Medieval Europe, Part 3:

I. A Closer look at NOBLES

A. General facts


1. Nobles consisted of only 3% of the population.

2. Traditionally, their job had been to act as warriors and protect the farming population from harm, and provide local government. They earned a living by owning land (described below).



B. The CUSTOMARY RIGHTS of Nobles reflected their traditional role in society:

1. Traditionally, they made a living via economic privileges: The monarch and custom allowed noble families to charge rent to the farmers in their territories and on their land (PEASANTS). The rent was usually in the form of food and services (e.g. The peasants would spend a certain number of days each year farming for the landowner, building or repairing bridges and castles, etc.)

2. They had political and legal privileges that other social groups did not have: allowed to rule their local territories like petty kings. In most countries of Europe, they acted as both judge and jury in local court cases as well. The laws for nobles were different from the laws for other social groups in European society.

3. The Customary Rights of nobles also included moral duties:

a. They were expected to defend their families in physical combat if necessary.

b. They were expected to have HONOR, which meant several things:

(1) They had to treat other nobles according to an elaborate set of rules that only applied to other nobles. For example, noble men had to duel other nobles if insulted. On the other hand, if you took a nobleman prisoner, you were supposed to ransom him back to his family for money rather than execute him. Nobles were never allowed to stab other nobles in the back. Like all customary rights, these rules only applied to their social group. Nobles did not have to treat non-nobles with honor. A nobleman did not duel a peasant, and he was allowed to destroy whole villages without mercy under certain conditions. It was not always immoral to kill a civilian if the civilian was not noble.
(This might help to explain some of their behavior toward Indians.)

(2) High Living was also a matter of honor. To be respectable, nobles were expected to live in LUXURY and NEVER dirty their hands with menial labor. Poor nobles found it hard to live up to these rules. They frequently became adventurers in the hope that they could win enough plunder to rise above the dirt and live handsomely.

(3) To be honorable, a nobleman must be a brave warrior. He was duty bound in that respect. After all, nobles' original function in European society had been to protect the local farmers from attack. European aristocrats, then were a WARRIOR NOBILITY. You demonstrated your honor by winning VICTORY IN BATTLE.



(4) Honor also obligated nobles to DEFEND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH against all opponents. That rule could be interpreted in many different ways.

(5) Finally, to be honorable, you had to be LOYAL to the nobles above you in the hierarchy. By 1500, a sense of nationalism was developing among Europeans. As a result, it was becoming ever more important to be loyal to the highest noble of the land -- THE MONARCH OF YOUR COUNTRY.

4. What things were NOT customary rights to them? They did not care about self-discipline. It was NOT on the list of noble virtues at the time, and it frequently interfered with their other obligations. For example, how could you prove your courage in battle if you were obediently waiting for orders from your superiors? It was much better just to charge into battle without waiting for orders.

C. The highest goal of the nobleman was to get GLORY. You acquired glory by acting honorably and being wealthy (living in luxury).

D. What was the RESULT of all these rules (and many others)?

1. UNDISCIPLINED, very AMBITIOUS men who were constantly hunting for GLORY and RICHES

2. Women who insisted that their men act this way.

(Men who did not live up to their obligations had a hard time finding wives.)



E. All of that was MORAL within their own culture.

F. To fulfill their obligations and get ahead in life, noblemen frequently became CAPTAINS OF MERCENARIES. That was a particularly good job if you if did not have land. Without land you could not charge rent. Therefore, you needed to get wealth in some other way that did not involve menial labor and that would satisfy the rules of honor. War was the way to go. The nobles who most often lacked land were the younger sons of noble families (all or most of the land would be inherited by the older sons).

A. Mercenaries were warriors who fought for pay. They came from all social classes. They were usually people who were desperate and looking for a job -- unemployed or landless peasants, artisans who lost their shops, unemployed laborers, and, of course, landless nobles. Fighting looked like a decent job. Sometimes people were forced to become mercenaries; during some wars, armies would kidnap young men off of farms, forcing them into service. The English navy eventually became famous for going to the local pubs (bars), clubbing drunken men senseless and dragging them off to become sailors (a process called SHANGHAIing).

B. In time of war, mercenaries made a tolerable living, partly from pay and partly from plunder. One of the customary rights of a mercenary was to be able to plunder any city that was captured. Since mercenary pay was always late and never what was promised, plunder became a vital part of the mercenary's income.

C. In peacetime, mercenaries usually found themselves unemployed. Since their only skill was in killing, they found themselves in dire straits. The typical mercenary's solution was to become a bandit, plundering merchants and anyone else who tried to travel from village to village with valuable goods. Unemployed sailors could easily become pirates.

D. The only way most mercenaries could move up the social ladder was by becoming nobles. That was very hard to do and, at the very least, required you to act the part of a nobleman. Hence mercenaries tended to imitate the values and behavior of the warrior nobility, although with much less success and far fewer customary rights. A mercenary who achieved won GLORY in battle, proved his LOYALTY to his superiors (particularly his monarch), DEFENDED THE CHURCH, and returned home WEALTHY, had a chance of becoming a nobleman.