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My questions concern the real world implications of gavelkind, particularly as it pertained to the clan system of the Scottish Lowlands of the late medieval period. I envision that to a land holding nobleman, those clans would be easier to control when their wealth and power was constantly being divided. But the lords themselves, it seems, were subject to the same laws. After so many generations of divided wealth and lands, how did so many clans manage to keep their lands intact and in the possession of one family? Its persistent practice throughout the ages suggests that it may have had advantages over the feudal system of primogeniture. Could someone please explain what those advantages might have been? I am having difficulty wrapping my head around this and suspect that there were other factors involved. If someone knowledgeable about the subject could chime in, I would greatly appreciate it.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:15
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Bell the Cat posted:My questions concern the real world implications of gavelkind, particularly as it pertained to the clan system of the Scottish Lowlands of the late medieval period. I'm not knowlegedable at all, but i suspect that you are thinking about this way too robotically/strategically. It was simply a custom that made sure that every son would be provided for. The law likely sprang up from families having to split up the farm so each son would have a piece of land to make a living out of and when large noble holdings developed the law naturally extended to nobles as well. Sometimes that meant that several sons had to share the family land and even an entire kingdom in some places, at least until they killed each other over it, but it was a workable system. You should also keep in mind that if a family didn't have enough land to split up then the younger sons would be given some wealth and just be sent on their way. A more centralized system like primogeniture would probably make for a stronger state which might explain why gavelkind, as far as i know, was eventually abolished in most countries.
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Apr 3, 2014 00:01
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Back To 99 posted:I'm not knowlegedable at all, but i suspect that you are thinking about this way too robotically/strategically. It was simply a custom that made sure that every son would be provided for.
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Apr 3, 2014 00:12
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Back To 99 posted:I'm not knowlegedable at all. I appreciate your honesty, but I was referring to its real life application, not its use in a video game. FYI, Gavelkind was not a workable system for it assumed that wealth could be split amicably and evenly (it can't; castles, titles, debts, et al.) Secondly, divisible inherited wealth is more soluble and dilutes over time. Generally this happens through taxation, but it can also happen by laziness, criminal arrest and seizure, dowries, and death. You are right in that it fostered fratricide, but that does not seem to have been the case in the Scottish lowlands, where clan loyalty was paramount, hence the questions. Bell the Cat fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 02:01
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Bell the Cat posted:I appreciate your honesty, but I was referring to its real life application, not its use in a video game. I mean, gavelkind is de facto the 'normal' way most of the Western world operates at this point, unless you know a lot of parents who are literally (and I mean literally in the literal sense) giving their first born children ~99% of their wealth and cutting the rest loose or expecting them to live off the largesse of their siblings, and modern society has yet to cease to function. The 'advantage' is people in the family like each other more and don't hate each other. Usually. Tamerlane posted:Super strange question here: It's a pretty common rhetorical sort of turn. You have to remember that for most societies there's a pretty considerable concern about your fate in the afterlife and a concern that how your body is treated might affect that. So there's punishment by death, and then there's death. This can be the difference between, say, an execution with last rites and they put your body in a special graveyard, for criminals, or you can see it in the suicide vs. execution debate in Japan, where at certain points being allowed to commit suicide was an honor while having someone else execute you was a terrible dishonor. Another example, free blacks in Cuba, especially the free black militia, began to turn on the whites and align with the enslaved population only after provocations, like sharing barrack housing with slave pens and, especially, being punished alongside slaves. One of the key rights supposedly offered to the militiamen was the right to go through military courts and be imprisoned in military prisons. So basically there might not be a 'tradition' but public execution is always going to have an element of theater and symbolism to it. Creating gradations of 'good' and 'bad' deaths is important. Especially when, if, say, you're attempting to enforce conscription you're really only offering a choice between two deaths. If you can make death in battle glorious and death by execution shameful, you can preserve the punitive threat that execution offers.
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Apr 3, 2014 09:26
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the JJ posted:So basically there might not be a 'tradition' but public execution is always going to have an element of theater and symbolism to it. Creating gradations of 'good' and 'bad' deaths is important. Especially when, if, say, you're attempting to enforce conscription you're really only offering a choice between two deaths. If you can make death in battle glorious and death by execution shameful, you can preserve the punitive threat that execution offers. The authorities removed a lot of the theatrical, festival aspects of execution and the rates of suicide by proxy nosedived. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 09:42
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An important reason to keep in ind that gavelkind was used is because parents generally love their children and want all of them to have something.
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Apr 3, 2014 10:41
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Namarrgon posted:An important reason to keep in ind that gavelkind was used is because parents generally love their children and want all of them to have something. Only if they have a stat above 15! But yeah, "gavelkind" is enforced by law in much of the non-UK parts of Europe these days; you're not legally allowed to cut one of your legit kids out of a will.
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Apr 3, 2014 12:00
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the JJ posted:I mean, gavelkind is de facto the 'normal' way most of the Western world operates at this point, unless you know a lot of parents who are literally (and I mean literally in the literal sense) giving their first born children ~99% of their wealth and cutting the rest loose or expecting them to live off the largesse of their siblings, and modern society has yet to cease to function. The 'advantage' is people in the family like each other more and don't hate each other. Usually. Reasonable people will disagree. But to stay on point, I was not arguing the efficacy of gavelkind in a modern society, but specifically how it pertained to a lawless clan society. In addition, I never said that society would cease to function, but implied that it was not a workable structure for the maintenance of inheritable estates that contain indivisible assets.
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Apr 3, 2014 15:09
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the JJ posted:I mean, gavelkind is de facto the 'normal' way most of the Western world operates at this point, unless you know a lot of parents who are literally (and I mean literally in the literal sense) giving their first born children ~99% of their wealth and cutting the rest loose or expecting them to live off the largesse of their siblings, and modern society has yet to cease to function. The 'advantage' is people in the family like each other more and don't hate each other. Usually. I dunno man, have you seen siblings go at each other when it's starting to look like their parents might be dying? It can get really brutal.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:09
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SpaceViking posted:I dunno man, have you seen siblings go at each other when it's starting to look like their parents might be dying? It can get really brutal. Well, yeah, but that's because they're all operating on the basic assumption that everyone should 'get their fair share.' Sorta the point. Bell the Cat posted:Reasonable people will disagree. But to stay on point, I was not arguing the efficacy of gavelkind in a modern society, but specifically how it pertained to a lawless clan society. In addition, I never said that society would cease to function, but implied that it was not a workable structure for the maintenance of inheritable estates that contain indivisible assets. Well, I dunno too much about Scottish Lowlands circa whenever you're talking about but neither clans nor lack of laws pertain to what is, largely, a social/familial function. Certainly the clan structure was, itself, an an entity that existed to regulate this sort of familial poo poo? I'm also not sure that indivisible assets was a purely pre-modern phenomenon. Only one of my aunts is going to get grannies fine china, but then the other will get the silverware and the other will get, I dunno, a double share of the jewelry box. That's a joke, but the point is none of the assets are easily dividable, and certainly lose a considerable chunk of their value if you do try to split them up. And yet the system persists. I think there's a general assumption that, over the course of ones life, there is at least an attempt to increase the number of things that you have (by various means) and that, on the whole, matches somewhat with the birthrate in the family. WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Have y'all ever heard of suicide by proxy? It happened in early modern northern Germany and the southern parts of the Nordic countries. What you would do if you were suicidal in one of those places is you would find a child before the age of reason, kill them (since they go to heaven automatically), then turn yourself in. You'd get executed, which was a huge party/massive spectacle, and you would confess your sins first, so you'd go to heaven too. Not to mention that an execution is a massive shindig, as close as most of these people would have ever come to being the center of attention. If you were a depressed Prussian that might have been very appealing. Huh. Reminds me of the Japanese nationalist who led a 'revolution' that he knew was doomed to fail just so he could commit seppuku on live TV.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:55
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the JJ posted:
In the Scottish Lowlands, Gavelkind was law. The fact that the area was lawless would most certainly have had some bearing on its practice. And it was rather presumptuous of you to chime in on a question that you freely admit you neither read nor know anything about. Now since we are both in agreement that you don't know what you're talking about, please stop making GBS threads up this thread.
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Apr 3, 2014 21:06
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Bell the Cat posted:In the Scottish Lowlands, Gavelkind was law. The fact that the area was lawless would most certainly have had some bearing on its practice. And it was rather presumptuous of you to chime in on a question that you freely admit you neither read nor know anything about. Now since we are both in agreement that you don't know what you're talking about, please stop making GBS threads up this thread. You can't say both that Gavelkind was the law and the area was lawless.
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Apr 3, 2014 21:22
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BurningStone posted:You can't say both that Gavelkind was the law and the area was lawless. Sure I can, when the original question concerned how the law was practiced in a lawless land. And just because a land is lawless, doesn't mean that all laws are suspended. There is evidence that it was still practiced. That's why I was interested. Bell the Cat fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 21:23
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Bell the Cat posted:Sure I can, when the original question concerned how the law was practiced in a lawless land. Are you asking how traditions are enforced without modern or feudal state institutions? I'm having trouble parsing your posts, I'm losing your meaning in all the smug. If you want us to pay you any mind you outta watch that tone mister. Its rather presumptuous of you to think you can tell anyone to gently caress off edit: its irrelevant anyway since Scottish clans were governed by a well defined system of common law. You'd have to be completely ignorant of Scottish history to refer to the Scottish lowlands as lawless Squalid fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 04:49
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Squalid posted:Are you asking how traditions are enforced without modern or feudal state institutions? I'm having trouble parsing your posts, I'm losing your meaning in all the smug. My mistake, let me explain. During the late middle ages, the lowlands of Scotland were subject to near constant invasion, by English armies, foreign mercenaries, and border clans/families who would raid on both sides of the border. This fostered a distrust of the royal and noble families to whom they owed allegiance and it was not uncommon for Scottish families to ride into Scotland at the head of English armies. Additionally, up until the union of the crowns there was a segment of the lowlands called the Debatable Lands, where no county held sovereignty. This was, even by the most modest definition, a lawless land. In this vacuum, how was gavelkind practiced? And how did the clans maintain their assets over the generations? And if I seem to have a tone its because I asked nicely for someone knowledgeable to answer my questions only to have the cause taken up by smatterers. Bell the Cat fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 05:35
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Bell the Cat posted:In the Scottish Lowlands, Gavelkind was law. The fact that the area was lawless would most certainly have had some bearing on its practice. And it was rather presumptuous of you to chime in on a question that you freely admit you neither read nor know anything about. Now since we are both in agreement that you don't know what you're talking about, please stop making GBS threads up this thread.  Bell the Cat posted:My mistake, let me explain. During the late middle ages, the lowlands of Scotland were subject to near constant invasion, by English armies, foreign mercenaries, and border clans/families who would raid on both sides of the border. This fostered a distrust of the royal and noble families to whom they owed allegiance and it was not uncommon for Scottish families to ride into Scotland at the head of English armies. Additionally, up until the union of the crowns there was a segment of the lowlands called the Debatable Lands, where no county held sovereignty. This was, even by the most modest definition, a lawless land. No, I don't think I would call that lawless. The presence of a clan implies the presence of some sort of social structure, e.g. the clans themselves. It might not be the state-as-we-know-it sort of law, but a clan/family system is actually a pretty typical alternative in those sorts of periphery to the state situations. Mostly because the familial ties led to a certain degree of trust and mutual dependency. Which, as was quite politely pointed out to you, is exactly the sort of thing a 'fair' distribution of inheritance might foster. Big states with stronger central authorities needed primogeniture to hang together as such much more than these 'lawless' territories. See also, the fate of Charlemagne's empire.
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Apr 4, 2014 08:08
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Bell the Cat posted:And it was rather presumptuous of you to chime in on a question that you freely admit you neither read nor know anything about. Now since we are both in agreement that you don't know what you're talking about, please stop making GBS threads up this thread. Maybe since you are clearly somewhat better-read on the matter, it would be better to either defer to a strong source or provide some kind of informative response (as you have done, by the time of this writing). Calling people dummies, refusing to engage, or engaging them in a condescending manner doesn't really do anything but make you look like a jerk, which weakens the value of the information you clearly possess and wish to distribute. Dummies learn to not be dummies by being dummies first, regardless of the context. The very medium of this discussion places us all roughly on a level as peers involved in friendly conversation. Nobody's trying to win a trophy here.
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Apr 4, 2014 20:46
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not my real name posted:Maybe since you are clearly somewhat better-read on the matter, it would be better to either defer to a strong source or provide some kind of informative response (as you have done, by the time of this writing). Calling people dummies, refusing to engage, or engaging them in a condescending manner doesn't really do anything but make you look like a jerk, which weakens the value of the information you clearly possess and wish to distribute. Dummies learn to not be dummies by being dummies first, regardless of the context. The very medium of this discussion places us all roughly on a level as peers involved in friendly conversation. Nobody's trying to win a trophy here. My apologies. It was not my intention to draw this into a dick measuring contest, or to belittle anyone. But I do find it frustrating when people who don't have any information on a subject attempt to interject, for whatever reason. The question gets lost, and neither I nor the thread are served by the response. It was my hope that some well-read Scottish goon or an historian with some insight into the subject could expound upon my original post.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:26
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Bell the Cat posted:My apologies. It was not my intention to draw this into a dick measuring contest, or to belittle anyone. But I do find it frustrating when people who don't have any information on a subject attempt to interject, for whatever reason. The question gets lost, and neither I nor the thread are served by the response. It was my hope that some well-read Scottish goon or an historian with some insight into the subject could expound upon my original post. That's cool. No one was being an rear end though. We're a bit short of specialists here, unless HEGEL wants to weigh in on Early Modern Germany. Railtus is good, but, like me, barely past undergrad and focused on arms and swordsmanship across the whole era. You can try SAL but that's hit and miss. Most of what we've been doing is just trying to tease out your question because, frankly, you've made some terribly obvious assumptions and clear leaps (if you know what you're talking about hohoho) and we're trying to apply what we do know to the situation. But we can't do that if the question is inaccessible to us. So let's break it down, shall we? Bell the Cat posted:My questions concern the real world implications of gavelkind, particularly as it pertained to the clan system of the Scottish Lowlands of the late medieval period. So. Well, the first response you got was quite on the money; this question, like many questions, starts from the presumption that X, was clearly the most efficient move from a nation/state/country/political group's perspective, so why did they Z. Typically, goons being goons, this comes out of people playing too many video games. (Alternatively, having taken Econ 101 and/or Marx 101 and absorbed the whole 'rational actor' or 'material interests > all else.') Gavelkind, in particular, appears in a goon favorite strategy game called Crusader Kings II that, while good fun, abstracts a lot of things and trains players to think of history and historical events in terms of video games. E.g. 'painting the map my color.' So the trained response in this thread to 'why didn't they just do Z?' is either 'your assumption about efficiency is wrong' and/or 'people are people and want different things.' Things like: quote:Its persistent practice throughout the ages suggests that it may have had advantages over the feudal system of primogeniture. Is what people were responding to there. In other words, that it's persistence may have to do with deep cultural concerns (certainly something to consider when you're talking about families) rather than 'simple' material expediency. But if you want a more in depth breakdown. Bell the Cat posted:I envision that to a land holding nobleman, those clans would be easier to control when their wealth and power was constantly being divided. That's certainly possible, but if a clan was sufficiently, well, clannish to act as a single unit then how things are distributed within the clan is rather moot isn't it? A clan is, if nothing else, a structure meant for reciprocal aid and gain, generally held together by family ties. Divide and conquer is a plan that works much better when dealing with individuals than with whole families at a time. My focus may not have been on the Scottish Lowlands but I'll happily chat about tribal relations in colonial Libya, you'll see some pretty similar trends. quote:But the lords themselves, it seems, were subject to the same laws. Ah yes, laws of inheritance. The short answer to this is 'yeah, but if they all made sense European history would be a lot less fun.' Seriously, the laws that grant you all the legitimacy you'll ever possess are very hard to change without upsetting that legitimacy. So, maybe it just didn't make sense. That's... a lot of history. quote:After so many generations of divided wealth and lands, how did so many clans manage to keep their lands intact and in the possession of one family? Wealth divided among individuals, yes, but kept within the same family. So... just as intact as before? This is one of those points where you're making assumptions that I, at least, am not seeing. Also we're jumping from clans to the nobles here, what exactly do you want to know? quote:Could someone please explain what those advantages might have been? quote:I am having difficulty wrapping my head around this and suspect that there were other factors involved. quote:If someone knowledgeable about the subject could chime in, I would greatly appreciate it. If by knowledgeable you mean 'someone who doesn't approach family matters like a money obsessed autist' then... well, we chimed in.
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Apr 5, 2014 01:49
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Hey Bell the Cat: I cannot answer your question, but I've got a copy of The Steel Bonnets which I've been meaning to read, and deals at least in part with your question. Once I get on that I can at least point you in the right direction. Or you could buy it yourself: it's pretty cheap off Amazon and Fraser, though he's very much of his time, is a good writer. the JJ posted:If by knowledgeable you mean 'someone who doesn't approach family matters like a money obsessed autist' then... well, we chimed in. He means 'knowledgeable' as in 'someone who has read anything at all on the time/place/subject that doesn't come from wikipedia or a goddamn video game', just like most people do. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 06:48
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This border reiver stuff is very interesting, its like a little bit of medieval Ireland was transported to the Scottish border. Which I guess it was, since hobilars were recruited heavily from Ireland to serve in Edward's Scottish wars (never enough were available though), a fair few of them seem to have stayed too as they show up in castle garrisons. I don't want to jump to conclusions but was this the start of the border reiver tradition?
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Apr 5, 2014 17:20
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Hey Bell the Cat: I cannot answer your question, but I've got a copy of The Steel Bonnets which I've been meaning to read, and deals at least in part with your question. Once I get on that I can at least point you in the right direction. Thank you for your candor and the recommendation, I just bought it and am dying to get my eyes into it. In the interim, I found a well sourced blog that suggests that gavelkind was a factor that contributed to the lawlessness. http://lacithedog.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/border-reivers-an-armed-society-is-a-polite-society/ There were other factors which promoted a predatory mode of living. Among them was the survival in the Borders of the inheritance system of gavelkind, by which estates were divided equally between all sons on a man’s death, so that many people owned insufficient land to maintain themselves. Also, much of the border region is mountainous or open moorland, unsuitable for arable farming but good for grazing. Livestock was easily rustled and driven back to raiders’ territory by mounted reivers who knew the country well. the JJ posted:That's certainly possible, but if a clan was sufficiently, well, clannish to act as a single unit then how things are distributed within the clan is rather moot isn't it? A clan is, if nothing else, a structure meant for reciprocal aid and gain, generally held together by family ties. Divide and conquer is a plan that works much better when dealing with individuals than with whole families at a time. My focus may not have been on the Scottish Lowlands but I'll happily chat about tribal relations in colonial Libya, you'll see some pretty similar trends. They were brothers and sisters and distant relations sure, but you worked your land, you raised your kids, and it was during times of conflict that you got the clan together and acted as a single unit. So no, I do not think the question was moot. quote:Ah yes, laws of inheritance. The short answer to this is 'yeah, but if they all made sense European history would be a lot less fun.' Seriously, the laws that grant you all the legitimacy you'll ever possess are very hard to change without upsetting that legitimacy. So, maybe it just didn't make sense. That's... a lot of history. Isn't that a cop out, though? If something in history doesn't make sense, I believe that it is because we either do not possess all of the facts or we are incapable of envisioning how it made sense at the time. quote:Wealth divided among individuals, yes, but kept within the same family. So... just as intact as before? This is one of those points where you're making assumptions that I, at least, am not seeing. Also we're jumping from clans to the nobles here, what exactly do you want to know? In a land largely bereft of an administrative arm to enforce the law, how does a clan laird/lord, who is at war with a cadet branch of his own clan, at blood feud with another, and under continual threat of English invasion and seasonal raiding by counterparts in his own country, possibly countenance a division of his assets when it's entirely possible that any number of his sons are inept or feckless drunks? All while seeing to the safety of several thousand head of cattle and hundreds of kinsmen. That wealth would need to be consolidated to be of any practical application. The scenario I just described was not anomalous. In spite of this, this laird follows the custom of gavelkind. As do his sons, and every subsequent generation thereafter. Meanwhile, a perfectly suited alternative (primogeniture) was not only well known but could have been practiced with little or no repercussion from within or without. In the words of Troy Barnes, it wrinkles my brain. Bell the Cat fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 19:33
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Bell the Cat posted:http://lacithedog.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/border-reivers-an-armed-society-is-a-polite-society/ that same blog posted:The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, so long as the people they raided had no powerful protectors and no connection to their own kin. ditto posted:The fact that the area was pretty much a lawless zone usually made people a target for depredations rather than conferring any security. They looked to their extended families for security and a “code of law”. So basically only custom, particularly the custom surrounding family ties, offered even a little protection. You need to be able to say to marauding folks that 'if you gently caress me up my brother will come over and kick your rear end.' And they need to believe that. And you need to thus, if someone fucks up your brother, go gently caress them up in turn. Not ideal, and a pretty cyclical system, but a resilient and hard to break cycle, at least internally. So if you're hypothetical dad you turn to your sons and say 'Timmy is in charge.' Well, aside from the fact that you've just hosed with the only social structure barely holding your clan together, Jimmy and Sammy are going to be pretty livid. When dad dies, what is Timmy going to do about things? Jimmy and Sammy are going to say gently caress you, take what's theirs (as they see it), and leave Jimmy out to hang, at which point Bobby and Billy MacOtherclan get together and take all of Jimmy's stuff. quote:They were brothers and sisters and distant relations sure, but you worked your land, you raised your kids, and it was during times of conflict that you got the clan together and acted as a single unit. So no, I do not think the question was moot. Again, just going back to your point, in times of conflict, as you so helpfully point out, was quite often. Even if Jimmy and Sammy weren't sitting at your doorstep with weapons in hand, the knowledge that screwing with one member of family meant picking a fight with the rest is about the only thing keeping things together in a situation like that. Arguably, spreading the wealth around make the whole clan more secure against sudden shocks. It's not perfect, but it is pretty workable all things considered. quote:Isn't that a cop out, though? If something in history doesn't make sense, I believe that it is because we either do not possess all of the facts or we are incapable of envisioning how it made sense at the time. No, it makes sense. It's just that the people involved are acting on different lines of motivation. This goes back to the first response you got, talking about the robotism and video game-y logic of it. The first thing that people said was 'well, it makes sense so long as you love your kids equally' which is really not all that incomprehensible. I think on top of that the big thing to think about is how a 'law' in a non-state society doesn't operate on lawyering and decrees. It's about custom and tradition and obligation. Think about it like... the distributed prisoners dilemma. That works only if you trust the other person and they trust you. In a clan society that's built on kinship ties and that means that screwing with inheritance custom, the basic assumptions made about how a family operate and how you relate to a family, is dangerous as poo poo. As pointed this sort of 'gavelkind' custom of fairly equal distribution is fairly common today. It's not a cop out, it's about 75% of what history is. Hell, HEGEL's putting out some great posts on how soldiers thought that strips of paper would make them bullet proof and how people who wanted to commit suicide would kill innocent kids (because they're guaranteed to go to heaven) and then turn themselves into the headsmen. And how that practice stopped when they stopped making executions quite so theatric. Now, you can look at that and say, well, short term that's the best option, but long term, surely the more stable systems win out. (Nevermind that primogeniture, as basically the rest of this thread attests, had [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain]it's own problems.[/url) And this is true and while it edges close to 'Social Darwinism' it's, well, the not loving dumbshit version of that. And, surprise!, the Scottish lowlands were eventually tamed by the state institutions of the surrounding monarchies. So you're right, it's just that sometimes the unit of, whatever, cultural evolution is not the individuals agency but rather whole societies competing for resources. Which makes humans bits of DNA. Okay, so the metaphor breaks down. The point is, evolution doesn't work by every individual figuring things out on it's own, it works by killing off the losers. quote:In a land largely bereft of an administrative arm to enforce the law, how does a clan laird/lord, who is at war with a cadet branch of his own clan, at blood feud with another, and under continual threat of English invasion and seasonal raiding by counterparts in his own country, possibly countenance a division of his assets when it's entirely possible that any number of his sons are inept or feckless drunks? All while seeing to the safety of several thousand head of cattle and hundreds of kinsmen. That wealth would need to be consolidated to be of any practical application. The scenario I just described was not anomalous. Bereft of an actual administration, custom, obligation, and delegation are going to be keys to maintaining control over those assets. Without the loyalty of those who are, at the base level, in control of those assets, our laird is powerless. Unless he's out herding all those cattle himself and fighting off the English with one hand while he carries out the feud with the other. His authority as clan head rests on custom and obligation precisely because there is no state administration equivalent.
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Apr 5, 2014 23:50
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:
If you'd read the replies, some jokes were made about videogame gavelkind but the actual responses have nothing to do with it. Bell the Cat seems to literally want someone who actually wrote a paper "Inheritance in Medieval Lowland Scotland" and, well, we only have so many experts here. This is a discussion thread and the JJ is discussing this well and seems quite well informed while giving the caveat that he is no expert in this particular case, which is fair and should not be shat on in the manner it has been. He seems well informed on similar political structures elsewhere and it is worth bringing those up for possible conversation in the context of Bell's original question. (I.e: "I am no expert on this particular case but here is how other clan-like entities under roughly similar customs and circumstances sorted their poo poo.') Some sources would be good if you have any JJ also yes please tell us about possible parallels with Libyan tribes as you mentioned you were more expert in them. Let's be reasonable, we're all friends here. NLJP fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 05:12
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Ohh okay. So Libyan tribal structures. First, if you're actually interested and want a real expert read E. E. Evans-Pritchard's The Sanusi of Cyrenaica. It's a bit old fashioned, and the scholarship's a bit out of date but he's a pretty luminary figure as far as anthropologists go, and the Sanusi is still pretty regularly cited as a sort of 'common knowledge about the area' footnote. E.g. Idris el Senussi took charge of the order in 1917 (Pritchard, 74) The work I did with it actually focused more on the effects the Senussi and modernity had on the tribal structure, and how the Senussi reacted to imperial powers, but I'll have a go. The tribal state of being in Libya was somewhat similar to how you've described the Scottish situation. Pastoral groups on somewhat marginal land between bigger powers, socially organized around kinship groups, most going back to a mythical founding member of some sort, most dating to this or that wave of migration from the Arabian peninsula. Many tribes had client or vassal subtribes within their circle. Blood for blood, tit for tat was a pretty common response to disputes both intra and intertribal nature. Around this evolved semi-hereditary positions of mediators and peacemakers. Generally the wealthier families, (due to their influence) while not able to wield dictatorial powers, could persuade and negotiate, a pretty honored power. Often this culminating in expending wealth, which of course helped garner influence. In the mid-1800's a Sufi scholar by the name of Senussi arrived, according to some account fleeing Wahhabists in Mecca, though there's other work out there that suggests that, as a 'sober Sufi' and an advocate of more 'legalistic' Islam he was actually one of the few Sufis in the Wahhabists good books. Others think that Senussi was on his way to Algeria to fight the jihad against the French. Either way, he ended up in Cyrenaica and, struck by the backwardness and superstition of the lot of them, sets about educating them.* In short order he's got quite a following, most importantly those tribal mediators. Within a generation the Senussi order is completely entangled in the tribal structure as a mediating force. How the Order interacts with the Ottoman Empire is very interesting. The Senussi encouraged the tribes to pay their taxes and even used their capabilities to assist the tax collectors, but when the Ottomans tried to tax the lodges (which, as religious property, were supposed to be exempt) whole tribes up and refused to pay taxes. So the Senussi sort of became this pseudo-state within a state that, after the Ottomans gave up North Africa became a pseudo-state that was not a state, and finally when the Italians invaded they became the core of resistance, at least in Cyrenaica. Then there this boring WWII poo poo and some UN negotiations and the Senussi come out Kings of all of Libya. Much to the dismay of the British (and to the confusion of thinkers who assume that a strong nation-state is the ultimate goal of leaders) they promptly carried out no nationalisation projects, barely tried to centralize, and were soon overthrown by Gaddafi. Succession among the Senussi was pretty tricky as well. A Sufi order is traditionally passed from the master to a chosen student, with any other, sufficiently advanced students heading off to found their own lodges. Like any good tribe, clan, or noble family, these cadet houses keep extensive genealogies that invariably go back to Muhammad via Junayd, Hallaj, or some other early Sufi. The Senussi, for instance, was an offshoot of the Idrisids, which is why Idris el Senussi was named as such. Now, in some lodges, where possible, the succession moves in a bloodline. For instance, the Muhammad Senussi stuck around the Idrisid lodges for a while as a sort of regent for the next leader before striking out on his own. Although succession passed in the family, there were no set rules about priority. One apocryphal tale has the Grand Senussi having his two sons into a tree and then telling them to jump. The younger jumps first, and so obviously trusted God more, and so was trusted with the leadership next. The actual history could be a deal more complex, with factions in the family vying based on differences of opinion. This really only came to a head during WWI after the Senussi expanded their fight against the Italians against the British as well. The British responded to a threat to the Suez about as well as you'd expect and Idris, an advocate from way back of using the Brits as a 'least bad' option to shield against the Italians and the French, took over for his uncle, who retired to Turkey. How much of that retirement was 'retirement' and how much was an internal struggle, well, that's not really answerable. Anyway, circling back to tribal issues, one aspect of Senussi authority that continually frustrated British attempts to deal with them (most of my info I'm drawing out of diplomatic cables from agents in Cairo back to London) was that at times the tribes would tie the Senussi's hands. It was clear that, while the Senussi could negotiate for the tribes and offer advice, they were not able to leverage the same sort of fanatical loyalty that other Sufi leaders the British had dealt with before had. Because their authority ultimately rested on their (limited) position as the mediators, to a certain extent that inherently restrained their options. How that relationship changed as the wars progress and Libya became an actual(?) state is a subject matter for a different post, and a scholar with way more time and linguistic skills than I. *Yes, there is some irony in that sentence.
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Apr 6, 2014 06:28
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the JJ posted:Bereft of an actual administration, custom, obligation, and delegation are going to be keys to maintaining control over those assets. Without the loyalty of those who are, at the base level, in control of those assets, our laird is powerless. Unless he's out herding all those cattle himself and fighting off the English with one hand while he carries out the feud with the other. His authority as clan head rests on custom and obligation precisely because there is no state administration equivalent. Thank you for taking the time on this. While we may disagree on some minor issues of practicality and the extent of altruism; the point you made that it was a loyalty born through necessity, custom and delegation has a ring of truth to it. I'm going to be taking some time here in the near future to conduct some more thorough research into the matter. I appreciate your help JJ.
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Apr 6, 2014 06:48
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Really cool JJ, I knew none of that stuff, especially the Senussi being briefly de-facto independent rulers of Lybia. I guess it's background I should have looked at more considering recent history but that's definitely other thread territory now. I shall look up that recommended reading. Bit removed from medieval history but I guess I did ask for it 
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Apr 6, 2014 06:56
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Rabhadh posted:This border reiver stuff is very interesting, its like a little bit of medieval Ireland was transported to the Scottish border. Which I guess it was, since hobilars were recruited heavily from Ireland to serve in Edward's Scottish wars (never enough were available though), a fair few of them seem to have stayed too as they show up in castle garrisons. I don't want to jump to conclusions but was this the start of the border reiver tradition? Sort of. Reiving is never shown to have been a foreign importation, and the use of hardy ponies for riding is as old in Scotland as it is in Ireland. Hell, it is on one of these ponies that Robert Bruce rode at Bannockburn. edit: that said, Irish horses were frequently imported to Scotland, and I would not be surprised if, at the very least, there was husbandry of the Irish horse in Scotland. But again, we know there was a strong Scottish tradition of horse breeding, to the point that legislation was sometimes required to limit the production of horses. Fraser also notes that by a statute of 1214 every "Scot of property" (Fraser's words) was required to own at least one horse. The broad shift came from the frequent desolation of the border country during the Anglo-Scottish wars of the 14th and 15th centuries, that much you are correct about. Fraser especially points to Robert Bruce's activities as a raider, the desolation brought by Edward I's army including the massacre of Berwick, and the harsh rains of 1315 which stymied Edward II's campaign of that year. The constant destruction of fixed crops and abodes resulted in a greater and greater reliance on a semi-nomadic lifestyle and cattle-raising. This, along with the plentiful supply of the small, hardy Scottish horses and ponies, lent itself naturally to a lifestyle of cattle rustling and pillaging. It should be said that while there had been wars between Scotland and England in the 11th-late 13th centuries , they were not nearly as frequent nor as ambitious as what came after the death of Alexander III, and indeed the deep, reflexive hatred which one associates with the two countries would probably be somewhat alien to the men of, say, Alexander II's day. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 14:07
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Sort of. Reiving is never shown to have been a foreign importation, and the use of hardy ponies for riding is as old in Scotland as it is in Ireland. Hell, it is on one of these ponies that Robert Bruce rode at Bannockburn. I actually have a vague memory of reading that Robert Bruce's horse at Bannockburn was imported from Ireland. Cheers for the information, going to see if I can pick up that book on the reivers.
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Apr 7, 2014 21:29
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the JJ posted:That's cool. No one was being an rear end though. We're a bit short of specialists here, unless HEGEL wants to weigh in on Early Modern Germany. Railtus is good, but, like me, barely past undergrad and focused on arms and swordsmanship across the whole era. You can try SAL but that's hit and miss. On this note, I am sorry I've not had anything to add on the current discussion. The current topic is completely outside my area and I don't feel confident answering it. My main reason for posting this is really as a courtesy to make sure no one is expecting any kind of useful input from me.
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Apr 9, 2014 05:57
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Bell the Cat, where did you read the Border Families practiced gavelkind succession? Googling "Scotland gavelkind" the first source that appears is the wikipedia article on Border Reivers, which cites an Osprey history book, which doesn't provide a source. That isn't where you got the suggestion is it? I can't find anything about on Google Scholar either, except a 19th century article about gavelkind which briefly mentions vestigial traces of the practice in Scotland, but focusses mostly on Ireland and especially Kent.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:48
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Squalid posted:Bell the Cat, where did you read the Border Families practiced gavelkind succession? Googling "Scotland gavelkind" the first source that appears is the wikipedia article on Border Reivers, which cites an Osprey history book, which doesn't provide a source. That isn't where you got the suggestion is it? I can't find anything about on Google Scholar either, except a 19th century article about gavelkind which briefly mentions vestigial traces of the practice in Scotland, but focusses mostly on Ireland and especially Kent. It was an Osprey book, "Border Reiver 1513-1603" by Keith Durham, but it cites the following source: Chrorographia by William Gray. It's a survey of Newcastle upon Tyne circa 1650 something.
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Apr 11, 2014 17:42
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Bell the Cat posted:It was an Osprey book, "Border Reiver 1513-1603" by Keith Durham, but it cites the following source: Chrorographia by William Gray. It's a survey of Newcastle upon Tyne circa 1650 something. https://archive.org/details/chorographiaora00graygoog
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Apr 11, 2014 21:12
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Yeah, chasing footnotes is a way better way to do things than asking the internet.
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Apr 12, 2014 05:09
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Bell the Cat posted:It was an Osprey book, "Border Reiver 1513-1603" by Keith Durham, but it cites the following source: Chrorographia by William Gray. It's a survey of Newcastle upon Tyne circa 1650 something. Lol. How do you justify your absurd pomposity when you're literally reading children's books BTW I can answer the question, with academic sources. I've held off so far because I wasn't familiar with specific circumstances on the border, but also in the hope you'd pull your head out of your rear end. It's obvious that's isn't going to happen now, you seem about as self aware as a pile of bricks. Still I think there's enough interest in the topic that I'd like to share anyway. Bell the Cat would you mind, uh, never posting here again, in exchange?
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Apr 13, 2014 16:35
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Squalid posted:Lol. Who is smug? And did I do something to you personally to warrant such an angry response to what was an honest answer to your question? Bell the Cat fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 17:49
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Squalid posted:Lol. Can you take your head out of your own arse Squalid?
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Apr 13, 2014 18:01
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Amazon posted:About the Author
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Apr 13, 2014 19:20
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Hogge Wild posted:Can you take your head out of your own arse Squalid? Seconded. Bell the Cat posted:Who is smug? I for one want to say your posts are welcome, even if your questions are well outside my area of knowledge. Squalid posted:Lol. Please don't do stuff like that. It opens the door for other people to ask you to never post here again, and I don't want this thread to be an exclusive club where people must establish their nerd-credentials to ask a question or share a resource - if you would genuinely like to share anyway, then share.
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Apr 13, 2014 20:29
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