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Post by Kypriotha on Sept 13, 2020 19:12:18 GMT 10
I'm picking this up from Seek 's question in the Quick Canon Check Thread, because I think it is interesting to explore. devilinthedetails responded in the original thread and I just wanted to add a few points that I could think of. Everyone feel free to add more! Canon seems pretty light on details about titles and inheritance, but we know or can assume a few things: - As Devils said, inheritance seems to vary fief to fief. Trebond seems to have been entailed to the male line only, but there a numerous fiefs where we know that isn't an issue (for example, Olau and Dunlath), even if they still fall along male primogeniture (which we don't actually know for sure, since the only examples I can think of involve female-only or male-eldest families). I wonder if the age of the fief/family has anything to do with it (i.e. Trebond is from the Book of Gold and the other examples are newer families) or if Trebond is actually an outlier. I suspect (and Tammy might have confirmed?) that the grant of Trebond to Coram was on less strict terms than previously, so even if it was a Book of Gold thing, I think the Crown could change it on the re-grant.
- Adoption is a valid path to inheritence (i.e. Olau).
- A person can hold 2 titles at once (i.e. Alanna and Raoul and maybe Sabine). What happens to Olau after Alanna dies hasn't been spelled out, since Tammy seemed to forget it in her latest AMA. Can Alanna choose to make Alan or Aly her heir or does it have to pass to Thom along with Pirate's Swoop? The latter seems unlikely to me, unless it is also entailed in a particular way, so I am assuming Alanna can choose her heir for Olau.
- The Crown holds a lot of power over the grant of titles and land - apparently entailing Trebond and then reclaiming it, elevating Raoul to the peerage and granting him a second title, stripping certain Eldornes and Tirragens of titles and keeping others (and could have stripped them entirely, but chose not to), changing the name of Queensgrace and granting it to Sabine.
I wonder if there is a difference between inheritance in terms of lands and titles on the one hand and noble privilege on the other. We mostly only see noble characters who are the children of the title-holder, but there must be others who are slightly more removed who still retain some noble privileges or status (like the ability to try for their shield). I have no idea how they make money or where they live though! It's an interesting question, especially as it has the potential to affect a wide group of people. I wonder at what point someone stops being a noble? So maybe Inness can live at Mindelan and his children can try for a shield, but what about their children? And their children? Is there such a thing as noble lands or properties that aren't tied to a fief?
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Post by Rosie on Sept 13, 2020 21:10:09 GMT 10
Regarding your last point, I think it would probably be dependent on the wealth of the fief? Sacherell, for example, is the great-nephew of Turomot, who as Duke of Wellam is the head of the family. Sacherell is still "of Wellam", and tries for his shield, and doesn't seem to want for anything.
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Hopeless
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Post by Hopeless on Sept 13, 2020 22:14:03 GMT 10
Maybe when they are a few times removed they marry richer merchants and people like that, eg. City of the gods mages- the other branches of the Mindelan family are all merchants, I think, so if the merchants got ennobled then it could go the other way too? It does seem like it would be a problem with big family’s like the the Mindelan s but most aren’t so big.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Sept 14, 2020 1:01:09 GMT 10
I definitely think the terms of the Trebond land grant probably changed when it was returned to the Crown and then given to Coram. At the very least, the title itself that Coram has seems to change from Lord to Baron, and I have the impression that a Baron is lower ranking than a Lord. It is also probable that among the noble families themselves, the title of Trebond is felt to experience a loss of prestige, going from an old line in the Book of Gold (claimed in Alanna's first book to be even older than the Contes, who are then said to be only a Book of Silver family) to being this sort of new blood nobility. That's likely a severe drop in the nobility pecking order.
I do think the Crown would have great power--in a way, the ultimate power--over lands and titles in Tortall. Based on the feudal structure of Tortall, I would assume the legal theory is basically that the Crown "owns" all lands and titles in Tortall, but that the Crown chooses to grant these lands and titles to select nobles in exchange for their loyal service, and these grants carry from generation to generation through inheritance. Also, people like Raoul might receive an increase in land and titles as a reward for faithful service to the Crown. I think this control over land and titles might actually be the greatest source of power that the Crown has, since medieval wealth is really built around lands and titles. Once society moves in a more capitalist direction, and value more comes in commerce than from land and titles, the power of the Crown will probably proportionally diminish.
I definitely think that noble privilege can be enjoyed apart from inheritance. Latter sons of nobility seem to have the ability to try for their shield, to enter the King's Own, and to rise in the rank of the army to high posts like General Vanget, and to potentially enjoy positions of power in the clergy. They will also have powerful connections to other members of the nobility, likely have access to some of their family money and maybe an allowance or income through their family, a right to challenge other nobles to duels to preserve their honor, and possibly the legal protection Raoul speaks of in Squire about nobles being essentially unable to be prosecuted on their own lands.
Pushing latter sons of the nobility into the clergy was definitely one way in our world to help keep noble lands and thus noble power intact (within a few generations, if land is divided among heirs, the family's power and wealth splinters is the theory, I believe). Right now, I am also thinking that latter sons going into the King's Own may be a way to keep legitimate births to sons who aren't heirs to the family lands and titles to a minimum. Men of the King's Own who aren't the Knight Commander aren't eligible to marry, and without being allowed to marry, any children produced by the members of the Own would be illegitimate and likely unable to inherit anything. Especially in Roald's time, the King's Own seemed like a way for the latter sons to enjoy many of the partying and carousing perks of nobility without any risk of producing legitimate heirs with any chance to inherit anything. The King's Own and the clergy in particular seem to provide alternative careers that diminish the likelihood of latter sons having legitimate children.
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Post by Seek on Sept 14, 2020 2:27:03 GMT 10
I definitely think the terms of the Trebond land grant probably changed when it was returned to the Crown and then given to Coram. At the very least, the title itself that Coram has seems to change from Lord to Baron, and I have the impression that a Baron is lower ranking than a Lord. It is also probable that among the noble families themselves, the title of Trebond is felt to experience a loss of prestige, going from an old line in the Book of Gold (claimed in Alanna's first book to be even older than the Contes, who are then said to be only a Book of Silver family) to being this sort of new blood nobility. That's likely a severe drop in the nobility pecking order. To me, this would be consistent with the q-canon that Alan of Pirate's Swoop faces a lot of sneerage - his ma's in the Book of Gold but he's also the son of a commoner, and they don't let him forget it. With regard from inheritance varying from fief to fief, we do get some mention of that, IIRC (in the q-canon about how Trebond suffered for its restrictive inheritance rules), and I agree that there must be ways to change inheritance. It also seems intuitive to me that the current head of the fief ought to have some ability to redraw up the inheritance rules (possibly with the help of a lawyer and Crown approval) for the fief. I certainly can't see Jon telling a male primogeniture fief, "No, sorry, you can't actually let women inherit, too bad no take-backsies!" (Now I just want a kdrama plot in Tortall with the nobles of a family feuding about the changed will...) A person can hold 2 titles at once (i.e. Alanna and Raoul and maybe Sabine). What happens to Olau after Alanna dies hasn't been spelled out, since Tammy seemed to forget it in her latest AMA. Can Alanna choose to make Alan or Aly her heir or does it have to pass to Thom along with Pirate's Swoop? The latter seems unlikely to me, unless it is also entailed in a particular way, so I am assuming Alanna can choose her heir for Olau. Ilane too, possibly - she's Ilane of Seabeth and Seajen then she married into Mindelan. I definitely think that noble privilege can be enjoyed apart from inheritance. Latter sons of nobility seem to have the ability to try for their shield, to enter the King's Own, and to rise in the rank of the army to high posts like General Vanget, and to potentially enjoy positions of power in the clergy. They will also have powerful connections to other members of the nobility, likely have access to some of their family money and maybe an allowance or income through their family, a right to challenge other nobles to duels to preserve their honor, and possibly the legal protection Raoul speaks of in Squire about nobles being essentially unable to be prosecuted on their own lands. I agree with this - though the reason I had initially asked in the QCC thread was both because I was trying to work out what might happen to Inness's children, and because I was trying to envision what the natural controls on the growth of the nobility are. If there are too many members of the noble class, Tortall's social structure stops working. The King's Own and the Mithran Brothers definitely seem to be meant to control the proliferation of too many noble-class people. At the same time, I wonder about other options like Tortallan noblemen/women choosing to merc abroad. There's that element of "serving another Crown", yet I believe they could get rewarded for such ventures, potentially. My guess would be they could engage in certain trades, but not others. We know Sir Acton of Fenrigh worked in the Watch, after all - a personal guess would be that they could engage in anything that wasn't menial. Side-questions for me: are there any ways to *lose* noble privileges, besides treason or some sort of magistrate penalty? I vaguely recall that Venice had something about certain trades that a noble can't engage in, on pain of losing that status, but I'm not finding the reference immediately. I'm also curious about the status of bastards. I think the current known case is Nestor Haryse, who seems to get on fine with Lord Gershom (and is likely not exactly the black sheep of the family there.) He doesn't seem to have an especially close relation to the Haryses but he's also not exactly ostracised. He seems to be 'acknowledged' in some way, but I suspect the answer to how much noble privilege bastards have will be case-by-case. Oh, and since I'm asking so many questions (sorry! ) I want to throw in the status of the Bazhir. We know that by PotS, Jon created fiefdoms for Bazhir lords in order to introduce them into the ranks of the nobility (q-canon again.) How does that work? Do they then have formal obligations to the Crown the way the nobles do? It seems to me it would ossify Bazhir social structure, since AFAIK, the role of headman is not inherited.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Sept 15, 2020 0:21:25 GMT 10
Yeah, I think between his father being a recently ennobled commoner (with a bit of a sketchy past as King of Thieves, even though I'm not sure that is widely known) and his mother being a female knight who attained that rank by disguising herself as a boy for eight years, I can imagine that Alan of Pirate's Swoop would be in for a ton of snide remarks from other pages rooted in classist and sexist beliefs. So, in some ways, Alan might've been wise to wait to begin page training at the palace until he was older and probably better able to deal with those insults that will doubtlessly be hurled his way.
I could imagine it requiring some form of Crown approval for a fief to change its inheritance laws/customs since that would probably be legally considered a change in the terms under which the lands and titles are held from the Crown, but I do believe it could be possible to do that in some way if the noble currently holding the lands and titles and the Crown are in agreement. I do wonder if in time we'll some savvier noble families who might only allow male inheritance at least make it so that women can inherit in the case that there is no male heir, because really, it has to be better to have the lands and titles pass to a woman of the family than to pass out of the family entirely.
Oh, I had forgotten about Ilane, but she is tied to both Seabeth and Seajen as well as to Mindelan so that's an interesting detail.
I absolutely agree that there must be some controls in place on the noble population of Tortall because the Tortallan quasi-medieval model really only works if a very small percentage of the total population (I'd say five percent or less) belongs to the nobility and maybe another five percent or so could belong to the clergy with the remaining ninety percent or more of the population being, to use the medieval terminology, "those who work." Most of those who work would have to be peasant laborers working in the fields, since Tortall is still seemingly an agrarian, feudal society. Some of those who work could be skilled craftsmen and artisans, merchants, clerks, lower-ranking magistrates, scholars, healers, and even soldiers since Tortall does have a standing army but I imagine that standing army can't be too big especially during times of peace or else the strain on society to support this standing army would be too great.
So, that I think is actually the big catch with many of the reforms that Jon and Thayet are striving to implement. The reforms won't really be successful unless there is a fundamental alteration to the basic structure of society where a bulk of the population is basically without rights toiling to support a minority who enjoy a long list of privileges just by virtue of their birth or inheritance. Like society will need to change into something not feudal and agrarian for many of Jon and Thayet's reforms to really mean anything to most of their subjects. Which is part of the disconnect and incongruity that I think happens when Tammy wants to create some medieval, progressive idyll in Tortall because there is that inherent tension between what reforms are possible without a feudal society reshaping itself into something totally different or else completely collapsing because it's no longer following the feudal model. Like I have the perpetual nagging feeling that Jon and Thayet may be trying to change the world too fast and in not a very sustainable or logically sequenced way. Or at least Tammy doesn't have the time and space to explore the logic in the depth it deserves in the Tortall books.
Moving on from that tangent, I definitely imagine that the King's Own and Mithran monks are meant to be a control on the proliferation of the noble classes.
That's interesting speculation about how nobles might be able to engage in certain trades but not others. I think that the nobility could definitely work in the Watch and if I recall correctly Joren's advocate was Ebroin of Genlith, who might very well have been a latter son and not the heir or lord of the fief. So, from that it would seem that being an advocate would be an acceptable career for some members of the nobility. Perhaps nobles might also serve as stewards for each other's property.
In Tortall, I imagine that it would be difficult to lose nobility and noble privileges (at least how the law would define them rather than the more nebulous social privileges that come with high rank and connections to powerful people) apart from treason or a magistrate penalty although I think that disinheriting someone would cost them their noble rank and privileges. For instance, I think in the Alanna books, Ralon would've lost his noble rank and privileges when the Malven family disowned him as well as likely losing access to the Malven family wealth. So, I think that the threat of disinheritance could be a very real one for noble children if they fail to fall in line with familial expectations. For the Crown itself, I think it would be risky if they were seen as removing nobility and noble privileges without treason or a magistrate penalty because it might be seen as the monarchs breaking the law they are supposed to represent or at the very least going against the tradition that might be seen as having essentially the force of the law depending on how Tortall defines the law. The nobility as a whole might revolt against the royalty if it is judged to be taking away noble titles, lands, and privileges without just cause.
That is also something that I could see potentially varying from country to country: how much power nobles have in relation to the Crown. In Squire, if I recall correctly, how in Maren, the king basically revoked the titles of all his nobles and made them pay through their noses to regain those privileges, whereas I get the impression that this would not be allowed in Tortall. So, Tortall perhaps has some limitations on royalty that make it a bit of a constitutional monarchy rather than a more absolutist monarchy as perhaps exists in Maren. Though that does raise the question of if Tortall has any sort of equivalent to the Magna Carta and if so how and why it was created because I think it would be something that would need to come about when a monarchy is faced with an open revolt from the nobility or some form of civil war? I can't imagine royalty granting such concessions to the nobility otherwise.
I think the status of illegitimate children could vary from family to family with some families perhaps being more accepting and welcoming of them while others might be more inclined to ostracize or not provide for them in any way. I could see some Tortallan noble families providing for their illegitimate children and sort of steering them into respectable careers like happens with Nestor but at the same time not letting the illegitimate children make any sort of formal claim to an inheritance on par with legitimate children. So, I imagine the status of illegitimate children is quite nebulous and depends heavily on the family they are born into. I could also imagine the illegitimate children being targets of sneering or moralizing from some in society because of the nature of their conception and birth.
I honestly find the status of the Bazhir to be full of question marks for me, and the kind of question marks that make me sort of wonder if either 1) Jon isn't thinking things through very well despite all the time he spends learning about Bazhir and their customs in Woman Who Rides like a Man or more likely 2) Tammy isn't thinking through her world-building in great detail with regard to the Bazhir and how they interact with the larger Tortallan society.
In a way, Jon making some of the Bazhir lords and giving them fiefdoms sounds like a simple, hand-waving type solution to a very complicated problem of how the Bazhir can be integrated into the broader framework of a Tortallan society structured in a fundamentally different way than theirs. Yet, because it is so simple and hand-waving it doesn't seem to work when examined beyond a sort of surface level. The Bazhir appear to be a nomadic people, traveling across the desert, so is the desert to be divided into fiefs that belong to different, non-stationary Bazhir lords?
Feudalism evolved out of a society that was decidedly not mobile and longed for stability rather than out of a nomadic culture like the Bazhir. So, fundamentally, the idea of having lords and fiefs is this foreign idea not really compatible with Bazhir values, culture, and social structure being imposed on them by the Tortallans. Which is basically imperialism and colonialism but since it is the Tortallans doing it to the Bazhir, Tammy seems to be largely okay with that. Like as long as it is Jon doing the imperialism and colonialism, it's all good, and no red flags need be raised. Also, if it is the desert being divided up into fiefs, how does Lord Martin feel about his fief being potentially subdivided? Will he receive compensation in some fashion? Are the Bazhir lords somehow beneath him in a legal way? How does Geoffrey feel about his inheritance potentially being divided? Like in all ways this seems to have major issues written all over it.
I think it's most likely that Jon ennobled the Bazhir headsman from each tribe, but that is fraught with the issue that for some if not all Bazhir tribes, the position of headsman is not an inheritable one. So, what happens when the headsman who is also a lord dies? Will the Bazhir be forced to choose the son of that man as their headsman if they don't want to or will there be someone who is headsman but not lord and another person who is lord but not headsman? That would cause division and confusion about various areas of authority among the Bazhir. And if it turns into the position of headsman being inherited like the noble position of a lord, I'd definitely think of that as in many ways being a regression of Bazhir society. Bazhir society as we encounter it in the Alanna books is arguably more democratic and egalitarian than Tortallan society as a whole with all men around the fire seeming to enjoy some input and even a sort of vote, but now Jon is going to try to impose the strict hierarchy and classism of a feudal society on them. So, basically, Bazhir society and governance is basically being required to take a step backward so as to fit in with Tortall's quasi-medieval, feudal government, and Tammy wants to portray that as good, enlightened progress from Jon, and that makes me cringe.
I guess I just think that the treatment of the Bazhir by the Tortallans as a whole is filled with very questionable and problematic stuff that I'm not sure Tammy realizes is problematic instead of progressive and enlightened. And that's why I try to write fanfiction from the Bazhir perspective. To try to explore their view on all the changes in Tortall and their places in them in more detail. Just to delve into some of the problems and complications a bit more and reinforce that there are no easy answers here. Handwaving, simple answers don't really work, and that is perhaps why writing a sort of medieval utopia will always result in some awkward stuff in books.
I hope this post doesn't come across as me being too hard on Tammy. I just have more and more problems with the portrayal of the Bazhir the older I get.
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Hopeless
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Post by Hopeless on Sept 17, 2020 1:53:43 GMT 10
In a way, Jon making some of the Bazhir lords and giving them fiefdoms sounds like a simple, hand-waving type solution to a very complicated problem of how the Bazhir can be integrated into the broader framework of a Tortallan society structured in a fundamentally different way than theirs. Yet, because it is so simple and hand-waving it doesn't seem to work when examined beyond a sort of surface level. The Bazhir appear to be a nomadic people, traveling across the desert, so is the desert to be divided into fiefs that belong to different, non-stationary Bazhir lords? Feudalism evolved out of a society that was decidedly not mobile and longed for stability rather than out of a nomadic culture like the Bazhir. So, fundamentally, the idea of having lords and fiefs is this foreign idea not really compatible with Bazhir values, culture, and social structure being imposed on them by the Tortallans. Which is basically imperialism and colonialism but since it is the Tortallans doing it to the Bazhir, Tammy seems to be largely okay with that. Like as long as it is Jon doing the imperialism and colonialism, it's all good, and no red flags need be raised. Also, if it is the desert being divided up into fiefs, how does Lord Martin feel about his fief being potentially subdivided? Will he receive compensation in some fashion? Are the Bazhir lords somehow beneath him in a legal way? How does Geoffrey feel about his inheritance potentially being divided? Like in all ways this seems to have major issues written all over it. I think it's most likely that Jon ennobled the Bazhir headsman from each tribe, but that is fraught with the issue that for some if not all Bazhir tribes, the position of headsman is not an inheritable one. So, what happens when the headsman who is also a lord dies? Will the Bazhir be forced to choose the son of that man as their headsman if they don't want to or will there be someone who is headsman but not lord and another person who is lord but not headsman? That would cause division and confusion about various areas of authority among the Bazhir. And if it turns into the position of headsman being inherited like the noble position of a lord, I'd definitely think of that as in many ways being a regression of Bazhir society. Bazhir society as we encounter it in the Alanna books is arguably more democratic and egalitarian than Tortallan society as a whole with all men around the fire seeming to enjoy some input and even a sort of vote, but now Jon is going to try to impose the strict hierarchy and classism of a feudal society on them. So, basically, Bazhir society and governance is basically being required to take a step backward so as to fit in with Tortall's quasi-medieval, feudal government, and Tammy wants to portray that as good, enlightened progress from Jon, and that makes me cringe. I thought that maybe the headsman or the one who did special services to the crown had some noble rights but not lands? If the headsman changed, say for Zahir and his father died, Zahir would still have the noble rights but his children wouldn’t. Instead, the new headsman and his family would. The noble right could be things like training for knighthood, treated as a noble by commoners etc., but they wouldn’t get privileges like being untouchable on their own lands, because they don’t have any.[/quote]
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Post by Seek on Sept 20, 2020 5:24:37 GMT 10
In a way, Jon making some of the Bazhir lords and giving them fiefdoms sounds like a simple, hand-waving type solution to a very complicated problem of how the Bazhir can be integrated into the broader framework of a Tortallan society structured in a fundamentally different way than theirs. Yet, because it is so simple and hand-waving it doesn't seem to work when examined beyond a sort of surface level. The Bazhir appear to be a nomadic people, traveling across the desert, so is the desert to be divided into fiefs that belong to different, non-stationary Bazhir lords? Feudalism evolved out of a society that was decidedly not mobile and longed for stability rather than out of a nomadic culture like the Bazhir. So, fundamentally, the idea of having lords and fiefs is this foreign idea not really compatible with Bazhir values, culture, and social structure being imposed on them by the Tortallans. Which is basically imperialism and colonialism but since it is the Tortallans doing it to the Bazhir, Tammy seems to be largely okay with that. Like as long as it is Jon doing the imperialism and colonialism, it's all good, and no red flags need be raised. Also, if it is the desert being divided up into fiefs, how does Lord Martin feel about his fief being potentially subdivided? Will he receive compensation in some fashion? Are the Bazhir lords somehow beneath him in a legal way? How does Geoffrey feel about his inheritance potentially being divided? Like in all ways this seems to have major issues written all over it. I think it's most likely that Jon ennobled the Bazhir headsman from each tribe, but that is fraught with the issue that for some if not all Bazhir tribes, the position of headsman is not an inheritable one. So, what happens when the headsman who is also a lord dies? Will the Bazhir be forced to choose the son of that man as their headsman if they don't want to or will there be someone who is headsman but not lord and another person who is lord but not headsman? That would cause division and confusion about various areas of authority among the Bazhir. And if it turns into the position of headsman being inherited like the noble position of a lord, I'd definitely think of that as in many ways being a regression of Bazhir society. Bazhir society as we encounter it in the Alanna books is arguably more democratic and egalitarian than Tortallan society as a whole with all men around the fire seeming to enjoy some input and even a sort of vote, but now Jon is going to try to impose the strict hierarchy and classism of a feudal society on them. So, basically, Bazhir society and governance is basically being required to take a step backward so as to fit in with Tortall's quasi-medieval, feudal government, and Tammy wants to portray that as good, enlightened progress from Jon, and that makes me cringe. I thought that maybe the headsman or the one who did special services to the crown had some noble rights but not lands? If the headsman changed, say for Zahir and his father died, Zahir would still have the noble rights but his children wouldn’t. Instead, the new headsman and his family would. The noble right could be things like training for knighthood, treated as a noble by commoners etc., but they wouldn’t get privileges like being untouchable on their own lands, because they don’t have any. Here, Pierce says: I like your idea of noble privileges transferring to headmen and their direct progeny while they're headmen, but not being retracted. I don't know about land, and I think you're right that maybe they don't have lands, because I could've sworn that Fief Meron gets the entire Great Southern Desert, and carving up Lord Martin's fief to split among the Bazhir doesn't seem very promising in terms of how nobles would react.
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