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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turjan" data-source="post: 1884541" data-attributes="member: 3477">Well, I don't use the modern British system for the "nobility" as detailed above, because I'm going with an earlier feudal model for one of the central countries IMC. There's the king (queen), whose position is not explicitly hereditary, although the heirs try to get the job, of course. Dukes are the leaders of the tribal duchies and the main leaders of the king's army. A new king may usually be elected from the ranks of the dukes, if it's not the son (daughter) of the previous king (who often inherits the father's duchy and, therefore, has a good chance <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />). The whole country, including all duchies, is divided into counties (shires) that are ruled by earls as judges and war leaders. The positions of earls are not necessarily hereditary, either. Their rank is clearly below dukes, but they are more of the "king's men" than the dukes, who might follow their own interests. The earls of newly colonized land at the borders of the kingdom (= margraves) are special in two ways: they don't have dukes above them, plus they have some kind of standing army for border protection. Both explains their somewhat higher position as compared to earls. There are no other noble ranks. I go with a period before the advent of serfdom and petty nobles, when the bulk of the people consisted of free men, who had to follow their earl into war or pay for someone else to go. There are a few examples of these "knights", who are more or less fulltime warriors, but they are very rare.Larger cities, which are very rare, may rule themselves, if they fulfill their duty regarding the army. A reeve might see that they do so, although he has much less power than a shire-reeve (= earl).That's enough of this noble stuff for me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.</blockquote>

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