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On Mon, 11/23/15, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TML] Absurdities of the Official Traveller Universe
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Date: Monday, November 23, 2015, 3:29 PM
On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at
2:12 PM, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
wrote:
The merchants were land-poor, and lacked the numerous legal
rights and priviliges of the nobility, but they
were generating income based on manufacturing or processing
(or financial speculation), which generated a
significant income without the investment and
expense of feudal land.
The 3I seems to include the merchants in the nobility, and
allows for promotion into the nobility. Land itself is
no longer the limiting factor.
Hmmm, that makes the 3i more akin to the Hanseatic
League and the Holy
Roman Empire rather than feudal Europe.
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On Nov 23, 2015, at 12:56 PM, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
wrote:
Yes. Still close enough to
"feudal" for most modern people. A key part of the feudal
tradition was the ongoing exchange of of land tenure for
troops. The king owns the land, and distributes tenure
of fiefs to the people who form his army. There is a
fairly clear quid pro quo in the number of troops expected
per the amount of land being held in fief. (For pre-invasion England,
it was one equipped trooper for every 5 hides of land,
with a hide being a general economic measure rather than a
strict area measure like acres or hectares. A 100 hide
aministrative district fielded a unit of 20 men. Tenure
changes after the Normans take over, but the basic system
stays in place for several hundred years after the Bastard
takes over. ) Early on, ownership of 5
hides put someone in the nobility, and they went trooping
themselves, and the system functioned as a sort of
"national guard" levy that was generally
used defensively to fight invasions and piracy. The
system doesn't produce a particularly useful force if
you want to take them elsewhere and go raiding. Eventually, with the rise
of professional armies, and the aggregation of large chunks
of land into the hands of a relatively small number of
landholders, and the cost of supporting full time troops
you rareley needed, fewer landholders kept military forces
ready and available. (This is also a result of
strengthening central authority; when you can no longer raid
your neighbors, and your neighbors can no longer raid you,
because the King will bring and army and punish the
transgressor, the direct need for troops to defend your
holdings and raid your neighbors declines. When your
borders are relatively secure from foreign invaders, your
need for troops declines.) The feudal military
obligation became more and more often paid as money to
hire troops, in lieu of troops themselves. Eventually
it becomes entirely exected to be money instead of troops,
with the Crown slowly becoming the sole control of a
standing military force. The 3I appears to be well
past the straight-up land for troops or land for rents
relationship. There is still plenty of
"feudal" loyalty floating around, even if it
isn't backed by grands of income-generating
land. The whole thing looks more
"Victorian" than "Feudal". (Hm.
Steampunk Traveller.) The 3I seems to have a mix
of both private troops attached to various nobles (most of
which, if they are big enough and capable enough, are also
reserve 3I units), straight Imperial troops (who are
presumably, in theory, directly loyal to the emperor), and
merc units. Dan
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I also see it this way (the 'Victorian' aspect jumped out at me early on) but with the caveat that some private troops, (notably Norris's 'Huscarles') are actually considered *regular* 3I units, (re: FifthFW board game & numerous other references)
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