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Author Topic: Government Types  (Read 27836 times)

GoblinCookie

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #255 on: September 15, 2018, 10:47:34 am »

Now I want people to believe I'm genuinly surprized by this revelation

The 30 years war would work better for your argument.  It is kind of an autocorrect. 
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thompson

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #256 on: September 16, 2018, 08:31:11 pm »

GoblinCookie is correct insofar as loyalty is absolutely necessary for the long term stability of a government. The problems I see are that 1: "metastable" governments can last centuries,  2: a system of loyalty did exist, albeit between nobles and higher ranking nobles, 3: there were no competing ideological alternatives to feudalism until the advent of parliamentary democracy (given a choice between the King of England or King of France, you'll choose whoever your local noble is behind, because that's the guy who could make your life very difficult if you object - nobles are motivated by loyalty and perceived self interest with incomplete information), 4: switching costs for different forms of government are VERY high, so why incite civil unrest if you're unlikely to be any better off under the new regime (again, incomplete information largely censored from above)?

People would have felt loyalty to local people and institutions, their church, and their local lord (if they supported local institutions like the church). Personal loyalty was the entire basis of feudalism, so the network was sustained by progressively lower levels maintaining the support of their subjects. Due to the lack of political alternatives, and the fact the nobility in other areas would likely assist to put down an uprising, peasants would likely put up with the system so long as they weren't suffering famine or the costs of a prolonged war. Once those political alternatives did emerge, the entire edifice of feudalism collapsed within a few hundred years.

China is interesting as they were overtly nationalistic, and had a sophisticated meritocracy system of political advancement where anyone (in principle) could sit an exam and be eligible for higher service. This helped justify the system as it was "fair", but even so there was still the odd uprising.

I think it is fine for the populace to have radically different values to the elites, so long as there are enough other areas of agreement, or a social contract of some sort that compensates for the disagreements. In the example of pacifist dwarves ruled by the military, this pretty much sounds like Japan cira 1650-1850. Being ruled by professional warriors doesn't mean you will actually go to war. On the other hand, it could make sense even if there were frequent wars. After all, even if you hate violence you're likely to appreciate its utility while bunkering down from constant goblin and necromancer invasions. If the warrior class alone fight and normal citizens are allowed to live in peace, that's a decent compromise.

Finally, I vehemently disagree with the suggestion that because df isn't medieval real world medieval examples aren't relevant. That's not our call to make. And if those examples can help to flesh out interesting government models worthy of inclusion, all the better.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 08:32:44 pm by thompson »
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Cathar

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #257 on: September 16, 2018, 09:02:04 pm »

GoblinCookie is correct insofar as loyalty is absolutely necessary for the long term stability of a government.

It depends on what you mean by loyalty. In the context of our conversation, I was talking specifically about the loyalty from the farmers to their nobles. Such loyalty did not exist, and I base that assertion on the records of the hundred years war, where it is noted that the same city, Paris, shown displays of joy at both the conquest from the english and the reconquest by Charles V.

This is explained by the fact that conquests are followed by lavish gifts from the conquerors to the conquered city, but also shows to illustrate that the common folk of the time had no loyalty to their local noble and would just go with whatever happens.

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a system of loyalty did exist, albeit between nobles and higher ranking nobles

Yes this is not in question. Also that system was...extremely unstable. To remain in the context of the hundred years war, this war was litterally decided by the constant side switching of Phillipe Le Bel, and most of the war was spent from both side, convincing him to join them. Tho feudalism provides a loyalty system, it was never absolute.


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there were no competing ideological alternatives to feudalism until the advent of parliamentary democracy (given a choice between the King of England or King of France, you'll choose whoever your local noble is behind, because that's the guy who could make your life very difficult if you object - nobles are motivated by loyalty and perceived self interest with incomplete information),

Precisely. Or well. You don't really chose. You just do what you are told because you are raisen in a society that teaches you this is how things work. You'll also take note that this subserviance extends to the clergy aswell. To talk about the 100yw again, the university of paris (more influencial than Rome for christiandom at the time) totally switched tune after each conquest of the city.

Quote
China is interesting as they were overtly nationalistic, and had a sophisticated meritocracy system of political advancement where anyone (in principle) could sit an exam and be eligible for higher service. This helped justify the system as it was "fair", but even so there was still the odd uprising.

Oh boy I can talk about china for ages. It depends on what era, the system varies wildly depending on what period of time you are analyzing. But the constant is the struggle between the central, administrative power and the warlords and local princes.
It reaches absurds high in the end of the Song era, where the central power was so afraid of a warlord uprising it banned them from having working armies, specialized its military for domestic affairs and concentrated it in Kaifeng capital city. As a result, it was extremely stable. As a drawback, when the Junchen and the Mongols attacked them, they faced basically peasant levies and steamrolled them into submission.

The central administrative power is meritocratic, basically after Confucius was made the favourite philosopher, and access to the administration is made by tests. Problems is, the administration itself is (again depending on the period but usually) openly corrupt, and has to compete with the local powers outside of the imperial desmene. China is fantastic as a case study.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 09:15:31 pm by Cathar »
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thompson

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #258 on: September 16, 2018, 09:26:37 pm »

To clarify, I believe feudalism was an inherently unstable form of government as it lacked adequate loyalty from commoners to sustain it. It survived for as long as it did solely due to the fact commoners had no real alternatives. But in the interim, there was a LOT of violence and political instability. It shouldn't surprise anyone that commoners prefered despotic peace over anarchic violence (revolutions are hard).

"Instability", here, is subjective. An administration everyone hates can remain in existence for a very long time, so long as its subjects have no viable means to overthrow it. Once things do start unravelling, everything falls apart very quickly. Regimes that last only 100 years or so between dynasties warrant inclusion in df. The wars of succession and revolutions also make for interesting scenarios.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #259 on: September 17, 2018, 01:07:30 pm »

Finally, I vehemently disagree with the suggestion that because df isn't medieval real world medieval examples aren't relevant. That's not our call to make. And if those examples can help to flesh out interesting government models worthy of inclusion, all the better.

They are not *particularly* relevant.  We can take examples for pretty much any era, because DF does not resemble any era very much at all.

To clarify, I believe feudalism was an inherently unstable form of government as it lacked adequate loyalty from commoners to sustain it. It survived for as long as it did solely due to the fact commoners had no real alternatives. But in the interim, there was a LOT of violence and political instability. It shouldn't surprise anyone that commoners prefered despotic peace over anarchic violence (revolutions are hard).

"Instability", here, is subjective. An administration everyone hates can remain in existence for a very long time, so long as its subjects have no viable means to overthrow it. Once things do start unravelling, everything falls apart very quickly. Regimes that last only 100 years or so between dynasties warrant inclusion in df. The wars of succession and revolutions also make for interesting scenarios.

How can the subjects not have the viable means to overthrow their rulers?  The rulers are outnumbered 1000s to 1.  People also do not inherantly have a problem with Despotism, wanting to live in a Democracy is not a universal aspiration, it is a particular ideology. 

Feudalism is also not just a form of government, it is a actually a form of society/economy.  It's basis is the household economy of the (generally) nuclear family, what most people think of as Feudalism is the hierarchy of such families.  That means that it is actually very difficult for the peasants to overthrow Feudalism, because if they overthrow the noble families they still remain nuclear families themselves and the economy remains based based upon the work of family units. 

It depends on what you mean by loyalty. In the context of our conversation, I was talking specifically about the loyalty from the farmers to their nobles. Such loyalty did not exist, and I base that assertion on the records of the hundred years war, where it is noted that the same city, Paris, shown displays of joy at both the conquest from the english and the reconquest by Charles V.

This is explained by the fact that conquests are followed by lavish gifts from the conquerors to the conquered city, but also shows to illustrate that the common folk of the time had no loyalty to their local noble and would just go with whatever happens.

Neither of your examples prove what you are trying to prove.  Firstly, as a conqueror, you do not have to waste money on bribes for a cynical, apathetic population because such population cares nothing for which particular government rules over them.  The fact that you presently have a greater ability to kill them should be enough to win them over, since they not going to be willing to lay down their lives for the loser for whom they care nothing.  Giving gifts implies a very great need for conquerors to win over the loyalty of the population and an awareness of this fact by said conquerors.

Secondly as already discussed, the 100 years war was a civil war basically.  Both the English and French kings claim to be the French king and both have considerable internal support within France itself.  Pointing out that people celebrated when Paris fell does not prove anything, because we already knew that a large portion of the French population support the claim of the English king to be the True King of France.  The difference between modern nationalism and medieval nationalism is the the latter is based upon the formula True King = True Nation.  The patriotic thing to do is to fight to the death for whoever you consider to be the true king against anyone laying claim to the lands of the True King (and hence nation).  If the True King happens to by chance to also be a foreigner or even the king of another nation this is not strictly relevant on principle.  I am not saying that being foreign was not a handicap to a claimants ability to get support, only that with a strong enough claim people would accept them because their True Kingness is more important than their background; or to put it another way it is the office that matters not the individual, which is why I call it nationalism rather than personal loyalty to an individual (the office is a nation). 

Thirdly, everything you said about peasants not have any loyalty to their nobles is dispelled by the story of one woman; St. Joan of Arc.  There we have a clear example about how peasants, even when not being of the correct gender to fight would take up arms even without being ordered to do, because of their own personal agendas. 
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Miles_Umbrae

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #260 on: September 21, 2018, 09:34:50 pm »

Loyalty by the commoners/peasants/plebeians towards the rulers/kings(queens) of the lands actually did exist back in medieval times .. it was just binary and dependant on the state of the neighbouring regions.
If the ruler treated his/her subjects well(enough), and kept tyrannical neighbouring rulers from invading/pillaging the "countryside", then they would help defend the land(although quite begrudgingly).
But that loyalty was fickle as soon as a "better" ruler came invading and there was a hint of a better life under him/her(preferably to just be left alone).

On another note; Nationalism is nothing more than Tribalism on a much larger scale, so technically Nationalism DID exist back then .. there just wasn't much of a sense of common culture/history with those a weeks travel away...
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Detoxicated

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #261 on: September 22, 2018, 03:04:39 am »

GC I highly recommend The Prince and Discorsi by machiavelli. Just because you didn't have to bribe the population doesn't mean that it wasn't smart to do so anyway. The leader highly depended on the loyalty and fear of its subject
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #262 on: September 23, 2018, 07:38:02 am »

Loyalty by the commoners/peasants/plebeians towards the rulers/kings(queens) of the lands actually did exist back in medieval times .. it was just binary and dependant on the state of the neighbouring regions.
If the ruler treated his/her subjects well(enough), and kept tyrannical neighbouring rulers from invading/pillaging the "countryside", then they would help defend the land(although quite begrudgingly).
But that loyalty was fickle as soon as a "better" ruler came invading and there was a hint of a better life under him/her(preferably to just be left alone).

On another note; Nationalism is nothing more than Tribalism on a much larger scale, so technically Nationalism DID exist back then .. there just wasn't much of a sense of common culture/history with those a weeks travel away...

Tribalism is actually *before* Feudalism.  It is also before nations as we presently understand it.  To my reading of history Tribalism (society economically based upon extended kinship) comes before Feudalism (society economically based upon individual households) and the nation is really the invention of (later) Feudalism in an attempt to overcome Tribalism by substitution.  The Nation is *not* the continuation of the Tribe, the Nation is the psychological substitution for the Tribe.

The transition between Tribalism and Feudalism happens at various points in time depending upon where you are.  The Romans are the main protagonist in this transition, they were the main force that destroyed the old tribal order and as a result in places where they failed to conquer (Poland, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia) tribal/clan arrangements remain a major power in the middle ages, contrasting to the places (like England) where they did conquer.  This is in turn complicated somewhat by how the Roman Empire was overthrow by German tribes, so we see some backsliding but thanks to the inability of the conquerors to entirely turn the clock back socially in places the Romans conquered we end up with what most people think of as Feudalism during the middle ages (except in Poland, Ireland and Scotland mostly). 

Here is the confusing part, the role of city-states, like Ancient Athens.  Athenian citizenship was purely tribal, normally in order to become a citizen you had to be born to both an Athenian mother and a father, it was not enough to live in Athens and speak Greek.  But the economy was more Feudal, Athens economic unit is mostly that of the household, but the political system renounces the importance of household for that of the extended family kinship.  In effect these are semi-stable compromises between the conflicting systems of Tribalism and Feudalism; weakened by their internal contradictions.  As a result these systems are then swept away by the more stable purely Feudal systems of Macedon and Rome. 

The Macedonian system is pretty much identical to medieval Feudalism so does not require much discussion.  The Roman system is, while superficially similar to that of the Greeks actually not so because the basis of the Roman political system was the nuclear family.  Rome was not built on the assumption that Rome is a single extended family that grows outward from it's collective ancestors but is understood as a union of originally independent nuclear families, a union that gradually grows over time as new families are (slowly) admitted and citizenship is thus extended.  In this fashion the Roman Empire atomized the tribes of Europe and the semi-tribal cities like Athens down into their nuclear families through extreme violence, before *eventually* gobbling up those families into Rome so that by the time it's collapse everyone was a Roman citizen. 

This is the problem the Romans run into.  At the time they are around Nationalism is very weak, if it exists at all.  People are 'Nationalistic' about their tribes, or their cities which are often the same thing as already discussed.  Over the course of their empire however the Romans successfully annihilate those things, but they leave a vacuum because the loyalty of the Romans is to Rome not to a nation.  Not being a nation they cannot truly absorb the de-nationalised elements through the process of extending them citizenship and the end result is a situation where small numbers of people can conquer the place with ease because nobody is prepared to die for it.

The fundamental problem is how to bind a society based upon atomized nuclear family households, which unlike tribal arrangements are very vulnerable to attack (hence Vikings) together into territorial units of sufficient scale that they can afford to mobilize sufficient forces to keep small numbers of raiders at bay and to give those forces something they will die for.  This is a form of warfare between the Tribal and Feudal systems, the Vikings are a Tribal society while their victims are Feudal.  The Viking problem would be solved by a return to Tribalism but that was not ideologically acceptable to people inspired by Rome.  So that is why we end up with Nationalism, in order to not abandon their Feudal society and return to a Tribal one for the sake of security they have to create Nation-States in order to secure their fundamentally insecure way of life and they ideologically need to promote loyalty to such concepts. 

GC I highly recommend The Prince and Discorsi by machiavelli. Just because you didn't have to bribe the population doesn't mean that it wasn't smart to do so anyway. The leader highly depended on the loyalty and fear of its subject

I've read the Prince before, but not not the Discourses.  I was the one arguing that the loyalty of the subjects was important, Cathar was the one arguing the opposite, that the ordinary folks had no loyalty to their leaders.  In any case however, the key claim he was making was that nationalism did not exist back then, I was arguing it did.  The Prince speaks of the difficulty of ruling over conquered lands and proposes as one solution that the ruler 'take up residence' in the conquered land; which is pretty much advising that he 'emigrate' to become visibly part of the foreign nation.  Without Nationalism however, ruling over conquered foreign lands would be no different from ruling over your native lands. 
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Re: Government Types
« Reply #263 on: September 26, 2018, 06:23:49 am »

Discorsi is much better than the Prince but also alot harder to read.
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Cathar

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #264 on: September 26, 2018, 02:13:11 pm »

Oh my god. No, nationalism did not exist in the medieval time, it's an invention of the 18th century.

Also I don't read GC's posts but you're using two different definitions of "tribalism". You are using an anthropological definition (how a group defines its limits) and he's using a historical definition (people living in an actual tribe). Not that it matters really at this point but maybe you'll fare better if you define the terms you're using

Edit : Just to give the benefit of the doubt, if you mean "people are naturally tribalistic and nationalism is an extention of tribalism ipso facto people are naturally nationalistic"...you're still very wrong.
Language itself is not unified in the middle age, every province has its linguae, they don't feel a patriotic feeling like they are part of the same group as each others, and certainly not as the same group as their lord or his mercenaries. Tribalism expressed itself in a village, or in a family, but for nation-sized tribes to organize themselves you need modern communications and an unified language.

Just as a trivia ; did you know that "mercenary", "soldier" and "bandit" were used interchangeably ? They eytmologically all describe the same people. In France they had signature methods of torture to force the peasants to feed them ("la chauffe" for exemple, was very common). "Chauffard" was also a term used, and nowaday it is an insult meant at bad drivers.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2018, 02:50:25 pm by Cathar »
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Miles_Umbrae

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #265 on: September 26, 2018, 04:08:42 pm »

Oh my god. No, nationalism did not exist in the medieval time, it's an invention of the 18th century.
*sigh*
Abstract concepts like "Nationalism" or "Feudalism" are NOT "invented".
"Feudalism", for example, existed between 9th and 15th century, but wasn't "invented" until 1939-ish, meaning these things can definitely exist without an official name for it.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #266 on: September 27, 2018, 06:04:01 am »

Edit : Just to give the benefit of the doubt, if you mean "people are naturally tribalistic and nationalism is an extention of tribalism ipso facto people are naturally nationalistic"...you're still very wrong.
Language itself is not unified in the middle age, every province has its linguae, they don't feel a patriotic feeling like they are part of the same group as each others, and certainly not as the same group as their lord or his mercenaries. Tribalism expressed itself in a village, or in a family, but for nation-sized tribes to organize themselves you need modern communications and an unified language.

They did have a unified language, Latin.  The majority of nations in the modern world do not all speak the same native language, they get along quite fine because they all know a third language which everyone can speak irrespective of what their actual language is.  Also a number of independent nations speak the same language as each-other, it does not mean that they are unified and act as one nation.

At a certain point, the existing nations do attempt to create a unified vernacular language to replace Latin, the reasons for this are obscure.  Probably those reasons are nationalistic in nature, which gives the lie to the idea that nations are somehow built on a common language, they are not.  Random warlords that happen to control some stretch of land by the sword do not need to impose a common language, they would be quite happy to talk Latin. 

Nationalism is not simply the idea that a nation must speak the same language, *that* was indeed a recent invention but it was an invention *of* nationalists which logically must exist earlier. 

Just as a trivia ; did you know that "mercenary", "soldier" and "bandit" were used interchangeably ? They eytmologically all describe the same people. In France they had signature methods of torture to force the peasants to feed them ("la chauffe" for exemple, was very common). "Chauffard" was also a term used, and nowaday it is an insult meant at bad drivers.

They don't just etymologically describe the same people, they literally *are* the same people in many areas during the middle ages.  Soldiers get recruited from ordinary people and trained to fight, then the soldiers find themselves unemployed once they are disbanded either because there is peace or they lost the war, then they turn into bandits because nobody is doling out welfare to ex-soldiers and then finally they end up being hired to work somewhere else where there is a war going on as mercenaries and then potentially it is back to being bandits again. 
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Cathar

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #267 on: September 27, 2018, 06:10:07 am »

Alright, so it's a bickering on words. Fine. Nationalism existed from the 18th century onward. Attributing it to medieval people is hindsight at its absolute worst. And to your defense, some historians did it, which is a mistake that is forgivable for a forum poster, but not for a man such as Michelet who is at the origin of most of our misconceptions about the "patriotic feeling" of the 100yw, which, again, was completely foreign to those people.

They don't just etymologically describe the same people, they literally *are* the same people in many areas during the middle ages.  Soldiers get recruited from ordinary people and trained to fight, then the soldiers find themselves unemployed once they are disbanded either because there is peace or they lost the war, then they turn into bandits because nobody is doling out welfare to ex-soldiers and then finally they end up being hired to work somewhere else where there is a war going on as mercenaries and then potentially it is back to being bandits again. 

At the origin, it wasn't even a differenciation between the state of employment of hired fighters. Fighters were not hired from the common folk, they were hired as professionals members of companies. Soldiers means "who receives a solde" which is an amount of money paid for work, mercenary comes from the latin "mercenarius" who means "hired or rented". The words means the same exact thing. Bandit simply means "who travels in a band", which all soldiers did at the times. Tho you are right, soldiers were the most dangerous to peasants when they were unemployed and starving, and you can bet your pocket money that farmers despised these guys and did not felt like they were part of the same group

Edit : But HEY here is a suggestion :

What about we completely remove the word "nation" from DF generated civ names, and link the procedures of nomination of civ-level offices to their generated names ? A law giver in a republic could be elected, while being chosen among aristocrats in an aristocracy, or inherit the title from his dead relative in a kingdom. Those mechanisms already exist, they wouldn't require much tweakings to work, and I think it would improve immersion.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2018, 07:01:22 am by Cathar »
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #268 on: September 27, 2018, 06:57:27 am »

Alright, so it's a bickering on words. Fine. Nationalism existed from the 18th century onward. Attributing it to medieval people is hindsight at its absolute worst. And to your defense, some historians did it, which is a mistake that is forgivable for a forum poster, but not for a man such as Michelet who is at the origin of most of our misconceptions about the "patriotic feeling" of the 100yw, which, again, was completely foreign to those people.

You can say that, but you have no evidence nor reason to back it up.  There is no hindsight involved, it just existed because people back then behave like it existed and nobody can identify who the 'inventors' of nationalism even are.  The 100 years war is pretty much a solid example of things behaving like nationalism existed. 

At the origin, it wasn't even a differenciation between the state of employment of hired fighters. Fighters were not hired from the common folk, they were hired as professionals members of companies. Soldiers means "who receives a solde" which is an amount of money paid for work, mercenary comes from the latin "mercenarius" who means "hired or rented". The words means the same exact thing. Bandit simply means "who travels in a band", which all soldiers did at the times. Tho you are right, soldiers were the most dangerous to peasants when they were unemployed and starving, and you can bet your pocket money that farmers despised these guys and did not felt like they were part of the same group

No Cathar, you are completely not understanding the basic idea of Feudal governments.  The idea is that something above you gives you the land and in return you fight for the thing that gave you your land.  Most feudal armies are not made of mercenaries, they are made of people of various social strata called up by their social superiors in order to fight for them.

Mercenaries are something else, they are basically a competing military element.  And yes, these people are basically the same thing as bandits but their origins lie in what happens to people recruited in the former fashion after they have been fighting for a long time and they have no wish or desire or ability to return home.  The ordinary soldiers become bandits which then become mercenaries and unemployment is what causes the ordinary soldiers to make the initial transition. 
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Cathar

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Re: Government Types
« Reply #269 on: September 27, 2018, 07:02:35 am »


You can say that, but you have no evidence nor reason to back it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuNMM4Atmk

I have no idea why you're asking me for evidences since we all witnessed before you can't be arsed to check them once provided. But if you discovered yourself some sudden interest for learning stuff, here you go. It's an excellent serie who clears a lot of confusion about medieval society.

The rest is not worth responding to.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2018, 07:15:50 am by Cathar »
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