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View Full Version : Urban Nobility in a pseudo-late medeival/renaissance pastiche



Coidzor
2012-02-24, 05:17 PM
So I'm doing some setting work which involves city states, a few of which are based upon the Italian citystates, such as Florence, Genoa, Venice.

I'm running into some difficulty, though, when it comes to the nature of the nobility there and how the nobility interacts with the society in general and what role they really play, and I can't seem to find any sources that illuminates the matter. I can grok feudal nobility fairly well, where they hold a territory in exchange for loyalty and service, but I can't quite figure out nobility that is urban in nature and not entirely comprised of courtiers, ministers, or second-sons that are trying to toady up to the monarch.

And if their wealth and status is entirely derived from being merchant princes or urban landlords, how does one really differentiate them from the bourgeoisie? Because in that case it doesn't really seem like they'd be titled, since titles generally correspond to a fief, right, even if in the modern era?

Or is that the point, urban nobility isn't titled, but can just trace its ancestry back to someone who was notable enough to have gotten a title? :smallconfused:

The drow are the nearest analogues I can think of, what with them being a bastardized reinterpretation of the Borgias, IIRC. Though, with the drow there's an explicit oligarchy of the various aspects of city government being vied over for both their status and power but that they also hold lands and revenue generating property within and outside of the explicit city in the caverns they can exert control over, with non-matriarch "citizens" and family members essentially existing as slaves-in-all-but-name except for the ones who are low-tier enough to be explicitly slaves, but are forced together out of necessity.

tl;dr: How do you conceptualize landless nobles in cities? What do you do with them?

tyckspoon
2012-02-24, 05:39 PM
And if their wealth and status is entirely derived from being merchant princes or urban landlords, how does one really differentiate them from the bourgeoisie? Because in that case it doesn't really seem like they'd be titled, since titles generally correspond to a fief, right, even if in the modern era?

Or is that the point, urban nobility isn't titled, but can just trace its ancestry back to someone who was notable enough to have gotten a title? :smallconfused:


Basically. This is actually a somewhat common source of historical friction between 'nobility' and upcoming merchants/leaseholders/bankers/etc where the rising non-noble middle and upper class starts infringing on the privileges and social rank previously reserved for the nobility, many of whom no longer serve much purpose besides being noble. (Although you can also have more traditional nobles who just choose to live in the city instead of on their estates, in order to manage their business/be in the cultural center/whatever- the city proper doesn't represent the entire area of influence of a city-state, after all.)

Coidzor
2012-02-24, 06:25 PM
So absentee landlord is plausible for at least some of them? That's good to know. Thank you.

I just... my brain kept having some sort of hiccup and couldn't quite grok it.

Kurgan
2012-02-25, 06:44 AM
You have several options for the nobility really. As you mentioned, absentee landlords work.

Depending on the sprawl of the city [medieval cities were generally small and densely populated compared to modern cities, thanks to cars, trains, buses, and so on], the city could have build over a noble's land. Said noble could act as a landlord, or lease out the land to lower classed people to do with as they please.

Depending on how large the area of influence is of the city-state, nobles could be mostly in the countryside, but send the crops they grow to be sold in the city, perhaps handled by an heir in training or a second son. Also, if the city-state is more republican leaning, the traditional elite probably has at least some say in what goes on. Think to the Prussia, which, if memory serves, the traditional landed elite had 1/3 of the votes, this in a modern industrialized country in the 19th century.

Then there is merchants, the upstarts who, if successful, will draw envy and rage from the landed nobility [land can only produce so much wealth, trade can build up wealth much faster, thing fighter vs wizard in 3.5 terms, just a bit less extreme]. If the merchant fails, they will probably end up with a nice cell in debtor's prison, unless they have some wealthy friends. Remember, trade is risky, and ships can be lost at sea quite easily, and caravans can be overrun by bandits.

Then, if you are modelling on the Italian city-states, you cannot forget bankers. Loan money to kings to wage war with, or merchants to update their stock with. Successful bankers can end up being the rulers of cities, as shown by the Medici family.

Above all else, landed elite have lineage and wealth, merchants have lots of wealth, bankers have clout, and all three groups are probably very interested in maintaining their own power at the expense of the other, and most importantly, at the expense of those deemed lower then them.

Throw in the gods and goddesses, and you end up with another elite group, priests and priestesses of god X or Y gathering tithes from their followers and building temples and shrines.

Just some ideas, hope they are somewhat helpful.

jackattack
2012-02-25, 09:17 AM
Figure out whether you are going to confer titles/status on every heir, or only on the eldest, or a combination thereof.

The Count of Brule has three children. His eldest son will become the Count of Brule. His second son and his daughter are... what? Viscount and Viscountess? Lord and Lady? Knight and Dame? Mister and Miss? Is nobility a matter of blood, or is it a matter of land?

Unless a lord is willing to split his holdings among his heirs, only one can inherit the land. Junior siblings may still inherit large sums of money and become the idle rich. They might be married to other landed nobles, and take their names/titles. They might be set up with a business (that complemented the eldest sibling's holdings), becoming merchant lords. They might be cut loose to make their own way, becoming adventurers.

Coming up, purchasing titles was not unusual, nor was having a title conferred for service to the kingdom. These titles didn't necessarily come with land or holdings that the purchaser didn't already own, unless such were available due to a noble line ending without heirs or confiscation by the kingdom.

So a banker, or a merchant, or a mercenary captain, or a wizard, or a cleric, or even a very successful rogue might buy a title or have one granted. They wouldn't get land (especially in an urban environment), only a (non-hereditary?) title and certain privileges under the law.

Hope that's helpful.

Kurgan
2012-02-25, 03:24 PM
Figure out whether you are going to confer titles/status on every heir, or only on the eldest, or a combination thereof.

The Count of Brule has three children. His eldest son will become the Count of Brule. His second son and his daughter are... what? Viscount and Viscountess? Lord and Lady? Knight and Dame? Mister and Miss? Is nobility a matter of blood, or is it a matter of land?

Unless a lord is willing to split his holdings among his heirs, only one can inherit the land. Junior siblings may still inherit large sums of money and become the idle rich. They might be married to other landed nobles, and take their names/titles. They might be set up with a business (that complemented the eldest sibling's holdings), becoming merchant lords. They might be cut loose to make their own way, becoming adventurers.


Good points there, you might want to figure out the inheritance laws of the city state you are building: Does the line pass through women as well as men? Can women inherit? Is it the eldest son who gets the land and title, or the "best"?

After that, what happens to the second sons? In medieval Europe, they are often the ones who soldiered about, formed mercenary companies, and so on. In terms of the army, if there is a standing army, it is probably the nobility who fills in the officer positions, be it titled and landed elite or the second sons.

They are also normally the ones who joined the church. So maybe the second son is sent to the Temple of Pelor/Hextor/Insert God Here for priestly training?

Depending on how open or closed the bureaucracy is, these are the people you might see in stocking the entire government, or portions of it at least.

Saladman
2012-02-25, 06:47 PM
Some good ideas already, but whether you tie them back into feudal nobility depends on how close you want to stay to the Italian city-states model. Strictly speaking those cities were oligarchies and their aristocrats/nobles weren't all nobility in the same full and exact meaning as feudal nobility at all. They were just... oligarchs. Their social standing, practical wealth and power and long genealogies was enough for their noble status to be 'real'. (Though they may well have acquired country estates and even landed titles later, it wasn't the original basis of their status.)

One way to get there is by descent from a democratic or republican city where either the formal franchise or just the practical control over government is limited to a small group and never expands over the whole population. The longer that goes on, and the more wealth and power accrues to a small group of voters or a few select families among them, the more that power and status amounts to nobility.

To the question of how the aristocracy keeps out the bourgeoisie, that's actually a lot easier than it is in a feudal, land-based system. Bankers, merchants and manufacturers in England could get rich doing things a land- and crop-dependent lord wasn't in the business of doing. In a city-state where the oligarchy are merchants, any would-be bourgeoisie have to beat the old money head-to-head at their own game. Throw in the old money controlling the government as well, giving themselves city contracts and legal monopolies, and it's not such an easy proposition, unless you suck up, pay them off and hope to marry in if you do well enough.

LibraryOgre
2012-02-26, 03:30 PM
There's also the possibility of "court nobility"... people who have titles awarded to them by the local regent, but don't actually get land. They may be paid for services rendered (for example, giving a Count's title to a mercenary commander so he can interact with the noble commanders as an equal), or they may be independent and the title is their payment for something else.