feudalism

In most societies succession has been patrilinear, going from Father to son, thus lack of a male heir could doom the hard fought legacy of any great king and dynasty. So today I'm asking you which male heirs that never were could have changed history.

In a richly decorated room, a family mourned the death of their father. That itself was perhaps not uncommon, for every man died eventually. The men who was being mourned died young. But what was truly special about the room was its inhabitants. At first glance, it might have seemed like...

In a lot of ways ”feudalism”, historically dubious the concept may be, seems to have been hugely damaging to the various Scandinavian kingdoms, and the fact that it was often introduced top-down made me wonder if it could, and should, have been avoided - from a state-building perspective. Now no...

What might the culture of the modern world look like if feudalism was still the prevalent form of government? I'm talking about a society where the hereditary nobility and royalty still hold significant powers but the world's tech level is about the same as OTL. What would media and pop culture...

With a POD in 1000 CE, create a France that is made significantly more decentralized than otl, yet without becoming a weak kingdom. We could say, that this is a challenge which seeks to see the French monarchy become as decentralized in terms of royal control over lands, yet still successful...

Was it ever possible for the Kingdom of Hungary to de facto disintegrate around the 14th century, that is, in the aftermath of the extinction of the main line of the Arpad dynasty? IOTL, after the death of Andrew III, the throne was contested between multiple pretenders, chiefly the Premyslid...

In order for us to properly understand how such a system would manifest itself as the world developed, we would first have to cover how such a thing could possibly enroll itself in modern civilization. The most likely argument would be that slavery never inspires European imperialists in the...

IOTL, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent had close ties with continental Europe due to its strategic location at the Strait of Dover. Indeed, it was one of the first areas of Anglo-Saxon England to be christianized, receiving Frankish missionaries as early as the 5th century. So, my question is...

How different a history of Europe would be (both in a short and in a long terms) assuming that Hugh Capet, first post Carolingian King, would lost all of his sons before his death? This means that there is no House of Capet - including cadet branches... The Kingdom was a t a time and elective...

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to create within Europe a dynastic system of governance in regards to the relation of the nobility and the monarch. this system, is modeled primarily around the Arsacid and Sassanid systems of governance and relationship-conceptions. POD: 200 CE...

The Zähringen dynasty was a noble house active between the 11th and early 13th centuries in the feudal political scene of Swabia within the Holy Roman Empire. They held lands spanning all across modern Switzerland and the southern half of the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg. They seemed to be...

say that East Francia doesn’t become as decentralised as it did otl, i.e Otto I’s reforms last longer, but for whatever reason the HRE isn’t restored. The Kingdom continues down the centralisation and monarchical power that happened in the rest of Europe. In broad strokes, what happens?

Hello! I'm new here and working for a while on a alternate scenario for the fall of WRE and the ascension of the ostrogothic kingdom of italy. I'm asking about tips on the development of the socio-productive relationships and structures on a western europe ruled, even loosely, for a people other...

Most timelines who deal with the 1500s tend to fall into colonialism when it comes to America. This is quite likely when the PoD is set somewhere around 1400, maybe earlier, but capitalist colonization of the Americas is hardly the only possible way to deal with the continent. If we were to try...

What if America was colonized with a different hands off approach? With the european rulers as the liege lord of local lords that took over native kingdoms like the aztec one or built their own settlements. I think the biggest problem for this would be the financing of the starting expeditions...