From peasant to king

this
only way for a peasant to get any knowledge

Either join the church and get lucky or join the military and get really really lucky. Depending on the place you might be able to worm your way into academia or commerce but you usually already needed money or nobility for that.

Even then the most successful would usually be servants of the nobility and very rarely get rank themselves.

trade, gather materials from in and around your village, make something then go to the town to sell it, if you can make a profit, expand, maybe move to the town and hope you don't die of the many diseases there

next step would be to feign being a gentleman, possibly requiring many hours learning how to read and saving money to buy fine clothing

now you can be a hanger on, selling goods to the nobility at court or accompanying a merchant on a voyage, you should try to impress them, but they will always take the lion's share of whatever it is you are doing, you have to have a little nest egg of your own

there aren't many reliable banking services and burying your gold somewhere or leaving it with someone you "trust" is risky, you need patronage, which is why you need to be a cuckold and try to prove you are indispensible in the hope you might get land and approval from your patron and the nobility in general, if he dies you will have to start over again

if you manage to gain status and can accumulate capital the next stage is to buy land and marry a fat lady, here you have to swallow your pride for your dream, maintain strong connections to the family you married and the aristocracy in general, your life will be like "keeping up with the joneses" on steroids because that is how you stop the wolves from sensing weakness, pouncing and taking your wealth

>

what

Killing bandit parties with only you and your hero companions.

>Be woman
>Large tits and hips
>Kill prince's wife and take her place
Basically have the best cunt in the land.

An example doesn't contradict a concept.

>5th century Rome
>Feudalism
That's it I am out of this thread.

>you don't own the land
>agriculture on subsistence level
>trade
good one.

A mix of ruthlessness, strength, instability, and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is down to luck.

Take Basil I as an example. Some peasant born in Macedonia, spent his childhood as a Bulgarian captive. Escaped to Thrace, and entered the service of someone loosely related to the Imperial family. Finds himself a wealthy lady-friend who gives him some money, and got the emperor's attention by winning a wrestling match and becoming a personal bodyguard. Convinced the emperor his uncle was scheming against him, murdered his uncle, got himself appointed co-emperor, enforced his will over his younger colleague, murdered him, and then ruled in his own right.

>implying the Romans didn't become the OG feudal society

Constantine started the whole meme. Obviously it developed differently in western Europe but a lot of the same concepts existed in the east by Justinian's time.

win tournaments to earn gold and renown. use the gold to invest in businesses to make more gold and then use that profit to hire a standing army and then declare war. Done

By working really really hard and saving up as much money as possible, then sending your kids to university and making sure they work really hard and save up as much money as possible and send their kids to university etc.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paston_Letters

No. Feudalism is just old Germanic societal system with christianity and more bureaucracy.

I would try to get a job in the construction of cathedrals or palaces, those were skilled workers and respected

>en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paston_Letters
>owned land

That's what I love about Feudal Japan, the old Germanic societal system with Christianity and more bureaucracy.

There is no such thing as feudal Japan.

Your point?

The same way poor people get really rich. Work really hard and get really lucky.

>starting out as a peasant in the feudal world
>owning land
Doesn't really conform to OP's parameters. You'd have to be pretty lucky to be a peasant and not pay rent.

One way to do it would have been to move into some frontier zone and to establish yourself there as one of the highly sought after pioneers in trade and agricultural activities; such opportunities were available to industrious men during High Middle Ages for example in Iberia, German Marches, Poland, Hungary, Wales, Occitania, Livonia...

OPs parameters are vague at best. A certain amount of luck is of course going to be required in going from poor to rich, just like today and land ownership is going to inevitably occur at some point in that transition. Clement Paston was still a peasant. They were all peasants until several generations in when they started to get knighted thanks to thier political connections.

Thing is, Paston was a lucky peasant. Your argument basically starts out saying that the best way to achieve renown is to be born lucky. You could just leave it at that, really.

Become a military slave and prove yourself until you can become king.

Worked for Baibars.

"Feudal Japan" is a meme and is in no way similar to the Feudal system of Medieval Europe. The proper term is the Sengoku Jidai.

In the Pastons case, its more a case of start lucky, work hard to stay lucky and then ensure that your kids get a head start so they don't have to be lucky.

Yeah, you have to get lucky.

You don't achieve this. You literally just get lucky. This answer is rather useless to OP's question.

Well no shit he was lucky. If you look at any historical figure who achieved something exceptional there's almost universally an element of good fortune somewhere in there.

Plenty of hard working people have failed because they didn't get a lucky break.

The point is he provided an example, it's gonna be pretty hard to find an example where they were completely luckless.

Joining the church would make you ineligible in more cases from possessing from possessing noble titles. Joining the clergy is what the non-firstborn sons of nobles did to try to make a good living for themselves if distinguishing themselves in war was not an option, or the choice of the intelligent/studious peasant. Plus the whole celibacy thing is a problem when your entire power structure depends of siring legitimate heirs.

Well then OP will be disappointed, because luck plays a massive part in anyone becoming rich and powerful, today or in the middle ages. Paston just made sure he took the best advantage of his luck and worked hard until he and his kids didn't have to rely on luck.

I'm sure there are hundreds of other cases of lucky peasants just like Clement Paston, only we don't know about them except as vague entries in dry old court and coroners records, because they got lucky once and then pissed it all away instead of founding a dynasty that would claw it's way up the social ranks.

>CTRL+F Church only 3 hits

Dammit Veeky Forums

probably become a mercenary, go up the ranks, and demand land/title of duke in exchange for fighting

>trade, gather materials from in and around your village, make something

Congrats, too bad that's the property of the lord, not you.

>next step would be to feign being a gentleman

Good way to end up pissing someone off and forever discrediting yourself.

>there aren't many reliable banking services and burying your gold somewhere or leaving it with someone you "trust" is risky, you need patronage, which is why you need to be a cuckold and try to prove you are indispensible in the hope you might get land and approval from your patron and the nobility in general, if he dies you will have to start over again

There weren't reliable banking services because usury was banned by the church. Banking was not very profitable unless you managed to get the to look the other way like they did the templars (Fat fucking chance) or you're a Jew. If you're a Jew, you'll never become a noble.

>if you manage to gain status and can accumulate capital the next stage is to buy land and marry a fat lady, here you have to swallow your pride for your dream, maintain strong connections to the family you married and the aristocracy in general, your life will be like "keeping up with the joneses" on steroids because that is how you stop the wolves from sensing weakness, pouncing and taking your wealth

Owning land does not a noble make.

Marriage in the nobility was for politics. Mistresses were for loving/pussy. You'll just become a murderous Monica Lewinsky.

Read History of the Byzantine state by Ostrogorsky you pleb. Byzantium became somewhat feudal way after western Europe, it's feudalism was very different. And the more it became like western feudalism the weaker it became.

Because of what Said

The church is where minor sons of nobles go to keep them out of the way. Most of the rich upper crust of the church being from wealthy or noble families to begin with. With the odd exception.

>Constantine the Great
>Starting feudalism

what

This. The Byzantine political system basically went from being that of the Roman Empire, then to the Theme System (basically dividing the empire into military-administrative districts) , then after the lose of Anatolia it became more or less a feudal rump state.

Distinguishing yourself in war or joining the Church might get you up a bit however; if you aren’t high born, the odds of reaching the top are minimal at best.

Distinguishing yourself in war or joining the Church might get you up a bit however; if you aren’t high born, the odds of reaching the top are minimal at best. The main factor for success would be luck.

Examples of this happening?

Never in the way he is describing. There are tons of cases of mercenaries going AWOL and setting up nice little kingdoms for themselves, though.

This is why you hire assassins to do the dirty work, have them kill off key players. I would hire someone from Arabia, disgusted as traders. Would be best to be part of the church, start charities and other organization to win the people over in you county. That way no one suspects you.

Underage B&

Catalan company.
>be a bunch of assholes
>king of aragon hates you
>byzantium gives you a job
>disagree over payment
>captain gets killed
>pillage some monasteries on holy mount athos
>take athens for yourselves
>new leader becomes duke of athens
>king of aragon happily takes the title and grants the land you took to you

Gimme some good sir

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_I

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood

Ackshyually, during Japan's Warring States period, many samurai rose through the ranks as simple peasants and ashigaru as a result of sorely needed manpower. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who rose to become shogun of Japan, and Sen no Rikyu, who was the premier master of the tea ceremony, were two such men from humble origins. Heck, you could argue that many merchants and bourgeois-to-be had similar peasant backgrounds, rising to prominence after the Black Death because of the sheer collapse in population and the increase in the value of your average individual as a result.