How did the crazy social system of the Middle Ages ever end?

[Raving Stark the Mad]

The gunpowder argument doesn't make much sense either. While a peasant with an arquebus and almost no training "can" kill an armoured and well trained noble in a 1v1 fight, war is not fought by having a series of 1v1 duels until one side runs out of men, but between armies.

I think you are missing the point of my argument. It was cheaper in money and power and easier for a King to conscript 10 peasants, arm them with arquebus, then it was to grant land to a single Knight. It was cheaper in money and power for the King to conscript 1000 peasants and arm them with arguebuses, and appoint and pay several officers of the gentry than it was to pay for 100 knights. Under feudalism, the King shares the power to govern locally with all those little aristocrats, because he needs their horses, their armor, and their fighting ability for his army. Cut out feudalism and get your army directly from the peasantry, pay them wages or conscript them, and you don't have to pay them in land or share power.

In the end of the day, what made the system work was that 1000 musketmen could defeat 100 knights.

Regardless of if peasants have firearms or not, they still have no logistical network, no skilled officers, no other kinds of troops than "light infantry", and perhaps most importantly don't know how to fight in organized groups (such as in field battles). So they still can't really fight against the aristocracy without getting butchered (such as in the German Peasant's War). Plus, during the Middle Ages most soldiers were non nobles as well.

I don't see what logistics has to do with it. Their junior officers came from the middle class. Senior officers and junior officers may have come from the upper class, but without degrees of professionalism, this usually led to problems.

Yet during the American Revolution, an army was formed of peasants, and commanded by non-aristocrats. This could not have been done without the ability gunpowder afforded. Yet by this time, they were not fighting against armored cavalry, but other musketmen.

Certainly most soldiers during the middle ages were not knights. But they did not dominate the battlefield as knights did for such a long period of time. Certainly pikemen and longbows had much to do with the demise of the knight, but as I mentioned earlier, it takes a long time to train and develop longbowmen and disciplined pikemen. Gunpowder weapons makes it easier. You don't need to have the level of training and strength required to operate a longbow as you do to operate a musket.

What actually happened in the 16th century when handheld gunpowder weapons were starting to become prevalent was not a social revolution where every man became a free, gun owning citizen soldier with voting rights and whatever, but rather a golden age for mercenaries in Europe which was to persist for around 200 years (for example the famous Spanish Tercios only contained something like 20% actual Spaniards, and the Thirty Years War in the 17th century was also fought between mercenaries to a huge degree).

What occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries was the demise of the feudal system and the rise of parliamentary monarchies or absolute monarchies. This laid the groundwork for the 18th and 19th centuries, where the middle class basically rose up against the remnants of the aristocracy and the nobility and demanded more political power. They were able to do this because the monopoly of military power was taken away from the aristocracy by the development of firearms.

100 peasants with spears could not stand against 10 armored knights in 1400. By 1812, the 100 peasants had muskets and knew how to use them because they were all veterans of countless wars that the Kings had been fighting. The rise of PROFESSIONAL armies of lower class soldiers who were trained and experienced in the use of weaponry in battle was facilitated because of how cheap it was, and because it worked when they were equipped with firearms.

In fact, it is only with the French Revolution we start seeing the massed "citizen armies" people here speak of, but this was way, way after gunpowder weapons had become widespread. In fact, it would be more correct to say that the transition to gunpowder weapons strengthened the aristocracy (though only the king) rather than weakening it. Since cannons, cannon armed warships and so on were so expensive that only monarchs could afford to field them, plus that army sizes in general went up.

I agree 100%. We are seeing the same thing just from different perspectives. Initially, by getting rid of the warrior class, the king was the one who benefited. But only short term. The nobility gained power by pulling the fangs from their chief rivals in the aristocracy who were constantly jockeying for power and trying to take the throne. But in the end, they eliminated one rival just to grow another. The middle class, who had all the money but none of the power and titles.

[James Arryn]

The Plague, gunpowder, crossbows, reintroduction of classical political and ethical philosophies via Islamic sources, the Crusades, the Mongols, the fall of Byzantium, the proliferation of paper and early printing presses, the discovery of the New World, the advancement of polearms in Switzerland, The Low Countries, and Germany, Magna Carta and the Provisions of Oxford, Martin Luther, the success and wealth of italian City States, and several other factors played roles at different times.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

In the end, the incorporating of gunpowder weapons, the reintroduction of classical learning, the printing press can all be traced back to the growth of wealth due to trade. You could argue that trade was assisted by the Crusades.

[poor_fellow]

Could the long winters somehow be preventing progress?

[Lion of the West]

Humanity never seriously fucked up any things. On planetary scale their achievements are nothing.

I beg to differ, to put it mildly. But I also understand in the search for convience certain...sacrifices must be made by others.

[TimJames]

Well, it ended with a number of things.

The first thing was trade and exchange of ideas. In real life, Europe entered the renaissance as a result of trade with the East causing European artists and scholars to get a taste of new ideas and strive to rediscover old ones.

For Westros, this could result from an increase in trade with Essosi Free Cities. I don't know much about Valyria, but I am willing to bet their art and architecture could inspire a renaissance much like that of the Greco-Romans inspired it in real life.

Second is technological advances. Europe had just began adopting crop rotation and other methods of farming which lead to a surplus and meant that not every All this combined with new resources will result in the spawn of industries and industrialization.

Westros is advantaged here, as the decade long seasons mean a really big surplus to be grown in between spring and fall. Likewise, there are unique and renewable resources to use in industrial settings (Dragonfire=steam, Wildfire=oil). peasant had to live on farms as there was enough food to support many more cities. It is only a matter of time before some merchant invents a printing press, thereby ending the age old monopoly maesters had on knowledge and science.

With new advancements comes demand for political change. It could be gradual like in Britain, or rapid and horrifically brutal like in France and Russia.

[King Tommen Baratheon]

Hard to oppose speculation with facts. Actually, it's not. It's only hard if you have no legitimate points.

Economics. The less trees there are, the costlier they are. And even now green zones are being created. Ooh, good point! I hadn't thought of that. I doubt that something like wood will decrease in demand despite the price going up. Even if we do develop an alternative eventually, we won't have enough trees to deal with all the CO2 emissions (we already don't!)

And internet changed ppl relationship. That's what I'm saying.

In modern countries population is already decreasing. That's what I was talking about when I brought up Demographic transition. Look at Denmark, and compare it to any stage two country. There's a difference. The thing is that not all countries are "modern" (aka stage 4) (USA is still stage 3), and although modernity isn't increasing linearly, it still won't go fast enough for the population to decrease before it gets a LOT bigger.

Natural selection. Human is the first species, who gives a crap about others. Read Rousseau. Right now, just go pick up The Social Contract. The early chapters talk about this from a social stance, and his position on the natural state of man can really be applied to lots of things. It's free as an ebook.

I imply that 200 years ago there was no such thing as human rights. Kings drowned in gold, peasants - in famine, and anyone who knew the word "Equality" was burned at stake.

AFAIK Scientists do not believe in global warming. Politicans do. No logic to that statement. My original comment about motivation still stands. Oil companies have motivation to twist the facts about it; politicians don't. I'll consider responding in depth if you present a reasonable reason as to WHY a politician would find it beneficial to overturn our economy, when they are already the ones in power.

Shamans did the medicine and it was ok. No technology is being developed. Only when guys with brains sit down an start invent drugs and medicine we have a progress. No, natural medicine evolved over time. Cavemen didn't have the same herbal remedies as early medieval China, if history and fact are to be believed.

Laws a-priori do not require brains. It is all about abusing gaps in a law. In science if the law has gaps it is called bullshit. In science, if a law has gaps it's reasssed, or ignored- just like in law. Good laws require brains, good science requires brains just as much. Science isn't actually a panacea-ic God thing.

Brains work only one way. Mathematical thought. Anyone who says something different is humanitarian. Who can't into maths. What's bad about humanitarianism? Some people "can't into coherent logic". I beg to differ that brains only have one linear function. That's just idiotic, no offense meant. Do you know any psychology?

Loooool. Plz, look at any of Einstein theories. It is pure math. Again, Einstein was theoretical. He didn't do the calculations, because he "couldn't into maths".

Music is not a brain work. It's a hobby. You clearly no nothing about music. What about something being a hobby excludes the use of the brain? I like math, and music, and I can tell you assuredly they both use different kinds of thinking. The left brain vs right brain model applies a little here, although music is a lot more similar to math (ever heard of Pythagoras?) that other fields.

Technology is progress. Dixi. See above.

Aaaand? First, we don't know suicidal rates of 15th century. Second, ppl will to live has nothing to do with progress. Yes it does. Progress isn't slaving away to the grey, indifferent will of Science, our lord and master. Part of progress, as you mentioned earlier was increased standard of living. I wouldn't call that an increase in standard of living [widespread depression]. We might not know the suicide rates of the 15th century, but it's a more easy to extrapolate, from presence in literature and death records than "cavepaintings weren't popular at first"

Better technology? Omfg... Word Renaissance? Rings any bells? Like "Recreation of the things created in Rome and Greece"? So, that's not what Renaissance means. That was the intent- but it was more focused on recreating the art and culture (both things which require brain functions btw, the Renaissance was an artistic/cultural revival). Your logic chain seems to be: Better Technology=Progress / Progress is solely defined by the mathematical functions of the brain / The Renaissance is popularly considered to be more "advanced" (aka progress) than medieval Europe. That's sound at first, but it seems to IMPLY THAT THE RENAISSANCE IS DEFINED BY "revival of classical tech", rather than an attempt to revive classical cultures, and look at problems and the human condition in more than one dimension. That's just objectively false. 110% false.

Rome had better standarts of living strictly because it was technologically advanced. Not more technically advanced than medieval Europe, that's a "TV misconception", to paraphrase you out of context.

My responses are in bold.

tl;dr- Saying "loooooool. Plz" isn't really a common rhetorical (successful) technique.

[Fire Eater]

It ended from a number of factors. Feudalism gradually eroded over time.

In real life society evolved in a very long process. In middle ages only the nobles could learn and peasants have very little rights. Also religion didn't allowed people to learn. Then there were reforms made about religion to make give people more rights and support them learning.Alao with the invention of press machines books become easier to reach.

That is quite untrue. After the Roman Empire fell, the Church was the last remnant of Roman culture, preserving Roman literature and science. Monasteries housed extensive libraries where manuscripts were copied to preserve knowledge. The Church also founded universities including Oxofrd, Cambridge, the University of Paris, and nearly every other top school in Europe.

[King of Vaes Tolorro]

1. Black Plague

2. Crucades

3. Renaissance

4. Scietnific Advancement

5. Age of Enlightenment

6. American and French Revolutions

7. World War 1

[James Arryn]

It ended from a number of factors. Feudalism gradually eroded over time.

That is quite untrue. After the Roman Empire fell, the Church was the last remnant of Roman culture, preserving Roman literature and science. Monasteries housed extensive libraries where manuscripts were copied to preserve knowledge. The Church also founded universities including Oxofrd, Cambridge, the University of Paris, and nearly every other top school in Europe.

Absolutely true, though occasionally tempered by the fact that the church often...er...discouraged...literacy amongst those not of their body. And by discouraged I sometimes mean tortured and killed.

[Jaak]

Are you purposely trying to be obtuse? Do you see no difference between the "land for military service" of a knight and the land given to a union veteran after the American Civil War?

Let's make it more clear. These people were not given 160 acres. They were given huge amounts of land and appointed to run it, tax it, and basically own everyone who worked on it.

There is a difference, yes. The question is, which difference you mean?

"Own everyone who worked on it"? Varies.

The planters of South DID literally own everyone who worked on sizable amounts of land. Negro slaves 1) were not free to go work for a neighbouring master for better wages and 2) could be sold at the whim of master.

Note that knights of Middle Ages usually did NOT keep chattel slaves. Serfs, yes, often - as in, the serf was not legally free to leave to get lower taxes and better farm in neighbouring knight´s village. But this is not essential to feudalism. Many Middle Ages regions had personally free smallfolk, who could change their lord - but the lord kept the land and so the peasant still paid to some lord, and the lord found some peasant to pay for his land. Still feudal.

So, what would you call the essential difference between a slaveowner in Virginia in 1860, and a knight in England in 1460?

Certainly, few slaves fought in Provisional Army of Confederacy.

Also, a small majority of Confederate soldiers were non-slaveowning whites. As of 1860 census, there were 306 300 individual slaveholders in the 11 states of Confederacy, not counting the border states. Some of them (a small fraction) would have been women owning slaves; some (also a small fraction) would have been children (probably orphans with inherited slaves). Great majority would have been adult men. Well, a significant fraction may have been elderly men who were noncombatants. But many of those would have had adult sons, with no slaves currently owned, yet being heirs to slaves.

The Provisional Army at its top size, in 1863, was something like 450 000 men. A large fraction were slaveowners, as demonstrated above. Another large fraction was sons of slaveowners, and another large fraction no doubt white men of non-slaveowning families.

Yes. The duty to fight was not expressly in return for land, or slaves. Slaves themselves were excempt from military service, as were free negroes - but military obligation was for white men. Landless poor whites were conscripted to fight along slaveowners.

But the people with the money, education and influence to get appointed as officers in Provisional Army tended to be rich slaveowners (or their sons). The Confederate regiments were formed by rich slaveowners recruiting their white neighbours.

Feudal or not?

One big difference: no gentleman slaveowner was himself a vassal of another. A slaveowner was a free white (almost all - free negro slaveowners did exist but were numerically rare compared to whites) citizen of United States, who owned his own land, owned his own slaves and paid his own taxes. He did not owe his self, nor his land or slaves, to a richer slaveowner for service.

Out of these 306 000 slaveowners, roughly 43 000 people owning 20 or more slaves each owned slightly over half of the 4 million slaves of Confederacy. Still a large class of... whom? Nobles? Middle class?

9 of the Confederate States had between 22 000 (Texas, Louisiana) and 52 000 (Virginia) owners of slaves. Of whom the owners of 20 or more slaves numbered between 2100 (Texas) and 6400 (Georgia).

No Confederate State had formal hereditary nobility (forbidden by Articles of Confederation). Their elite was elected, governors, legislatures and various systems of local government.

Women did not vote, neither did slaves nor by 1860 any other negroes. The legislatures of southern States were elected formally by most white men. In practice... I suspect that the politics were dominated, not by slaveless whites and not by poor slaveowners either, but by rich slaveowners.

[James Arryn]

The direct proportion of persons to slave owners is somewhat misleading as it had more to do with an increasing concentration of plantation ownership in the hands of fewer baronial owners. But the % of people whose livelihood depended on the slave industry overall would be an overwhelming majority.

Additionally, serfdom and slavery are often more readily distinguished in academic repose than experientially. Hell, in the U.S. itself indentured servitude was often hard to seperate: they were often beaten, threatened, 'sold on' and it was not uncommon for the debt 'owner' to use their servitude as poker stakes or similar.

[Jaak]

Additionally, serfdom and slavery are often more readily distinguished in academic repose than experientially. Hell, in the U.S. itself indentured servitude was often hard to seperate: they were often beaten, threatened, 'sold on' and it was not uncommon for the debt 'owner' to use their servitude as poker stakes or similar.

That´s a question for Daenerys and Braavos - what´s "free" alternative to slaves?

You need to separate the problem of liquidity of asset from the problem of treatment/control of dependent labourers.

An employee can be sold along with the business as a going concern (or indeed gambled away). Of course he has the freedom to leave employment of new owner, but he had that right all along under old owner anyway. Likewise tenants of farmlands could be sold along with the estate where they rented - their freedom to leave was not affected by change of owner.

Actually, serfs commonly had security of tenure that slaves or indentured servants did not have - as in, the serf was entitled to keep farming his farm if he paid to lord the duties he owed, and the lord was not free to force the serf to move to a different farm, or take up a different job (from a serf landholder to e. g. domestic servant in lord´s castle).

[juanml82]

Artillery can be said to have helped kings centralize military power to themselves, but the nobility did not go anywhere, and they kept being landowners that peasants had to rent from much like before. Also "knights" or cavalry looking a lot like knights, were used for a long time after gunpowder became common. For example, here are cuirassiers from the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Thirty Years War (1618-1648)

http://www.andantetravels.com/images/products/large/1391526073xcicivilwar4.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul_gylyan.boielle/cuirassier01.jpg

http://www.forensicfashion.com/files/1627FrenchCuirassierArmorMet01.jpg

http://www.hobbymax.ro/images/poze/english_civil_war/mari/ecw_034.jpg

They were basically knights with pistols. Both on the battlefield and in regards to what kind of social group they tended to come from.

But they no longer enjoyed the political and military power their ancestors did, for instance, during the 1300s. That's the fall of feudalism. The fall of nobility/aristocracy only came hundreds of years after feudalism fell.

[Jaak]

But they no longer enjoyed the political and military power their ancestors did, for instance, during the 1300s. That's the fall of feudalism. The fall of nobility/aristocracy only came hundreds of years after feudalism fell.

Fall of whom?

Gentlemen of 17th and 18th century were rich landowners, who rode horses and fought on horseback when needed. And they had political power which their 14th century ancestor knights could only dream of! They ruled the country as JPs, they got elected into Commons from counties and rotten boroughs, they originated money bills in Parliament, they proved that England could with a difficulty be ruled without either King or House of Lords (1649-1660), and they twice overthrew the King.

England actually had two Kings overthrown and killed if caught in both 14th and 17th century. 14th century in 1327 and 1399, 17th century in 1649 and 1688. If you compare the roles of Lords and gentlemen in 14th century revolutions and in 17th century ones... My impression is that 14th century Lords ruled and commanded the knights being their dependants in the country and taking the decisions in Parliament, with House of Commons taking little independent action. Whereas in 17th century, Lords were around, exercised influence and offices like Lord Lieutenant, but the local government was dominated by gentry community of Justices of Peace sitting as Quarter Sessions, and Parliament was dominated by House of Commons who could and did overrule Lords.

So which of them was feudal?

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

So which of them was feudal?

The 14th century one.

Do I get a prize?

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

I think you are missing the point of my argument. It was cheaper in money and power and easier for a King to conscript 10 peasants, arm them with arquebus, then it was to grant land to a single Knight. It was cheaper in money and power for the King to conscript 1000 peasants and arm them with arguebuses, and appoint and pay several officers of the gentry than it was to pay for 100 knights. Under feudalism, the King shares the power to govern locally with all those little aristocrats, because he needs their horses, their armor, and their fighting ability for his army. Cut out feudalism and get your army directly from the peasantry, pay them wages or conscript them, and you don't have to pay them in land or share power.

The thing is though, that knights (and other nobles) still held land after the Middle Ages. In Eastern Europe especially they also had quite a lot of local power, serfdom wasn't abolished in Russia until 1861 after all, but by then they had already used plenty of gunpowder for many hundreds of years. Plus that this kind of serfdom was actually quite harsh compared to what was normal during the Middle Ages (Russian nobles had the right to "sell" their serfs, basically).

But yes, you started seeing more royal armies rather than noble retinues as time wore on.

In the end of the day, what made the system work was that 1000 musketmen could defeat 100 knights.

I don't see what logistics has to do with it. Their junior officers came from the middle class. Senior officers and junior officers may have come from the upper class, but without degrees of professionalism, this usually led to problems.

Yet during the American Revolution, an army was formed of peasants, and commanded by non-aristocrats. This could not have been done without the ability gunpowder afforded. Yet by this time, they were not fighting against armored cavalry, but other musketmen.

Certainly most soldiers during the middle ages were not knights. But they did not dominate the battlefield as knights did for such a long period of time. Certainly pikemen and longbows had much to do with the demise of the knight, but as I mentioned earlier, it takes a long time to train and develop longbowmen and disciplined pikemen. Gunpowder weapons makes it easier. You don't need to have the level of training and strength required to operate a longbow as you do to operate a musket.

What occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries was the demise of the feudal system and the rise of parliamentary monarchies or absolute monarchies. This laid the groundwork for the 18th and 19th centuries, where the middle class basically rose up against the remnants of the aristocracy and the nobility and demanded more political power. They were able to do this because the monopoly of military power was taken away from the aristocracy by the development of firearms.

Your last point here is reaching a bit though. These are centuries long periods you are talking about, if all it came down to was firearms it should have happened three or four hundred years earlier. Meanwhile you had plenty of "pseudo-democracies" in Europe during the ancient and early medieval eras (some Greek City states, Republican Rome, old Germanic and Norse peoples, etc), all completely without either firearms or gunpowder.

100 peasants with spears could not stand against 10 armored knights in 1400. By 1812, the 100 peasants had muskets and knew how to use them because they were all veterans of countless wars that the Kings had been fighting. The rise of PROFESSIONAL armies of lower class soldiers who were trained and experienced in the use of weaponry in battle was facilitated because of how cheap it was, and because it worked when they were equipped with firearms.

Yet we still didn't see these lower classes use their muskets to take control during that era, aside from in France.

I agree 100%. We are seeing the same thing just from different perspectives. Initially, by getting rid of the warrior class, the king was the one who benefited. But only short term. The nobility gained power by pulling the fangs from their chief rivals in the aristocracy who were constantly jockeying for power and trying to take the throne. But in the end, they eliminated one rival just to grow another. The middle class, who had all the money but none of the power and titles.

Well I guess we see "short term" very differently. I view it as something that happens within at least a lifetime or so, not several hundred years. I mean, the kings then benefited from this for a longer period than the common people have from what followed, as of yet... :eek:

I would rather say that much of the downfall of aristocratic power came from the industrialization, after which most wealth started coming from factories and businesses rather than land, which was what aristocrats had lived on. This also adds up far better with when nobles and royalty actually started losing power, and modern democracies started to emerge.

But they no longer enjoyed the political and military power their ancestors did, for instance, during the 1300s. That's the fall of feudalism. The fall of nobility/aristocracy only came hundreds of years after feudalism fell.

Jaak gave a good reply.

[FC_Lymond]

There's so many points, good and bad, I don't know where to begin.

[Dale Sams]

"Please! Please. Good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?"

[Greymoon]

Renaissance, Humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and the Cult of Reason, interceded with and followed by war, famine, epidemics, imperialism, colonialism, industrialization and more war...

Technological advancements such as mechanical printing by Gutenberg, multiplying book reproduction and democratizing knowledge, philosophical considerations placing Men at the center of the world order (instead of God).... discoveries of the Americas... Galielo Galilei...

The study of roman law and the Justinian Codex at the university of Bologna from the 11th century onwards.....scolasticism.... The rediscovery of the ancient world, of Rome and it's res publica, of ancient Greece it's polis and it's demokratia....