ruling by invitation

[Laur]

Despite the fact that ”may you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse, civil war and strife was still something to be avoided, not desired in medieval Europe. Kingdoms were quite stable, and there was a practice that, if a royal dinasty died out or if the king was too young/too weak, the nobles could choose to put the kingdom under the protection of another prestigious dinasty, either by forming a personal union with that ruler (see Croatia and Hungary) or by inviting a cadet member (who could be even landless) of that particular dinasty to rule (see the Angevins, Luxembourgs, Jagellons, etc.) I would like to see this to be an option in the new CK2, hopefully the kingdoms will not collapse into a mess of duchies and counties by the third generation.

 

[RedRooster81]

I am sorry no one ever replied to your post. Rather good idea. In some kingdoms or duchies this was certainly done. The value that we moderns (or post-moderns these days) put on independence would not have made much sense to medieval folk, high or low. It is better to have the protection that a strong sovereign was supposed to be able to provide. So a younger son of a neighboring powerful lord or even the lord himself (or herself) might be offered the realm. More common probably was individual cities or smaller feudal entities seeking vassalship for this purpose. In any event, I believe that the high nobility and high clergy (if represented) should meet to decide on who should be monarch, once a dynasty peters out or falls into bad repute.

 

[RedRooster81]

After giving it some thought, maybe there should be a system of adopting nearby rulers or their heirs or even your own vassals or mercenaries in this case, if in an elective system you do not have a legitimate heir or your son is just so bad. This was the system for the first several centuries of the Roman Empire and saw a revival in the Byzantine Empire at least briefly under the Komnenos.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I think if the vassals are weak and desire protection, they may choose a strong duke/neighbor king, but if the vassals are strong and want more power, they should back a weak noble to ensure their power

 

[Don_giorgio]

Didnt that happened to England also where the barons invited Louis of France to be King instead of John Lackland?

 

[Woody Man]

Didnt that happened to England also where the barons invited Louis of France to be King instead of John Lackland?

It did, we had also invited Eric Bloodaxe to become King of one of the Northern Kingdoms of England. Invitations to rule would certainly make for interesting gameplay. One English Prince was invited to become King of Sicily (can't remember which one) but never managed to make good his opportunity. It'd be particularly fun to undertake expeditions with the intention of putting family members on the throne somewhere.

 

[RedRooster81]

It did, we had also invited Eric Bloodaxe to become King of one of the Northern Kingdoms of England. Invitations to rule would certainly make for interesting gameplay. One English Prince was invited to become King of Sicily (can't remember which one) but never managed to make good his opportunity. It'd be particularly fun to undertake expeditions with the intention of putting family members on the throne somewhere.

This happened more in the early Middle Ages (c.900), but there were sometimes palace coups to put the next closest pretender on the throne, or even further down. If a king or duke is unpopular, you could appeal to the chief vassals, form a league for your election (or they could approach you), then launch a coup, and send the incumbent into exile (who could later return with an army of mercenaries... or assassins). The same could be possible for regencies, when the next in line for the throne has more prestige. In this case at least, the child would not be harmed, but his hardline supporters might be banished or killed. The same thing could happen if your infant child inherits his or her grandfather's throne; you could claim rule in the right of your child, with a loss of prestige and the child retaining a strong claim to that title or titles. (This was a problem for me in CK1, when you are trying to conceive a child and bring it to term before your 60-year-old father-in-law keels over.)

As for outright invitation by elective-law realms, this would be interesting, but I don't know if it could be implemented. During the late Carolingian Period (say about 850-922), the heirs of Charlemagne's line (Guy of Spoleto, Berenger of Friuli, Louis Bosonid, Charles the Fat, Charles the Simple, Louis the Child...) were all contending for the thrones of East and West Francia, Lotharingia, and Italy, and factions existed for each of the major contenders in each court. So the dukes of each realm really elected or deposed whom they wanted based on a short list of legitimate candidates. Otto of Saxony's election as King of East Francia was the beginning of the end of this back and forth among the Carolingians: thenceforth, the dukes would elect one of their own, and a generation later the Counts of Paris would follow suite in West Francia.