What were the best ways to advance in social ladder in one of medieval European monarchies if you started as mere...

What were the best ways to advance in social ladder in one of medieval European monarchies if you started as mere peasant? Any cool stories about the people from Europe who rose from nothing to status of some respectable noble?

priesthood

Knighthood obviously.

There was that one peasant Byzantine Emperor, right?

Basil of the Makedon (or Macedonian) dynasty started his life as a peasant. His father rose in the Byzantine empire due to his military skill. Basil also served in the imperial palace and rose quickly. Soon he became the emporers close friend and then co-emporer. Basil then killed him and assumed the title of sole emporer.

what a jerk.

mercenary careers also worked out some times

a lot of Byzantine emperors came from lowly backgrounds

To be fair to Basil, the emporer at the time was apparently hilariously incompetent

Hey, when you're called Basileos you gotta live up to your name.

>emporer

He wasn't incompetent so much as just completely uninterested in governing, leaving the job to underlings while he boozed and got fucked by basil

That is exactly what I would do if I were emperor. Sodomy with young girls every day, leaving all the work to people whom I consider smart and competent.

This would be my go to tbqh. Being a decent merc would have done wonders.

Could you not abuse the religious zeal? Tell them you had a vision by god, you have some rare bones of a saint, you saw some statue shed tears of blood?

Think about it. What did those guys who did exactly that think back then. Did they really have some crazy vision and believe their own stories or did they flat out lie to have a nicer life?

>What were the best ways to advance in social ladder in one of medieval European monarchies

Marrying upwards is the most reliable to advance in Medieval times. So just find somebody with more land/money/status than yourself and somehow convince them to marry you. Or rather, have your parents convince her to marry you because all marriages are arranged.

>if you started as mere peasant?

Run away and join the Cossacks, or accept your life as a serf. Those are basically the only two options.

>Sodomy with young girls

Sodomy = ass fucking

Because economic growth was microscopic to non-existent, wealth was a zero sum game and the only way to be "on top" was having a monopoly on violence

So, like now?

Wrong

GDP is back to 3.5% annual growth
Stock market all time high
Credit lending back to pre-2008 recession levels
Banking system strengthened and de-leveraged
Bank reserve ratios increased

Once Trump cuts taxes US GDP growth will soar to 4% in 2018 and 5% by 2020, EU growth is also returning

>GDP is back to 3.5% annual growth
Let me laugh some more if you think this is a lot.

i have some bad news man

Blowjobs are also technically sodomy. Basically anything other than ponos in vagoona

Blowjobs also used to be stigmatized a lot more than they are now.

Honour is something that really can't be faked. In a lot of ways the legal powers of those times tried to enforce "who" was "honourable".
Agamemnon, for example, was an appointed leader who had legal status; and though he had the power to do greater things than achilles, achilles was the one who showed full effort with what little power he had. Achilles wasn't respected out of fear or necessity; that's not true respect; he was respected because he earned it the hard way, and people saw in him something that was better than themselves rather than an equal with more power (like agamemnon).

In a feudal setting, one of the better ways to climb the social ladder was to always willing to lay down your life in defense of others, to be patriotic to the people, and to have many of the shared qualities that the people have.
And when any opportunity arises, one must exceed expectations. Knighthood is probably the better way to get real honour other than becoming a priest and getting favor with god.