What were even the benefits of feudal fragmentation?
>>18281010its pretty much a case of necessity since many of them starting out were loose confederations of tribes so one guy trying to lord over the others through a centralized government was to hard of a sell, especially since centralized governments were much harder to run back then due to various limitations so it was easier to have a bunch of autonomous areas that give you shit when time is needed, with that being said various kings did work to slowly erode the feudal system as they became more established
>>18281010Real life isn't like Crusader Kings where you have access to unlimited info, see everything your enemies are doing, be able to instantly issue orders anywhere, or freeze and speed up time anytime.Without centralized bureucracies, a king's authority was only valid as long as there was someone in any given territory to enforce his word, and since a king couldn't be everywhere at once, in order to rule a kingdom, a King had to delegate power over to people he could trust to govern territories in his name, who knew the land and people living there better than him.
>>18281035Was it ever actually a rule of thumb that a ruler's actively governed demesne (as opposed to what you were probably best dumping on vassals and stewards) was essentially the distance he and his retinue could ride to in a day, or is that just a Victorianism I've absorbed somehow?
>>18281010Nothing really. Feudalism emerged from the collapse of the Carolingian empire in the 9th century. It is due to the lack of a central government, essentially magnates took court offices and refused to give them up or play by the rules as the later Carolingians were busy or in civil war, being unable to dislodge them. They essentially stole from the state and ripped it apart for their own purposes. They didn't need feudal lords as they already had the ability to rule without them without even an large administration >>18281044No. They had officers to do so. Rulers have other things to do and have a host of officers to do the day to day governing for them, it would have been impossible otherwise. The early Carolingians and Merovingians ruled via a Comes for larger areas and allowed local autonomy in towns and cities.
>>18281035>>18281081This. Feudalism is just a case of lesser state officials and administrators becoming heraditary positions.>>18281044Fun fact: the Imperial Cities of the HRE were part of the demesne of the Emperor. Similarly there were also Imperial Villages. (The picture includes Free Cities, which were not imediately subservient to the Emperor, like Lübeck).
>>18281010Feudalism is quite literally like organized crime groups. Think of how a mafioso Don has his underlings running certain neighborhoods and businesses. The boss can't juggle everything alone and to a certain extent is forced to let his subordinates do their own thing with a loose leash or else the whole system stops functioning entirely.
>>18281010>benefits of feudal fragmentation?the nobility got to live like little kings in their own domainall they had to do was to mount their horse and help the king slaughter peasants once in a while. it was a pretty good deal
>>18281010>1: Administration, when the maximum speed of information transit was about as fast as a guy on a horse regional government and weak centralisation was a necessity. >2: Stability, in particular the King couldn't remove the power, wealth, and autonomy held by his lords. The base of his entire power was their cooperation. Many monarchs tried, but it took about a millennium before those attempts resulted in more than rebellions and rapid changes of power.>3: Pragmatism, yeah it sucked in various ways, but it was a hell of a lot better than the barbarism/bandit rule it replaced. >4: Inertia, you'd be surprised how powerful that can be in politics and society, after the Feudal system had held for a few generations 90% of the population (even the population being screwed over by it) were prepared to accept that it was just 'the way things worked', the same way ~90% of the population today accepts modern political structures and ideology as something that's beyond question. It was politics OP, politics has only changed in method and aesthetics, the goal hasn't changed in recorded history, and probably won't change for as long as we're recongisably human.
>>18281010Centralized political structures are inherently oppressive. The problem is that fragmentation didn't go far enough for anarchist communes to appear. Just another reminder to never do things half-assedly
