Medieval Justice?

[S'mon]

If the characters are in a setting similar to Medieval Europe they would fare better starting off as knights (fighters, rangers, and paladins), lesser nobles or coming from merchant families (bards, monks, wizards, and clerics), or peasants (barbarians, druids, rogues, and sorcerers). A knights only prerecs were being able to purchase arms and armor. Just have kings and nobles above the PC's and make sure they tax (money, goods, services) the PC's. Doesn't sound too far from classic D & D to me.

Yes - I've never started PCs off as peasants or serfs, that I can recall. As EGG said in the 1e DMG, the typical PC in a feudal setting starts off as a member of the unlanded gentry or urban middle class, "second son of a knight" or somesuch at the upper end, or at least of the free-yeoman class (that formed the bulk of later-medieval English armies), allowed to bear arms.
Sensible nobles have a strong sense of 'noblesse oblige' and treat those of inferior station with politeness and even respect, especially if the social inferior has a great axe or a pouchful of bat guano & sulphur!
Not that the serfs have it easy IMC, but the nobility don't go around arbitrarily horsewhipping them or galloping them down unless they want to incite a peasant revolt. Serfs, especially hardworking, contented ones, are economically vauable, and it's common practice IMC for nobles to buy slaves and 'free' them in return for an oath of allegiance, so the slaves become landed serfs or peasants. The PCs, though, come from the warrior-class and rarely have anything to do with the serfs beyond buying an occasional chicken or rescuing some from orcs.

 

[jasper]

Well, Amazon lists that book for $95 "used and new", so I don't think I will be getting it soon.

:

um all the Gies books are in paperback and go from $7 up. Check out Edward hamliton booksellers. And your local library.
Joseph & Frances Gies,
Life in a Medieval Castle, Life in Medieval City, Life in Medieval Village, A Medieval Family, Cathedral Forge and Water Wheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, Daily Life in the Medieval Times, Women in the Middle Ages, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, By the Sweat of Thy Brow: Work in the Western World,
Curry Hugher Arms, Armies, and Fortifications in hundred year’s war.
Who’s who in Medieval England
Malaise Ruthven, Torture the Grand Conspiracy
William Andrews Old Time Punishments
Thor Heyerdal any of his books
DeCamp, Ancient Engineers
Andrews, The Medieval Builder
John Swain Pleasures of The Torture Chamber

 

[Theocrat]

Real Justice vs. that of Dragons

Hi all-
I too had all sorts of ideas on how my D&D game should get into the justice side of things. With playing in a Theocracy, the Theocracy of the Pale, everything should honestly be ecclesitical, but per a poorly researched canon module, there is both ecclesiticial and civil court. After looking at real life ideas and concepts I then ran into the problem that many of us forget. In trying to make everything so realistic, we forget that realism is part of the reason for playing - we want to escape it.

But besides trying to escape realism or not, we must remember that although there were many outlaws and bandits during the middle ages - there were no dragons, orcs or even basiliks to worry about. When orcs roam even the middle lands of an empire, killing your neighbor can easily be blamed on them. Of course then a Zone of Truth spell can negate this aspect of the law. If clerics are such a major part of the law enforcement then this spell can help and can be used to counter such attacks and lies. However, in the rural towns, if someone planned an attack just right, say when orcs or other creatures were out and about during the night, the Zone of Truth spell would be useless - it wouldn't be needed as everybody could easily believe the orc story.
So with magic and monsters in the mix that weren't during Earths time, there has to be some leeway. All this can also be different due to the racial back ground of the game, the campaign setting and so many other concepts.
You can have some guidelines in that murder is wrong in most 'civilized' cultures, but what is right in one region, another might consider that to be unjust or uncivilized.
Hope that helps.

 

[Sarigar]

Ovinomancer,
A few questions.
Are demi-humans going to be included in your campaign? Are they common?
Who is the common foe?
Will you have large cities? I always liked the concept of guilds in D&D beyond the thieves' guilds (i.e. wizard's guilds, Dwarven guilds, etc.). These would be good in urban settings and they have their own set of rules as others have pointed out.

 

[Agback]

I was also curious as to what heirarchy existed.

The existence of any hierachy is greatly exaggerated. Mediaeval kingdoms were not divided up into duchies or earldoms the way the USA is divided up into states. There were duchies and earldoms in some of them, but there were also extensive areas that were not part of any duchy: royal demesnes, and areas directly infeudinated to comparatively humble vassals.

There were two emperors. Germany, Italy, Burgundy, and Lothingaria were parts of one of them. The other was in the east with (early) enclaves in Italy.

There were lots of kings, most of whom were sovereigns. Originally they were all elected (for life), but in the middle they were up for grabs for whomever got there firstest with the mostest. And towards the end they were mostly legally as well as effectively hereditary. (Though the kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, Germany and perhaps a few others remained at least technically elective throughout.)

In France there were a few ducs, who were the leaders of nations such as the Gascons, the Aquitanii, the Normans, and the Bretons that were for various reasons subject to the king of France. In Germany there were herzogs who were in the same position (ie. rulers of the Bavarii, the Saxons, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Swabii etc), except subject to the King of Germany (sometimes aka the Holy Roman Emperor). And since the Kingdom of Germany was reduced to anarchy by conflict with the Papacy, after about 1120 the herzogs were practically independent. The people in that position in England to 1066 were called earls.

In Germany there were prinzes and fursts, who were in practice sovereign, but didn't rule over former nations as the herzogs did.

In France there were a few marquises, and in Germany markgrafs who were counts (grafs) in charge of borderlands and originally with special powers. In France two of them (the marquis of Septimania and the marquis of Gothia) ended up in practice vassals of their nominal junior, the count of Toulouse. In England the people with these special (palatinate) powers were the Bishop of Durham, the Earl of Chester, and the Earl of Pembroke: they had no special title.

In France there were comtes (counts) and in Germany grafs, and in England from 1070 until 1300 or so earls, who were feudal delegates of the king, with administrative powers over defined areas. 'Earl' was remained a title in England, but ceased to be a government post. Note that comtes, earls, and grafs were delegates of the king, not of dukes.

In France there were vicomtes (viscounts) who were (early) chief administrative delegates of the comtes. Middle and late this title was used by [the successors of] people who usurped a county without the royal delegation, or who inherited part of a county while their elder brothers got [bigger shares of the land and] the title.

All of these people were barons (in French), freiherrs (in German), and lords (in English). There were other barons, freiherrs, and lords who were also rich (for example, the baron de Coucy owned more land that any other noble in France than the King, a few dukes, and one of the counts: in the late 1300s he bought the estates of the counnt of Soissons for cash), but who did not have hereditary titles.

Then there were people who owned a manor or a few, but did not rate high enough to be barons, and were sometimes 'tenants' of higher ranked nobles. Note well that these 'tenants' had tenure, and their liege-lords got precious little rent: usually just a few weeks per year of knight service. These were chevaliers (in French), ritters (in German), and knights (in English).

And then there were people who owned a manor or a few but weren't even knights. They often had to pay cash in lieu of knight service.

Then there were yeomen, who owed land in parcels smaller than a manor.

And then peasants/villeins etc., who were tenants on a manor (with tenure), owing services and sometimes fees in kinds, but keeping the produce of their lands.

And at the bottom of the landholding hierarchy, serfs.

Note that this hierachy is nearly all about owning land, and has precious little to do with government. Well-run states actually had a government: England was divided up into areas called 'counties' or 'shires', which were run by salaried officials called sheriffs. The word 'sheriff' is derived through 'shire-reeve' from 'shiren-gereif': "graf of the shire". The English sheriff is the equivalent of the original, un-corrupted, non-hereditary Carolingian graf or comte. The English earl was treated as a comte after the Conquest, but was originally more analogous to the duc.

About a fifth to a third of land was heldd by ecclesiastic persons and corporations, who had a regular, and completely different hierachy.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Many of the titles discussed have very specific meanings in terms of what sort of duties could be expected or the source of their power. Most of these terms were derived from various understandings of the Latin terms and legal duties they originated from.

Emperor, for instance, is a title that bears with it certain very specific and superior standards of legal and soveriegn power. In an international law sense, and I've seen it argued that debates over imperial power were the origins of international law, an Emperor was entitled to a sort of super-soveriegnty and could make claims on other soveriegn powers.

Thus though there were commonly only two individuals who could claim the title of Emperor, there were many sovereigns who would claim imperial power with regard to certain other states. The biggest debates over this use of the term involved the dark age Anglo-Saxon nations, who claimed imperial power under some rather odd and limited circumstances, and the Spanish soveriegns who claimed imperial power under the claim that they were both conquerors who needed and acquired such power as a result of their conquests and demanded that they thus owed less to the Emperor than the kings of other nations.

The Pope sort of claimed Imperial power by claiming both authority over it, in moral circumstances, and the ability to confer, under all circumstances. It is one of the three crowns.

Similarly, Duke is a title that implies the power to lead and raise armies. Both kings and emperors were elected, in some sense, by armies and/or by divine power. Dukes had the capacity to command them to come together.

King Arthur's official title, by some accounts, was Ducis Bellorum, literally a war leader. Mussolini claimed the title of Duke because he was simply a leader.

Dukes are very often created as titles by royal power.

Comte has already come up.

Sir, of some sort or another, implies a right to arms and property and, solely in later times, respect.

Prince would come, I would guess, from Augustus's official title of 'First Man' that is first among equals. It is thus a title of prestige and later, and even at that time, served very readily to designate individuals who might in some sense be considered an heir to some sort of soveriegn power. The requirements of such office would, even at the time, be wield power but do not rock the bad too severely.

Religious titles were, often, far more regularized by keep in mind that there is a lot of specific fluidity. And that both does and does not prove the point.

A minor title in the Order of Cluny might mean vast amounts of power. But the reason people in that order had such minor titles and vast power was so that they might be better controlled.

So it is that Abbots, and Abbesses, often have vast amounts of power, but that's often because the local situation requires a tremendously powerful religious figure and the situation preferred such a figure to be an Abbot rather than a correspondingly more powerful Bishop.

In the reverse position, a small territory like Navarre might need a something as powerful as a king to protect its relatively small assets. Would that king ever have as much power as a King of France, no, but that King would have an advantage to protecting his power compared to a baron or bishop of similarly means.