Bandit kingdom(or domain) in the medieval ages

How about Audoghast, the most northern town of the Ghana empire.

It rebelled when ever a sufficient Berber coalition under as strongman and gathered others to contest and raid Ghana. Id like to say Ghana gained and honed it's military edge because of groups like this.
 
Isn't this what feudalism basically is? Just legalized banditry? I personally struggle to see the difference between a nobility enforcing feudal dues and a mafia organization forcing businesses to pay them protection money.

My impression was feudalism was simply central authority simply delegating too much power to the nobility, since the king cannot anymore enforce his will directly, so he had to delegate his power. But the same inability to enforce the will meant that the nobles became quasi-independent, and they became hereditary, and basically kept up appearances by holding fealty to the king who originally appointed their ancestors counts, dukes, etc over the land.

After all, most high nobility could trace their line from a grant of a king or Emperor. And even the Normans in Normandy legally got their lands by grant of King Charles III. Certainly in England, the nobles got their lands and titles from the king.

So to me, they're not legalized banditry. They're simply an extreme delegation of central authority.
 
Banditry was of course an issue up until the 19th century in some places and the roots of the concept of banditry go back to before antiquity(before the Greco Roman era) and the ideas of rebels in the countryside with motive part criminal part political existed in the form of the Baguadae in late roman Gaul.

How can we have bandits, woodsmen or highwaymen in the medieval ages end up ruling a kingdom or domain of great size-basically a criminal state,

How can medieval authority collapse into this point?

Is this even possible? I
Algomavores ( mugawir)state in Spanish border lands with continued reconquista conflict.
 
It's about the same as the difference between insurance and gambling.

Insurance and gambling are actually opposites.

In insurance, you pay a fee (the difference between the policy premium and the expected payout) to decrease your financial risk.

In gambling, you pay a fee (the house edge) to increase your financial risk.

Anyone who both purchases insurance ans gambles is wasting money.
 
Related question -- since OTL has had it share of pirates (/ bandits) who stratight up took over a (/ founded their own) country, what is the most powerful a low born criminal could become in terms of said pirate kingdom being a world power player?
 
Related question -- since OTL has had it share of pirates (/ bandits) who stratight up took over a (/ founded their own) country, what is the most powerful a low born criminal could become in terms of said pirate kingdom being a world power player?

The Mamluks might qualify, alot of the muslim dynasties really.
 
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