Europe in 1300

Personal Nature of Politics

highly personal nature of politics in the Middle Ages. It's true that some among the educated were now turning to Roman legal and political traditions, looking for principles that went beyond the personal, but that investigation was still largely restricted to polemics and propaganda. The world of practical politics was all about people and relationships. First and foremost, it was about family—family loyalties, family rivalries. Secondly it was about friendship. Not the modern idea of friendship as in "someone I like" but friendship in the medieval sense of deep ties of obligation, loyalty and mutual support. Indeed, one term for one's kindred was "friends by blood." This included what you probably envision when you think of loyalty oaths of knights, but it was much broader than that and could be found at most any level of society except among the poor. You'll not be able to understand medieval politics if you think of it in terms of rival nations or even of contending kingdoms. You need to think of it as soap opera, in terms of love and betrayal, of respectability and reputation, of hatreds and jealousies, of power and fame and humiliation, all held by individual people in the context of families. The analogy comes up short, though, because soap operas are never about land. The other analogy I've seen made is to think in terms of modern gangs. Control over turf isn't about the turf itself. Oh, sure, the turf represents a certain income, but ultimately turf is a marker, a sign of power and position in the larger community of competing gangs. So it often was with the several thousand lords and towns who comprised the political landscape of late medieval Europe. The competition for prestige, as well as the pursuit of vengeance, manifested itself in the acquisition of land (secondarily the acquisition of title, but this was something more characteristic of early modern times).