Between the fall of the roman empire and the enlightenment is a pretty broad time period, and my question is pretty general, so I'll try to word it as best as I can.
It seems to me, that as far as laws went there were far fewer, and people were more free in most domains. Excepting blasphemy and stealing from nobility it seems like the government pretty much left you alone. In fact it seems like there wasn't really a government in the sense of there being a public entity like there is today. It seems like people had great respect for private property and that kingdoms were considered private property of the kings/local lords.
I made most of these assumptions from reading The Prince and The Black Arrow, which was fictional. I don't know much about this time period, but I'm really interested in what was a typical worldview around this time.
So anything anyone knows, or any theories anyone has I would be interested to read.
You're entirely at the behest of whatever noble/king/town boss is ruling over you. I'm sure some were benevolent but it was basically like the mafia. Either pay your taxes or get your farm taken away and your kneecaps broken.
Bad crop yield this season? Fuck you, pay me.
Entire family contracted a plague? Fuck you, pay me.
Footmen from the village down the road looted your stores? Fuck you, pay me.
Don't forget that a big component of government are the watchdog agencies making sure the executive plays by the rules.
Asher Richardson
a good dichotomy you can use is survival values vs decadent values
in the middle ages, what kept you from getting killed or starving to death was good. thus, marrying young was good. preserving virginity was good. killing your enemy was good.
this seems to be a scheme that applies universally.
today we have fulfillment/hedonic values. whatever brings pleasure is good, sometimes up to and beyond the point of hurting people to get what you want. modern riots are a good example o this "I WANT it, and it makes me pleasure, therefore it's good, and you can't kill rioters."
enforcement of medieval law was spread out among all people because survival generally entailed the same thing for all people. no stealing, no promiscuous sex (which could lead to starvation,) so centralized law wasn't needed.
centralized law only came to be necessary once disparate values for "what makes someone feel good" had to be universally enforced by gunpoint.
that said, the world wasn't kinder back then. you could do whatever you could get away with. private property of kings wasn't off the table for theft, it's just that it eventually evolved into an equilibrium of hostage negotiations being more valuable than outright murder between competitors.
read about nash equilibria n competetive games. medieval dynamisc cold be adequately framed in such terms
Elijah Carter
a lord could be more easily killed by his own citizens than by a rival lord.
lords were lords because they were killers, let's nt mince words, but so are modern day presidents, even the democrats.
taxes were extremely hard to collect until the late feudal period. they could incite rebellions, they could starve your peasantry and reduce future yields (this was more common among stupid sand niggers than among whites, who are capable of thinking about the future) there was also the matter of your tax collectors stealing from YOU.
history isn't a grimdark fantasy. as time went on, people slowly became nicer and evolved institutions of trust. the church helped a great deal in this
Jordan Lee
Any specific reading recommendations, what you're answering is kind of what I was getting at
Ian Howard
I'm not disputing most of that, but they're called the DARK ages for a reason. Society took a giant leap backwards. The Romans killed the republic in favor of dogma and mythos, and it's all the orphaned children of the empire knew once it collapsed.
survival values: carlyle is a good author, but he is prose and hard to break into. if you want more background on the dichotomy, I believe anthropologists look at it a lot, though they're inherently left wing, extremely, so I don't reccomend more than an overview
law enforcement schemes: this is some mathematical stuff, even though it seems social. you could look into proof of work schemes as they apply to market information or evolutionary schemes. they have pretty concrete formulas.
centralization: no specific authors. this is more traditional history compared to the other fields, which are just as important, but were less well understood until the 80s.
Jack Green
based gif
Jaxon Collins
So what exactly did the nobles do with all that grain they collected as tax anyway? Sit on it? Sell it to independent cities?
Eli Johnson
Your entire argument falls apart when you look at the simple fact that the systems and attitudes we have today are far better at ensuring survival than any other in history. Feudal Systems were and are much worse at ensuring survival of both individuals and polities in general.
Thomas Gray
it was called the dark ages because communication broke down and trade networks stopped functioning.
we have little reason to believe it was particularly more violent than any period before. in fact, executions during the period rose, because without such stark class distinctions or the ability of people to buy out courts, violent criminals were simply executed. violent crime was treated somewhat leniently under rome in order to "calm" ethnic tensions and class distinctions, which probably exacerbated long term problems.
we have every reason t obelieve that after a couple hundred years of routine executions, the majority of the bad blood had been removed from the gene pool, and outside of war, which itself was limited in scope, people basically didn't hurt each other much
Xavier Miller
>confusing technology enabling survival with a cultural system that enables survival >being this stupid >2016
Asher Thomas
That's wrong though, murder rates were sky high through the middle ages and are now in fact at historic lows.
Luis Rivera
Read Bertrand de Jouvenel, OP, "On Power" is all about how Government as centralized authorities came to be.
>kingdoms were considered private property of the kings/local lords
You see, this is wrong. Local lords, and not even kings, could not really do as they pleased with their lands. Medieval property rights was all about rights. A noble had a right to the uses of a land, and sometimes he could sell these rights, but not the land itself, it didn't belong to him like nowadays it belongs to a private owner.
I like this quote from a Discworld novel, its numbered "rights" are all fictional, but it represents typical medieval mentality towards rights and liberties.
>“It’s gone too far this time,” said a peasant. “All this burning and taxing and now this. I blame you witches. It’s got to stop. I know my rights.”
>“What rights are they?” said Granny.
>“Dunnage, cowhage-in-ordinary, badinage, leftovers, scrommidge, clary and spunt,” said the peasant promptly. “And acornage, every other year, and the right to keep two-thirds of a goat on the common. Until he set fire to it. It was a bloody good goat, too.”
Ethan Nguyen
>the majority of the bad blood had been removed from the gene pool why does it always come crawling back to muh genetics whenever uneducated idiots form an opinion about ANYTHING?
Chase Thompson
>Implying that technological and economic growth did not result from things like the enlightenment that replaced inefficient old ways with new better ones that enabled the invention and application of new technologies and philosophies. >wants to suck his kings dick on command in 2016
Isaac Harris
we have detailed records from the later periods. in the late middle ages the murder rate was lower than it is today. keep in mind that back then, a murder attempt almost always became a murder in fact, whereas today we have "manslaughter" "attempted manslaughter" becuase police interfere, and simply better medical technology.
stop learning meme history
we also have detailed records of crime from the middle chinese and japanese periods, and their murder rate is about what it is today.
there's nothing inherently violent about feudalism. "muh poverty" doesn't cause murder.
good post. I also reccomend de jouvenel, but he isn't light reading.
Gabriel Morgan
It depends. Under our current system and attitudes, most human beings cannot grow and harvest plants, hunt and skin animals, do basic metalwork, raise and butcher animals for meat and also their non-meat products. Even abilities that were common 50 years ago, like basic tool knowledge, carpentry, basic self-suficiency and basic kitchen chemistry are becoming rarer.
Which is all fine as long as our current system keeps going on. But the first crisis, with the fragile human beings we have, will make the collapse of the Soviet Union look like a walk in the park.
Jonathan Watson
>Says not to quote meme history >Quotes the memest of memes that "In the old days things weren't violent like today!" When in fact we have detailed records showing how low both murder in particular and violent crime in general have plummeted since the 90's and were falling for a long time before the spike in the 70's-80's.
Oliver Butler
Americans read at an eighth grade level and society is built around their needs.
I have friends that eat only microwave dinners, and I have friends who think it's "really complicated" to cut sugar out of their diet.
We're fucked.
Andrew Bell
the murder rate was about 7 times higher in the sixties. we elected reagan, who threw that famous "half" of black males in prison, or whatever it was, and the crime rate plummeted to where it is now.
and somehow this proves that the medieval age was super violent between neighbor peasants, and that no punishment for criminals is necessary because we're "enlightened"
Matthew Parker
>the murder rate was about 7 times higher in the sixties. we elected reagan, who threw that famous "half" of black males in prison, or whatever it was, and the crime rate plummeted to where it is now.
Oh come the fuck on. There are a huge range o socio-political factors relating to the drop in violent crime. Might as well try to pin it all on the legalization of abortion or something.
Jeremiah Stewart
>we have detailed records from the later periods. in the late middle ages the murder rate was lower than it is today. keep in mind that back then, a murder attempt almost always became a murder in fact, whereas today we have "manslaughter" "attempted manslaughter" becuase police interfere, and simply better medical technology. >we also have detailed records of crime from the middle chinese and japanese periods, and their murder rate is about what it is today.
Call me crazy, but I'm going to call any such claims spurious, considering that attempts to effectively pin down crime rates even in the modern age are questionable due to the nature of such records (anything based on reported crimes and arrests is inherently faulty due to the possibility of crimes not being reported or prosecuted).
Cooper Martin
>the thinks murder is correlated to "socioeconomic" factors, when he really just means income and RAYYYYCIS >income has zero correlation to murder >people making pennies in the third world murder less than americans in the city >he thinks abortion isn't connected to the murder rate
Justin Carter
>people making pennies in the third world murder less than americans in the city
Less reported and prosecuted murder, big difference.
>he thinks abortion isn't connected to the murder rate
I never said it wasn't, you fucking piece of shit.
Owen Harris
>implying a person in the hospital with a gunshot wound is a nonreported crime
Alexander Gomez
Dude this stuff is open public knowledge, the crime rate was terrible during Reagan and only went back to it's normal trajectory during the nineties. You can find this information on friggin wikipedia if your that lazy, or find one of the innumerable academic sources on the subject. It also has nothing to do with being "enlightened" it has to do with us having a powerful centralized rule of law that exists to a much greater degree to serve the needs of the people instead of the aristocracy. A lot of murder in pre-modern times was "self-help justice" that resulted from there being so little rule of law to redress grievances that people often had no way to redress a perceived wrong other tan by taking into their own bloody hands which because of a lack of governmental presence meant there were also a lot less disincentives to doing so.
Michael Hernandez
>A lot of murder in pre-modern times was "self-help justice" that resulted from there being so little rule of law to redress grievances that people often had no way to redress a perceived wrong other tan by taking into their own bloody hands sssh don't tell him that. before big gubmen came everybody followed the NAP and followed libertarian principles of free trade and true capitalism™ facilitating an era of prosperity never seen since.
Jose Watson
I imagine most of it was used to feed soldiers.
Nicholas Campbell
Sometimes, this "centralized rule of law" and lack of propensity for blood feuds in the West causes even more crime and injustice.
Case in point, the whole grooming gangs of England wouldn't be able to operate for decades, submitting tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of girls to sexual slavery if local people just engaged in a vendetta against the Pakistani community from time to time.
Which is why no one tries this shit in Corsica, and why ISIS greatest fear is the Italian Mafia.
Christian Brooks
90% of people today survive stab wounds and shootings from small arms due purely to medical technology
the number of people suffering attack with a lethal weapon has skyrocketed. looking at only the murder rate, and saying you can ignore the actual numbers because you have a "theoretical framework" is a fool's errand
Jaxon Long
don't worry user, the pakistani child grooming rings in england aren't counted by the crime statistics, so he can still go on believing that this is the safest time to be alive
I bet he saw a samurai movie once too, and some people died in it, so that means medieval japan was super dangerous too.
he watched a movie, so I'm sure he's correct.
Thomas Lopez
>This week on Deadlieat Warrior >ISIS vs The Italian Mafia
Caleb Peterson
The most laughable notion of "enlightened" modern men is that thanks to egalitarian democracy and the rule of law men of power no longer have discretionary power, that the epitome of tyranny and self-serving rule was the medieval aristocrat and that now we, common people, are closer to the lever of power. Nothing could be further from the truth. The medieval aristocrat had his powers limited by all kinds of networks and compromises of mutual loyalty with his servants, and had no other way of enforcing his will than a bunch of armed knights. He walked among his men, the peasant could see him on the field, on the church or during a town fair.
The man of power nowadays stands so much above us that he can more easily be likened to a god. Closed in a gated community, protected by entire private armies. We don't even know who rule us. Hillary Clinton is the probable next President of the United States, but do we really believe that the most powerful person in the world is going to be some sick old woman? No, someone more powerful is behind her, but we don't know who. The age of enlightenment and transparence is also the age of secret societies.
"But the rule of law serves the interest of the people, not the aristocracy". Don't make me laugh. Gilles de Rais was condemned and hanged for his crimes. Meanwhile in the enlightened modern world, the entire elites of countries like UK and Belgium have been accused of pedophilia (see the Marc Dutroux case, so much for the rule of law). Nothing will ever happen. We are completely at the mercy of the powerful.
At least the medieval noble could be killed with a scythe.
Nathan Carter
>ISIS greatest fear is the Italian Mafia. why would they? Sicilian cosa nostra and Calabrian ndrangetta are the biggest profiteers of muslim human trafficking into europe
I think Islamic terrorists don't want to provoke people who will respond with violence? It's all nice and fine to attack French and Belgians who will just light candles and sing imagine, but imagine attacking Naples and in the next day you have the Camorra with a vendetta on you and your people.
Ryan Gonzalez
shhh, people without nuance might hear you
if you keep talking they might eventually realize that there are different models for bureaucracies, kings, and democracies that have divergent outcomes
NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS. EVERYTHING THAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IS A UNIFORM KIND OF GREY THING THAT WAS SHITTY. DON'T WORRY, NUANCE IS A DIVINE QUALITY THAT PRESIDENT LBJ SIGNED INTO EXISTENCE. EVERYTHING BEFORE THAT WAS ALWAYS BAD FOR THE SAME REASON.
Lucas Johnson
But the mafia are 100% the reason Palermo is crawling with Africans and Muslims you dolt. All the mafia cares about is making their money ferrying them from Libya into Sicily and if you think they'd risk exposure and prison time by "responding" to a Muslim terrorist attack you're a naive idiot.
Dominic Foster
...as opposed to attacking the United States, that will wipe out both your entire nation, and three other nations that didn't have anything to do with it, just for good measure?
Chase Mitchell
As far as I understand it it worked like this; farmers reap the harvest, pay the lord's tax and keep the rest for themselves to live on, what was taken in tax is then divided up to feed the court and nobles, the army, and the rest is stored for winter.
Then the emergency stores could be tapped into if a harvest was particularly bad and there wasn't enough to eat come winter or if a war was declared and you needed to feed the levied troops.
I may be wrong though its been a long fucking time since I've brushed up on medieval feudalism
Justin Evans
>I'm sure some were benevolent but it was basically like the mafia. Either pay your taxes or get your farm taken away and your kneecaps broken. so like the gobernment today, which takes your money and put you in a cell for years
Owen Brooks
I see you ignored the fact I included "violent crime" which includes attempted murder but of course acknowledging reality would be inconvenient for you.
Nathaniel Kelly
>Nuance >Says the man clamoring for a big strong man to make all the bad people go away like a fairy tale.
Ayden Cox
Shhhhhh
Angel Cooper
Pretty much, getting rid of Monarchy was a mistake.
Blake Brown
>we have detailed records from the later periods. in the late middle ages the murder rate was lower than it is today. keep in mind that back then, a murder attempt almost always became a murder in fact, whereas today we have "manslaughter" "attempted manslaughter" becuase police interfere, and simply better medical technology. That's bullshit though. Murder rates in Late Medieval Europe are absurdly high compared to modern Europe.
Gavin James
>Case in point, the whole grooming gangs of England wouldn't be able to operate for decades If they were killing people they wouldn't have been able to operate.
>ISIS greatest fear is the Italian Mafia. ISIS' greatest fear is the united states air force and the hordes of angry Shi'a PMUs coming to rape them in the ass. The could not give less of a fuck about the mafia.
except that's literally the opposite of what people are saying ITT you dolt.
end yourself you memelord
So many retards in this thread.
Jacob Sanchez
Can at least one person arguing about the nebulous murder rates of medieval europe provide a source? God damn. This could be settled so easily.
