast majority of the peasantry, it was all about just another different liege.
By this time the common identity sense you state was only present amidst the nobility or certain city-states and isolated communities like the Swiss, who in virtue of their own isolation were repelent to foreigners and thus greatly resented when they were ruled by an oppressive foreign prince. For the rest, including the vast majority of the peasantry, it was all about just another different liege.
That's true of the modern era too, so isn't a good argument. Even a highly-propagandized modern people like the Germans of 1945/6 soon abandoned German nationalism for a bar of soap and some cigarettes when want forced them.
And you can illustrate this how? This can easily be shown to be utterly incorrect. In most medieval localities (certainly early CK period) most decisions are carried out by communities which include peasants. If the lord is a foreigner who can't communicate or has no network of power or is introducing peasants who don't speak your language it disrupts decision making, the preservation of stability, and obviously creates hostility. Liege-vassal (or, better, patron-client) relations are contracts between weaker landowners and greater ones. The contract doesn't last long if the liege is selfish and creates resentment. The lord needs those under him to love him and provide him labour and military manpower. If they refuse to co-operate, he loses his ability to be a liege or else needs to find a new source of power, which usually means recruiting men from elsewhere and giving them the land. This is how most cultural change took place on the ground in our era.
Yes. If the Lord doesn't know the language and has no network in the local population.
Unfortunately for your argument most lords a) learned the language, or b) found Seneschals who did. That's what happened in England. In 1080 the Normans were no less Norman than they'd been in 1066. They just knew the language, and had reliable Saxon-speaking Seneschals installed throughout the country. The peasants never cared what language their Lords spoke at home. The lower Nobility did, so the Normans had to kill almost all of them to get anywhere. But once that was done only peasants were left, and they just didn't care.
Nick
I'm afraid that's not what that part of the argument was addressing. That part was addressing the idea that ethnicity and language didn't matter.
To address your other points, yes, some lords did learn the language (more important usually, their children did). I'm not sure I know what "Saxon-speaking seneschals" you're referring to; certainly not very prominent in Domesday (and you wouldn't expect them to be, as French probably wasn't very widely known among the English then). Can you name some instances of this?
Most of the early French lordships in England consist of composite "baronies" where whole communities (villages, hundreds) took on a new Norman lord, by legal right of a royal grant or else as hundreds of "mini Norman conquests" took place in the chaotic aftermath (getting confirmed by royal "grant"). For how these communities felt about this, and how the Normans reacted to their feelings, I will point out to you that the early Norman monarchy fined whole communities when a Norman was killed in their area (a frequent occurrence) or a body of a Norman was found there and no killer was presented. Pretty heavy fines too if I remember.
They mattered to some of the nobility.
The problem is proving that the peasantry cared one way or the other.
All of them.
A seneschal is the guy who actually lives on the estate. He's not very useful if he can't tell the peasants what his lord wants them to do. And, as you point out, the peasants didn't know Norman French.
And were the peasants actively involved in resisting the Normans?
The trouble William had was the lower Nobility. They were being replaced by foreigners and they did not like that. So they made trouble until the Normans killed them to death.
From the peasant point of view little changed. William didn't re-organize the shires, break up villages, or change any peasant obligations. He just changed the landlord.
I'd agree that CK needs a lower level of nobility to accurately simulate the Middle Ages. Ideally there would be a new tier in CK2, the Estate. Barons would be fully playable characters, some of whom should probably care about culture. And, in England at least, needs to be really pissed at King William in 1066.
Nick
By "peasant", do you mean slave or warrior small-holder? Remember, 11th century England is not 19th century Russia; serfs were a minority of the population; think more Njal's Saga (if you've ever read it). Most communal meetings were small and local enough that most small-holders could participate (and thus would have a community identity). Only 10% were actual serfs, 75% free farmers, and the rest nobles.
Most serfs by TRW were probably in such a state because their fortunes in the conquest had reduced them to such status. So I'm sure they cared about that.
Who spoke French, presumably, if he was communicating with both? As far as I'm aware, the Normans actually brought their own seneschals ... which is why I was asking for examples.
Of course.
The warbands of lower nobility consist of free farmers. These nobles don't run around fighting without their dependents.
Actually, the king probably had less to do with it than that. The deaths in battle of so many thousands of "nobles" led to a kind of chaos. Much if not most of the takeovers probably happened when individual Norman bands went around terrorising communities and obtaining protection/lordship contracts in exchange for not being killed and/or losing their worldly goods and dignity. These were later confirmed by the king. The victims were the peasant communities who are supposed to not care.
I'm talking about anyone who wasn't in one of the other three stands. So Villiens, small-holders, Cotters, etc.
That's just not the case from what I've read. According to "Life in a Medieval Village" the Norman Conquest was totally irrelevant, at least to the villagers in Elton. There was a new Abbot, and he appointed new officials, but he basically left them alone as long as they paid their rent.
Are you claiming that none of these people were bilingual?
As I said my sources tell a completely different story.
Besides, the main thrust of this debate is whether peasants cared about the culture of their lords. I doubt Saxon lords who forced people to agree to new feudal contracts would have been very popular either.
Nick
It varied.
Villeins were free-farmers in the 11th century; the later medieval use, meaning unfree peasant, is Angevin era and later ("villanus" is used in this period to translate the English word "ceorl", which is a free peasant who can bare arms on behalf of his community - Charlemagne's name meant "ceorl", so it wasn't scum peasant in Germanic culture but salt of the earth "warrior-farmer").
The "peasants didn't care" argument is a hackeyed attack on establishment historiographical obsession about the importance of the conquest. But it is based on misunderstandings and doesn't ever make sense when you apply it. This is summarised well in Schama's documentary about the topic.
No.
Have you managed to find examples yet?
What do you want me to say?
"Peasants" aren't robots. At the heart of this, I feel there is a naivety about human behaviour. Humans don't like cultural outsiders, and every culture is packed with sociological devices for ensuring conformity and demeaning outsiders. Remember "peasants" (useless concept) are "bound" to their lords by tradition, experience, friendship, kinship (imaginary or actual) shared customs and language. Saying none of those things mattered just misunderstands human nature as well as, more particularly, medieval culture. If you're not "one of us", then it matters! Language was important, customs were important. Yes, focusing purely on culture is wrong. Dismissing it though is more wrong.
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Well, as the thread shows, people cite history as the basis for game-play elements in Crusader Kings. Perfectly normal.
Well if they ever make the CK II I hope they make it so that you can easilly do quarter or half crests if you have several king tittles and want to show it.
Exactly. If anything, it's that medieval men cared about culture on a deeper level, since regions were less integrated, and thus more culturally diverse. Not to mention the state of education for the majority in the period, which meant peasants couldn't learn a second language so easily (unless they were born to a bilingual society, of course). In the modern era, cultural differences have become much more superficial because of mass communication, and in many cases is evidenced only by linguistic differences. When nationalism was born (because of national integration - such as abolishing of internal tariffs, and to legitimate a non-monarchical government, as well as other reasons) it was already doomed to die a slow death, because the invention of mass communication means in the 19th century meant that eventually cultures would become homogenize between themselves - a process that is still occurring today.
Yeah thats a good idea too, but still counties crest usually were different than those of the family who ruled them anyway. Also one thing that bugs me in CK is that bastards usually don't have the other parent listed even if you know who the mother or the father is in the game. In reality those both should be listed as the child might have the posibility to inherit both sides if he is made legal heir.
Well this is my point, I don't believe Thomas of Lancaster was ever represented by the arms of the county of Lancaster, but rather by its own. It's just a small detail I'd prefer fixed to give us a bit of immersion and realism. Further, quartering would work much better that way.
Well yeah there were some who used their own crests but there also was those that didn't. Some people even changed their crest like they were some trends. In reality in the future game they could put an option for the player of what crest to use and ability to change it if they want. Also most likely in those they will make it possible to have more duke and king tittles in the game and many several other tittles that are left out because of the games mechanics.