Political Hierarchy of Medieval Kingdoms

[redwing]

I am a novice historian (with only my high school classes and hours upon hours of watching the history channel under my belt) and a novice DM as well.


I am looking to throw together a political intrigue based game for my next campaign. I already have a good general idea on how the plot will run, however the game is based around the characters taking part in the daily affairs of the kingdom and being integrated into the ongoings of the higher ups throughout the campaign.

Are there any good sources on the internet (I've already ran google, and looked through wiki), for the organization the the government of the normal European Middle Ages Kingdom? How was it set up? How many people and exactly who worked within the castle? Who performed the smaller tasks in the villages (tax collecters, etc)? What exactly did the king do on a day to day basis? Who was under him? Besides taxing his kingdom and defending them, what else did the king do for his people? What in return (besides food and money) did they do for him? How did the King relate to the court system of the Kingdom? What was the government set up like? Was the king the legislative, judicial and executive branches all in one?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Unfortunately, the answer to all of your questions is: It depends. There was a lot of differences depending when, where and who. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

 

[Rabelais]

Well... hmm

If you haven't looked at Wikipedia, you're really missing something.

First, there's really no such thing as the run of the mill midieval kingdom. Each place really did it differently. The wasting away of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century left a number of very large power voids that the European tribes that would eventually become nations struggled to occupy.

The role of the monarch is pretty hard to describe. Depending on the size of a Kingdom, there may be many layers of noble vassals that need to be kept in line.

A small kingdom might only be the size of a city state.

 

[Rabelais]

If we get a clearer idea of your basic plot I bet the board can find you a good fit.

The farther you are from Rome in time, the more complex the manorial system would become.

In Rome, the Catholic Church emerged after a long and bitter struggle with the Lombards to BARELY hold Rome and the Papal States, and only then with the help (sometimes wanted, sometimes not) from the Holy Roman Empire. The papacy is the longest continuously running bureaucracy in the world. It's fully formed in a way that we would recognize by about AD900

England wasn't much more than a place for Pigs to root around before 900.

 

[Umbran]

It varies a great deal. There's a lot of Europe, and a lot of time covered here.

There were times when Europe was mostly united under one Emperor. In some places, and times the king was weak or non-existant. In some places, the leaders were almost as bound by "common law" as the commoners were.

So, you can pretty much make it up however you want it to be, and it'll likely be close to something that actually existed.

 

[Ilium]

I went ahead and did a quick wikipedia search. Check this out for an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examples_of_feudalism#12th_century_England

Wikipedia rocks, though I wouldn't rely on it as my sole source for anything important.

 

[fusangite]

Are there any good sources on the internet (I've already ran google, and looked through wiki), for the organization the the government of the normal European Middle Ages Kingdom?

Here's your first problem. You are being too general. The Middle Ages spanned about 1000 years and Europe is a darned big place. There is no "typical" case, unfortunately. I would urge you to come up with things that you want your campaign to resemble and we can start answering questions or pointing you towards resources. For a an excellent book on doing what most people picture as the Middle Ages, pick up the Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe by Expeditious Retreat Press; it covers the High Middle Ages in Germanic Europe and deals with many of the questions you will be concerned about. It is available in PDF or print copy.

I'll give you somewhat of a general answer to some of your questions:

Vassalage (sometimes mistakenly called feudalism) is a general category of political systems. Vassalage arose in the early medieval period because large-scale governments like kingdoms end empires could not meaningfully function. In a vassalage system, individuals enter into unequal partnerships where the weaker person swears an oath to a knight or lord to serve him in exchange for receiving protection. This knight or minor lord, in turn, might swear fealty to a more powerful person in exchange for protection. There can be many links in the chain or few.

The strength of this pledge of fealty is directly linked to one's superior's capacity to (a) beat you up and (b) beat other people up. A small, remote village might have peasants who have sworn an oath of fealty to a minor lordling or knight who has a handful of men-at-arms occupying a small castle or large house. This minor noble might then swear an oath to a more powerful lord, who might, in turn, swear an oath to the king. Political power gained this way is broadly called "suzerainty."

Existing contemporaneous with suzerainty is the more ancient idea of sovereignty, a holdover from the good old days of Roman or Carolingian despotism. A king might be sovereign over his whole territory but if he is not suzerain over it, his power is not very meaningful. A noble family like the Capetian kings of France might strive over many generations to collect enough suzerain arrangements in their territory that they could proclaim themselves kings. But more often, nobles with large numbers of suzerain arrangements might collect this power for its own sake or for the ability to be a king-maker or the power behind the throne.

Some peasants in this system might live on royal demesne lands in which case, their relationship with the king is one iteration removed (they swear their fealty directly to the king) whereas a peasant in small village in a remote region might swear their loyalty to a local knight who made a binding oath with a local lordling whose oath was to a baron whose oath was to the king. In the latter case, the baron might become fed-up with the king and swear fealty to the king of the kingdom next door; the peasant might find that his king had changed overnight but, more likely, he wouldn't find out right away and, even if he did, this change might not have much meaning for him.

Remember that vassalage, as we now understand it, was not really present for the first 3-4 centuries of the Middle Ages, nor did it shake down the same way in the same places. The balance between the principles of suzerainty and sovereignty in how places ran was always a little different; vassalage was never practiced in an absolute and unadulterated way. The idea of divine right of kings was an idea that competed with the feudal order.

 

[gizmo33]

I think the "Life in a Medieval ..." (city, castle, village) series is great for what you're looking for. You could probably get copies at Amazon, or the public library (look up "library" in wiki ) might have copies.

The DMG II has a chart of "what's going on at court" that has some interesting ideas for court activities/intrigue.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

As others have said your question is too broad for a single definitive answer. there are any number of books that might help you.

As to internet resources, the following that I've come across may help to somw degree (though I wouldn't swear to how authoritative any of them are):

Medieval English towns: http://www.trytel.com/~tristan/towns/towns.html

Medieval history: http://historymedren.about.com/]http://historymedren.about.com/

Internet medieval sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

Britsh history: http://www.britannia.com/history/index.html