Gender in Mechanics

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

EDIT: For most medievals, the idea of leaving a non-Christian culture intact with its religious beliefs would be not only stupid but immoral. Why wouldn't we use whatever amount of tough love it took to make sure that these people joined us in heaven? By these standards, if we had a culture that believed in nurture over nature, the last people you would want to leave alive would be creatures who were actively parenting -- they would be preventing you from abducting their kids and raising them yourself to ensure that they took on good Christian values. I know some people would like to imagine that our ancestors who ran Indian residential schools were evil; but most were not -- they were just wrong.

Not necessarily a comment on the point, overall, but the above point is simply not the case. You don't use whatever amount of tough love it takes precisely because application of that love is likely to prevent you from getting into heaven.

The Albigensian crusade might be looked at as proof pf the opposite point, but the problem there is that was both A.) more or less a catastrophe that ran out of everyone's control and B.) the result of 100 years of peaceful attempts at integration that simply did not work too well on either the level of peaceful or integrated.

For the medievals the idea of wiping anyone out or compelling religious conversion does show up in the popular, and in some of the elite, imagination but only from time to time and it is generally regarded with a great deal of horror both at the time and after the fact. Bishops and clergymen opposed every practical instance of ethnic massacre I can think of aside from the above instance. Even in the Renaissance case of the Spanish inquisition the initial action is one of exile and commentators of the time ranging in prestige and moral weight from the Pope to Nicollo Machiavelli weigh in against it.

Exile was certainly the preferable and only common means of 'ethnic-cleansing' and there were several kingdoms that integrated a variety of religions rather succesfully, including, many would argue, the Crusader states though Norman Sicilly is probably a better example.

EDIT: on an on-topic point I would go with a +2 to Constitution for women if men get a +2 to strength. They live longer, are more resistant to a variety of nasty diseases, and you could make an argument for female characters generally seeming to have a higher saving throw in that regard at least in terms of the number of poison maidens versus poison men. Wisdom might work in the sense that women have better senses but seems to me to be otherwise problematic in the sense that it's not generally considered a physical stat.

 

[fusangite]

For the medievals the idea of wiping anyone out or compelling religious conversion does show up in the popular, and in some of the elite, imagination but only from time to time and it is generally regarded with a great deal of horror both at the time and after the fact. Bishops and clergymen opposed every practical instance of ethnic massacre I can think of aside from the above instance. Even in the Renaissance case of the Spanish inquisition the initial action is one of exile and commentators of the time ranging in prestige and moral weight from the Pope to Nicollo Machiavelli weigh in against it.

As I understand it, there were two basic medieval doctrines regarding religious war: the Aquinan doctrine (that argued that grace completed sovereignty) and the Ostiensian doctrine, reflected in the Donation of Constantine (that all sovereignty was contingent upon the Pope). In the post-crusade later medieval period, the Ostiensian doctrine gained favour and formed the basis of early policy in the Americas, where mass, sometimes forced conversions took place, sometimes entailing the baptism of over 10,000 people per day in the Mexico Valley.

EDIT: One can similarly look at the early medieval period with the Frankish policy of converting the Frisians and Saxons; to compel conversion at one point, Charlemagne executed 5000 Saxons at one time. Today, the EU gives out awards in his name. Furthermore, many conversions in early medieval Europe were achieved through forcibly imposed treaties requiring either mass baptisms or proxy baptisms such as the conversion of the Norwegian and Danish invaders of England in the 9th and 10th centuries and a number of Slavic kingdoms in Eastern Europe.

While I agree that the high medieval period favoured the Aquinan doctrine and shyed-away from forcible mass conversions, I don't agree that this policy can be generalized to the whole of the Middle Ages. The Spanish Inquisition, the extinguishing of all sovereign states in the Americas by papal bull in 1494 and the mass conversions of the Cortes era all point to a late medieval policy that returned to early medieval views concerning conversion and sovereignty.

In my post, I was also alluding to a much more recent non-medieval phenomenon of 19th and 20th century Indian residential schools in British North America when the colonial government kidnapped and forcibly baptized all of the children in numerous villages throughout what is today Canada.

While I am happy to concede that the high medieval period had a high level of respect for non-Christian sovereignty and baptism as a free choice, I think it is unfair to generalize this to the whole of the Middle Ages.

Exile was certainly the preferable and only common means of 'ethnic-cleansing' and there were several kingdoms that integrated a variety of religions rather succesfully, including, many would argue, the Crusader states though Norman Sicilly is probably a better example.

Agreed. But again, your examples come from the peak of the Aquinan doctrine of sovereignty. I have no dispute with your characterization of the period from 1100-1300 but the Middle Ages runs, in most people's minds, starting anywhere between 310 and 550 and ending anywhere between 1450 and 1550.

EDIT: on an on-topic point I would go with a +2 to Constitution for women if men get a +2 to strength. They live longer,

Not in pre-modern societies they didn't.

are more resistant to a variety of nasty diseases,

Really? Which ones?

Wisdom might work in the sense that women have better senses but seems to me to be otherwise problematic in the sense that it's not generally considered a physical stat.

Agreed. But it is true that all sensory abilities do come off it and at least we have strong scientific evidence regarding smell and colour blindness and less strong evidence regarding perception of sounds and sights upon which one is not concentrating.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

In pre-modern societies women do still have a far better life expectancy than men if they prove adept at surviving childbirth. Considering that DnD does nothing to simulate the generally high chance of anyone dying before they hit thirty I think we can abstract around that.

Resistant may have been the wrong term, I have no idea how easily women versus men pick up diseases. I do know that after most epidemics you have a far higher proportion of women surivors than men. AIDS may be the exception. The major Flu epidemics, talking Spanish flu, tend to wipe out men at a higher rate than women.

As for the two doctrines: they certainly can be argued to have existed but with the possible exception of Aquinas they were more description and theory than policy or popular/elite attitude.

Further: mass conversions, occasionally under some force of soveriegnty or law, sure, that's possible. But even there there would have to be some form of assent given on the part of the group under question. Particularly if we are discussing the early middle ages. Gregory the Great sends missionaries to England not armies. When armies are deployed for religious purposes they generally have a very strategic rather than ideological objective. Certainly the two can be conflated, capturing Jerusalem is a strategic opbjective for ideological concerns but it is not an attempt to Christianize the Moors.

Charlemagne's little debacle with the Saxons is more an exception under the auspices of a very frustrated secular authority than anything else. Sure there's religious sentiment there but given what I've seen of the records it strikes me as more a typical conquering massacre than anything uniquely or strongly religious, and he was criticized for it rather heavily. I mean the Byzantine emperor can blind Bulgars all he likes and while he comes a lot closer to having both secular and non-secular authority than any Latin king he is still a secular authority, noone thinks that was done in the name of religion.

My primary point has very little to do with soveriegnty and everything to do with the fact that genocide is not an act you can claim as a de-fault medieval perspective. Nor could you claim that medieval Christianity thought that any means are justified by the end of Christianizing a people or wiping out a Pagan polity.

Now if you want to go into the whole hoary Spanish phenomena then we have a very differnt kettle of fish to boil. To my eyes that's the very dividing point of the medieval and modern worlds, but either way you're looking at a very localized phenomena in terms of the vast scope of the period.

And, even there, I would argue that genocide was not an option they considered as being true to the Christian character of their mission. At the very least certainly not in the same way that the Classical and Roman world viewed genocide as a distinct tool of policy. Even in the case of mass conversions they had to develop a whole new longer regimen of catechetical education and initiation to feel comfortable about it.

 

[fusangite]

Dr Strangemonkey,

I think you're dealing with a strawman rather than my post. I never used the word genocide nor did I state that it was the policy of any medieval society to commit it. What I said was that medieval states which conducted themselves according to the Ostiensian doctrine (and I agree that these doctrines are more a useful form of categorization in hindsight than a conscious policy at the time) did not see any intrinsic value in the cultures they conquered. I am not suggesting some kind of premodern holocaust here. What I was suggesting was that premodern people did not seek to preserve cultures different from theirs and, in fact, worked to assimilate members of other cultures to their cultural values.

The reason I made this initial point was to argue that the idea that not killing women and children because such an act would destroy the culture is an inappropriate one for D&D characters to have in most games. At no point did I state that medievals committed genocide; what I suggested was that medievals, generally, sought to destroy/assimilate those things that we moderns regard as the components of culture: language, customs, relgion, etc.

Furthermore, I am not suggesting that there are no examples outside the High Middle Ages of conversion by choice as a missionary policy. But I would argue that such policies arose not out of choice but out of necessity. Early medieval Christians used whatever means they had at their disposal to effect conversion; often, force of arms was not an available means.

Certainly, you are correct that the first wave of crusader states did not attempt to convert the moors; subsequent crusaders did make such an attempt. This was an important factor in the loss of Christian territories in the Holy Land.

But I'm really not here to argue the minutia of medieval history. Conversion by treaty, mass baptism, proxy baptism, missions... these were all tactics used by Christians. From reading penitentials, it is clear that cultural difference was seen by medieval Christians as a refuge for pagan thought. Even the heroes of consensual, culturally sensitive conversion strategies like Gregory the Great and Cyril and Methodius did not perceive themselves as preserving culture. They simply pursued consciously gradualist policies in order to achieve the ultimate goal of making the peoples of pagan lands like themselves, in part because the military option was unavailable.

Also, I really question your idea that any pre-modern people understood genocide as we do -- or that even if they did, that they could possibly have had the resources to carry it out. What examples are you citing of the Romans committing genocide? Certainly the Romans could disperse people -- the diaspora was certainly created by Rome but I think this is one of the strong cases for the absence of pre-modern genocides.

Anyway, I don't think our positions are that far apart. Neither of us is suggesting that anybody was carrying out genocide in the Middle Ages. Neither of us is suggesting that cultural or biological diversity were values held or espoused by medieval people. Both of us recognizes many consensual conversions and many that were less so. Perhaps we could leave it at that.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmm, I would not say that Medievals held cultural or biological diversity as values, no. Biological diversity would particularly be a problem for them as I don't know that you could claim anyone in the middle ages had an idea approaching that of race. Certainly you might claim there were proto versions of it in specific cases but no general ideology.

Now, biological diversity in nature you might make a claim for, though I don't think they had anything approaching an extinction issue to make that clear for them. They were very interested in creating long term and stable sustainable land management.

Cultural difference, rather than diversity, was something Medievals were sensitive too, I just don't think they saw cultures as whole cloth. There would be no notion that you had to, say, preserve the French language from pollution, but there would be a notion that a people had ancient rights or customs that were worth remembering and that the identity as a whole gave a lot of claim to various values of legitimacy. By the time you get to the new world you're dealing with a whole different kettle of fish, but even within the Hapsburg Empire the specific character, laws, and customs of a people were the basis for all interaction with that province, even though the history of those institutions could be questioned and negotiated with, thus the horror that was Charles V tax codes and finances.

If I am tilting at a strawman with regard to the issue of genocide then fair enough, but it is a point I felt pretty strongly about clarifying. And I really do not believe that the purpose/intent of Christianzing work through much of the period was to produce general conformity. Certainly there would be a high degree of conformity on the ecclesiastical level but even there you can look to the multiplicity of Catholic rites and see a high degree of willingness to accomodate and preserve difference. But I think the general point of Gregory the Great's stance on Missionary work was that cultural assimilation was not a concern of the church and that cultural difference could be manipulated as just another rhetorical tool rather than an ideological objective. You still see a lot of that carried over into the early modern period, though by the time the Jesuits get disbanded, the first time, things had pretty clearly been decided against medieval tolerance and laissez faire.

Christian versus Pagan claims mostly tend to come long after the actual point of conversion when Christian rhetoric is looking to establish its own strawmen.

The policy I see at work through most of the Middle Ages was not the Ostiensian doctrine so much as one that might be called Augustinian. That is that as with Augustine and the many religious divisions he faced, if you were living in a Catholic polity you could accept that legal force might be brought to bear on internal dissension and you could seek to guide it, but the point was to bring in willing converts so you had to recognize both the value of force for protection of Catholic rights and the extreme limitations of force and coercion as rhetorical tools. And that doctrine is pretty clearly against the annihilation of rival groups by any means other than co-opting. Augustine's actual pleas for the preservation of Jewish communities are certainly odd, but they are also very clearly against anything that would be a deliberate attempt to squelch them. I think Gregory's work complements this idea with regard to communities that do not exist inside Catholic polities.

I don't know of an instance in which an armed force is used as an extension of evangelical work prior to the early modern period, but I could easily be ignorant of an exception. Even in Spain during the Reconquista being Moorish isn't necessarily an impediment, El Cid was Muslim afterall. I know of missionary work within the Crusader states, but I don't know of any concentrated effort to really make the Crusader states an evangelical tool. Again I could be ignorant, but given the reputation of the Crusader states as diplomats and power-brokers within the Muslim world pre-Saladin I think that would be an extremely odd move on their part.

The Diaspora is an interesting example of Roman Imperial policy with regard to genocide, though I think it's a little bit difficult in that Jewish communities had already been spread across the empire and the civil war certainly made them concerned with a quick solution. Still the Romans were looking to destroy any notion of a complete and coherent Jewish community and one of the tools they used for that were executions not aimed so much at people as at populations, which was a fairly common Roman policy. I would look particularly at the case of Numantia where a Spanish Republic of five cities was deliberately and totally massacred, enslaved, and obliterated. Thucydides has at least two dialogues within the History of the Pellopenssian War devoted to Athen's tendency to annihilate revolting polities, and there it is not the concept that is exceptional so much as the circumstances.

In general, I think genocide was a more acceptable policy to a Mediterranean world where polities were the size of cities, but one good family, a family that could potentially be a polity in it's own right, could cause massive trouble for generations.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Anyway, I don't think our positions are that far apart. Neither of us is suggesting that anybody was carrying out genocide in the Middle Ages. Neither of us is suggesting that cultural or biological diversity were values held or espoused by medieval people. Both of us recognizes many consensual conversions and many that were less so. Perhaps we could leave it at that.

Fair enough, but these are the sort of discussions that make ENWorld valuable, nay not valuable but in fact awesome, in my eyes.

More on Topic: a +2 to dexterity would be very genre appropriate for women, should a +2 to Con make you quesy or a +2 to Wisdom seem too weak. Barbarian girlz is always quick, cunning, and agile.