On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:37:32 -0800 (PST), donald_at_...
> AIUI thanes are also carls, they are just the most respected/wealthiest.
> I would regard the classes as pretty fluid, based as they are on
> ownership of a plough and ox team and the allocation of land by the
> clan. So even an exceptional stickpicker would be very lucky to
> reach the rank of carl or thane. On the other hand becoming a cotter
> would be fairly common and his sons might well become carls. Part of
> the difficulty is that fathers tend to teach their sons the skills
> needed so generally a cotter wouldn't have the skills to handle an
> ox team or plough so the clan wouldn't allocate land to him.
So no "official" barriers to a potential parvemu, just the
difficulties of getting the capital and the respect from your
superiors in the face of unwritten social prejudices?
I expect you'd need to join a farming cult of some sort too, who might
not be keen in letting half-trained undesirables in.
> Yes, the latter is a modern RW concept.
Literally Modern? I seem to recall it in connection to Scouting and
Baden-Powell.
Boy Scouts seems more Loskalmi than Orlanthi, all things considered. :)
--
John Machin
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
- Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.