What would a pagan "feudalism" look like

ar-pharazon

Banned
Assuming you have a timeline in which Christianity doesn't exist for some reason and Roman history goes similar to OTL.

The feudal system was ideologized as being God given and ordered with the king the lords, and the peasants.

Also the relationship between the nobility and clergy while it varies from place to place was an essential aspect of feudalism.

So with no Christianity or similar monotheistic religion what does a post Roman feudal world look like?
 
I think you may be somewhat overstating the extent to which Feudalism justified itself ideologically.

Whilst there are lots of reasons for why Feudalism came about, it was by and large a process rather than a campaign as it were. The Christian justifications for feudalism are post hoc justifications of the status quo rather than a conceptual state advocated prior to its existence.

So with no Christianity and nothing to tale its place, all the economic factors are still there, just with varying complexity RE religious interaction with the power apparatus.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Northern Europe from 500 to 1100 is your answer. It basically looks the same - serfs or just peasants in general working in fiefdoms for landlords. China and India are another example, where we see basically the same phenomenon developing despite the lack of Christianity.
 
Pretty much like feudalism.

Agreed. Societies in the early medieval period had to adjust to a world in which land is cheap, food is expensive, and dispersed nobility is a lot more effective than urban bureaucracy. Regardless of specific beliefs, the old Roman civic religion is going to have to go, along with all the attendant ideas - pietas, disciplina, imperium etc. - that propped the Roman system up. In its place, a rural warrior/ruler class finds easy justification through "protecting" some religious institution: priests, monasteries, relics, icons, idols.

In my opinion (which some people will probably find a bit railroaded) the religion/s of medieval Western Europe in a world without Christianity would be indistinguishable from OTL medieval Catholicism on every level except theological and symbolic.
 
Agreed. Societies in the early medieval period had to adjust to a world in which land is cheap, food is expensive, and dispersed nobility is a lot more effective than urban bureaucracy. Regardless of specific beliefs, the old Roman civic religion is going to have to go, along with all the attendant ideas - pietas, disciplina, imperium etc. - that propped the Roman system up. In its place, a rural warrior/ruler class finds easy justification through "protecting" some religious institution: priests, monasteries, relics, icons, idols.

In my opinion (which some people will probably find a bit railroaded) the religion/s of medieval Western Europe in a world without Christianity would be indistinguishable from OTL medieval Catholicism on every level except theological and symbolic.
...why?
I mean the catholic church as a political entity had very specific circumstances that made it the way it was. A shared legal and liturgical language, specific authorities being derived from it's blessing and the ability to call crusades is something that is certainly not going to be the case in a decentralised (religionwise) europe.
 
...why?
I mean the catholic church as a political entity had very specific circumstances that made it the way it was. A shared legal and liturgical language, specific authorities being derived from it's blessing and the ability to call crusades is something that is certainly not going to be the case in a decentralised (religionwise) europe.

Not to mention the whole notion of having a single, international religious organisation in the first place. That was pretty unusual (about the closest example I can think of is the Islamic Caliphate, and of course early Islam was influenced by Christianity), and absent Christianity or some other analogous religion, I don't
really
see any plausible way for such a structure to arise from Graeco-Roman paganism, much less to survive the fall of the Empire.
 
I suspect that most cultures at the pre-industrial stage with large landholder estates and non-centralized governance will work out something like feudalism. It can be a fairly stable system. It persisted in Japan up until the 19th century.
 
Probably even more feudalism than OTL feudalism, as there's no rival centre of power to compete with.
 
Basically still feudalism. Maybe not quite as rigid as OTL (not that it was especially rigid OTL).

But as others here have mentioned, i don't think feudalism ever really depended on ideology in the way capitalism does, though it certainly was there.

Also, without the backing of certain rulers and their unions by the resources and political connections of the massive organization that was the church, you'll probably have smaller kingdoms for a bit longer.
 
How different would that be to "the monarch is God's lieutenant on Earth. To go against the monarch is to go against God", though?

Was this a part of feudal society though? The absolute monarchs of France post feudalism surely held some of this concept, but the idea that the monarch was some sort of living god is different than even the later absolute model you reference.

Considering that these monarchs could be excommunicated and shamed by the Papacy is indicative of what I refer to.
 
I think you may be somewhat overstating the extent to which Feudalism justified itself ideologically.

Whilst there are lots of reasons for why Feudalism came about, it was by and large a process rather than a campaign as it were. The Christian justifications for feudalism are post hoc justifications of the status quo rather than a conceptual state advocated prior to its existence.

So with no Christianity and nothing to tale its place, all the economic factors are still there, just with varying complexity RE religious interaction with the power apparatus.
It is possible that the underlying substrate of Christianity informed the decisions and actions of the Christian sovereigns as feudalism emerged. I don't see any evidence for it, but the argument could be made.
 
It is possible that the underlying substrate of Christianity informed the decisions and actions of the Christian sovereigns as feudalism emerged. I don't see any evidence for it, but the argument could be made.
There are two problems with that hypothesis.

1) the conditions that formed Feudalism were not ideological. This is not to say they were not political, but that unlike the major transition to capitalism or the attempts to implement socialism, Feudalism was just a natural outgrowth of all sorts of factors from rapid decentralisation/splitting of territory to increasing power placed upon generals (in the Roman Sphere) who in turn had great incentives to bestow territory on their subordinates (a practice that is at least as old as the Republic). Head up north, and you have a long history of tribal rulers being absorbed by larger tribal confederations ran on a familial basis.

2) Feudalism wasn't a western only phenomenon. Whilst there are unique specifics to Western Feudalism (like the role of the Catholic Church after the fact), the fact that Feudalism existed in countries that had both very little clue about Christianity's existence and arguably prior to the existence of Christianity shows that once certain economic and political positions are in place, Feudalism is sort of a given, no matter whom you pray to.
 
Not to mention that there may have been a time that 'kingship' had sacral/religious roles to fill as well as secular (i understand that this is contested, but i don't find it wrong in a general sense)
 
Yes, feudalism would still prevail. Without the church, your big loss would be communication: without the continued use of Latin, the means of connecting break-off languages would be gone and what we call the Renaissance could have been substantially delayed. Europe might have been more vulnerable to Islamic intrusion.
 
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