Slavery

[sun-star]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
Monarchies are one form of slavery, for example. Monarchies were a form of government that very broadly existed until very recently. They were one of the forms of government that worked best. Rejecting slavery could be seen as rejecting this form of government. But not only this form of government, completely, either.

I was waiting for a lull in the discussion to bring this up. What form of monarchy are you referring to here? Monarchy and dictatorship are not synonymous, and democracy is not the opposite of monarchy - they can co-exist quite well. I think your definition of slavery is restriction on freedom, to a greater or lesser extent, and you made the point that laws are the means of restricting this freedom. To the best of my knowledge, countries with a monarchial system of government don't have more laws than republics (and I feel that if they do, I should be informed ).

Autocracies, on the other hand, often have many of the characteristics you suggest monarchies have - primarily lack of democracy. I wonder if that was the model of monarchy you were thinking of?

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
It's late, and I'm tired, so I might not get my thoughts across well, but here's what I meant, HOBBIT -

I read something once along the lines of (roughly) "the trouble with being a slave is that when you've been forced by others to do things for so long, when you're finally free, you can lose the power to force yourself."

C.S. Lewis, "The Horse and His Boy" is at least one place that has that thought in those words , though I'm sure it's been said at other times as well.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by sun-star
I was waiting for a lull in the discussion to bring this up. What form of monarchy are you referring to here? Monarchy and dictatorship are not synonymous, and democracy is not the opposite of monarchy - they can co-exist quite well. I think your definition of slavery is restriction on freedom, to a greater or lesser extent, and you made the point that laws are the means of restricting this freedom. To the best of my knowledge, countries with a monarchial system of government don't have more laws than republics (and I feel that if they do, I should be informed ).

True monarchies are based on serfdom. The Kng owns everything and gives out land to his supporters. These lords (earls, dukes, etc) then have sefs to do the work. They were unpaid generally and lived in near slave conditions and serfs had no say in government or anything. The Magna Carta - which was forced on King John (formerly Prince John as in Robin Hood) - only protected the lords from King John's constant taxation and so forth. It did not bring any rights to the common man of England. It was to protect the rights of the lords and give them more of a say in the government - such as by setting up parliament. England was a serfdom as was most of Europe. The monarchies of today are not true monarchies.

[Rían]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
C.S. Lewis, "The Horse and His Boy" is at least one place that has that thought in those words , though I'm sure it's been said at other times as well.

That's exactly the place I was thinking of - I just finished reading it to my kids a few weeks ago, and I thought it was a great section Aslan had to use fear to get them to run faster so they could save Archenland. I've also heard several excellent sermons on it, in the context of the verse saying how we were formerly slaves to sin, and we have to learn how to live free (use our freedom for helping others, for example, not to only help ourselves).

You have a good memory! I bet it's been a few years since you read that book, right?

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

JD... wow... I don’t mean to be unkind, but there’s just no way to address all the inaccuracies and misconceptions in your last post. I won’t even attempt it, so I’ll just give you a list of some good books for you to read at your leisure:

Southern, R.W. The Making of the Middle Ages. New York, 1953.
Ganshof, F. The Middle Ages; A History of International Relations. New York, 1970.
Ault, W.O. The Self-Directing Activities of Village Communities in Medieval England. Boston, 1952.
Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. Annales d’histoire economique et sociale, 1934.
Homans, G.C. English villagers of the Thirteenth Century. New York, 1960.
White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford, 1962.
Coulton, G. Medieval Village, Manor and Monastery. New York 1960.

There is an excellent essay on-line that would clear up many of your misconceptions about medieval manoralism by Paul Vinogradoff, Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History.

A small excerpt for those of you who don’t want to wade through the whole essay:

And now I come to the most intricate and important part of the subject -- to the civil rights and disabilities of the villain. After what has been said of the villain in other respects, one may be prepared to find that his disabilities were by no means so complete as the strict operation of general rules would have required. The villain was able in many cases to do valid civil acts, to acquire property and to defend it in his own name. It is true that, both in theory and in practice, it was held that whatever was acquired by the bondman was acquired by the lord. The bondman could not buy anything but with his lord's money, as he had no money or chattels of his own.* But the working of these rules was limited by the medieval doctrine of possession. Land or goods acquired by the serf do not eo ipso lapse into his lord's possession, but only if the latter has taken them into his hand.* If the lord has not done so for any reason, for want of time, or carelessness, or because he did not choose to do so, the bondman is as good as the owner in respect of third persons. He can give away* or otherwise alienate land or chattels, he has the assize of novel disseisin to defend the land, and leaves the assize of mort d'ancestor to his heirs. In this case it would be no good plea to object that the plaintiff is a villain. In fact this objection can be raised by a third person only with the addition that, as villain, the plaintiff does not hold in his own name, but in the name of his lord.* A third person cannot except against a plaintiff merely on the ground of his personal status. As to third persons, a villain is said to be free and capable to sue all actions.* This of course does not mean that he has any action for recovering or defending his possession of the tenements which he holds in villainage, but this disability is no consequence of his servile blood, for he shares it with the free man who holds in villainage; it is a consequence of the doctrine that the possession of the tenant in villainage is in law the possession of him who has the freehold. It may be convenient for a villain as defendant to shelter himself behind the authority of his lord,* and it was difficult to prevent him from doing so, although some attempts were made by the courts even in this case to distinguish whether a person had been in possession as a dependant or not. But there was absolutely nothing to prevent a villain from acting in every respect like a free man if he was so minded and was not interrupted by his lord. There was no need of any accessory action to make his acts complete and legal.* Again we come to an anomaly: the slave is free against everybody but his lord.

The lord's power of dealing with the land [is subject] to a condition -- non-performance of services.* There can be no question as to the importance of such a view; it contains, as it were, the germ of copyhold tenure.* It places villainage substantially on the same footing as freehold, which may also be forfeited by discontinuance of the services, although the procedure for establishing a forfeiture in that case would be a far more elaborate one.

Everywhere we come across remnants of a state of things in which one portion at least of the servile class had civil rights as well as duties in regard to the lord.

Regards,
Dave

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Guillaume le Maréchal
JD... wow... I don’t mean to be unkind, but there’s just no way to address all the inaccuracies and misconceptions in your last post. I won’t even attempt it, so I’ll just give you a list of some good books for you to read at your leisure:

I have also studied the middle ages. It's not inaccurate as much as it is simplified history. What rights did the common man have under the monarchy? Not even a younger son had anything to look forward to - that's why they went into the monastary. I will agree that my statement of "near slave conditions" was probably inaccurate. What I meant by that - was they didn't have that many rights. They lived very poorly and worked the land of the earls and dukes.

I had studied the Plantagent line very deeply. That is where they TRUE monarchy reigned. It got watered down after King John was forced to agree to the Magna Carta.

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

I’ll admit if you are looking for “rights� during the medieval period, as in our modern notion of rights, it would be a fruitless search. On the other hand, it would be especially beneficial to take a look at Ault’s book that I listed above. What the “common man� and woman had in the manorial system was a large measure of security, provided not so much by the strong arm of a noble, but by a community of mutual support, in return for a life of hard work. This might appear a rather bleak picture, and in many ways it was. Medieval society was not filled with all our modern technologies and niceties, especially in the face of war, famine and plague.

However, these communities were able to thrive despite these things mainly because of their communal character. There is much we moderns could learn from this model, especially in light of atomic individualism and personal isolationism. Neighbors in the manorial system knew each other thoroughly and depended on each other in a spirit of cooperation hardly fathomable in our self-interested culture of the “me.� As far as time off goes, medieval villagers had more days off per year than I do with my current job. True democracy was the norm at village by-laws, and villagers were for the most part able to direct their own activities and the regulation of their obligations. Examples of jurisprudence from the period indicates that villains possessed surprisingly extensive “rights� in regard to holding land, defending his or her claims to land, and the ability to pass on holdings to children. Villagers loved, courted, and got married with a much higher degree of freedom than those of noble blood. They were given recourse to defend themselves in courts of law when they were slandered or injured, and even had a measure of recourse concerning the manor lord and his staff. The manorial system was at its best when the manor lord was actually present on a regular basis, for his success was directly dependent on the success of those who worked his lands. Toward the waning of the medieval period, when landed nobles increasingly lived apart from the lands they held, we see the manorial system degenerating into abusive relationships.

In regards to the emergence of sixteenth century capitalist farming in England, R.H. Tawney observed: “Villeinage ceases but the Poor Laws begin.� But don’t take my word for it. Those books are great!

--Dave

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
That's exactly the place I was thinking of - I just finished reading it to my kids a few weeks ago, and I thought it was a great section Aslan had to use fear to get them to run faster so they could save Archenland. I've also heard several excellent sermons on it, in the context of the verse saying how we were formerly slaves to sin, and we have to learn how to live free (use our freedom for helping others, for example, not to only help ourselves).

You have a good memory! I bet it's been a few years since you read that book, right?

Last week

[Sheeana]

Originally posted by Guillaume le Maréchal
... so I’ll just give you a list of some good books for you to read at your leisure:

Southern, R.W. The Making of the Middle Ages. New York, 1953.
Ganshof, F. The Middle Ages; A History of International Relations. New York, 1970.
Ault, W.O. The Self-Directing Activities of Village Communities in Medieval England. Boston, 1952.
Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. Annales d’histoire economique et sociale, 1934.
Homans, G.C. English villagers of the Thirteenth Century. New York, 1960.
White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford, 1962.
Coulton, G. Medieval Village, Manor and Monastery. New York 1960.

I never did history at uni, but I did do Ancient History, and a general rule of thumb was to never use texts before the 1970s... Dunno if the same is applicable to Historical texts, but I'll assume so.

[Rían]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Last week

Oh, how funny!

Narnia and the North!

[Rían]

Originally posted by Sheeana
I never did history at uni, but I did do Ancient History, and a general rule of thumb was to never use texts before the 1970s... Dunno if the same is applicable to Historical texts, but I'll assume so.

Chronological snobbery! Pish!!

[Sheeana]

Snobbery my arse - most of those texts that predated the 70s were badly out of date.

[Lizra]

I have to agree with Sheeana here. Think of some of the funky stuff that was totally accepted pre 70's. Sexism, (big time ) racism, environmental arogance. Many things were often analyzed in a one sided spin, I'm getting hives just thinking about it! Just my opinion, of course.

[GrayMouser]

It's generally better to use up to date sources, simply because they build on the foundations laid by their predecessors.

OTOH, you can get caught up in whatever current trends are sweeping the field- less of a danger the "harder" the subject.

Of the names I recognize on the list, Marc Bloch was one of the founders of the Annales school of history, among the first to study economic and social history based on the actual documents (local registers etc). Incidentally, he joined the French Resistance (he was Jewish) and was executed by the Nazis.

Lynn White I'm prejudiced in favour of, as I did a term paper on "Medieval Technology and Social Change"; again, someone who really opened up a field by integrating isolated approaches.
I'm certainly not up to date in the cutting edge of medieval studies, but I'd still recommend it as a good introduction-especially if you're interested in stirrups, horse collars and beans.

[Rían]

*hee hee, I got her* Luv ya, Sheeana! Park that arse back in a comfy chair in your lovely new home and settle down!

There's no reason to toss a book simply because of when it was written (and I note that you did use the modifier "general", which was good, IMHO), unless it is in a scientific-type field where more advanced techniques have definitely proved previous conclusions to be in error. However, I don't think more advanced techniques have proved the medieval ages to be an illusion or anything like that , and a well-written and informative book that may be 50 years old may still remain a well-written and informative book 50 years later (again, IMHO). And as Mouser pointed out, "you can get caught up in whatever current trends are sweeping the field...", so it would probably be very valuable to read books from various eras to get a fuller (is that a word?) picture of things. IMHO, of course (my, I'm 'umble today, ain't I? Just like Uriah Heep!)

It continues to astound me, BTW, that Jane Austen wrote her masterpieces almost 200 years ago, and they are bright, brillliant and very up-to-date (excluding things like clothes, of course).

[Rían]

Lizra - I like you You've been a great pleasure to post with! I hope I don't irritate you too much There are many ways that I wish I was more like you. I don't particularly like the way I am But I guess I just have to work with who I am and try to do my best.

That's a good point you have about sexism, racism, etc., but I think that there are some erroneous POVs unique to our times that WE have that people 50 years ago would have warned against, and that affect the books that we write today. I still think that a book written 50 years ago, about medieval times, may be an excellent book.


GrayMouser, your knowledge continues to astound me ... (and I like you, too, BTW, and you've been a great pleasure to post with! Now why were you re-reading Narnia?)

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

Originally posted by Sheeana
I never did history at uni, but I did do Ancient History, and a general rule of thumb was to never use texts before the 1970s... Dunno if the same is applicable to Historical texts, but I'll assume so.

It must not. Take a look at some bibliographies in these articles: De Re Militari.

Charles Haskins still inspires and causes argument even though he wrote The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century in 1927! Ganshoff remains the force to be reckoned with in medieval studies, and a good many dissertations are still fueled by his conclusions. Exactly how can anyone do medieval studies without reading White, Bloch or Cantor, all of whom wrote substantially before 1970?

Edit:More contemporary writers do exist. General surveys are provided by Joseph and France Gies, who between them have written over 20 books dealing with the medieval period. I love their work, however, it is pretty much a reflection and summation of the work of previous historians with little or no new insights on the primary sources. Norman Cantor has done a lot after 1970, but the guy is pretty much a hack. Susan Reynold’s work with the primary sources is good, but she is mostly a reaction to the interpretations of, once again, previous historians. Bachrach is an excellent historian whose work is very fresh, but he is limited to military history. P.W. Hammond wrote an interesting book Food and Feast in Medieval England, published in the late 90s. Maurice Keen has books published in the 80s and 90s, and his book Chivalry is really pretty good, but his work is only indirectly apropos to manoralism.

It is best to approach archeology with the most recently published material. Also, there has been an explosion of recent military history in the past two decades. However, the historical interpretations applied in the most recent past are mostly reactions to previous historians. But the real issue in regards to JD’s post revolves around “feudalism� and manoralism and the best place to start is Ganshof who is important in redefining feudalism in contradiction to the Marxist historical interpretation that JD is hinting at, and for highlighting the fact that feudalism and manoralism are two different things. To mention Susan Reynolds in connection to this, who is the most recent voice that I can think of on this issue, would be muddying the water because her treatment is nothing more than a reaction to Ganshof.

The best thing to do, really, is to read the primary sources for yourself, and thanks to ORB, much is available in translation on line.

BTW, I have never in my life “officially� studied medieval history. My postgraduate education was in dogmatic theology (and, btw, I don’t remember ever being limited to post 1970 sources that were apropos to my research... thankfully, because Vatican II was pre-1970... it would be strange, indeed, to dispel Vatican II as antiquated in the field of Catholic theology). My reading regarding medieval history and culture is a hobby surrounding historical re-enactment and experimentation, and perhaps as a catalyst for my thinking regarding morality and Christian social teaching.

--Dave

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

Think of some of the funky stuff that was totally accepted pre 70's.

Yeah, that Tolkien guy really gets on my nerves!

[Valandil]

Don't trust any book over 30?

[Ornelírë Mistë]

um, she said text books, not just any book