Re: Technology and the cataphractoi

From: Stephen Tempest <gd_at_stempest.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 13:35:38 +0100


Mikko Rintasaari <rintasaa_at_mail.student.oulu.fi> writes:

> Nobility as a purely ruling class,
>and knights as a totally separete class seems very, very confused to me.
>
>Nobility are the elite arm in warfare. Knights are nobles, and nobles are
>knights. Just the implications for population structure are staggering. If
>nobles just sit in manors and castles and rule folk, the world will start
>to get full of superfluous nobility (good food, lower child mortality,
>long lifespan because of nutrition and light workload). Nobility that
>doesn't earn it's keep in war is a very strange concept.

On the contrary, it's one of the most common patterns in world history - even in Europe. Carolingian nobles were primarily rulers and bureaucrats, not trained warriors. Why else do you think that the English word "knight" derives from the Anglo-Saxon "cniht" meaning servant or retainer? The warriors were employed by the nobles, but the nobles didn't sully themselves with the actual hand-to-hand combat.

The period of the Crusades and the High Middle Ages did see knighthood becoming glamorous and fashionable. For that brief period of time, Western nobles were also expected to be skilled warriors. The fact that state-of-the-art weapon systems at this time were so expensive (especially the horses) also affected the situation. But this was only for a brief period (c. 1100 - 1350). Once the longbow, the pike tercio and the handgun started to dominate the battlefield, the nobility once more was happy to leave fighting to the trained professionals and restrict their own involvement to, at most, providing the senior command of the army.

As for what happens to the surplus nobles if they're not constantly fighting? Well, <national stereotype alert> in England they gave up their pretensions to noble status, joined the middle classes and fuelled a commercial revolution. In Spain, they emigrated to find their fortune in the New World. In Italy, they kept the numbers down by murdering each other. In Germany, they constantly subdivided their realms until you had "Dukes" ruling three acres and a cow... :)

Stephen


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