Medieval Lords Game

[Bran Cardello]

It plays like a medieval version of SimCity being like a city building game where the violence and battles take a back seat to village management like providing food, entertainment, religious amenities and transit to your peasants so you can collect taxes on them.

For medieval England, the traditional rule was: first son inherits (primogeniture), second son becomes a soldier, third son goes into the priesthood. The second son was essentially a backup for the first, who might well die. In addition to the usual hazards of childhood, medieval lords were bound by fealty to a higher lord or king, and would provide fighting men upon demand. The lord or his heir would be expected to lead such a contingent, so the chances of dying in battle (or of wounds) was not negligable. Younger sons had no particular expectation of inheriting, and were generally literate, so the priesthood was the obvious occupation.

If such a rule were not enforced, and all of the sons spent their time hanging around waiting for their father to die, they might well spend a good deal of time plotting and rebelling against their father and each other. I suggest you read up on Henry II, (1133 - 1189), whose 5 sons were a constant source of trouble. Or, for an entertaining fictional take on the issue, Neil Gaiman's "Stardust". Once a son inherited a title, it was not a good idea to keep his younger brothers around, since there would always be the temptation to go for the brass ring and rebel or plot to discredit the king. Another historical example you should read up on is Elizabeth I/Mary, Queen of Scots.

If you want, you can always write about a younger brother who supports his older brother wholeheartedly. Just be aware that this requires a rather Pollyanna-ish take on human nature. The current, very civilized, rules about royal succession are a historical anomaly, and they work in large part because constitutional monarchs don't have much real power compared with monarchs in olden time. To some degree this will be muted in subordinate lords (dukes, counts, etc), since a threatened lord can call on his liege lord for assistance, which would make any successful rebellion by a son rather unlikely unless he moves very swiftly and decisively.

Knights lived in something known as the feudal system. It was a way of structuring society which saw knights act as landowners and paid taxes to their king, as well as serving them when war beckoned. Under this system, knights became lords and those who lived and worked on their land became their subjects. In effect, they had fiefs, or mini kingdoms which centred around the manor of the lord. This was known as a feudal society.

Feudalism spawned into being in or around the 8th Century and flourished in Britain and Europe under William, Duke of Normandy, after he was victorious in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Feudalist societies then spready to France and Eastern Europe until it finally saw its end in or around the 1850s.

Not all lords were born equal in the Middle Ages. There was a hierarchy, and in some cases even peasants could work their way up the ladder onto this. For example, if a peasant managed to capture a wealthy knight and ransomed him off, he could buy his way into positions of influence.

The medieval lord was a powerful figure in the Middle Ages. In exchange for swearing allegiance to the king, they were granted lands and ruled over small villages or towns. Medieval lords collectively held a lot of power over their king, and in the past, have ousted some.

The lord also acted as arbiter in disputes between peasants and others residing on their land, though as we saw in my article on peasants, it was they who tended to carry out most of these administrative affairs which medieval lords deemed boring.

With coin flowing and coffers swelling, medieval lords began to spend more on artistic pursuits, such as music, paintings, and literature. They sought more types of entertainment too, hiring jesters, minstrels, acrobats, actors, and dancers.

In response, a handful of barons overthrew Richard, but it lasted mere days until he regained power. Instead of executing his rebellious barons, he exiled them, one of whom was Henry IV. Years later Henry returned from exile, threw Richard into gaol, and seized the throne for himself.

The king owned all the land in the country. He did not sell it off, rather leased it. And the individuals who he leased it to were his barons. Another term for a medieval lord, a baron started off in a lowly role, such as knights, political advisers, or even ordinary individuals.

These were the people the King felt he could trust to maintain his land, look after those living on it, supply fighting men in times of war, and pay taxes and dues to the exchequer (the royal bank). These parcels of land were known as fiefs, and the barons held complete dominion and jurisdiction over them.

These castles were fortified structures designed to protect the lord, his family, and his subjects from attacks. A prime example is the iconic Chteau de Chambord in France, built in the 16th century.

Living in grand castles or manors, they enjoyed luxuries like feasts, hunting, and tournaments. However, their duties included defending their land and people, which required maintaining a private army and often engaging in warfare.

Lords also had to navigate complex feudal relationships, pledging loyalty to higher nobles or the king, while overseeing vassals and peasants. Their daily life involved balancing administrative tasks, social obligations, and ensuring the economic prosperity of their estates.

With such wealth, food was of no issue to the medieval lord. A baron was always served before everyone else. Their diets were rich in meat with all the hunting and slaying they were doing. They ate vegetables too, mostly peas, beans, and onions, and enjoyed top-quality bread. Medieval lords drank ale made of hops and mead made from fermented honey and enjoyed wines imported from southern Europe where grapes grew.

The way a baron ate varied depending on their wealth. Rich barons ate off plates and bowls of pewter, whereas poorer barons used wooden plates and bowls, or even day-old bread. Forks did not exist during the Middle Ages, though knives and spoons did. Most people ate with their fingers and washed their hands in something known as a finger bowl.

Medieval lords wore the best money could buy. Velvets, furs, and silks of scarlet and purple, with gold embroidery. The law even reserved certain fabrics and colours for the nobility, which came about after peasants began to dress in more colourful and fashionable ways. This occurred after the Black Death, a killer disease of the Middle Ages, when demand for workers soared, empowering the peasants to negotiate better rates of pay with barons who were desperate for people to work the land.

As with lords and ladies in the UK today, the title of baron was a hereditary one. The children of medieval lords were educated by tutors in various languages, literature, history, law, and outdoor pursuits like horse riding, hunting, and hawking.

From the ninth to the early eleventh centuries, invasions of the Magyars from the east, Muslims from the south, and Vikings from the north struck western Europe. This unrest ultimately spurred greater unity in England and Germany, but in northern France centralized authority broke down and the region split into smaller and smaller political units. By the ninth century, many knights and nobles held estates (fiefs) granted by greater lords in return for military and other service. This feudal system (from the medieval Latin feodum or feudum, fee or fief) enabled a cash-poor but land-rich lord to support a military force. But this was not the only way that land was held, knights maintained, and loyalty to a lord retained. Lands could be held unconditionally, landless knights could be sheltered in noble households, and loyalties could be maintained through kinship, friendship, or wages.

There are some advantages to being a medieval peasant. Twitter hasn't been invented yet, for instance, so your exposure to the worst opinions in the world is pretty limited. But there are, on balance, a lot more downsides. Healthcare is a tad iffy. You haven't got any central heating. Back-breaking labour is the norm. And, if you live in my Manor Lords village, you're probably getting really bored of eating eggs and stepping over corpses.

Manor Lords is a medieval city builder that I've been looking forward to for a while, and now it's finally out; at least in early access. So I've put on a fancy cloak and started to guide my people to prosperity. There have been some bumps in the road.

As you upgrade homes, more demands are thrust upon you. Once content with water, food and clothes, now your villagers expect a more varied diet and piss-ups in the tavern. Bread, fruit and beer? I know, it's ridiculous. So you erect more buildings, but that requires yet more villagers, who then need to be housed and fed, which means you'll have to start building extra farms and more logging camps, which need even more villagers, and the cycle continues.

Within these conventions, however, Manor Lords does some very interesting things, like how a home is not merely a simple dwelling. See, while most buildings are placed individually, with homes you have to drag out a box where the size determines how many buildings will appear. The wider the box, the more homes. The height of the box, meanwhile, determines how much space each family has to develop their property.

The higher tier a home, the more utility you can give it. At the second tier, you can turn homes into businesses, creating blacksmiths who'll arm your militia or brewers who will supply your tavern. Doing this, however, creates families of artisans, which means they won't be able to work in other buildings. You can't expect someone to make 20 spears and then do a stint in the fields. Well, as a tyrannical medieval noble you probably can expect that, but you really shouldn't.

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