Anyone know of some good sources for world building. I am thinking books that give solid overviews of the development of political structures, culture, etc. I need to give myself a refresher course.
Are you talking about a specific period? The medieval perhaps? If so, I have some good recommendations for the high & late medieval periods.
For more general stuff, Chapter 2 in Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306753150&sr=1-1) is really good, but very general indeed (no lists of government types, etc.). I've heard good things about Gygax's Nation Builder (http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Gygaxs-Gygaxian-Fantasy-Worlds/dp/1931275807/ref=pd_sim_b_1), but can't vouch for it myself.
Quote from: loseth;461229Are you talking about a specific period? The medieval perhaps? If so, I have some good recommendations for the high & late medieval periods.
Really looking for the development up to that point. Probably going to take a variety of sources. I have my old college survey books on medieval history, world history etc. Really looking more for the theory behind how certain kinds of political structures develop and analysis of political structures in key periods I think.
QuoteFor more general stuff, Chapter 2 in Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306753150&sr=1-1) is really good, but very general indeed (no lists of government types, etc.). I've heard good things about Gygax's Nation Builder (http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Gygaxs-Gygaxian-Fantasy-Worlds/dp/1931275807/ref=pd_sim_b_1), but can't vouch for it myself.
I've read some of Card's books on writing. But haven't seen this one, so will check it out.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;461230Really looking for the development up to that point.
Well, I'm not sure about pre-medieval, but for an awesome survey of (Western) medieval history that tends to focus heavily on the hows & whys of the development of medieval institutions, I give 4.5 out of 5 stars to three TTC audio titles: Philip Daileader's Early, High & Late Middle Ages (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/courses.aspx?s=848&ps=918).
Daileader doesn't try to put things into a theoretical framework, but personally I've always found such frameworks a bit dodgy in this particular field and prefer a straightfowrard 'this how and why I think the institution evolved' approach. Daileader will, on occasion (usually at the start of a course), talk about competing theoretical frameworks for understanding the develoment of the period's institutions, but he usually refrains from structuring his narrative around them.
The only downside is, as you'll notice, the price and admittedly it's a
big downside. All I can say is that, in years of obsessive reading about the middle ages, I've never encountered a better concise-format account of how the middle ages work and how they came to work that way.
Quote from: loseth;461233Well, I'm not sure about pre-medieval, but for an awesome survey of (Western) medieval history that tends to focus heavily on the hows & whys of the development of medieval institutions, I give 4.5 out of 5 stars to three TTC audio titles: Philip Daileader's Early, High & Late Middle Ages (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/courses.aspx?s=848&ps=918).
Daileader doesn't try to put things into a theoretical framework, but personally I've always found such frameworks a bit dodgy in this particular field and prefer a straightfowrard 'this how and why I think the institution evolved' approach. Daileader will, on occasion (usually at the start of a course), talk about competing theoretical frameworks for understanding the develoment of the period's institutions, but he usually refrains from structuring his narrative around them.
The only downside is, as you'll notice, the price and admittedly it's a big downside. All I can say is that, in years of obsessive reading about the middle ages, I've never encountered a better concise-format account of how the middle ages work and how they came to work that way.
Ouch that is pretty pricey.
I've always found it less useful to try to rewrite Genesis and more useful to start off with an idea about what kind of society or setting I want and to go backwards from there.
That said, here are some books that I return to for inspiration and ideas for every setting I create. These aren't endorsements of the veracity of their contents, since many of them are at the very least out of date.
The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels
Management by Peter Drucker
Marx and Engels were the first guys to really lay out the challenge that capitalism posed to the old feudal order. That transition is most succinctly explained in the CM. Drucker is de rigeur for understanding how large organisations function (or fail to function). His model is ultimately GE in the mid-20th c., but applying his ideas about how things fuck up to medieval kingdoms is incredibly fun and will give you tons of ideas beyond "an evil nobleman did it".
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
The Iliad by Homer
The Anabasis by Xenophon
T. lays out the logic of a state gone mad, and provides dozens of episodes and examples of the use and abuse of power. The Iliad is the Iliad. The Anabasis is filled with strange peoples and is a great exploration narrative.
Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Durkheim
Athenian Popular Religion by Jon Mikalson
The Old Testament
The Old Testament is required reading for how religions get started, and how ancient people understood their own processes of state-formation (Ignore the prophets and Genesis and read Exodus, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel, all the "And then Samuel kicked those fuckers in the next valley over right in their hairy uncut dicks and their lame god couldn't do shit about it" stuff). Athenian Popular Religion is a fantastic education in the irrelevancy of formal theology to religious practice in pre-monotheistic cultures. Religion and the Decline of is about the same topic, but in monotheistic ones. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is about totemism and early religion, and is good for understanding how different that is than polytheism or monotheism.
The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
The Atom Bomb and You by George Orwell
de Camp's book is a history of technology, and is good for calibrating the technological and infrastructural sophistication of the societies you're creating. Kuhn's idea of a paradigm is useful for understanding how people deal with encountering radically different worldviews. The Atom Bomb and You is a great discussion about how weapons technology and military organisation interact with the tendency of a society towards either freedom or enslavement.
National Audubon Society Field Guides by various authors
These are good for rocks, trees, animals, etc. I have "North America Trees Eastern Region" and "Rocks and Minerals" and I find they cover everything I could ever need to know about either subject during world-building. "Insects and Spiders" will both give you nightmares and provide you with endless fodder for gruesome arthropod foes.
Anyhow, that's a start.
The TTC puts out some really, really, really excellent stuff and some utter crap.
I was extremely pleased with their "Great Battles of the Ancient World" (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3757), which is much better than the survey course I was expecting. Actually, if you're interested in understanding ancient warfare for the purposes of worldbuilding, it's a great resource.
On the cultural side of things, if you are at all interested in ever knowing anything about music prior to rock, this is the best course available (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=746). If you have ever paid to go to university, this is excellent value for money.
Their philosophy stuff is mostly crap, as is their literature and rhetoric selection.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;461239I've always found it less useful to try to rewrite Genesis and more useful to start off with an idea about what kind of society or setting I want and to go backwards from there.
I can honestly go either way on this one. But I usually have more fun building from the ground up (sometimes with a vague idea of where I want the setting to go). I've also designed settings from a small area where the PCs are active and worked my way out as they explore. I haven't found one method more useful than any others in the game. The most important factor seems to be which approach gets me most interested in the setting at the time. But I can see how starting with a more concrete idea of what setting you want, would make it easier to have a playable setting.
Thanks for the suggestions.
For fantasy, Campaign Law from Rolemaster (2?) was the most useful source for me. It's written as a world-building guide specifically geared towards RPGs.
It was good enough that the setting I designed with it made it to the top 11 in the WotC contest.
Only Pseudo could be this ridiculous, as to recommend Marx... why not Andrea Dworkin while we're at it?
RPGPundit
For ancient world I'd pick up anything by the late, great, Sir Moses Finley (American born, naturalised Brit), which are easily found new or second hand in cheap paperback. He's one of the most readable academics on the subject you can find. The Ancient Economy is a good place to start, and nowhere near as dull as the title suggests. His World of Odysseus, whether you agree with him or not, is actually an exercise in world building, which is a rare thing to find from a serious academic. For a more recent example of world building, check out Travelling Heroes by Robin Lane Fox (incidentally he was the historical advisor on Oliver Stone's Alexander). Paperback recently released. TH tries to reconstruct the experience and world view of the first Greeks to venture across the Aegean after the collapse of the Bronze Age.
The creative bit is thinking about how a real world model is changed by the presence of magic that really works, gods that really exist and, in some settings, people who do the right or wrong thing because that is in their nature, rather than for some rational purpose.
Gary Gygax's Living Fantasy from Troll Lord.
Ultimate Toolbox from AEG.
Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names from Troll Lord.
A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture from Expeditious Retreat Press
A Magical Society: Silk Road from Expeditious Retreat Press
These should cover 99% of fantasy world creation.
Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;461410For ancient world I'd pick up anything by the late, great, Sir Moses Finley (American born, naturalised Brit), which are easily found new or second hand in cheap paperback. He's one of the most readable academics on the subject you can find. The Ancient Economy is a good place to start, and nowhere near as dull as the title suggests. His World of Odysseus, whether you agree with him or not, is actually an exercise in world building, which is a rare thing to find from a serious academic. For a more recent example of world building, check out Travelling Heroes by Robin Lane Fox (incidentally he was the historical advisor on Oliver Stone's Alexander). Paperback recently released. TH tries to reconstruct the experience and world view of the first Greeks to venture across the Aegean after the collapse of the Bronze Age.
Will have to check some of these out.
Oh yeah, I'll second Rolemaster's Campaign Law. Amazingly good reference.
Thanks Dan
Could also look at Eddings' The Rivan Codex, which is about him creating the world of the Belgariad and the Mallorean (and writing them as well).
For a more nuts and bolts approach people seem to like my How to make a Fantasy Sandbox series of articles.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html
Note that the steps are designed to front load the work so you can focus on writing things in response to what the players do in the campaign. If you want to do minimal prep then you can omit or skip over many of the steps. Just realize that at some point in the campaign you will find that you have done everything I outlined. Some referee like just to jump in others like to do a bit more preparation.
Another vote for ICE's amazing Campaign Law[/b]. It's wonderfully short, but packed with helpful worldbuilding information.
Estar's posts on making a Fantasy Sandbox also are very good (although I've only read a few of them).
If you have any interest in non literary sources, there is a stunning amount of information here http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/ although the forum runs a bit slow.
Quote from: RPGPundit;461399Only Pseudo could be this ridiculous, as to recommend Marx... why not Andrea Dworkin while we're at it?
RPGPundit
...Says a man who believes in magic and pseudoscience, and thinks Jungianism is anything but utter nonsense mildly useful for fanciful works of literature. Will no one help this poor widow's kook get his head screwed on straight?
On Marx...
I just read through 'The Decline of Feudalism and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie' to see what I thought about it as a world-building resource for a medieval world. I have to say that it looks much more naive than I thought it would (even giving it a fair bit of leeeway for having been written a century and a quarter ago). The factual accuracy is so poor that I would find it very hard to take the analysis seriously. That being said, it does look like a good rubric for a sort of grimdark, pseudo-Victorian view of how the middle ages worked, and that viewpoint could IMHO make for a very compelling RPG setting. Perhaps a more compelling one than the IRL middle ages.
For a less naive perspective on the politics of the time, it occurred to me that The Prince (available for dirt cheap or for free download) might be a good choice. It's short, fun, and written by someone who really knew what he was talking about. I have a copy annotated by Napoleon, and it's a blast to read through (lots of little comments like, 'Yes, this is the tactic I used when I conquered the shit out of Kingdom X.'). On the downside, it really only covers rulership, not going into much detail on other institutions.
Quote from: loseth;461602On Marx...
I just read through 'The Decline of Feudalism and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie' to see what I thought about it as a world-building resource for a medieval world. I have to say that it looks much more naive than I thought it would (even giving it a fair bit of leeeway for having been written a century and a quarter ago). The factual accuracy is so poor that I would find it very hard to take the analysis seriously. That being said, it does look like a good rubric for a sort of grimdark, pseudo-Victorian view of how the middle ages worked, and that viewpoint could IMHO make for a very compelling RPG setting. Perhaps a more compelling one than the IRL middle ages.
I read it in college. It really isn't what I am looking for here. Looking for more up-to-date and less ideological material. Interested in political structures and their histories, but not through the lens of the writer's political viewpoint.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;461620I read it in college. It really isn't what I am looking for here. Looking for more up-to-date and less ideological material. Interested in political structures and their histories, but not through the lens of the writer's political viewpoint.
If you want something that is gamable and well researched then I recommend Harnmanor, and Lionheart both by Columbia Games.
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/allharnitems.cfg
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=4751
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=7001
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;461620I read it in college. It really isn't what I am looking for here. Looking for more up-to-date and less ideological material. Interested in political structures and their histories, but not through the lens of the writer's political viewpoint.
That basically doesn't exist. All historiography has a viewpoint. There are only viewpoints close enough to your own that you think they're dispassionate, factual accounts.
Harnmanor, for example, is a materialist text. It is concerned with the manor as economic unit and only covers the relationships of people in the manor's community as necessary to accurately track the flow of money through it. I actually really like Harnmanor for totally deromanticising the manor and village, but if you think that it does not have a political viewpoint of the manor (and one strongly influenced by Marx and the other economic historians of the 19th century for that matter), you would be incorrect.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;461650That basically doesn't exist. All historiography has a viewpoint. There are only viewpoints close enough to your own that you think they're dispassionate, factual accounts.
I think there is always a viewpoint. But they aren't all political or ideological in nature. And I think some approaches are more objective than others (and some historians are better than others at preventing their biases form interfering with their conclusions). It is largely a matter of degree.
On my favorite historians is Braudel for example. And he most definitely has a lens. But I am really not trying to debate the merits of Marx or approaches to history. Marx is simply not what I am looking for in this case. Really not interested in a drag-down debate on this subject as it isn't something I've thought much about since college. All I am interested in doing here is creating a cool fantasy world.
Don't tell that to me. So far I've recommended more books than everyone else in this thread put together.
When you choose to look for an ideology behind one's words, you'll find it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;461667Don't tell that to me. So far I've recommended more books than everyone else in this thread put together.
And I appreciate your suggestions.
Quote from: estar;461630If you want something that is gamable and well researched then I recommend Harnmanor, and Lionheart both by Columbia Games.
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/allharnitems.cfg
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=4751
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=7001
I'll check these out for sure. I haven't seen the Harn books in a while, but I remember being impressed by them in the past. Their maps were always especially good.
If you are looking mostly at how a society arrived at a certain form of rule, I think the best approach is to take a particular example and look at its history and make it fantastical. So if I have one country occupied by another, I might take Cordoba as my starting point and draw on say Moorish Spain by Fletcher. When it references another society being interacted with, pick a likely candidate on your map to supply that interaction and play "what if."
Pseudo gave some good recommendations above. Some other interesting, readable primary source books off the top of my mind are Dino Compagni's chronicle of florence, Early History of Rome (as penguin calls the volume) by Livy, Diaz's conquest of new spain, various Icelandic sagas, Eyrbyggja Saga and Burnt Njal come to mind. Bede's Ecclesiastical History could be another one.
Remember if your world is fantastic your models don't have to get the history right - they can include the mythic as primary source 'histories' tend to. When Herodotus (great source) colors things up for the rubes, as a GM that's an advantage to me. I get the sense you are more interested in building a grounded, more earth-like world but to address the question more broadly it can be interesting to look at more satirical "histories" like Lucian's True History, utopian ones like News from Nowhere, or cock-and-bull stories like John Mandeville. Manguel & Guadalpi's Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a pretty great source.
When it comes to the "reasons why" in terms of running the game it is usually more about how people today say it happened than how it "really" happened in your game world's history though if PCs are exploring ruins, finding ancient texts, talking to ghosts, etc. it can be interesting to find something that contradicts the common wisdom of the day. If you have a standard D&D model you'll need some fallen empires; Rome is the canonical example for the western world - on a smaller scale mesoamerica had a few. Book 2 of Simmon's Collapse could be an interesting source of ideas for ways things collapsed if you don't assume your standard mystical cataclysm.
Quote from: Cole;461690If you are looking mostly at how a society arrived at a certain form of rule, I think the best approach is to take a particular example and look at its history and make it fantastical. So if I have one country occupied by another, I might take Cordoba as my starting point and draw on say Moorish Spain by Fletcher. When it references another society being interacted with, pick a likely candidate on your map to supply that interaction and play "what if."
That is an excellent suggestion and something I started doing this morning.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;461650Harnmanor, for example, is a materialist text. It is concerned with the manor as economic unit and only covers the relationships of people in the manor's community as necessary to accurately track the flow of money through it. I actually really like Harnmanor for totally deromanticising the manor and village, but if you think that it does not have a political viewpoint of the manor (and one strongly influenced by Marx and the other economic historians of the 19th century for that matter), you would be incorrect.
Just to add, the latest edition does have a section devoted to generating the individual household along with a yearly generation of events for each household. Many of these events require decisions on the part of the PCs to resolve.
Quote from: estar;461693Just to add, the latest edition does have a section devoted to generating the individual household along with a yearly generation of events for each household. Many of these events require decisions on the part of the PCs to resolve.
Just to add, Harnmanor is awesome.
;)
Some more suggestions for BB:
De Administrando Imperio by Constantine Porphyrogenitus
The Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli
The Athenian Constitution (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/athenian/) by Aristotle
The constitution of the Athenians is a treatise of the evolution of the Athenian city-state over time. It's more specific than the Politics, and a little easier to draw inspiration from as a result. The Discourses is Machiavelli's actual politics, and is an interesting discussion of how realpolitik for republics works. De Administrando Imperio is a one-of-a-kind book by a Byzantine emperor for his son about how to run the empire, and is filled with interesting insights into his concerns and considerations.
Imperial China 900-1800 by F.W. Mote
Military Culture in Imperial China edited by Nicola Di Cosmo
Sanctioned Violence in Early Chinese Culture by Mark Lewis
Full disclosure, I haven't read Sanctioned Violence in..., but it's on my list of books to get. It's about the formation of the early Chinese state and the evolution of the rationalisation of violence against domestic and external enemies. Military Culture in... is a collection of articles about how the army worked at various points in Chinese history. Imperial China is a giant one-volume survey of the post-Tang to post-Ming Chinese state, and does an excellent job dealing not just with China proper, but with the various frontier states surrounding it. I cannot recommend it highly enough if you ever want to portray a culture derivative of China in a game.
For Pseudo, Community College apparently never ended...
RPGPundit
I found the following (plus their ebooks and the links off to related sites) to be very handy when settling into a feudal based society with a healthy dose of manorialism thrown in: http://www.prismnet.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
Quote from: RPGPundit;461792For Pseudo, Community College apparently never ended...
RPGPundit
... says a flake teaching mumbo jumbo.
Are you done threadcrapping yet?
Quote from: loseth;461602I have a copy annotated by Napoleon
I'm getting a visual of the bad guy's library from
The Ninth Gate. I guess some evenings you say what the hell, enter the security code and take it out to muse over a bottle of cognac frapin cuvee 1888?
Quote from: The_Shadow;461876I'm getting a visual of the bad guy's library from The Ninth Gate. I guess some evenings you say what the hell, enter the security code and take it out to muse over a bottle of cognac frapin cuvee 1888?
Well, generally a Stella 2011. But it's still good reading. :)
It's a shame they don't print the Nappy-annotated version in English, cause it's seriously cool reading one of the world's greatest evil political geniuses instructing you on how to take over the world, while having little footnotes written by one of the world's greatest evil military geniuses about his personal experience of putting the instructions into practice.
Quote from: loseth;461916It's a shame they don't print the Nappy-annotated version in English, cause it's seriously cool reading one of the world's greatest evil political geniuses instructing you on how to take over the world, while having little footnotes written by one of the world's greatest evil military geniuses about his personal experience of putting the instructions into practice.
I've got a Portuguese edition of the Napoleon-annotated version, and it's not particularly enlightening (more along the lines of "yeah, that's true" or "I did this once for the lulz, hurr durr"), but a fun read nonetheless.
Quote from: The Butcher;461933I've got a Portuguese edition of the Napoleon-annotated version, and it's not particularly enlightening (more along the lines of "yeah, that's true" or "I did this once for the lulz, hurr durr"), but a fun read nonetheless.
Yeah, I agree. I was underwhelmed at Napoleon's commentary; it's just cool that it's him!
"Constructing Social Theories" by Arthur L. Stinchcombe.
There is no "way medieval cultures are constructed". Because you have to remember that the medieval culture is essentially a long-term post-apocalyptic culture. It is the survivors of the Roman Empire, trying to recreate some semblance of a political hierarchy, in a collapsed civilization.
So basically, here's the first and only thing you really need to know about creating a medieval society: A medieval society would not exist unless there is first a Roman Empire to collapse, for that medieval society to be eking out an existence in the ruins of.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;462241There is no "way medieval cultures are constructed". Because you have to remember that the medieval culture is essentially a long-term post-apocalyptic culture. It is the survivors of the Roman Empire, trying to recreate some semblance of a political hierarchy, in a collapsed civilization.
For the couple of centuries post-Rome, perhaps, but once you reach about 1000AD then the societies are based on their own laws and hierarchies, with virtually no references to Rome, except when trying to justify something.
Quote from: RPGPundit;462241So basically, here's the first and only thing you really need to know about creating a medieval society: A medieval society would not exist unless there is first a Roman Empire to collapse, for that medieval society to be eking out an existence in the ruins of.
Middle or High medieval societies have virtually no connection to the Roman Empire. Sure, Roman Catholicism is important and based on Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire claims it is a successor, but they are so far removed from the Roman Empire that they can't really be seen as being built on Rome. Certainly feudalism is a concept that is not dependent on Rome, or it's fall, and feudalism drove much of medieval society.
A few things fed the development of (early) medieval society while the Roman Empire was still around rather than being raked out of the ashes:
Status differences
in 212 all free men in the Empire were granted citizenship (not by Marcus Aurelius as played by Alec Guinness in an act of political wonderfulness). The effect was to remove the status distinction between citizen and non-citizen and instead entrench one that had been brewing for a century already between 'honestiores' and 'humiliores' (ie "the better sort" and "the more humble folk". The old legal privileges (including how roughly you can be treated and what sort of execution you are entitled to) graft to these statuses which are basically between rich and poor. This two-tier system sits behind the medieval distinctions of nobles and commoners.
Christianity, or more particularly, the power - including significant wealth - of the church. Nuff said - but well under way before the collapse.
Town and country.
The aristocracy move their power base to the countryside and out of the cities, which become increasingly irrelevant except as market and religious centres. Its these country seats that get commandeered by barbarians and form the basis of aristocracy, while towns pursue a separate development, no longer the "urbs" or "asty" with its connected territory.
There are loads more - including the idea of peasantry tied to specific lands (the colonate) and the substitution of tithes and service for state taxation. The big new invention of the post-Roman era is primogeniture, which is a game-changer. Slavery never went away - but once you subject the peasantry to serfdom you don't need it, so it just withered. All these things are interesting to think about when world building (IMHO).
In short, 'classical' Rome collapsed and something new came out way before Rome actually collapsed. Not to say it wasn't traumatic when it happened.
Quote from: soltakss;462412For the couple of centuries post-Rome, perhaps, but once you reach about 1000AD then the societies are based on their own laws and hierarchies, with virtually no references to Rome, except when trying to justify something.
Middle or High medieval societies have virtually no connection to the Roman Empire. Sure, Roman Catholicism is important and based on Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire claims it is a successor, but they are so far removed from the Roman Empire that they can't really be seen as being built on Rome. Certainly feudalism is a concept that is not dependent on Rome, or it's fall, and feudalism drove much of medieval society.
But its not a structure or system that would have emerged without the fall of Rome. Essentially, I would argue that Europe is basically a post-apocalyptic society from the 5th century until about the 15th. Only then does the concept of nations start to emerge, which is where there's a real shift from the essentially broken society that was "living in the rubble" of Rome.
RPGpundit
Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;462465A few things fed the development of (early) medieval society while the Roman Empire was still around rather than being raked out of the ashes:
Status differences
in 212 all free men in the Empire were granted citizenship (not by Marcus Aurelius as played by Alec Guinness in an act of political wonderfulness). The effect was to remove the status distinction between citizen and non-citizen and instead entrench one that had been brewing for a century already between 'honestiores' and 'humiliores' (ie "the better sort" and "the more humble folk". The old legal privileges (including how roughly you can be treated and what sort of execution you are entitled to) graft to these statuses which are basically between rich and poor. This two-tier system sits behind the medieval distinctions of nobles and commoners.
Christianity, or more particularly, the power - including significant wealth - of the church. Nuff said - but well under way before the collapse.
Town and country.
The aristocracy move their power base to the countryside and out of the cities, which become increasingly irrelevant except as market and religious centres. Its these country seats that get commandeered by barbarians and form the basis of aristocracy, while towns pursue a separate development, no longer the "urbs" or "asty" with its connected territory.
There are loads more - including the idea of peasantry tied to specific lands (the colonate) and the substitution of tithes and service for state taxation. The big new invention of the post-Roman era is primogeniture, which is a game-changer. Slavery never went away - but once you subject the peasantry to serfdom you don't need it, so it just withered. All these things are interesting to think about when world building (IMHO).
In short, 'classical' Rome collapsed and something new came out way before Rome actually collapsed. Not to say it wasn't traumatic when it happened.
Certainly, but that's because Rome's collapse was not sudden, but a drawn out collapse; of which all the things you mentioned were symptoms. Its not like in 475 there was a thriving Roman empire and suddenly in 476 it was gone.
Rather, the collapse started in the crisis of the 3rd century, and did not really finish until long after there was no western emperor (to the point that for as long as a couple of centuries after the last Roman emperor was deposed, many people still would have figured they were part of the Empire, or an empire, or that things would be coming back around any time now). Essentially, things kept on breaking down for a long time before they really started getting better. Likewise, I mark the change out of a post-apocalyptic society as starting in the 15th century, but that's really itself a consequence of a massive shift happening in the 14th century: the Black Death, which ironically is what allowed for the creation of a new civilization. The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.
RPGPundit
Also the eastern empire kept chugging along nearly until its fall in 1453.
Quote from: RPGPundit;462566The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.
Charlemagne was busy during the 700's forming a new state out of the vacuum that the absence of the Roman Empire created. He forged the State specifically including the Christian Church, and from various nobles in Northern France, Belgium, and Western Germany... too bad his children were more interested in dividing what he had created during his lifetime.
In central and Eastern Germany, the various tribes ruled more or less along the lines that they had previously ruled by... The introduction of the christianity was a game changer though, and during the time of Hildegard Von Bingen during the 800's, the church rose substantially in power for the next two hundred years. By 1100 or so, the formation of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany was well underway with Knightly orders such as the Templars and Hospitallars conquering territories in the Baltic and Poland where pagans still ruled, bringing christianity to Eastern Europe. German secret societies ruled by the Barons and answerable to the papacy in Rome enforced the morale dictates of both feudal and church law on the peasantry.
The growing underclass of peasantry took two notable hits, the first was the call to the Crusades in the middle east, and many peasants simply ran away to make a better life for themselves under the umbrella of the pilgrimage... The second was the plagues, which decimated the population of Europe. Landowning nobles and craftsmen had to actually compete for labor by offering real compensation. This set the stage to allow for a growing middle class of merchants and craftsmen who then maneuvered for even more power using new guilds to wrest control of resources and trade away from the warriors of old.
Only then, in the late 1300's and early 1400's with well established Royal families (indebted to the merchants) allow for the conditions to arise that supported the formation of national states ruled by many, however still ultimately answerable to one.
In Western Europe the Roman Empire was long gone by 600 a.d. What was left was a patchwork of states and landowners that forged completely new alliances and rebuilt completely new governments deliberately antithetical to the previous efforts of Rome, in order to forge even better results but only for the local leaders...
It was the best that Rome had to offer, combined with the best remaining local customs and traditions. Other than the peasants, if you had to ask anyone at the time, they would say their small fiefdoms were a vast improvement over the previous demands and dictates that came from Rome.
Quote from: RPGPundit;462566The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.
RPGPundit
It's a reasonable postion to take - but with a view to using the early-mid middle ages as a model (or not) for world building, what elements of life and society
require a lost/broken past empire to have created it in the first place?
Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;462632It's a reasonable postion to take - but with a view to using the early-mid middle ages as a model (or not) for world building, what elements of life and society require a lost/broken past empire to have created it in the first place?
The combination of nearly-barbarian warlords along with scattered and incomplete remnants of technologies (both literal technologies like cities, castles, etc; and "social technologies" like laws, customs, taxes & economies, learning, bureaucracy, etc) that are from a society much more advanced. That's what feudal europe basically was.
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Quote from: soltakss;462412For the couple of centuries post-Rome, perhaps, but once you reach about 1000AD then the societies are based on their own laws and hierarchies, with virtually no references to Rome, except when trying to justify something.
The society of 1000AD was very much in the shadow of Rome. The kings, princes, priests, and nobles were continually striving to restore or uphold Roman ideals even tho they had only scattered ideas of how all things Rome worked.
Reasons why this never restored the empire, despite several attempts, is that the germanic ideas about kingshp and personal loyalty prevented political unity. The economic was so wrecked that land was the only true store of value which caused manoralism to dominate the economic landscape. Much of Rome's methods only worked under a money economy.
As Pundit said things only started to truly change with the rise of the nation-state, starting in the 14th and 15th century.
Quote from: soltakss;462412Middle or High medieval societies have virtually no connection to the Roman Empire. Sure, Roman Catholicism is important and based on Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire claims it is a successor, but they are so far removed from the Roman Empire that they can't really be seen as being built on Rome. Certainly feudalism is a concept that is not dependent on Rome, or it's fall, and feudalism drove much of medieval society.
Western European societies were not little mini-Romes. Instead they were societies sitting on a heap of partly understood Roman technology trying to emulate Roman institutions while governing using Germanic ideas of kingship and loyalty under a broken economic system where land was the only store of value.
There were a lot of connections to it just wasn't working very well.
Quote from: estar;462680The economic was so wrecked that land was the only true store of value which caused manoralism to dominate the economic landscape. Much of Rome's methods only worked under a money economy.
Instead they were societies sitting on a heap of partly understood Roman technology trying to emulate Roman institutions while governing using Germanic ideas of kingship and loyalty under a broken economic system where land was the only store of value.
Were gold, silver, and other precious metals, not a store of value during this time period?
Quote from: ggroy;462701Were gold, silver, and other precious metals, not a store of value during this time period?
No because you couldn't eat gold, and the surplus wasn't there to buy enough. There were segments where money could used, it was also still a prestige item, but 90% of the early medieval economy was based on land.
The closer you get to the Renaissance the more useful money became. A rough guide is the transition of the kings relying on the feudal levy to collecting taxes/scutage and hiring troops outright. Things recovered to the point where monetary investments became feasible again. See also the history of banking.
Compare how Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Edward III, and Henry VIII, raised troops and manage their wars. Alfred was about raising and supporting the fyrd, while Henry VIII was about arranging loans to hire troops, and buy supplies.
The various Islamic states and the Byzantines were still minting coins. But after the 7th century, the Bezant (the Byzantine gold coin) was the only gold coin you'd find north of the Alps, and it was extremely rare until you get to the Crusades, where it merely becomes rare. Trade in Northern Europe started to collapse sometime after the Gothic War, when the Italian markets for their agricultural products collapsed and didn't recover fully until the Renaissance. For most of the time in between those events, Northern Europe was an economically underdeveloped backwater populated by local strongmen - the West Africa of its day.
Quote from: RPGPundit;462241So basically, here's the first and only thing you really need to know about creating a medieval society: A medieval society would not exist unless there is first a Roman Empire to collapse, for that medieval society to be eking out an existence in the ruins of.
Hmmm, maybe not...you can also draw upon feudal Japan as an example. In that case, the empire whose civil institutions & traditions they are drawing upon still exists – it just happens to be a neighboring country (that never bothers to conquer them).
Quote from: Imp;462783Hmmm, maybe not...you can also draw upon feudal Japan as an example. In that case, the empire whose civil institutions & traditions they are drawing upon still exists – it just happens to be a neighboring country (that never bothers to conquer them).
That's an interesting point, its a whole other kind of medievalism, though with certain parallels to be sure. I don't know if that's something the OP is looking to draw upon or not, depends on how euro-typical he wanted his model to be, I guess.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;462933That's an interesting point, its a whole other kind of medievalism, though with certain parallels to be sure. I don't know if that's something the OP is looking to draw upon or not, depends on how euro-typical he wanted his model to be, I guess.
RPGPundit
I am drawing from all kinds of cultures. Home base will be pretty European. But some of the places I am working on, might be better characterized as hybrids of a few places in history. Drawing a bit from India for the elves. Japanese history has always been difficult for me to follow though.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;462934I am drawing from all kinds of cultures. Home base will be pretty European. But some of the places I am working on, might be better characterized as hybrids of a few places in history. Drawing a bit from India for the elves. Japanese history has always been difficult for me to follow though.
I see, well, unfortunately Japan is not one of my areas of historical study, but you could certainly find a good parallel of feudalism with medieval Japan; and I'm sure there are some good books to study on that subject. Possibly even a good RPG book (Sengoku?).
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