>> The basic social unit is the stead lodge or longhouse or hearth: usually
>> thirty to forty people of the one bloodline living together in the one
>> large building.
>
>You're stereotyping carl steads again. Cottars cannot afford those great
>longhouses, they are more likely to crowd about 12 to 20 people into a
>building at most half the size of a longhouse, with a lot less stable area
>(no need for it except for the cattle loans) but possibly some area where
>indoor craft is done.
Why assume cottars don't have cattle? They don't have enough to provide a full ox team but that's going to require a herd of at least twenty, possibly thirty. Then there are sheep, pigs and other livestock. Probably the definition of a stickpicker is someone who has no livestock at all.
In fact I can't see the single building stead being very common at all. Probably one or two longhouses with two or three smaller dwellings and a weaving shed is typical.
>Your Saxon inheritance laws Germanic stead. (No Frankish inheritance
>stupidity where each son receives an equal share, but integrity of the
>economic unit as main purpose of inheritance.) Note that hearth mistress
>usually is not an elected or appointed office, but one assigned by
>marriage to the stead leader. I.e. by clan appointment. A bloodline may
>have a say which male leads the household, but the clan appoints his wife
>(you can only say no so many times...).
Except that most Heortlings get married long before they would be considered as a stead leader and it's a heck of a job predicting whether a woman from another clan is going to make a good steadmistress (not hearthmistress, a stead may have several hearths) in another decade or two. Also unless you have strict inheritance rules there are going to be several possible candidates.
I can see two alternatives. Either the thane and steadmistress are chosen as a couple accepting that neither may be the ideal candidate. Or that the thane and steadmistress aren't necessarily married to each other. Anything else makes steadmistress a title rather than a postion of leadership. While Ernalda is quite devious enough to have another stead leader the men don't know about I feel that's carrying things a bit far.
In fact it would be more viable in reverse, select the right steadmistress and she'll make sure her husband takes advice from the right men to run that side of things properly.
>How many bloodlines does your average clan have? And in case of a cottar
>bloodline, wouldn't that (at least) be spread over several lodges (and
>also to people living as retainers on carls' steads)?
Typically six according to TR pg. 29. I've always assumed that most steads have members of several bloodlines living together. When a young man decides to settle down he may do so in his birth stead, a close relative's stead or join a group of friends to set up a new stead. While it's theoretically his choice it will be heavily influenced by where the clan has most use for his labour.
>> Depending one how close the stead dwellings are it may be as
>> fluid and autonomous as the hearth, or it may require informal
>> consultation and requests for assistance from other bloodline hearths.
>> However, loyalty and support with a bloodline are absolute: if they're
>> not then the bloodline will split. (and they do). In a small clan, a
>> bloodline may be unimportant. In a large or dispersed clan it may
>> function as a mini-clan in itself.
>
><troll mode slightly on>Begging the question of strictly extragamous
>coupling in such a large or dispersed clan...</troll mode>
I don't think anyone's claimed strictly extragamous coupling in clans. Extragamous marriage isn't quite the same thing.
>How does this sub-clan level system work when outside demands intrude
>its peace?
It's the outside demands which create the internal peace. "Let's leave this dispute until we've sorted out these foreigners".
>If I read Barbarian Adventures correctly, most Lunar punitive or
>corrective measures are exercised on tribal level rather than clan
>level (the only clan level activity/retaliation I can recall is the
>Sambari Firebull rebellion).
Probably the tribal level punishments are the most dramatic and noteworthy. I suspect the Lunars work on the basis that if the tribal leadership is hostile punish the tribe but if they are co-operative and identify a particular clan as the source of the trouble then punish the clan. Most of the tribal punishments seem to involve separating particular clans and transferring them to more co-operative tribes.
>The Harst myths show how trading even works inside a clan. It may
>start as gifting and counter-gifting, but soon becomes something
>different.
I'm not sure a Heortling would see the difference, there must be some indirect way of letting someone know what gift you would like and that very soon merges into trading. Perhaps they regard trade as between bloodlines and gifting within a bloodline. Mind you I think there's a lot of inter-clan gifting between the womenfolk as well.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
Powered by hypermail