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jk7275
2017-08-21, 11:45 PM
Hello
I know the first born tends to get pretty much everything and from time to time I seen comments that the 2nd son joins the military and the 3rd becomes a priest but what if there is more then 3 or how are twins handled?
I seen tables where you role for social rank and birth order and I like the idea of your place in life is affected by birth order for background and role playing

Vitruviansquid
2017-08-22, 12:13 AM
There's no such thing as "medieval society."

"Medieval" encompasses a long time. Customs and laws can change during that time.

"Medieval" is also a time instead of a place. You know how the laws and culture in Britain and France are different today? Different countries also had different laws and culture during medieval times.

KillianHawkeye
2017-08-22, 01:01 AM
Vitruviansquid is correct about there not being a single "medieval society".

I will say that, generally, issues of inheritance probably didn't really exist outside of the nobility or maybe some wealthy merchants. Most people didn't have much to pass on to their kids, so the order of their birth was mostly irrelevant. Poor kids worked on the farm or in whatever business their family was in by default, with a few luckier ones being apprenticed to a local craftsman on a case by case basis (possibly based on merit, or just because the family already had enough children to do the family's work).

Martin Greywolf
2017-08-22, 02:12 AM
I will say that, generally, issues of inheritance probably didn't really exist outside of the nobility or maybe some wealthy merchants. Most people didn't have much to pass on to their kids, so the order of their birth was mostly irrelevant. Poor kids worked on the farm or in whatever business their family was in by default, with a few luckier ones being apprenticed to a local craftsman on a case by case basis (possibly based on merit, or just because the family already had enough children to do the family's work).

Okay, this is one thing that IS wrong across pretty much all of medieval Europe. Even serfs had personal property that got passed on to their kids, to say nothing of farmers who were free men or craftsmen. Craftsman's tools were actually quite valuable.

The answer is that every area and time had their own law how to pass on what, and there were several ways of doing it. Full primogeniture, i.e. firstborn takes it all, was somewhat rare and more of a thing for nobility, or a thing that nobles tried to have, since it didn't fracture their lands on their death. You mostly had gavelkind, which works by sorting the inheritors by age, giving the most valuable posession/title to the firstborn, next most valuable to secondborn etc.

Of course, where women come into this ordering, if at all, is one of the things that varied, for both primogeniture and gavelkind, and there were laws and customs that sometimes shuffled the order or removed someone from it entirely, e.g. when you entered into a monastic knightly order (Templars etc), you gave up the right to inherit anything.

Last but not least, this outline is just the default state, the last will trumps it in theory, though in practice, it often depends on who bribes the judge most or who has the most soldiers. And since these are middle ages, these laws weren't always written down, especially during the first half.

Satinavian
2017-08-22, 02:53 AM
Okay, this is one thing that IS wrong across pretty much all of medieval Europe. Even serfs had personal property that got passed on to their kids, to say nothing of farmers who were free men or craftsmen. Craftsman's tools were actually quite valuable.

The answer is that every area and time had their own law how to pass on what, and there were several ways of doing it. Full primogeniture, i.e. firstborn takes it all, was somewhat rare and more of a thing for nobility, or a thing that nobles tried to have, since it didn't fracture their lands on their death. You mostly had gavelkind, which works by sorting the inheritors by age, giving the most valuable posession/title to the firstborn, next most valuable to secondborn etc.

Of course, where women come into this ordering, if at all, is one of the things that varied, for both primogeniture and gavelkind, and there were laws and customs that sometimes shuffled the order or removed someone from it entirely, e.g. when you entered into a monastic knightly order (Templars etc), you gave up the right to inherit anything.

Last but not least, this outline is just the default state, the last will trumps it in theory, though in practice, it often depends on who bribes the judge most or who has the most soldiers. And since these are middle ages, these laws weren't always written down, especially during the first half.I think that is basically the essence of it.

And while it was really common to share inheritance between children, it was also common of them to make further agreements. Usually when a house or a field should not be shared, the heirs agreed often that one of them should get it and in turn should pay of/support the others for a couple of years. And it was not always the oldest who got the field in the end. It was the one who was most suited and willing to take over the spot of the deceased in the society, while the others might move/marry away. So even regions/times where sharing between hairs was the common practice (e.g. the Saxons really liked it, Franks and Slavs were slightly more lukewarm to the concept, Iberians tended to go for single inheritence, don't know about Norse or Magyars or others) it did not always result in more fractioned possession every generation.

KarlMarx
2017-08-22, 04:01 PM
Order of birth in terms of who would do what, especially among nobles, was essentially at best a pattern of common occurrence, so multiple sons could easily join the army, or the clergy, etc., depending on their motives and abilities. The exception was the heir to the family's name, title, and possessions, who would be aware of this status and would face strong social pressures to marry and continue the line.

As for the lower classes, they generally were too poor or unconnected to become successful officers, and the only sure way to enter the Church was to pay a large 'donation' for the monastery to take you in...thus, the Church, especially at higher levels, was almost universally just as privileged as the secular nobility. Depending on inheritance customs, the poor would either gain their parent's lands upon their deaths, or a part thereof; if they were serfs their lord could easily assign them different lands.

Split inheritance definitely did occur by custom in many places, and often was very hard to overcome. This could ultimately have drastic effects--in France, for example, land was split evenly among heirs, leading to poor tenants often having too little land to sustain their families. By the late Renaissance, France had both a very high rate of land ownership and a very high rate of rural poverty as a result of this.

Other countries either never had such customs, or figured out ways to circumvent them. Castile, I believe, granted the nobility a conditional right to primogeniture in exchange for their support of the crown, securing influence that eventually enabled them to grow into a major power. Essentially, regardless of customs, the nobles wanted primogeniture, and in the middle ages, what the nobles want, the nobles get.

As for the rights of women in inheritance, customs if anything were more varied than usual. Under Roman legal traditions, women usually couldn't inheirit, but under Germanic law, they generally could. This was by no means absolute: the Salic Laws governing the German HRE, for example, banned most if not all forms of female inheritance, particularly of titles. As a rule of thumb, though, men were expected to provide for their widows after death, and in some countries this resulted in women inheriting titles. However, women weren't expected to carry on the family line (as inheritance was reckoned by paternity--you take your father's name, after all), so their inheritance was generally reckoned based on necessity. Thus, widows with little chance of remarrying often got the best shares of the inheritance, among female family members at least, while daughters generally got very little, especially in terms of land--giving your lands to your daughter could essentially be giving it to another family. When land and titles were passed to daughters, it was often to diplomatically appease her family by marriage.

Tobtor
2017-08-22, 04:26 PM
Yes, in many Germanic societies women had inheritance, though often half of a "brothers share". At least in Scandinavia. Also it was quite common to give the women "a dowry" which would then take the place of her inheritance. Sometimes the bridgrooms family was also expected to pay her (not her father) a "a piece of wealth". The money/land/textiles/whatever would not go to her husbands family but to her, to bring into the marriage. In every day life this would be a minor issue with no real importance, though it had some effects on future inheritance: if he had children of a previous marriage (or get ones in later marriages) they would not inherit her part (only split between her children), if she died before having children the "part" would likely return to her parents/siblings. Also in case of divorce she would bring this "part" out of the marriage. In both pre-christian and early Christian periods women was allowed to divorce at equal terms of men (as time passes the Christian church figures marriage is something they should govern and thing changes).

Many kingdoms had different levels of elective kingships. In Scandinavia the entire early period (until at least 1200) the King was appointed in one or more things/assemblages, similar traditions was widespread across Northern Europe, also (more in theory) in England. However the candidates had to be related to the previous Kings, typically it whent to sons, though brothers, cousins, and nephews often got the throne as well. It could pass through female lines (often it did).

Later on "the court" (major nobles, all bishops etc) would elect the next king. Again, often one of the Kings sons (unless unfit to rule). This was sort of a compromise between inheritance and an elective system.

Vogie
2017-08-23, 01:28 PM
Note that these agreements and arrangements often had other aspects beyond "what to do when dad dies". More specifically, whichever child (usually the oldest son) that would receive the bulk of the inheritance would also have the responsibility to care for aged parents who can no longer work or provide for themselves. This would be an issue for those in the ye olde version of the middle class - as the wealthy most likely had a steward to care for the parents/estate outside of work, while the least of these likely worked themselves to death.

Interestingly, I also remember reading that, if there were no sons (either naturally, or due to war), this responsibility would fall on the youngest daughter... presumably because she would be able to care for the parent, and still be of marrying age after the death of the parents.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-08-23, 02:28 PM
As for the lower classes, they generally were too poor or unconnected to become successful officers, and the only sure way to enter the Church was to pay a large 'donation' for the monastery to take you in...thus, the Church, especially at higher levels, was almost universally just as privileged as the secular nobility.

As a side note on this: this probably varied heavily between different times, places, orders and individual monasteries. Originally monasteries were pretty much companies. They practiced a craft. (For men at least, women were much more often expected to sit indoors and pray all day for pretty much the entire history of monasteries.) Today there are still beer brewing monks, but back then there were orders that made cheese, or rope, or furniture, or anything else short of porn and babies. If the tradition was alive today they could be programmers or car mechanics. Entering a cloyster came down to the following deal: You get an education, a guaranteed job for the rest of your life and room and board for as long as you live as payment, even during your training period and if you become too old or sick to work. In return the monastery gets all your current worldly possessions (although some orders allowed richer people a less modest lifestyle than poorer monks, with as justification that they suffered just as much from their humbleness because they were used to much more luxuries) and any money they make during your stay there, and you're expected to keep your social life to a minimum, because that will only lead to trouble. (How strict these rules were enforced was probably also pretty variable. Monk and nun have been old peoples professions for hundreds of years now because their numbers keep going down, but in early medieval times you could have a monastery where late teenage "students" and semi-young adults made up the majority of the workforce. It's a completely different social environment. )

But, my point is: a competent, motivated youth with little possessions to his name could still be a worthwhile addition to the team, if his work was good enough to compensate for his entree fee. So I don't think these places were for the privileged perse during the entire period.

Starting in the late medieval era more and more monasteries switched to volunteer work, caring for the sick or teaching children, and subsisting on gifts. But at an oldschool monastery even someone coming in with nothing to their name probably netted a positive sum for the church by the end of their stay.

And honestly, I think the business model could still work today. There are enough people who don't want to have to make too many choices about their life. Getting a job where you get a life, consisting of a humble living space and a band of brothers, rather than money with which to build one, would for some people sound like a win-win. Think of certain people, for instance in some places on the autism spectrum, who feel like they can't handle a decent social life and just end up alone in their room, maybe ex-addicts or ex-criminals who don't want to make the same mistakes again, people who considered the military academy because they need a certain structure in their life. I can see why these things existed...

Knaight
2017-08-23, 04:01 PM
As a side note on this: this probably varied heavily between different times, places, orders and individual monasteries. Originally monasteries were pretty much companies. They practiced a craft. (For men at least, women were much more often expected to sit indoors and pray all day for pretty much the entire history of monasteries.) Today there are still beer brewing monks, but back then there were orders that made cheese, or rope, or furniture, or anything else short of porn and babies. If the tradition was alive today they could be programmers or car mechanics. Entering a cloyster came down to the following deal: You get an education, a guaranteed job for the rest of your life and room and board for as long as you live as payment, even during your training period and if you become too old or sick to work. In return the monastery gets all your current worldly possessions (although some orders allowed richer people a less modest lifestyle than poorer monks, with as justification that they suffered just as much from their humbleness because they were used to much more luxuries) and any money they make during your stay there, and you're expected to keep your social life to a minimum, because that will only lead to trouble. (How strict these rules were enforced was probably also pretty variable. Monk and nun have been old peoples professions for hundreds of years now because their numbers keep going down, but in early medieval times you could have a monastery where late teenage "students" and semi-young adults made up the majority of the workforce. It's a completely different social environment.

Monasteries coexisted with other institutions, and while some of the differences were religious (and thus discussing them is outside forum rules) others were structural. Monasteries tended to be isolated and rural, and while that still meant they were tied into an extensive trade network which also had various travelers moving through it - plus often one fairly nearby village/demense - that still left them dramatically less involved with broader medieval society. Then there was the priest class, involving priests, cardinals, popes, etc., which often had extensive holdings in cities and royal courts (not least because this was the class tied to cathedrals, which weren't getting built on small budgets), and which wielded a lot of political influence. Generally the nobles with serious money were more likely to try and embed their family in that part of the church, leaving monasteries comparatively impoverished (comparatively being the key word there, they still often had serious money).

dps
2017-08-23, 05:31 PM
Also, keep in mind that primogeniture (first born inherits everything. or at least is the primary heir), where it did exist was often more of an early modern period form of succession than a medieval form (though there are exceptions). Also keep in mind that mortality rates for infants and children were high enough, even among the nobility, and even into the 19th century, that often it was just a matter of whichever child outlived dad inheriting.

Vknight
2017-08-27, 12:08 PM
All in all its complicated and go play Crusader Kings 2 so you can learn more about it.

Honest Tiefling
2017-08-28, 06:11 PM
I think others have summed up why you can't just use the whole of Medieval Europe as a model, so maybe we should approach this from a different angle. What were you envisioning birth order doing in the game? Were you considering that sometimes it was customary to give a second or third son to the military/clergy? Are Nobles PCs, and if so...What game are you playing? Some have massive amounts of time devoted to land maintenance and followers, others sorta handwave it.

jk7275
2017-08-28, 08:05 PM
I think others have summed up why you can't just use the whole of Medieval Europe as a model, so maybe we should approach this from a different angle. What were you envisioning birth order doing in the game? Were you considering that sometimes it was customary to give a second or third son to the military/clergy? Are Nobles PCs, and if so...What game are you playing? Some have massive amounts of time devoted to land maintenance and followers, others sorta handwave it.


This is something I would use for to assist with creating a background, I seen tables where you roll for birth order and social class and just looking for ideas to make more use of the tables
I seen comments from time to time where in some societies the 2nd son joins the military and 3rd son joins the clergy. I was wondering if any societies had customs or laws for sons after the 3rd or what if there are twins.

Honest Tiefling
2017-08-28, 09:16 PM
This is something I would use for to assist with creating a background, I seen tables where you roll for birth order and social class and just looking for ideas to make more use of the tables
I seen comments from time to time where in some societies the 2nd son joins the military and 3rd son joins the clergy. I was wondering if any societies had customs or laws for sons after the 3rd or what if there are twins.

Why not decide that in your game setting, the interesting option happens? Perhaps twins aren't seen as a good thing, but one twin is essentially an 'evil twin' or interloper for whatever reason. Which means you could have a very wealthy PC with good social standing...Who then has to prove that no, he's NOT the bad twin, the other guy is. Or that twins are expected to compete with one another, so they are assumed to hate each other from birth.

Satinavian
2017-08-29, 01:11 AM
This is something I would use for to assist with creating a background, I seen tables where you roll for birth order and social class and just looking for ideas to make more use of the tables
I seen comments from time to time where in some societies the 2nd son joins the military and 3rd son joins the clergy. I was wondering if any societies had customs or laws for sons after the 3rd or what if there are twins.
That kind of stuff was more a customs thing than a law.

You see, if you have primogeniture and only the oldest son inherits title and land, as responsible parent you need to find a place in society for the other sons, a way to make a living. As military was usually organized by nobility, you could call in some favors/ ask some friends for an prestigious officer position somewhere else. A habit that evolved from the whole ward/squire buissness. Later, administrative posts became another option.

And if this didn't work or you had more sons than you could find positions, the church was another option. But while prestigious, you would be expected to make huge donations that would basically pay for the living expenses of your son. So it was not that preferable an option. Also clergy would never be able to have legitimate children carrying on your legacy or name, so you would only choose that when you already have enough other sons doing that. (Daughters don't count as even when they can inherit, they can't continue name or family)

And yes, it was often done this way. Sometimes there were even formal rights for certain families to always hold a certain important position. Which meant always have one son less to find a livelyhood for. There are even examples of families sending a daughter to such a post when no son existed instead of giving up this right for a generation.

Closet_Skeleton
2017-08-29, 03:18 AM
I know the first born tends to get pretty much everything and from time to time I seen comments that the 2nd son joins the military and the 3rd becomes a priest

The specific order you quoted is a post-medieval French thing. 18th-19th century England had something similar but these are conventions not rules. The clue is 'the military' which refers to a post medieval form of organising armies. In the middle ages some sons went into the church but all the spare ones generally fought in armies if a fight was going on (sometimes the ones in the church also got in on the action).

First borns tended to get everything in early classical Greece according to some interpretations, but that was modified by the laws we actually have to allow people to dispose of their property in a will. If a line died out leaving only daughters then the heir was the descendent of the younger brother of the most senior member of the male line but sometimes such an heir was encouraged to marry the daughter.

Merovingian and Carolingian kingship went by split inheritance so every son became a king and the kingdom was divided between them. With the fall of the Carolingian dynasty the core territory of latter France became nominally elective until the introduction of primogeniture in the 13th century.

Inheritance in German counties and duchies made everyone the heir to all their father's titles. The sons then either split the land or managed it as co-rulers. Primogeniture was instituted for electoral realms in the 14th century. After the medieval period this led to silly things like the Margravates of Ansbach (Ansbach wasn't a margravate, but because one of the ruler's relatives was he could use the title) and Saxe-Coburg Gotha (niether Coburg nor Gotha are anything to do with Saxony, but their ruler's family split off from the ruling house of the Duchy of Saxony centuries earlier so he could call himself Duke of Saxony).

East of Germany things tended to go by seniority, so your younger brother was your heir rather than your son who wouldn't get to inherit until the entire previous generation died. Often this was combined with some form of spit inheritance. Medieval Hungary had both seniority, divided inheritance and elective rule at various points. 12th century Poland had a problem where the nobility wanted the realm to be dissolved and divided between the sons but the King wanted seniority and tried to square the circle with an overly complicated system that never worked and led to the non-existence of Poland for two hundred years.

caden_varn
2017-08-29, 03:53 AM
Specifically with respect to twins - one is born first. In all the systems I am aware of, it doesn't matter if you are 10 years or 10 seconds older than your sibling, you are still counted as older with whatever advantages that gives under the local laws & customs.

DrewID
2017-08-29, 02:50 PM
Specifically with respect to twins - one is born first. In all the systems I am aware of, it doesn't matter if you are 10 years or 10 seconds older than your sibling, you are still counted as older with whatever advantages that gives under the local laws & customs.

An extreme case is in Genesis 38:27-29

27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. 30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.

On some cultures at least, birth order is srs bsns.

The Irish had the derbfine (Irish spelling dearbhfhine) which was all of the descendants of the same Great Grandfather (or great-great grandfather, depending) of the king, all of whom are eligible to be elected king on his passing. For them it was less about birth order than maintaining very detailed family trees.

As an added claim to fame, Irish has as many silent letters as the next two languages combined.

DrewID

1of3
2017-08-29, 11:50 PM
Hello
I know the first born tends to get pretty much everything

The fact that we have France and Germany today shows us that was not always the case. Charlemagne split his realm between his sons. Actually, there are three of them, but never mihave

caden_varn
2017-08-30, 07:42 AM
An extreme case is in Genesis 38:27-29

The Irish had the derbfine (Irish spelling dearbhfhine) which was all of the descendants of the same Great Grandfather (or great-great grandfather, depending) of the king, all of whom are eligible to be elected king on his passing. For them it was less about birth order than maintaining very detailed family trees.

As an added claim to fame, Irish has as many silent letters as the next two languages combined.

DrewID

I think this was quite common on the pre-norman British Isles - if you were sufficiently high-born you would be an Aethling, which meant you were under consideration for inheriting the kingship, but it was down to popularity/battle-skill as to which one actually did. Meant that you probably wouldn't get a complete idiot on the throne just because they were first-born, but probably drove a certain incentive to reduce the pool of potential rivals.

Not very knowledgeable about this, so I'm not really sure how widely this sort of thing was actually used.

Tobtor
2017-08-31, 01:30 PM
Not very knowledgeable about this, so I'm not really sure how widely this sort of thing was actually used.

Very. Generally all over northern Europe in the Early Medieval period some kind of election was done for kings. Who and how the elections where done differs, but typically "male members" of the royal familiy was possible candidates. More often than not sons of daughters was also considered candidates. Though quite often the kings oldest son got the land, since he was usually groomed for the task, but we have many instances of second sons getting the title. As time goes on many kings tried to have their oldest son elected while the king was still alive (a sort of first step toward primogeniture). Some times this was successful other times not. I think you might consider the use of "the prince of Wales" in the British royal house a remnant of such a tradition (a clever way of naming your heir without doing it directly).

Clistenes
2017-09-01, 05:48 PM
Hello
I know the first born tends to get pretty much everything and from time to time I seen comments that the 2nd son joins the military and the 3rd becomes a priest but what if there is more then 3 or how are twins handled?
I seen tables where you role for social rank and birth order and I like the idea of your place in life is affected by birth order for background and role playing

What country, time period and social class are we speaking of? Because it changes everything...

During the XI century, it was common for spanish aristocrats and kings to divide their fiefdoms or kingdoms among their children, so the only difference would be the size of the share...

Later, the institution of the mayorazgo was created. From that point onwards the properties of a noble were clasified as either a part of the mayorazgo (the property he inherited from his father, which he would have to pass down to his oldest son in turn) and the free proterties, which he earned in some other way (for example, doing business) and he could pass to whoever he pleased

In some countries parents could choose what to give (or not) to each of their children as inheritance. In other countries, the way inheritance was to be divided was fixed, and parents couldn't disinherit their children...

In most countries men got most of the property and land, but in the Basque country it was common for daughters to keep the farm while the sons became sailors...

And for some social classes, it didn't matter much who inherited the greatest share of the property: It didn't matter if an artisan, artist, scholar, physician... etc., was the eldest or the youngest son, their success depended on their skill at their profession...