Medieval Monarchy vs Democracy- A Critical Look at Democracy

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Ultimately, in the only good system, in a profound sense land belongs to all of the people.

Just like air, or water, or sunlight.

That's how God Himself set it up, for Israel, with the 50-yr Jubilee law, to assure that those obeying Him would return the land to the families it had been acquired from.

There would be no family that hadn't any land. But every family would have land.

So, already, when nobels owned land (however acquired, either by war, or by theft, or by grant from the king) and then rented it to everyone else, already this is departing from God's more perfect system, so long as it lacks the return of land to the people God commanded Israel.

I agree in a perfect sinless unfallen world we would all own land instead of only the government does today, we just rent it from them. But we must start from where we are. It would be just as unjust if not more to have non land owning civilians be able to steal the land from land owners [lords]. The feudal system took what was handed it and I think did far better than a democracy. And as my thread on monarchy points out, the medieval feudal system was an agrarian system.

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government


Agrarian Society

“a feudal society was also essentially a country, rural society”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Urban populations without any real religion or culture, like much of the U.S today, cling to government as the source of identity and the meaning of their exsitance”
-Clyde Wilson Nullification Reclaiming the Consent of the Governed

The medieval world was also an agrarian society witch saw a drastic increase in farm and food production. With the fall of Rome cities started to empty as people moved to the country. Big cities being unnatural need large scale infrastructure to survive and need large amounts of goods moved from the country into the city to survive witch needs massive government.

“Then we meet the feudal system, and the castle was born.”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

The medieval society centered around the castle as the center of culture, protection, civilization, code of honor, court, laws, trade etc in a rural setting surrounded by small farms in no need of cities or urban areas. The agrarian nature went hand in hand with the form of monarchies and the church. Oxford scholar Christopher Tyermann in his book Gods war wrote the “Religious and political structures rested on settled agrarian economics and populations.” Regine Pernoud in her book Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths wrote “the authority was able to reside elsewhere than in a city.” Rural monasteries were the center of learning. Monks worked the land and were self sufficient [while making beer and wine] while maintain a place of learning and prayer. In ancient Rome farming was thought the work of slaves unlike the christian west. Not until the 16th century during the Renaissance does education moved to urban areas and culture moves towards cities and the origins of the modern state appear. To see the impact of centralization, democracy, urbanization and industrialization on the southern united states decentralized christian agrarian society and how hostile democracy is towards agrarianism, liberty, decentralization and Christianity in the united states context, see this link.

I Wish I Was In The land Of Cotton- Southern Agrarian vs Northern Industrialization

also see

THE MENACE OF THE HERD or Procrustes at Large THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY MILWAUKEE 1943 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
https://cdn.mises.org/The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large_5.pdf

“Authentic country life with its rugged spirit of Independence...its traditions, its distrust of modernity, and its self sufficiency, has compete disappeared, and with it, the most robust opposition to all state centralization.”
-Christophe Buffin de Chosal the end of Democracy Tomblar House 2017

“The age of the rule of the plains and the cities, which put an end to the rule of the mountains and castles, was indeed the beginning of the decline of Europe. The association of Berlin with Moscow, of nationalism with socialism, was, even in a geographical sense, a league of monotony against diversity.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943






Also the lowest of the medieval society the serf, was more free than the masses in democracy. He worked the land free with his family, but was to give a certain % to the lord.


“Modern man in the city is from that point of view even worse off than the serf. In eighty out of a hundred cases he does not own a home but lives in literal serfdom. Provided he earns four checks of fifty dollars each in a month he can retain three of those, but the fourth he has to turn in to his landlord. That means — to all practical purposes — that the individual tenant works one and a half days each week for the landlord. His refusal to do so would end more disastrously than the ancient serf's because he would be turned out from his home and his meager possessions be removed to the street. Thus to talk about modern freedom is mere cant when we exalt it in juxtaposition to medieval freedom.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943


‘The feet’ is the name of those who exercise the humbler duties, by whose service all the members of the republic may walk along the earth. In this accounting may be included the peasants who always stick to the land, looking after their cultivated fields or plantings or pastures or flowersFor inferiors must serve superiors, who on the other hand ought to provide all necessary protection to their inferiors. For this reason, Plutarch says that what is to the advantage of the humbler people, that is, the multitude, is to be followed; for the fewer always submit to the more numerous. Therefore, magistrates were instituted for the reason that injuries might be averted from subjects and the republic itself might put shoes, as it were, on its workers. For when they are exposed to injuries it is as if the republic is barefoot; there can be nothing more ignominious for those who administer the magistracies. Indeed an afflicted people is like proof and irrefutable demonstration of the prince’s gout. The health of the whole republic will only be secure and splendid if the superior members devote themselves to the inferiors and if the inferiors respond likewise to the legal rights of their superiors, so that each individual may be likened to a part of the others reciprocally and each believes what is to his own advantage to be determined by that which he recognises to be most useful for others.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus



It was in fact industrialization and democracy that took people from the land.

I Wish I Was In The land Of Cotton- Southern Agrarian vs Northern Industrialization

 

[Rusviking876]

Medieval Monarchy vs Democracy

“By familiarizing oneself with other times, other eras, other civilizations, one acquires the habit of distrusting criteria of one's own time.”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”
-H.L Mencken

“Every age is befooled by the notions which are in fashion in it. Our age is befooled by " democracy."
-WG Sumnner quoted in Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time

“Tradition means giving a vote to that most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
-G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy; Chapter 4; 1908


A Critical Look at Democracy -Divide or Unify? Liberty or Bondage? Legalized Theft and Crime -Tyranny and Exploitation by the Privileged Class of Politicians and the Totalitarian Nature of Democracy

“[in democracy]A man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two.
-Lysander Spooner

“Politics makes us view each other as enemies...The structure of democratic politics actually gives me reason to despise most of my politically active fellow citizens”
-Jason Brennan Against Democracy Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford 2017

“a time when those who obtained their wealth from government would compose the numerical majority , and this numerical majority would always vote for those politicians who promised to tax or otherwise exploit the numerical minority... uses governments monopoly on the use of force to compel the productive element to transfer its wealth to the non productive element. This is the end stage of all mass democracies.”
-James and Walter Kennedy Nullifying Tyranny Pelican Press 2010

A Monarchy avoids many of the downfalls of our various democracies as interest groups and politicians cannot divide us into groups and set us against each other as in every democracy. As Jason Brenan in his book Against Democracy is simply “a battle over who will acquire the power to force the other side to bend to its will” Democracy turns us into civil enemies within a nation and even within families. So much anger and hatred is caused by dividing us into groups and teams [republican/democrat] causing tribal inclinations to see those outside the group as evil. Multiple studies examining brain function show we are bias towards our group willing to accept what we would not of the other groups as we make choices in irrational ways, and in fact on emotion, and even gain pleasure by trashing dissenters [other political parties members] and as James and Walter Kennedy in Nullifying Tyranny wrote “ democracies ultimately degenerate into a system that divides citizens against each other.” And places the into rival herds.

“The true "herdist" will carefully avoid acting or thinking originally, in order not to destroy the uniformity which is so dear to him, and he is also ready to rise immediately against anybody who dares to act independently and thus destroy the sacred unity of the uniform group to which he belongs. The loyal herdist will not rise alone against the sacrilegious offender; he will have the support of the rest of the circumscribed society and thus a mass action of collective protest will take place, forcing the "lonely individual" to conform or to withdraw.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

Democracy encourages the violation of two of the ten commandments, Covetousness and theft. Alexis de Tocqueville said ““Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: " Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.” And Count Montalembert was quoted by Leddihn as saying “since equality cannot be imagined outside of tyranny....democratic and social equality, which is nothing but the canonization of envy and the chimera of jealous ineptitude.” Tage Lindbom in his book the myth of democracy writes “equality is a menace for liberty, it can become a means of oppression in the hands of a central authority”

In democracies the government teaches its people to covet and steal [tax from other producing citizens] as a pay off for votes to keep them in power. The “rich” being whoever they can tax, the “poor” arbitrarily defined as those who they can purchase votes from by stealing other citizens money. In a democracy where politicians are always under pressure to maintain their privileged status, the ruling class will always find new groups of “have-nots” that must be given other peoples money and industries that must be bailed out, or subsides given or else, we are told, the economy will faulter. As Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe said “Democracy allows for A and B to band together to rip off C. This is not justice, but a moral outrage”

“The fact that the oppressing groups is larger and the oppressed group is smaller in no way changes the fact the oppression or theft is a violation of the principles of self ownership... the evil nature of oppression is not altered even if the evil act is approved by a majority vote.”
-James and Walter Kennedy Nullifying tyranny pelican press 2010

Once a majority are dependent on government they will vote in politicians who will aid the theft of others money on a grand scale. This will lead to half the population as wager slaves to master government, and the other half dependent slaves to government. The politician who can offer the most to the most people, wins. This of course hurts the people in a democracy and the production. The more given to the poor the more incentive too not plan for the future, not produce , and instead rely on government. The more stolen from the producers the less incentive to produce.

“Because the members of the privileged [receive welfare] sex,race, or age group are awarded an unearned income, they have less of an incentive to earn one in the future, and because the members of the discriminated [producers] sex, race, or age group are punished for possessing wealth or having produced an income, they, too, will be less productive in the future.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural OrderRoutledge 2001

Neither do democratic politicians care of the future of the nation just there own power so long as they are in office [see national debt]. Politicians in a democracy do not care if its people are worse off as they dont pass on their power to their children and are retired or out of office by the time their policies take full effect and can blame it on the other political party now in power. So they seek immediate benefits through exploitation of their privileged position rather than long term benefits for the country. Higher taxes means better off for the privileged now. Instead of the Gold and Silver commodity of the past today democracies steal more of the producers money by inflation. No medieval King could get away with this and live. Why must a family have two incomes today? See your IRS office. Tax theft and inflation.

In a democracy anyone can gain power so they tend to be less resistance to government abuse since many politicians hope they will reach high levels of government and in turn also gain through corruption for themselves or their ideology. In a monarchy you can only be born into the position so those who have no chance are less willing to tolerate abuses. The “tyranny of numbers” historically has destroyed liberty more so than monarchies. No one's property or liberty is safe from the majority if they dont think like you and chances are they will think as the government teaches them through education. Government tyranny in a democracy is hidden by anonymity and numbers. If a King were to become tyrannical, he and he alone, would be to blame. Thus making his tyranny in the open and without half the country benefiting as no one would benefit. A king would be alone reliable for debt and it would pass on to his kids while congress and a president simply pass it on to the next elected officials who will do the same and all of “we the people” suffer from it in a democracy. In democracy the laws being inconsistent - what is crime today might not be in the future. Has led to relativism [taught in all democracies via government education] and makes it hard to predict for the uncertain future.

As Hoppe points out when responsibility left the individual and became a “social” responsibility of the whole of the people [democracy] this led to expansion of crime, moral decay, and the destruction of the family. The family is perhaps the enemy of democracy and why the traditional family is always under attack in democratic nations. As a moral producing extended family can take care of itself with no dependency on government. Democracies always seek to take kids out of the negative influence of parents and into the hands of the government to properly educate them.

“In the United States, less than a century of full blown democracy [Woodrow Wilson] has resulted in steady increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime. As a result of ever exspanding list of non discrimination “affirmative action” laws and multiculturalism, egalitarian, immigration policies, and every nook and cranny of American society is effected by government management and forighn interrogation. According, social strife and racial, ethnic, and moral- cultural tension and hostility have increased dramatically.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

“Family incomes are eroded due to inflation and the heavy taxation levied by the welfare state, forcing both parents into the workforce... little space remains for children, who according to the consumptioninist mindset are burdensome an obstacle to the enjoyment to the enjoyment of life. With the family so weakened, the state steps in as a substitute. The dissolution of the family is a work spearheaded by the democratic state.”
-Christophe Buffin de Chosal the end of Democracy Tomblar House 2017


Today's crime rates in modern democracy are vastly higher than before welfare in America and higher than any comparison to even the worst of the wild west. Further in the wild west murders were typically 1 v 1 fair fights/duels agreed upon. Before Lyndon Johnson and the great society that brought massive welfare in America [aimed at African Americans] African American crime rates were low and the family unit together. From 1890-1950 in America the black family unit was almost equaled white family rates. Than in early 1960's the breakup of the black family caused by progressive democrats to control the votes of the population. No other one group votes so one sided and relies on government help like blacks in America. The black father has been replaced by big brother. Author of The Guardian of the RepublicAfrican American Allen West says of government dependency “the breakdown of the family. Of all the consequences of the Great Society programs and the War on Poverty, intended or otherwise, the destruction of the black family has been the most disastrous. More than 70 percent of black children are born outside of marriage. That is an epidemic. And if you take into account the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s statistics that close to three hundred thousand black babies are aborted annually, are we looking at racial genocide?......The brilliant idea for this tragedy came from the progressive socialists of the Johnson administration who thought government should provide welfare payments to women who purposely had children out of wedlock and did not seek to get married or have a male living in the same home. In other words, the Johnson administration was promoting the disintegration of the moral fiber of the black community. Furthermore, the government would send our social workers to inspect the households and ensure there were no males residing in the home, because if there were, the benefits would be cut off. As long as women remained single, they could stay on these programs and receive free health care, housing, and babysitting services for life...But the Great Society has left a legacy of economic dependence, a new form of slavery, and to me, a far more dangerous one, because it destroys the will and determination to excel. The Great Society has turned out to be a big lie, and sadly, those in my community who bought into it are stuck on the twenty-first-century plantation...To me it’s worse than physical enslavement, because it enslaves human spirit. It destroys the will and determination to seek improvement and a better life.”

“Egalitarianism under the best circumstances becomes hypocrisy; if sincerely accepted and believed in, its menace is greater. Then all actual inequalities appear without exception to be unjust, immoral, intolerable. Hatred, unhappiness, tension, a general maladjustment is the result. The situation is even worse when brutal efforts are made Ill] to establish equality through a process of artificial levelling (" social engineering ") which can only be done by force, restrictions, or terror, and the outcome is a complete loss of liberty.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time Caxton Printers LTD Galdwell Idaho 1952

Social security and welfare reduces the importance of an extended family close relationships and marriage. The progressive welfare state undermined hard work and the family unit. It penalizes the family unit, the stable block that produces free wealthy people. Democracy encourages people to not care for themselves, instead to have the government do so. Before the dependency that politicians aimed at the black family, only 7% of black children were born outside marriage. Today 70% of black American children are born outside of marriage. By eroding marriage, the welfare state has made many Americans less capable of self-support than they were when the “War on Poverty” began. In 1950's Harlem, 90% of black babies were born into the family unit, unemployment, drugs, gangs were all down. Half of all blacks were in the middle class and closing in on whites. No government dependency. Than the government aimed dependency came in. Government replaced the father and crime rose, poverty rose, and drugs rose with no father in the home. By the 1980′s 70-80% percent of black babies were born to unwed mothers. These mothers lived their lives dependent on the government. Their children grew up also depended on the government, and the vicious cycle of dependency began. When you take out the breakup of the family of blacks, the outcome is equal to whites in finical outcome. Hoppe in democracy the God that failed wrote “As the governments family policy is implemented, divorce singldom, single parenting, and illegitimacy.... and frequency of “non traditional” lifestyles increase as well paralleled to this will be gradual but steady surge in crime.”

“If, finally, the bad government is carried on by the multitude, it is called a democracy, i.e. control by the populace, which comes about when the plebeian people by force of numbers oppress the rich. In this way the whole people will be as one tyrant.”
-Thomas Aquinas On Kingship to the king of Cyrus 1225-1274

What if in 200 years people were to look back at out governmental welfare state today. They would say this is clearly the upper class people in high position [politicians] who are saying to great masses of people, we will steal money from other people and give to you if you vote for us. Knowing the politicians are living large, not sacrificing their own to help the poor. Would they not say this is clearly legalized crime, stealing, and bribery to keep the powerful in power. The results also hurt and enslave those they are suppose to help. This may rightly be seen as a clear evil that is allowed. Yet the people of today truly believe they are not just helping those it hurts, but that it is the moral thing to do.


“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
-H L Mencken


Continued Post 2

The ancient and medieval Christian* world had all the answers. They were actually a lot more advanced than we give them credit for.

 

[The Barbarian]

Medieval Monarchy vs Democracy
“[in democracy]A man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist;

Whereas, in Medieval times, a serf was free to resist the government? How so?

a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments.

You're saying that none of this happened to the common people in the Medieval period? Are you very sure?

He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot.

Whereas the average man in Medieval times was free of tyranny? Perhaps you don't know the meaning of the word "Tyrant." If means "one the people have granted no legal right to rule." Greek. Hence, the Tyrant of Syracuse wasn't necessarily an abusive ruler; he just didn't have a legal claim to rule.

He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own.

Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.

Democracy encourages the violation of two of the ten commandments, Covetousness and theft. Alexis de Tocqueville said ““Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: " Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.”

You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.

In democracies the government teaches its people to covet and steal [tax from other producing citizens] as a pay off for votes to keep them in power.

Whereas, in a monarchy, the nobility covet and steal from the common people, paying off their knights and earls to keep themselves in power.

I don't think you've given this enough thought.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Whereas, in Medieval times, a serf was free to resist the government? How so?

Well in one sense there was no government to be free from. For an in depth response see here

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

You're saying that none of this happened to the common people in the Medieval period? Are you very sure?

pretty sure.

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

Whereas the average man in Medieval times was free of tyranny? Perhaps you don't know the meaning of the word "Tyrant." If means "one the people have granted no legal right to rule." Greek. Hence, the Tyrant of Syracuse wasn't necessarily an abusive ruler; he just didn't have a legal claim to rule.

Feudal Monarchy or Absolute Monarchy?

“The feudal order, in fact, was very different from the monarchial order that replaced it [absolute monarchy] and to witch succeeded, in a still more centralized form, the order of state control that is found today.”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“However In the course of many centuries these originally stateless societies [Feudal ] had gradually transformed into absolute – statist- monarchies.”
--Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

“Patriarchal monarchy unfortunately gave sway at a later period to absolute monarchy, which became entangled in nationalist etatistic movements, a process which finally led to a suicide of the monarchical form of government.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

As an important clarification I am here going to compare the christian feudal monarchies of the medieval time period to modern democracy- rather than the later Renaissance time period of absolute monarchies witch were a turn towards centralization. It was during the Renaissance and the reemergence of ancient Roman/Greek law that transformed the medieval feudal system to a system of centralized power of either absolute monarchies or later democracies and republics. Urban merchants, power hungry Kings, and Reformationist studying Roman law and needing or looking to justify centralization of power left the middle ages Feudal political system behind and moved into the Renaissance of centralized power.

“If an unjust government is carried on by one man alone, who seeks his own benefit from his rule and not the good of the multitude subject to him, such a ruler is called a tyrant—a word derived from strength—because he oppresses by might instead of ruling by justice. Thus among the ancients all powerful men were called tyrants.”
-Thomas Aquinas On Kingship to the king of Cyrus 1225-1274

“[Roman law] it was the law par excellence of those who wanted to affirm a central state authority”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco


More found here

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.

I would say this is just the opposite of the medieval knight. See here

Warfare itself was far different than modern wars. The Medieval Knight had its origins in Catholic Europe during the feudal time period. Anyone could become a Knight, it was not only for the nobility. Along with the nobels, the knight was the celberty of the day leading people to christian lifestyels. They would join voluntarily and were free to leave whenever they wanted. The medival Knight was a christian soilder who followed the 10 comandmnets of knighthood as outlined in Leon Gautier book Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight.

“Chivalry is the christian form of the military profession. The knight is the christian soldier...nor are the religion and the profession at all separate from each other....no one could become a knight without first becoming a christian, without having been baptized ”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

Among them was to obey the church, defend the church, defend the weak such as orpahns, widows, monks, preists, hospitals, charity organizations, to have love the country of their birth, no retreat, perform feudal duties if not contray to the laws of God, never lie, be genrous and donate, and be the chapion of the right aginst injustice and evil. A knights life consited of prayer in the mornings, daily mass, fasting, swearing an oath to the church. Knight were the guardians of the church and those who could not defend themselves. His model knight to imiate were king David, Joshua, Judas Maccabess, Charlemagne, Micheal the archangel, Godfrey of Bouillon and Richrad the Lionherted. John of Salasbury summerized as “The armed soldier is by necessity bound to religion.”

“Wherever the church was, there the knight also was to be found to accompany and to protect...the knights mission was to defend all weaknesses”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

“Feudal wars which in no way resembled modern wars....previously war was above all a matter of taking prisoners, now it was an attempt to kill the adversary””
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisc


More found here

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.

I quote from democracy in america many times.

Whereas, in a monarchy, the nobility covet and steal from the common people, paying off their knights and earls to keep themselves in power.

I don't think you've given this enough thought.

Or you have believed the winners version of history.


The Winner Writes the History

“It is so easy, in fact, to manipulate history... for a public that is not knowledgeable about it. We have nearly daily evidence of this on television”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Official” history is always written by its victors I.e from the perspective of the proponents of democracy.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

Because the winner wrote the history we are fed that the western catholic system of monarchy was not the most decentralized, libertarian, self governing time period. But was instead ruled by tyrant kings who had complete control of the populace. Yet it was the return to centralization under roman law that led to king tyrants during the Renaissance.

“Centralizing power in the extreme, that of the Roman empire.The revival of Roman law brought about legal standardization in the interest of centralized nation states”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Everywhere men are leaving behind the liberty of the Middle Ages, not to enter into a modern brand of liberty but to return to the ancient despotism; for centralization is nothing else than an up-to-date version of the administration seen in the Roman Empire.”
-James Madison quoted in Donald Livingston The Southern Critique of Centralization

“The revival of Roman law brought about legal standardization in the interest of centralized nation states”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

The middle ages are the time period of actual self government and liberty, the “evil” time when centralized governments did not rule and thus they are punished in the winners version of history. To dare set up an extended time period that allowed mankind to live under anything but a centralized dictatorship such as ancient Rome or our modern times, receives wrath from statist today and must be made to vanish from people mind and only be remembered as the worst of sins. As it was the middle ages that

“The idea of authority faded away, the notion of centralization was wiped out. The power declined into the hands of numerous petty sovereigns”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

Instead of acts of defense against Muslims aggressors for the purpose of saving their own lives and culture and persecuted Christians in lands taken by Islam, the crusades were violent unjust acts of aggression against peaceful Muslims and early colonialism led by brutal Lords and Kings and catholic bishops. The Jewish ghetto's were not area given Jews to fully observe the Torah and self govern themselves but instead examples of bigotry discrimination intolerance and segregation. The Inquisitions were not done to prevent wrongful accusations and save lives but were a tyrannical force of a mad church sent to burn innocent people at the stake. And on and on. Overall the medieval monarchist time period was the “dark ages” violent, backwards, tyrannical, and one would not wish to repete those time periods so be glad our savior democracy is here. Democracy has not been the most tyrannical time period, nor caused the most wars and death, nor moral decay, and the destruction of family unit and culture. No it has enlightened us, given us peace, progress, liberty, better health , longer lives, advancements and economic gains. The single greatest thing to happen to mankind. Democracy. Besides, if we did not bash other cultures that differ from us who cant defend themselves it would deprive us moderns of the aristocratic pleasure of despising earlier medievalist.

"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history"
-Milan Hubl, Czek communist

“If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.”
-Karl Marx



More found here

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

 

[The Barbarian]

Well in one sense there was no government to be free from.

You think the common people in the Medieval period had no government constraints? Seriously?

“However In the course of many centuries these originally stateless societies [Feudal ] had gradually transformed into absolute – statist- monarchies.

And the common people tended to support such statist monarchies. Why? Because they had learned from experience that a strong distant government was less abusive to them than a local magnate with no restraints. Would you like some examples?

Barbarian observes:
Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.
Yet despite the knights’ gradual loss of military importance, the system by which noble families were identified, called heraldry, continued to flourish and became more complex. The magnificence of their war games—called tournaments—also increased, as did the number of new knightly orders, such as the Order of the Garter.

I would say this is just the opposite of the medieval knight.

See here:
At first, most knights were of humble origins, some of them not even possessing land, but by the later twelfth century knights were considered members of the nobility and followed a system of courteous knightly behavior called chivalry (from cheval, the French word for horse).
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/feud/hd_feud.htm

You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.

I quote from democracy in america many times.

The quotes are widely presented. I think reading book would show you that de Tocqueville was an advocate of democracy, not an opponent.

In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through the United States in the early 19th century when the Market Revolution, Western expansion and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life.[17]

According to Joshua Kaplan, one purpose of writing Democracy in America was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order and to help them sort out the confusion.[17] Tocqueville saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as for the community.
Alexis de Tocqueville - Wikipedia

“

Feudal wars which in no way resembled modern wars....previously war was above all a matter of taking prisoners, now it was an attempt to kill the adversary””

In feudal times, the death of a knight in combat was relatively uncommon, while common soldiers took heavy casualties.

Ironically, it was the ascendancy of the common soldier, particularly archers, halbarders and pikemen, that reduced the value of mounted knights. Agincourt was a setpiece contrasting the two. Henry's archers carried the day, even though outnumbered badly.

The middle ages are the time period of actual self government and liberty

Unless you weren't a nobleman. Then not so good. A few exceptions like the City of London, or the occasional town that might get a royal charter, were unusual.

 

[Rusviking876]

Whereas, in Medieval times, a serf was free to resist the government? How so?

And you are free today to resist the government?

You're saying that none of this happened to the common people in the Medieval period? Are you very sure?



Whereas the average man in Medieval times was free of tyranny? Perhaps you don't know the meaning of the word "Tyrant." If means "one the people have granted no legal right to rule." Greek. Hence, the Tyrant of Syracuse wasn't necessarily an abusive ruler; he just didn't have a legal claim to rule.

Today the state and the private sector have far more power than ever before.

Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.


You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.

1776 democracy was not the same as 2019 democracy. OP doesn’t have to agree with everything De Tocqueville said to quote him.

Whereas, in a monarchy, the nobility covet and steal from the common people, paying off their knights and earls to keep themselves in power.

I don't think you've given this enough thought.

Before we approach medieval life... ask yourself do politicians today not steal from the ‘common people’? Has theft decreased?
You also shouldn’t juxtapose an idealistic vision of democracy with a dystopian vision of the Middle Ages. You must compare them as they actually functioned in reality.

 

[Rusviking876]

Constitutionalism was incredibly unpopular among Russian peasants as the rich wrote the constitution and knew how to exploit it. The peasants asked Tsaress Anna, a German lady, to tear up the constitution and rule as an autocrat in their name.

In the US, the anti-Federalists saw the centralizing agenda of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists for what it was. Thomas Jefferson at the end of his life was also very distressed at where the USA was going. The founders idea was that only property owners could vote since only they were economically independent and had a significant stake in the system. They were trying to create a Roman Republic with aristocratic principles and would have called today’s America corporate and mob rule.

 

[Rusviking876]

*Double post* sorry.

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian asks:
Whereas, in Medieval times, a serf was free to resist the government? How so?

And you are free today to resist the government?

So that hasn't changed? That's not the first story we got.

Today the state and the private sector have far more power than ever before.

Capitalism does tend to empower businessmen, yes. At some point that can become oppressive, which is why people make rules to limit the power of the wealthy, who would likely reinvent feudalism. That's how feudalism got started, you know.

On the other hand, government now has rules that limit the arbitrary power of the state. In America, the state itself was designed to limit the power of government through laws like the Bill of Rights, independent judiciary, and a "deep state" that prevented any one person from ruling by decree.

1776 democracy was not the same as 2019 democracy. OP doesn’t have to agree with everything De Tocqueville said to quote him.

Just noting the weirdness of quoting and advocate of democracy as though he were an opponent of it. De Tocqueville was a clear-eyed realist; he saw the flaws in democracy, even as he realized it was preferrable to any other form of government we might have.

Before we approach medieval life... ask yourself do politicians today not steal from the ‘common people’?

I notice they often go to jail when caught. Which is what happens to common thieves as well. Sometimes they get away with it, but in the Middle Ages, if a noble wanted something you had, you lost it.

Has theft decreased?

Not in the last three years, but it appears that there will be a reckoning when Trump leaves the WH.

You also shouldn’t juxtapose an idealistic vision of democracy with a dystopian vision of the Middle Ages.

Rather, I'm pointing out that you juxtaposed an idealistic version of the Middle Ages with a dystopian vision of democracy. You must compare them as they actually functioned in reality.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

You think the common people in the Medieval period had no government constraints? Seriously?



And the common people tended to support such statist monarchies. Why? Because they had learned from experience that a strong distant government was less abusive to them than a local magnate with no restraints. Would you like some examples?

Barbarian observes:
Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.
Yet despite the knights’ gradual loss of military importance, the system by which noble families were identified, called heraldry, continued to flourish and became more complex. The magnificence of their war games—called tournaments—also increased, as did the number of new knightly orders, such as the Order of the Garter.



See here:
At first, most knights were of humble origins, some of them not even possessing land, but by the later twelfth century knights were considered members of the nobility and followed a system of courteous knightly behavior called chivalry (from cheval, the French word for horse).
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/feud/hd_feud.htm

You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.



The quotes are widely presented. I think reading book would show you that de Tocqueville was an advocate of democracy, not an opponent.

In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through the United States in the early 19th century when the Market Revolution, Western expansion and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life.[17]

According to Joshua Kaplan, one purpose of writing Democracy in America was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order and to help them sort out the confusion.[17] Tocqueville saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as for the community.
Alexis de Tocqueville - Wikipedia



In feudal times, the death of a knight in combat was relatively uncommon, while common soldiers took heavy casualties.

Ironically, it was the ascendancy of the common soldier, particularly archers, halbarders and pikemen, that reduced the value of mounted knights. Agincourt was a setpiece contrasting the two. Henry's archers carried the day, even though outnumbered badly.



Unless you weren't a nobleman. Then not so good. A few exceptions like the City of London, or the occasional town that might get a royal charter, were unusual.

So to help out here some confusion I will post material from my other thread for you to read so you can see what medieval life was like. Than you can better be prepared for our discussion and we wont chance rabbit trails.


From this link
Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government


Decentralization and Self Government During the Feudal Monarchical Middle Ages

“By the end of the tenth century the kingdom of France remained a legal and ideological construct, but it's kings exerted little genuine power outside their own family lands. The main political foci were the great counties ruled as autonomous principalities by comital families...contrast mirrored different histories customs and laws. The far south retained a tradition of written law.... there was no uniformity of rules of landowning, judicial systems, weights, measures or currency. A kingdom often in name alone.”
-Christopher Tyerman Gods war a new history of the Crusades Harvard U Press Cambridge Mass 2006

“Medieval civilization was also decentralized, and it was vast in scale. It was a mosaic of thousands of independent and quasi-independent political units: kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms, bishoprics, papal states, republics, free cities, and tens of thousands of titled manors. The medieval contribution to politics is the idea of a federated polity where various independent political units are held together in a larger realm by compacts and traditional hierarchy.”
- Donald Livingston The Southern Critique of Centralization

The agrarian western european christian middle ages were the most decentralized libertarian societies ever known. Medieval scholar Thomas Madden in The Medieval World, Part II: Society, Economy, and Culture says “ Feudalism was a set of practices that arose....during the middle ages.” Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote “Federalism in the European anti-centralistic sense has always been part and parcel of Catholic political ideologies.” There were various forms of monarchies usually hereditary but some were elected by Lords and Bishops, or a mix of both. For example France elected Kings until Hugh Caput in 987 and than started a hereditary monarchy. Decentralization was at a peak, Lords controlled within their own spheres, as did dukes, princes, barons etc and held autonomy. Each realm had their own laws and courts and near everything was done by the local village with no influence from the Kings Capital. In describing France in the middle ages medieval scholar and Oxford professor Christopher Tyerman said “few of the great princes in France bothered to pay homage and feality to the King” and “the vast majority of Frenchmen, their spheres of economic, public and private life operated entirely beyond the reach of necessity of royal influence or power.” and the region of France had an“absence of national instincts.” “a Europe that contained no nation states in the modern understanding” Thomas Asbridge in his book the first crusade described France as a national identity as “endured only in imagination” Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn in his great work The Menace of the Herd said of the mindset of medieval man as first and foremost his loyalty was to his family, witch had its own flag and arms, second was to their local town or village, than to their region. Any sense of a nation was almost mystical. In his book Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time he stated “The Middle Ages and their aftermath were characterized by a multitude of such autonomous and semi-autonomous spheres; medieval man frequently belonged to a variety of these.” The greatest power in the middle ages was custom and tradition and these were local. These traditions and customs were fixed and could not be altered by any ruler including a King. In the Holy Roman Empire Dukes and Archbishops elected their kings and the states [such as Saxony Swambia Bavaria etc] and had near complete autonomy where they were “dominated by its own Duke.” Often wars such as the Germans into into Poland were funded and controlled by local Lords and Dukes with no input from the King. Famed French historian Regine Pernoud in her book Those terrible middle ages debunking the myths wrote “Only local powers reined.”

“As people came before courts or before judges they would have to declare witch they were and what law they lived under”
-Thomas Madden The Modern Scholar: The Medieval World, Part II: Society, Economy, and Culture

“They stand as monuments to the intense localism of the High Middle Ages, when every man’s country’ was not the kingdom, duchy, or county in which he lived, but his own town or village... Even the law might change from village to village; a thirteenth-century judge pointed out that in the various counties, cities, boroughs, and townships of England he had always to ask what was the local customary law and how it was employed before he could successfully try a case... Davis describes medieval civilization as “firmly rooted. It grew out of the earth, as it were.” The Road from Serfdom “
-Bionic Mosquito Decentralization Hidden in the dark Ages

Unlike in a democracy actual self government by consent rather than force was practiced. The people had the choice of witch Lord to follow and what political system to live under. Generally men would swear an oath to the Lord of their choice who would give the peasant land to work and protection. In return the peasant would give a small % of his produce back to the Lord. And also at times volunteer military service to the Lord. Lords protected the people in their domain who in return would swear an allegiance to the lord. It was a mutual beneficial situation that encouraged Lords to serve his/her people well as he would have more and more loyal men who would willingly fight under his banner. This was a loyalty by choice not a forced servitude. Thomas Aquinas said “ Good kings, on the contrary, are loved by many when they show that they love their subjects and are studiously intent on the common welfare, and when their subjects can see that they derive many benefits from this zealous care, government of good kings is stable, because their subjects do not refuse to expose themselves to any danger whatsoever on behalf of such kings.” Likewise a wicked ruler will have no support from his people and his kingdom will not last. French historian Leon Gautier writes in his book Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight on the bonds between Lord and his men “The bonds of feudalism were stronger than family ties. The Lord was greater than a father, and a vassal was more than a son.”

“Secular histories report that, when it was observed that Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, surrounded his person with guards, Plato inquired: ‘Have you committed so much evil that you need to have so many guards?’ This is in no way fitting for the prince, who in doing his duty so wins the affection of all that every one of his subjects would expose his own head to imminent peril for him ... and would sacrifice his own skin for the sake of the royal skin; and all that a man has he will give up for the life of the prince.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

A local government is more accountable to the people, and more in line with the local people. Decentralization allows diversity in government that a centralized government cannot offer. If one area wishes to provide universal health care, socialist tax code it can. If the area next town/county/state over wishes to have a libertarian society and a fair tax code, it can. The people can decide for themselves. This would also stop so much fighting between separate groups because neither could force themselves on the other as we do today in our modern centralized democracy. Wars would not be needed as there would be no cause when all can live as they wish. No cohesion. People could literally vote with their feet. Think of east Germans of the centralized soviet socialist who blocked in their runaway slaves [citizens] and shot them for running away from the tyranny. Decentralization also would allow multiple ways of dealing with a certain problem be tried and tested. We could have a dozen separate ways to do education, we could than test the results. The areas that “failed” in their way could adopt another more successful way if they chose to. But If the centralized government does education a certain way, and it fails, than everyone suffers. Since there are so many different opinions on how to better the education system in America, all could have it their own way instead of being forced by a central dictatorship in Washington- centralization forces conformity. Further this would force competition on government to behave and treat its citizens well and avoid corruption as this would give people choice and they could move to an area of like minded people. This is also the reason corrupt governments always seek centralization to avoid choice so as to be able to become more corrupt. True diversity would blossom as would free markets.

“A highley decentralized power structure composed of countless independent political; units explains the origin of capitalism- the expansion of market participation and of economic growth. It is not by accident that capitalism first flourished under conditions of extreme political decentralization.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

“”secession/decentralization Increases ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity, while centuries of centralization have stamped out hundreds of distinct cultures.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

A power structure of a centralized democracy can not be removed easily, where as a tyrant king [a single person] can be. Think of a town mayor turning tyrannical, he will be easily resisted, a strong military and centralized democracy turns evil it will lead to mass destruction. Centralized governments and the modern state can turn as tyrannical as they wish and have a monopoly on force through police and the military. If a monarchy did so it would pit him against all his population who could than turn against him and in a decentralized system, such as the medieval time period, he would be hopelessness outnumbered and the people would truly rule. Thomas Aquinas in on Kingship said kingdoms should be arranged so if a King turned into a tyrant, he can be easily removed and his power should not be absolute but limited so as to avoid his potential to become a tyrant. ” This is the medieval decentralized system. So today what a centralized authority declares law, it is so, with no hope of recourse no matter how tyrannical or contrary to previous laws. In the decentralized medieval system [as in antebellum America as well] laws were the authority.

democracies “has placed the state above the law – the state self-defines and self-interprets the constitution; the state has a monopoly on the adjudication of its dictates. This places the state in a position to decide what law is, and how law is applied. The only hope one has to influence this is to turn a minority into a majority. Such a concept was unknown to the mediaeval mind – each individual held a form of veto. No majority was necessary, and minority rights were fully protected – even for the minority of one.”
-Bionic Mosquito Decentralization Hidden in the dark Ages

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Liberty During the Middle Ages

“A period, about 900, when there was no empire, no state, and no public authority in the West. The state disappeared, yet society continued. It was discovered that economic life, religious life, law, and private property can all exist and function effectively without a state. … In Rome, in Byzantium, and in Russia, law was regarded as an enactment of a supreme power. In the West, when no supreme power existed, it was discovered that law still existed as the body of rules which govern social life.”
-Carroll Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time Jun 1 1975

“Before the advent of absolutism, monarchs were often in dire financial straits which could only be alleviated borrowing and not by taxation. Taxes were more or less voluntary contributions by cities and estates.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

The “state” as we think of it today did not exists. Tax were not a regular occurrence and were usually only at various times in dire need and were not forced but agreed upon. Private property was actually your property, not rented from the government [ property tax] and you could do with your property as you pleased as there was no government regulations. Or a mans home was really his castle. Before the second half of the nineteenth century under absolute monarchies tax never rose above 5-8%. In medieval monarchies it was far lower. The peasants rights were as good as the kings. “on his own ground entitled to hold off the king” To covet another property and to than steal it [democracy] would be seen as sinful in a christian monarchy not raised in a democratic education system. Hoppe in his book Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order wrote “All members of society learned to regard the taking and redistribution of another man's property as shameful and immoral.” And Bionic Mosquito in Decentralization Hidden in the dark Ages wrote ““...The idea of destroying a village to save it, or abrogating property rights to preserve them, or stealing from one to help another in more need would be quite foreign to the medieval mind”

“monarchs will tend to support a free market to gain competitiveness on a global scale. Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein does exactly this. As a result, his economy thrives. A monarch looks for the best, most prosperous system, because ideological lines are not his or her goal. Rather, a monarch’s goal is to bring prosperity to the owned country.”
-Daniel Szewc The Case for Libertarian Monarchism

A King or Lord would only benefit from uniting his people. A King took an oath to protect and serve all his people unlike a democrat who serves those who elected them and numbers rule as a tyrant. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote “The monarchic principle is thus, as St. Thomas characterized it in his De regimine principum, a uniting, not a dividing principle.—Every election, on the other hand, is a solemn manifestation of division.” Kings did not need to social engineering for more power or steal money [tax] to buy votes as they inherit the position. In a monarchy power seekers [aka politicians] will not receive power since it is inherited and not gained by campaigns, manipulation and money from special interests. Think of the time, money, and energy saved by avoiding campaigns. In a monarchy public opinion would not be manipulated by educators/media to sway a majority this way or that. Indoctrination would not gain any ground in its efforts as it would wholly useless. A Lord due in part to multiple competitors in any given area, would support free markets and low taxes specifically of the merchant class.

“The Lords is not interested in messing with the profitability of these towns... and if that means to let the town manage itself, than most of these Lords are willing to go along with that. And since they are in competition with other Lords, in other towns, its in their interest to make there's work to the best benefit. These towns....become self governed.”
-Thomas Madden The Modern Scholar: The Medieval World, Part II: Society, Economy, and Culture


But who Will Purchase the Votes of the Poor Masses – Sorry, I Meant What About Welfare?

“The church provided education, literacy, civil services.”
-Christopher Tyerman Gods war a new history of the Crusades Harvard U Press Cambridge Mass 2006

Rodney Stark in his book Bearing false Witness wrote of the middle ages “all schools as well as most hospitals and charities were provided by the church.” In Feudal times as in the biblical model the church was to care for the needy leading people to Christ rather than dependency and political slavery as the wasteful corrupt government welfare system does [only 40% of money used by the federal for welfare reaches it target- it is said not to donate to an organization under 60%]. So in other words they gave to the poor not created them. Also the [than existing in a biblical agrarian society] extended family cared for the poor and medical needs of their family. As well as private contracts also provided services. In those times peoples wealth was there own [no fear of government taking it] and they believed God would judge them on how they treated the poor. Further Lords and Knights often swore oaths to protect the weak and poor as well as monks and priests. In a christian decentralized kingdom such as the medieval ages the local area would be family and like minded people willing to help each other. Look at the Amish today. When a house burns down the entire town helps out and rebuilds the house. This system avoids all the negatives of state welfare and works to uniting families and local continuities to Christ as well.

“If each person laboured upon his own improvement and counted the affairs of others as outside his concerns, the circumstances of each and every person would be absolutely optimal, and virtue would flourish and reason would prevail, mutual charity reigning everywhere, so that the flesh would be subjected to the spirit and the spirit would be a servant in full devotion to God.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

The Power of the Crown in a Feudal Monarch

“a man of our time cannot conceive the lack of real power which characterized the medieval King, from witch it naturally followed that in order to secure the exaction of a decision he needed to involve the other leaders whose say-so reinforced his own.”
-Bertrand De Jouvenel

“the feudal king was one Lord among other Lords.... the title of King did not signify that his economic or military power was greater than that of some particular vassal....The feudal King possessed none of the attributes reorganized as those of a sovereign power. He could not decree general laws nor collect taxes on the whole of his Kingdom nor levy an army”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Feudal lords and kings did not typically fulfill the requirements of a state; they could only “tax” with the consent of the taxed, and on his own land every free man was as much a sovereign as the feudal king was on his. Tax payments were voluntary. ...The subordination of king to law was one of the most important of principles under feudalism. The king was below the law”
-Bionic Mosquito Decentralization Hidden in the dark Ages

Absolute monarchies and the “divine right of Kings” were later protestant and enlightenment inventions. In the middle ages Kings did not create laws or legislate as do modern states to their own benefit they were under the law and local tradition, the true rulers of the middle ages. Medieval laws were not created by bureaucracies but were “given” and “fixed” by tradition and custom. All Lords, Dukes, and Kings were bound by the same laws. If a King was to become tyrannical, he was resisted and could be tried for violation of the laws.

“The subordination of King to law was one of the most important of principles under feudalism.”
-Nisbet Prejudices A Philosophical Dictionary Cambridge Mass Harvard U Press quoted in Democracy the God that Failed

“There is wholly or mainly this difference between the tyrant and the prince: that the latter is obedient to law, and rules his people by a will that places itself at their service, and administers rewards and burdens within the republic under the guidance of law in a way favourable to the vindication of his eminent post..the prince is the public power and a certain image on earth of the divine majesty. ….For all power is from the Lord God, and is with Him always, and is His forever. Whatever the prince can do, therefore, is from God, so that power does not depart from God, but it is used as a substitute for His hand, making all things learn His justice and mercy.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

Decentralization was such that Oxford scholar Christopher Tyerman said “few of the great princes in France bothered to pay homage and feality to the King” and “the vast majority of Frenchmen, their spheres of economic, public and private life operated entirely beyond the reach of necessity of royal influence or power.” Medieval scholar Thomas Madden in the medieval world part 2 sums up the Kings power by saying “Medieval kings are pretty weak” and Christophe Buffin de Chosal in the end of Democracy says “The law was not at the monarchs disposal, for most rules of common life were fixed by custom”Kings were under the law only, not above it nor could they change law. Thus they function very different than a politician. Leland B Yeager in his article A Libertarian Case for Monarchy writes ““The king stands in contrast with legislators and bureaucrats, who are inclined to think, by the very nature of their jobs, that diligent performance means multiplying laws and regulations”Kings did not tyrannize their own people but provided protection and enforcement of the laws as a compact as with other Lords and peasants and the Lord would in return lend the King help out of loyalty or family ties and tradition. The King as the [usually] largest land owner would also be the number one protector of private property laws.

“State expenditures, as we call them, were thought of in feudal times as the Kings own expenditures. It is somewhat as if a government of our times were expected to cover its ordinary expenditures from the proceeds of state owned industries”-
-Bertrand De Jouvel Sovereignty quoted in Democracy the God that Failed

A king was more accountable. He would be alone reliable for debt and it would pass on to his kids not to all of “we the people.” He could not force tax on his people for his own benefit. John of Salisbury wrote of the Kings money as not being his “he must count his wealth as the people’s. He does not, therefore, truly own that which he possesses in the name of someone else, nor are the goods of the fisc, which are conceded to be public, his own private property. Nor is this a surprise, since he is not his own person but that of his subjects.” A monarch has reason to leave his holdings better than when he began for his family. Monarchs seek the best for his Kingdom in low tax, high production efforts. The better his domain's situation the better off he is. If a King were to become tyrannical, he and he alone, would be to blame. And with other competing local Lords, he would be forced to treat people in his domain well. Most of the Kings army were men sent from Lords and allies to help the King out of their own free will. As John of Salisbury wrote “The fighter and the farmer were identical; but they would merely exchange their equipment.” The King himself did not own a massive army. G.K Chesterton wrote in Heretics ““The middle ages, when no King had a standing army. But every man had a bow or sword.”

“The Kings of France struggled even to control small territory centered around Paris, while the Frankish realm fractured into murmurous dukedoms and counties whose power eclipsed that of the Royal house.”
-Thomas Asbridge the First Crusade Oxford University Press 2004

All governments tend towards expansion of territory and power. However the monarch has the option to do so through marriage. Nobels would marry other nobles to increase power [also why incest happened to keep power within the family] instead of warfare. The medieval wars were usually disputes over complex inheritance issues and extinct dynasties. Warfare was for the most part guided by the christian principles of chivalry. Wars were the domain of the King and his allied nobles- not of the country as a whole, nor of the people. The typical citizen would not realize a war was going on in either country. Prisoners of war instead of being locked up in concentration camps or prisons [at tax payer exspence] were released on their word of honor and were allowed to go home. The King was responsible to finance the expedition himself and civil life was left alone. If territory expansion was conducted by government [king] it benefits only him and he should pay experiences alone. This made wars very costly and a King would be reluctant to engage in long or large scale disputes. Add to that foreign policy was far more stable in monarchy unlike newly elected officials who change policy every four years, and we get reduced causes of international disturbance. Hoppe quotes Palmer in “A history of the eastern world” as saying of warfare in the medieval time period “Never had war been so harmless.”

“definitely regarded as a kind of single combat between two armies, the civil population being merely spectators. Pillage, requisitions, acts of violence against the population were forbidden the home country as well as the enemy country... soldiers being scarce and hard to find...meticulous trained, but as this was costly, it rendered them very valuable, and it was necessary to let as few be killed as possible... generals tried to avoid fighting battles. The object of warfare was the exacustion of skillful maneuvers and not the annihilation of the adversary... war became a kind of game between sovereigns”
-Guglielmo Ferrero Peace and war

“wars were largely the occupation of Kings, courtiers and gentlemen. Armies lived on their depots ….soldiers were paid out of the kings privy purse they were too costly to be thrown away lighltey on massive attacks..”
-Fuller war and Western Civilization quoted in Democracy the God that Failed

In the feudal age nobles were expected to not just fight, but lead the armies into battle. Unlike in democracy were politicians send out none relatives conscripts to fight for them. Because of the costs to the King directly [does not have ability to steal through tax like a democracy] , limited numbers, and because of decentralization in the political system causalities were far lower. But also wars were far less frequent or total. Further the soldiers under the King were not forced mercenaries/slaves [conscripts] made to fight for a cause that does not benefit them and that they might disagree with or think evil. Instead Lords protected the people in their domain who in return would swear an allegiance to the lord. It was a mutual beneficial situation that encouraged Lords to serve his/her people well as he would have more and more loyal men who would willingly fight under his banner. A much better situation for the people rather than modern democracies forcing men to fight for them or using state power to persecute them for “treason.” The king could not extract contributions only solicit subsides from loyal subjects who through their own free will supported the king and used it as an opportunity to make deals . Often deals were made to save each Lord from continuation of the expensive war and wars were won or lost based on small scale objectives.

“Monarchy in the Christian world is an international institution.As long as it was a living force the wars between political units were of a relative and restricted nature— Kabinettskriege, as the Germans say. Between 1100 and 1866 A.D. no Christian kingdom was eliminated permanently from the map. (Naturally we exclude from consideration the Napoleonic period, and the casualties among the Italian republics, and the Rzeczpospolita Polska, the " Polish Commonwealth " under an elected King who was—to the greatest misfortune of the country—" nobody's " relative.) No monarch was thoroughly dispossessed, and the price to be paid for military defeat was merely a city, a county, a province. After the battle of Solferino the Emperor Francis Joseph said simply: " I have lost a battle and I pay with a province." He was not progressive enough to believe in " unconditional surrender " and in the guerre aux allures déchaînées—nor did Napoleon III. Conscription was an invention of the French Revolution, and so were wars on a nation-wide basis with great collective passions.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time Caxton Printers LTD Galdwell Idaho 1952

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Power of the King Continued


Kings were not just under tradition and laws, but also there own vassals. To be able to have the power to do anything such as a war, he needed his allies to help. So he must through diplomacy and gifts or other actions due to some degree the will of his vassals in return for service. If he were to try and force a vassal or become tyrannical this would push more and more resistance within his own kingdom against himself. To become powerful a feudal king must literally be the servant of others and a model rather than a dictator. As Thomas Madden in the medieval world part 2 says “ It is not possible for him to command them [vassals]...some are more powerful and quit dangerous to him.”

“then every subject, every section of the people, and even the whole community was free to resist him..whereas today it is an illegal act for the people to resist the government authority, during this period after the fall of Rome the lords had a duty to resist the king who overstepped his authority. ... the act of resistance in and of itself was not considered illegal. It was a duty respected by king and people alike. …
-Bionic Mosquito Decentralization Hidden in the dark Ages

Warfare itself was far different than modern wars. The Medieval Knight had its origins in Catholic Europe during the feudal time period. Anyone could become a Knight, it was not only for the nobility. Along with the nobels, the knight was the celberty of the day leading people to christian lifestyels. They would join voluntarily and were free to leave whenever they wanted. The medival Knight was a christian soilder who followed the 10 comandmnets of knighthood as outlined in Leon Gautier book Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight.

“Chivalry is the christian form of the military profession. The knight is the christian soldier...nor are the religion and the profession at all separate from each other....no one could become a knight without first becoming a christian, without having been baptized ”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

Among them was to obey the church, defend the church, defend the weak such as orpahns, widows, monks, preists, hospitals, charity organizations, to have love the country of their birth, no retreat, perform feudal duties if not contray to the laws of God, never lie, be genrous and donate, and be the chapion of the right aginst injustice and evil. A knights life consited of prayer in the mornings, daily mass, fasting, swearing an oath to the church. Knight were the guardians of the church and those who could not defend themselves. His model knight to imiate were king David, Joshua, Judas Maccabess, Charlemagne, Micheal the archangel, Godfrey of Bouillon and Richrad the Lionherted. John of Salasbury summerized as “The armed soldier is by necessity bound to religion.”

“Wherever the church was, there the knight also was to be found to accompany and to protect...the knights mission was to defend all weaknesses”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

“Feudal wars which in no way resembled modern wars....previously war was above all a matter of taking prisoners, now it was an attempt to kill the adversary””
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisc

The “divine right of kings” teachings started with protestants in the 17th century never accepted by the catholic church. The Magna Carta of 1215 was written by a mix of nobles and church leaders. Absolute monarchies [such as what the colonies resisted] started after the Renaissance. From Agustin and Aquinas to John of Salisbury to the church fathers and councils, the catholic church held the biblical doctrine of resistance to tyranny. John of Salisbury states it very simple “by the authority of the divine book it is lawful and glorious to kill public tyrants.”

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God

It was protestants and the enlightenment who when come into power steadily increase the power of the state weather to absolute monarchies or various republic/democracies. Thomas Aquinas in on kingship wrote “If to provide itself with a King belongs to the right of a given multitude, it is not unjust that the King be disposed or have his power restricted by that same multitude, becoming a tyarant, he abuses his royal power.” Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn in his book The Menace of the Herd wrote “The theory of the Divine Rights of Kings, as we see it under debate in the seventeenth-century England, is naturally not a part of Catholic theology.” John of Salisbury the great medieval political scholar wrote around 1159 in Policraticus “ I submit to his [the king] power... so long as it is exercised in subjection to God and follows His ordinances. But on the other hand if it resists and opposes the divine commandments, and wishes to make me share in its war against God; then with unrestrained voice I answer back that God must be preferred before any man on earth.” and

“Furthermore, the law is a gift of God, the likeness of equity, the norm of justice, the image of the divine will, the custodian of security, the unity and confirmation of a people, the standard of duties, the excluder and exterminator of vices, and the punishment of violence and all injuries It is attacked either by violence or by deceit and, one might say, it is either ravaged by the savagery of the lion or overthrown by the snares of the serpent. In whatever manner this happens, the grace of God is plainly being assailed and God is in a certain fashion being challenged to a battle. The prince fights for the laws and liberty of the people; the tyrant supposes that nothing is done unless the laws are cancelled and the people are brought into servitude. The prince is a sort of image of divinity and the tyrant is an image of the strength of the Adversary and the depravity of Lucifer, for indeed he is imitated who desired to establish his throne to the north and to be like the Most High, yet with His goodness removed. For if he had wished to be like Him in goodness, he would never have endeavoured to snatch away the glory of His power and wisdom. Yet perhaps he aspired to be rewarded by being raised to the same level. As the image of the deity, the prince is to be loved, venerated and respected; the tyrant, as the image of depravity, is for the most part even to be killed. The origin of tyranny is iniquity and it sprouts forth from the poisonous and pernicious root of evil and its tree is to be cut down by an axe anywhere it grows.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

"The Church never endorsed the notion of the divine right of kings. That was first proclaimed by James I of England (1566– 1625), a Protestant...From St Augustine through St Thomas Aquinas, the great Church theologians denied the moral authority of the state and condemned tyrants, warranting their overthrow....in 1215 the English bishops participated in forcing King John to sign the Magna Carta... Indeed, Luther fully supported ‘the development of strong centralized states and absolute monarchies’."
-Rodney Stark Reformation Myths Five Centuries of Misconceptions and (Some) Misfortunes SPCK Publishing

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Catholic Monarchs

“That the ruler must have the law of God always before his mind and eyes, and he is to be proficient in letterss... The law of Deuteronomy,... And the prince properly writes Deuteronomy in a book because he may thus reflect upon the law in his reason without the letter disappearing from before his eyes....All censures of law are void if they do not bear the image of the divine law; and the ordinance ( constitutio ) of the prince is useless if it does not conform to ecclesiastical discipline. Nor did this escape the notice of the most Christian prince, who pro¬ claimed that his laws were not to disdain imitation of the sacred canons. And not only should one aspire to be ruled by the examples of priests, but the prince is dispatched to the tribe of Levi in order to obtain its benefits. Note how diligent in guarding the law of God should be the prince, who is commanded to hold it, to read it and to reflect upon it always.”
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

“The medieval society... was obsessively dedicated to this faith [Catholicism], almost every feature of daily exsistance being conditioned to its doctrines...in Urban's day, this faith dominated and dictated everyday life to an extent that can seem almost inconceivable to a modern observer.”
-Thomas Asbridge the First Crusade Oxford university Press 2004

“One must add that the idea of a Christian monarchy is quite distinct from the monarchical idea of antiquity, not only on account of the concept of legitimacy but also due to certain qualities which are intrinsic characteristics of a Christian monarchy.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

Unlike democracy that desires moral relativist and atheist. The medieval monarch built up the church and promoted it. The kings Christianity also effected his politics. Christianity in the middle ages was not relegated to a personal belief system of an individual or placed within the four walls of a church. It was seen as the guide to all life's activities. Education, family, politics, culture, music, science, art etc etc everything was influenced and revolved around Catholicism. As French historian Leon Gautier in his book the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight wrote “ The fatal separation which consists in isolating the faith from all other knowledge did not exists” and “It is no exaggeration to compare the church during the middle ages to the sun, witch illuminates everything...The thought of God then filled and animated all and it was as the breath of their nostrils in those believing centuries.” In the middle ages democracy and it accompanying philosophies had not convinced Christians that the Bible and the church were a spiritual personal belief of theirs not fit for public life. To the middle ages christian the Bible and church law were divine commands to form your every thought and action around. And monarchy encouraged this.

“It goes without saying that, as all presidential republics or parliamentary democracies see authority as primarily coming up temporarily to elected rulers from the people of the nation themselves and not down from God upon divinely anointed and consecrated king and queens, no elected system can theoretically or practically embody, manifest, or make real the solemn and covenantal three-way relationship that exists between God, a crowned and anointed monarch, and his or her people.”
-Quoted from A Theological and Political Defense of Monarchy Ryan P. Hunter

“logic suggests and history demonstrates that monarchies have been much more stable than democracies in their adherence to Christian faith and morality. The history of democracy since the French Revolution shows an ever-accelerating decline in faith and morality, and an ever-expanding undermining of the natural hierarchical relations that God has placed in human society, whether these be between parents and children, husbands and wives, teachers and pupils, or political rulers and their subjects. And by undermining these natural heirarchical relations, it implicitly undermines the most important heirarchical relationship of all, that between God and man. The Orthodox monarchy, on the other hand, strengthens all these relationships, and orients society as a whole to spiritual goals rather than the exclusively secular and material goals of contemporary democracy.”
-Vladamir Moss

A King who believed the church and the bible's view was Governments are instituted among men to protect those unalienable rights that come from a higher authority than man [government] that is God. The medieval king constantly acknowledged that biblical higher power that they were accountable to. Man was not the ultimate authority. A monarch authority comes from God not a magic blood line [pagan] or a Roman republic [government] the King was under the churches and Gods authority. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote “Kingship was not only an office with religious implications (the coronation of a Catholic ruler is a sacramental), but the whole traditional Christian monarchy was deeply imbued with a religious spirit.” John of Salisbury in Policraticus summed up the difference of a prince and tyrant as one former had the holy spirit and the latter did not. And later “The prince is, therefore, to fear the Lord and he is to profess his servility to Him by an evident humility of mind and by the performance of pious works. For indeed a lord ( dominus ) is the lord of a servant. And so the prince serves the Lord provided that he faithfully serves his fellow servants, namely, his subjects.” This philosophy that reorganizes a creator, produces a limited government. “the Christian European monarchy was through most of its history of a constitutional pattern, which circumscribed and limited the ruler's sphere of action by the law of God and the law of the land.” wrote Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time.Government is not the ultimate authority but is to protect all citizens god given liberty and law. It also believes that man should alter and abolish a government that is destructive to those rights of the people.

“He who receives power from God serves the laws and is the slave of justice and right. He who usurps power suppresses justice and places the laws beneath his will. Therefore, justice is deservedly armed against those who disarm the laws, and the public power treats harshly those who endeavour to put aside the public hand. And, although there are many forms of high treason, none of them is so serious as that which is executed against the body of justice itself. Tyranny is, therefore, not only a public crime, but, if this can happen, it is more than public.
-John of Salisbury 1115-1180 Policraticus

“In the traditional order, the source of power is God, the almighty. In him power resides in its essence, all other power is delivered from this essential power....power is delegated by the creator to human beings, and this is expressed symbolically and most lucidly in the traditional monarchical order where the King governs “by the grace of God” and is responsible before his celestial principle.”
-Tage Lindbom the Myth of Democracy Wm. B Eerdmans Publishin Co 1996

In a christian monarchies Christ was the true king and Kings obeyed God and law and reigned in the fear of the Lord. Thomas Aquinas in on kingship said a King who's actions benefited himself was not a King at all and in fact the best example of a hypocrite. He quoted another church leader Augustine as writing

““we do not call Christian princes happy merely because they have reigned a long time, or because after a peaceful death they have left their sons to rule, or because they subdued the enemies of the state, or because they were able to guard against or to suppress citizens who rose up against them. Rather do we call them happy if they rule justly, if they prefer to rule their passions rather than nations, and if they do all things not for the love of vainglory but for the love of eternal happiness. Such Christian emperors we say are happy, now in hope, afterwards in very fact when that which we await shall come to pass....Therefore it is God alone Who can still the desires of man and make him happy and be the fitting reward for a king.”

“In the Europe of the Middle Ages, the noble was concerned with his eternal life and God’s eternal kingdom and this concern shaped his behavior; no longer the case since the Enlightenment.”
-Daniel Ajamian the Cost of the Enlightenment

The Bible speaks of the eternal King to come who will rule from Jerusalem the model for an earthly King. Further the Old testament was not viewed as a collection of fables or myths but was taken as actual history and fully Gods word and authoritative on its politics. Thomas Aquinas On Kingship quotes constantly from the bible and the overwhelming majority are from the Old testament. The other great political work of the middle ages Policraticus by John of Salisbury as well overwhelmingly uses the Old Testament for justification of political rulers. Leading crusade scholar Christopher Tyerman in his massive book Gods war a new history of the Crusades wrote ““the medieval church placed considerable importance on the old testament.” To quote Leon Gautier agagin, “the spirit of atheism was not fitted, to enter into the mind of the feudal baron.”

“Tamar the Great ...At the beginning of her reign, Tamar convened a Church council and addressed the clergy with wisdom and humility: “Judge according to righteousness, affirming good and condemning evil,” she advised. “Begin with me — if I sin I should be censured, for the royal crown is sent down from above as a sign of divine service. Allow neither the wealth of the nobles nor the poverty of the masses to hinder your work. You by word and I by deed, you by preaching and I by the law, you by upbringing and I by education will care for those souls whom God has entrusted to us, and together we will abide by the law of God, in order to escape eternal condemnation.… You as priests and I as ruler, you as stewards of good and I as the watchman of that good.”
-Fr. Zakaria Machitadze The Lives of Georgian Saints quoted from A Theological and Political Defense of Monarchy Ryan P. Hunter

Kings reigned by biblical standards and did not rule or control its people as we have today. John of Salsibury said the King must have wisdom, justice, mercy, humility, charity, selfishness, prudence, charity, he must be reluctant to punish and quick to reward. In on Kingship Thomas Aquinas wrote “ From this it is clearly shown that the idea of king implies that he be one man who is chief and that he be a shepherd, seeking the common good of the multitude and not his own.” Instead they led by example as moral christian royal families. To live godly lives. Unlike today's modern pagan celebrities who lead the masses away from Christ. '

“Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
- C.s Lewis

Even today kids grow up pretending naturally to be princess, queens, knights and kings, not presidents or lobbyist. Disney makes a killing off of its princesses and castles. Something of the monarchist system in mankind looks to royalty as a positive influence and christian morals. Every family has a father and mother just as a monarch serves as a form of father/mother to the country. This helps unification of the country rather than division from politicians like in democracies. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in his book Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time wrote “Families, for instance, are minor kingdoms—ideal spheres for the development of personality; and free societies always have strongly developed hierarchically built family cells” They also symbolize christian ideals of marriage, family and unity. Like nature a monarchy seems to make sense as Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in his book Liberty or Equality said “Monarchy seems to be the most natural sort of government, for whatever nature produces with more than one head is esteemed monstrous.” And Aquinas wrote "There is only one queen among the bees and in the whole universe one God, Creator and director of all," Aquinas mentions the Kings only just functions as

-To exsersize just judgment in his kingdom.
-To have his rule under the authority of the church and the bible
-To make suitable for his people to seek heavenly happiness and forbid the contrary
-Protect his realm from foreign invasion
-Restrain men from wickedness and push them to virtuous deeds following the example of God
-And finally

“the Book of Deuteronomy (17:18-19) that “after he is raised to the throne of his kingdom, the king shall copy out to himself the Deutoronomy of this law, in a volume, taking the copy of the priests of the Levitical tribe, he shall have it with him and shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and keep his words and ceremonies which are commanded in the law.” Thus the king, taught the law of God, should have for his principal concern the means by which the multitude subject to him may live well.”
-Thomas Aquinas On Kingship

And like the biblical decentralized/tribal model, the people remained in power and the King did not control an entire “nation”.

“It is plain, therefore, from what has been said, that a king is one who rules the people of one city or province, and rules them for the common good.
-Thomas Aquinas On Kingship to the king of Cyrus 1225-1274

“Ancient Jewish society, even in the heyday of monarchy, never gave way to abolitionism [absolute monarch] . The “people” always remained, directly and indirectly a body of influence on the affairs of the state”
-Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon Battles of the Bible GreenHill Books London 2002

The similarity in Catholicism also led to more peace and less war.

“The first monarchs, the founders of the European dynasties, were all outstanding people who excelled either through their wisdom, virtue, bravery, sanctity, or at least through their shrewdness, diplomacy, brutality, or daredevil courage. None of them was insignificant. The families of these rulers constantly intermarried; even back in the early Middle Ages the tendency was clearly one of intermarriage between the royal and imperial houses with the result that we find at the end of this epoch in the Christian Occident one large family of rulers with many different branches, united by the common faith as well as by the ties of common ancestors, of common tombs, of common blood.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Agrarian Society

“a feudal society was also essentially a country, rural society”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Urban populations without any real religion or culture, like much of the U.S today, cling to government as the source of identity and the meaning of their exsitance”
-Clyde Wilson Nullification Reclaiming the Consent of the Governed

The medieval world was also an agrarian society witch saw a drastic increase in farm and food production. With the fall of Rome cities started to empty as people moved to the country. Big cities being unnatural need large scale infrastructure to survive and need large amounts of goods moved from the country into the city to survive witch needs massive government.

“Then we meet the feudal system, and the castle was born.”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

The medieval society centered around the castle as the center of culture, protection, civilization, code of honor, court, laws, trade etc in a rural setting surrounded by small farms in no need of cities or urban areas. The agrarian nature went hand in hand with the form of monarchies and the church. Oxford scholar Christopher Tyermann in his book Gods war wrote the “Religious and political structures rested on settled agrarian economics and populations.” Regine Pernoud in her book Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths wrote “the authority was able to reside elsewhere than in a city.” Rural monasteries were the center of learning. Monks worked the land and were self sufficient [while making beer and wine] while maintain a place of learning and prayer. In ancient Rome farming was thought the work of slaves unlike the christian west. Not until the 16th century during the Renaissance does education moved to urban areas and culture moves towards cities and the origins of the modern state appear. To see the impact of centralization, democracy, urbanization and industrialization on the southern united states decentralized christian agrarian society and how hostile democracy is towards agrarianism, liberty, decentralization and Christianity in the united states context, see this link.

I Wish I Was In The land Of Cotton- Southern Agrarian vs Northern Industrialization

also see

THE MENACE OF THE HERD or Procrustes at Large THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY MILWAUKEE 1943 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
https://cdn.mises.org/The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large_5.pdf

“Authentic country life with its rugged spirit of Independence...its traditions, its distrust of modernity, and its self sufficiency, has compete disappeared, and with it, the most robust opposition to all state centralization.”
-Christophe Buffin de Chosal the end of Democracy Tomblar House 2017

“The age of the rule of the plains and the cities, which put an end to the rule of the mountains and castles, was indeed the beginning of the decline of Europe. The association of Berlin with Moscow, of nationalism with socialism, was, even in a geographical sense, a league of monotony against diversity.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943


The Winner Writes the History

“It is so easy, in fact, to manipulate history... for a public that is not knowledgeable about it. We have nearly daily evidence of this on television”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Official” history is always written by its victors I.e from the perspective of the proponents of democracy.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

Because the winner wrote the history we are fed that the western catholic system of monarchy was not the most decentralized, libertarian, self governing time period. But was instead ruled by tyrant kings who had complete control of the populace. Yet it was the return to centralization under roman law that led to king tyrants during the Renaissance.

“Centralizing power in the extreme, that of the Roman empire.The revival of Roman law brought about legal standardization in the interest of centralized nation states”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

“Everywhere men are leaving behind the liberty of the Middle Ages, not to enter into a modern brand of liberty but to return to the ancient despotism; for centralization is nothing else than an up-to-date version of the administration seen in the Roman Empire.”
-James Madison quoted in Donald Livingston The Southern Critique of Centralization

“The revival of Roman law brought about legal standardization in the interest of centralized nation states”
-Regine Pernoud Those Terrible Middle Ages Debunking the Myths Ignatius press San Francisco

The middle ages are the time period of actual self government and liberty, the “evil” time when centralized governments did not rule and thus they are punished in the winners version of history. To dare set up an extended time period that allowed mankind to live under anything but a centralized dictatorship such as ancient Rome or our modern times, receives wrath from statist today and must be made to vanish from people mind and only be remembered as the worst of sins. As it was the middle ages that

“The idea of authority faded away, the notion of centralization was wiped out. The power declined into the hands of numerous petty sovereigns”
-Leon Gautier Chivalry the Everyday Life of the medieval Knight Tumblar House 2015

Instead of acts of defense against Muslims aggressors for the purpose of saving their own lives and culture and persecuted Christians in lands taken by Islam, the crusades were violent unjust acts of aggression against peaceful Muslims and early colonialism led by brutal Lords and Kings and catholic bishops. The Jewish ghetto's were not area given Jews to fully observe the Torah and self govern themselves but instead examples of bigotry discrimination intolerance and segregation. The Inquisitions were not done to prevent wrongful accusations and save lives but were a tyrannical force of a mad church sent to burn innocent people at the stake. And on and on. Overall the medieval monarchist time period was the “dark ages” violent, backwards, tyrannical, and one would not wish to repete those time periods so be glad our savior democracy is here. Democracy has not been the most tyrannical time period, nor caused the most wars and death, nor moral decay, and the destruction of family unit and culture. No it has enlightened us, given us peace, progress, liberty, better health , longer lives, advancements and economic gains. The single greatest thing to happen to mankind. Democracy. Besides, if we did not bash other cultures that differ from us who cant defend themselves it would deprive us moderns of the aristocratic pleasure of despising earlier medievalist.

"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history"
-Milan Hubl, Czek communist

“If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.”
-Karl Marx

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Can Liberty and Decentralization be Preserved in any System That has a Form of Democracy?

“Rather than a democracy [US] they advocated an aristocratic republic.”
-Hans- Hermann Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order Routledge 2001

“The natural aristocracy.... as the most precious gift of nature for the instructor, the trusts and government of society... that for of government is best, which provides most effective for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government”
-Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Addams quoted in Democracy the God that Failed

“I am an aristocrat, I love liberty, I hate equality.”
-John Rabndolf of Roanoke

“The Constitution of 1787 was, then, what may be called an aristocratic republican form of organic law with no salient democratic features.”
-Ralph Adams Cram writes in his The End of Democracy Boston, 1937, p. 20 quoted in the Menace of the Herd

“The strong aristocratic control survived in the South for a long time. The Constitution of South Carolina in 1788 gave the vote only to men who had at least 50 acres of landed property. A senator had to have real estate worth at least 2000 pounds, an equivalent of about 25,000 dollars in 1942. The Lieutenant Governor had to prove ownership of property worth at least 10,000 pounds.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

Even the antebellum United States which was a decentralized constitutional republic [see article 4 section 4 of constitution] with multiple barriers to centralization such as separation of powers, checks and balances, along with its founders and a populace who hated democracy and centralization. Yet had a form of democracy with aristocratic elections [male land owners with other limitations depending on state] ever maintained for a time a form of government similar to the medieval, decentralized, chivalric, aristocratic, libertarian, political system of monarchy.

“Before there was any New England in the North, there was something very like Old England in the South.”
– G. K. Chesterton

“We need the Southern gentleman more than the English or French or Spanish gentleman. For the aristocrat of Old Dixie...That combination of ideal democracy [limited republic decentralization] with real chivalry was a particular blend for which the world was immeasurably the better; and for the loss of which it is immeasurably the worse. It may never be recovered; but it will certainly be missed.”
-G.K Chesterton Come to Think of It; Chapter 36; 1930

“Old England can still be faintly traced in Old Dixie. It contains some of the best things that England herself has had, and therefore (of course) the things that England herself has lost, or is trying to lose.… England once sympathised with the South. The South still sympathises with England.”
-G.K Chesterton

Some of the founders were monarchist like Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris. But espically in the south was the memory of the medieval society still relevant, and was defended by the confederate states of America witch was destroyed during the civil war. The Vatican was the only country to recognize the confederacy. The south was also admired by old time catholic conservative like Chesterton. And Catholicism played a larger role in the south than the north and was more accepted agreeing on chivalry, honor etc both felt more similarities than to the north. Southern leaders like Calhoun condemned northern anti-catholic acts.

“Catholicism was a part of the southern religious experience, not an exception to it”
-Adam Tate Catholics' Lost Cause: South Carolina Catholics and the American SouthUniversity of Notre Dame Press 2018

“One factor that may have accounted for the relatively peaceful accommodation of religious pluralism in the South is what the Southern man of letters, Richard Weaver, termed “the older religiousness of the South.” Weaver observed, “For although the South was heavily Protestant, its attitude toward religion was essentially the attitude of orthodoxy.” Plural in denominations, evangelical in its dominant mode, but orthodox in belief may have created the conditions friendly toward religious tolerance. This was but one aspect of what Weaver viewed as the South’s “medieval heritages.” Interestingly, it was not uncommon for some Protestant ministers of the antebellum period to have a copy of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae in their library, or for a Protestant family to have a copy of Thomas a Kempis’s, Imitation of Christ or some other Catholic devotional or two on the library shelf.”
-John Devanny Where the Grapes of Wrath are Stored


“the Catholic influence in American society was much stronger in the less populous South than in the North at the time of the war.....in the South. In a region where family mattered, numerous leading families were Catholic....Many leading Southern families that were not Catholic had members who were. An example would be the Lees of Virginia from whom was sprung the Confederacy’s Gen. Robert E. Lee. A nephew of his was the founding pastor of the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington, D.C. ..they tended to have a high regard and deep respect for the Church and her institutions, especially her schools. It was very common for these families to send their children to them simply because that is where the best education was to be had. An example in this regard is Jefferson Davis himself, the eventual President of the C.S.A. His father sent him as a boy to Kentucky to be schooled by Dominicans.In contrast, Davis embraced a form of Episcopalianism adhered to by many leading Southerners that was very “High Church,” very “Catholic” in its externals The Old South, Tate shows, had the only truly European civilization ever known in America. That is in the sense that it was a civilization rooted in its own soil. It was one that produced men who measured their success in life according to non-material standards, perhaps the chief of them being honor. It was an agricultural civilization, and a hierarchical one. That by itself was enough to make Pius or even most ordinary Catholics of the day sympathetic to the South. Certainly the Catholic Bishops of the South were sympathetic. There is no record of any failing to support the Confederacy.”
-Gary Potter Catholicism and the old South


“historians have generally argued that Vatican and papal sympathies leaned toward the Confederacy.... “the natural conclusion one would draw from the predominance of communication between Richmond and Rome is that Pius IX sympathized with the Southern cause.” ”
-FR. Charles Connor Faith and fury the rise of Catholicism During the Civil war Ewnt Publishing 2019

“Catholics and southern conservatives viewed the north as locus of American radicalism and took refuge in Jeffersonian conceptions of both the union and Constitution”
-Adam Tate Catholics' Lost Cause: South Carolina Catholics and the American SouthUniversity of Notre Dame Press 2018


The south honored knights, medieval chivalry, the midden ages, agrarian lifestyle, war heroes, the old testament, and some in the south called for a monarchy during secession. Later some wanted Lee to be king. The civil war destroyed that republic and turned the U.S into a centralized form of democracy, a system of government the founders hated.

“Christian, monarchical forms of government belong, like the republic, to the good forms of government.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession-The Upper South- American Civil war
I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession-The Cotton States
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/from-confederation-to-consolidation-the-political-effects-of-the-civil-war.8093078/jhThe United States a Biblical Government
https://www.amazon.com/Confederate-States-America-1861-1865-History/dp/0807100072
I Wish I Was In The land Of Cotton- Southern Agrarian vs Northern Industrialization

The American colonies rightly resisted the renaissance effects on European monarchies increased power and centralization such as of the crown of England. As monarchies were leaving behind the Feudal medieval system and becoming absolute monarchies. In fact Catholics in the united states supported the revolution at higher % than did protestants. Yet Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in his book Liberty or Equality the Challenge of our Time pointed out “the Declaration of Independence in no way attacks the institution of monarchy, but merely disqualifies George III for his high office.” Yet the Americans saw the absolute monarchy system as failed and tried the best attempt yet seen at preserving liberty outside of the medieval monarchy system with the only other biblical system. Yet within twenty five years this new form had already surpassed even the absolute monarch they resisted.

“Twenty -five years after the revolution they were in far worse condition as free states than the government was more expensive, more inefficient, more dishonest, and more tyrannical.”
-H.L Mencken A Mencken Chrestomathy



Some United States Founders Thought on Democracy

D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property;and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
- James Madison

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
- John Quincy Adams

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."
- John Adams

“Turbulence, violence, and abuse of power by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority have produced factions and commotions which in republics have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from these causes.”
-James Madison Virginia Convention of 1788

“Even the founding fathers of the U.S, nowadays considered the model of a democracy, were strictly opposed to it. Without a single exception, they thought of democracy as nothing but mob rule.”
-Hans-Hermann Hoppe Professor Emeritus of Economics at UNLV, Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, founder and president of The Property and Freedom Society

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
-John Adams

"In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth."
- Noah Webster

“The United States were in 1800 or 1810 ..."Democracy" was looked upon as a monstrosity.” -Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

“It has never happened in the world, and it never will, that a democracy has been kept out of the control of the fiercest and most turbulent spirits in the society; they will breathe into it all their own fury, and make it subservient to the worst designs of the worst men”
Fisher Ames

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

You think the common people in the Medieval period had no government constraints? Seriously?

“A period, about 900, when there was no empire, no state, and no public authority in the West. The state disappeared, yet society continued. It was discovered that economic life, religious life, law, and private property can all exist and function effectively without a state. … In Rome, in Byzantium, and in Russia, law was regarded as an enactment of a supreme power. In the West, when no supreme power existed, it was discovered that law still existed as the body of rules which govern social life.”
-Carroll Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time Jun 1 1975


What government? there was no legislative branch to govern our lives. Law and custom were the authority and they were local and diverse. I just posted for you a bunch of material on this I hope you read it.

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

And the common people tended to support such statist monarchies. Why? Because they had learned from experience that a strong distant government was less abusive to them than a local magnate with no restraints. Would you like some examples?

Barbarian observes:
Whereas, in Medieval times, a man would see that by becoming a warrior and upon gaining knighthood, would be relieved of tyranny, and become able to subject others to his own.
Yet despite the knights’ gradual loss of military importance, the system by which noble families were identified, called heraldry, continued to flourish and became more complex. The magnificence of their war games—called tournaments—also increased, as did the number of new knightly orders, such as the Order of the Garter.

I would love to see a source for that I disagree with all you have said just about. What tyranny did a knight cause the peasants? I think the author you quote has confused knight [who swore oaths to protect the weak and poor and was a christian order] with Lord. Who hired and trained knights for protection of his realm. Further what tyranny was the peasant subjected to in a feudal system and how could you say that the average citizen today is not under 1,000% more tyranny?

You have claimed that the common people supported centralization. Could you support that? Rather it was power hungry renaissance kings, merchants [for economic purposes] and protestants [i am one] who saught to expand their own power that did this. It was not an accepted move by the people until atheism, secularization, worship of the state, and all things democracy brought about. As for the claim that a distant centralized government protects its people better that is easily refuted by history and logic, see here

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government
From Confederation to Consolidation the Political Effects of the Civil war
Abraham Lincoln an American Tyrant

See here:
At first, most knights were of humble origins, some of them not even possessing land, but by the later twelfth century knights were considered members of the nobility and followed a system of courteous knightly behavior called chivalry (from cheval, the French word for horse).
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/feud/hd_feud.htm

Yes this is 100% what i am saying. This goes against your claim. Maybe we are not communicating well. I have the same issues with my wife.

You're aware that de Tocqueville thought that self-interest was a good thing, and was an enthusiastic supporter of democracy? You might want to read his Democracy in America. It's still in print by Canto, I think.

No de Tocqueville hated democracy. He liked a constitutional republic like the early Americans.

The United States a Biblical Government

They hated democracy.


Some United States Founders Thought on Democracy

D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property;and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
- James Madison

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
- John Quincy Adams

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."
- John Adams

“Turbulence, violence, and abuse of power by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority have produced factions and commotions which in republics have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from these causes.”
-James Madison Virginia Convention of 1788

“Even the founding fathers of the U.S, nowadays considered the model of a democracy, were strictly opposed to it. Without a single exception, they thought of democracy as nothing but mob rule.”
-Hans-Hermann Hoppe Professor Emeritus of Economics at UNLV, Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, founder and president of The Property and Freedom Society

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
-John Adams

"In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth."
- Noah Webster

“The United States were in 1800 or 1810 ..."Democracy" was looked upon as a monstrosity.” -Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

“It has never happened in the world, and it never will, that a democracy has been kept out of the control of the fiercest and most turbulent spirits in the society; they will breathe into it all their own fury, and make it subservient to the worst designs of the worst men”
Fisher Ames

The quotes are widely presented. I think reading book would show you that de Tocqueville was an advocate of democracy, not an opponent.

In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through the United States in the early 19th century when the Market Revolution, Western expansion and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life.[17]

According to Joshua Kaplan, one purpose of writing Democracy in America was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order and to help them sort out the confusion.[17] Tocqueville saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as for the community.
Alexis de Tocqueville - Wikipedia

And that is why we must properly understand how democracy is used at various times/places. You come with the modern understanding that early america was a democracy, we were not. Tocqueville said we were exceptional [american exceptionalism] because we were not a democracy, but a aristocratic constitutional republic. Further I dont care if his own opinions/ beliefs other than why i quote him. I quote many people for example Karl marx, whom I disagree with.

In feudal times, the death of a knight in combat was relatively uncommon, while common soldiers took heavy casualties.

And? knight had the best equipment, experience and training. This is simply logic. Militia wont fight as well as professional soldiers. The national guardsmen in a hard situation will not be as likely to survive as a navy seal. Knight did the bulk of the fighting and yet survived, they were trained and well equipped. The difference between them and modern democratic conscripts is enormous.



In the feudal age nobles were expected to not just fight, but lead the armies into battle. Unlike in democracy were politicians send out none relatives conscripts to fight for them. Because of the costs to the King directly [does not have ability to steal through tax like a democracy] , limited numbers, and because of decentralization in the political system causalities were far lower. But also wars were far less frequent or total. Further the soldiers under the King were not forced mercenaries/slaves [conscripts] made to fight for a cause that does not benefit them and that they might disagree with or think evil. Instead Lords protected the people in their domain who in return would swear an allegiance to the lord. It was a mutual beneficial situation that encouraged Lords to serve his/her people well as he would have more and more loyal men who would willingly fight under his banner. A much better situation for the people rather than modern democracies forcing men to fight for them or using state power to persecute them for “treason.” The king could not extract contributions only solicit subsides from loyal subjects who through their own free will supported the king and used it as an opportunity to make deals . Often deals were made to save each Lord from continuation of the expensive war and wars were won or lost based on small scale objectives.


centralization and democracy brought total war and nationalism. Wars were now fought far more frequent and were far more devastating seeking submission of the enemy and reconstruction in the winners image. Sherman, Sheridan , and Grant brought total war to the south and than reconstructed it from its decentralized republic to a centralized democracy in the image of the northern republicans. They than went to war on the Indians and expanded the empire west. WW1 and WW2 followed their paths. Today they engage in various wars around the world spreading American “democracy.” Wars are now between the entire nations as all of “we the people” are at war. Now taxes are used to build massive armies with the help of government conscription were losses are easily replaced and battles are now sought to annihilate the enemy and wear them down since the politicians money and men are not used. Soldiers are now slaves of the government forced into conscription to fight a war for their masters [elected officials] weather they agree with the war or not. Hoppe quotes Fuller in the god that failed as writing ““In 150 years conscription had led the world back to tribal barbarism.” In the feudal age nobles were expected to not just fight, but lead the armies into battle.

“Progressive nations have to bleed to death in their wars. Rulers felt that they had to be sparing with the lives of their subjects, but leaders have the marvelous excuse that they are nothing but executors of the general will.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

Solders pillage large scale, attack, steal, rape, confiscate private property on a massive scale since the introduction of democracy. Because war was now total and the “people” against another nation rather than a Kings loyal knights, the whole of the enemy becomes a target an weapons on mass destruction were sought and created such as the machine gun and bombs. In the medieval west, many saw the bow and later the long bow as immoral and cowardly. In WW2 America dropped bombs on the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing 150,000 to 200,000 men woman and children. Some took weeks or months to die after the bombing. That these were used to save lives seems to come after the war [see Don’t Whitewash the Hiroshima Bombing By Peter Van Buren ] “Harry Truman, in his 1945 annosuncment of the bomb, focused on vengeance, and on the new power to destroy at a button push—“We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city,” The Americans were the “good guys” in this war, such is the terror of total war. While in the middel ages.

“Inventors of poison gas, tanks, pursuit planes, bombers, floating mines, etc., might have run the usually decried risk of getting into trouble with the ecclesiastic authorities. They might have been possibly accused of being in league with the devil — an accusation probably not without foundation.....“Crime also profits largely by new technical inventions. One can say without exaggeration that almost every new technical invention harbors the potentiality of the most demoniacal misuse. We have to ask ourselves honestly whether the invention of the Wright brothers — made in best faith — will not bring much more sorrow than joy to mankind before this present war is over. The answer is obvious. Orville Wright was convinced that the airplane would deal a dashing blow to militarism, eliminating the element of surprise in warfare. Instead it made the enslavement of numerous countries possible and destroyed the finest historical landmarks of London. One feels definitely less sure that a few old-fashioned cardinals and higher ecclesiastics who declared in the seventeenth century that machinery may be the work of Satan, were totally incorrect.”
-Erik von Kuehnelt- Leddihn The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee 1943

Ironically, it was the ascendancy of the common soldier, particularly archers, halbarders and pikemen, that reduced the value of mounted knights. Agincourt was a setpiece contrasting the two. Henry's archers carried the day, even though outnumbered badly.

gunpowder might have played a role no? as well as the transformation in wars see above.

Unless you weren't a nobleman. Then not so good. A few exceptions like the City of London, or the occasional town that might get a royal charter, were unusual.

Please due support your claims. I make the opposite, with few rare exceptions the peasant was more free and far better than the citizen in a democratic nation.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

And you are free today to resist the government?

Today the state and the private sector have far more power than ever before.

1776 democracy was not the same as 2019 democracy. OP doesn’t have to agree with everything De Tocqueville said to quote him.

Before we approach medieval life... ask yourself do politicians today not steal from the ‘common people’? Has theft decreased?
You also shouldn’t juxtapose an idealistic vision of democracy with a dystopian vision of the Middle Ages. You must compare them as they actually functioned in reality.

You might find this interesting

Medieval Monarchy vs Democracy- A Critical Look at Democracy


of course I did just post the material on this thread. Some posters needed to read it I think.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Barbarian asks:
Whereas, in Medieval times, a serf was free to resist the government? How so?



So that hasn't changed? That's not the first story we got.



Capitalism does tend to empower businessmen, yes. At some point that can become oppressive, which is why people make rules to limit the power of the wealthy, who would likely reinvent feudalism. That's how feudalism got started, you know.

On the other hand, government now has rules that limit the arbitrary power of the state. In America, the state itself was designed to limit the power of government through laws like the Bill of Rights, independent judiciary, and a "deep state" that prevented any one person from ruling by decree.



Just noting the weirdness of quoting and advocate of democracy as though he were an opponent of it. De Tocqueville was a clear-eyed realist; he saw the flaws in democracy, even as he realized it was preferrable to any other form of government we might have.



I notice they often go to jail when caught. Which is what happens to common thieves as well. Sometimes they get away with it, but in the Middle Ages, if a noble wanted something you had, you lost it.



Not in the last three years, but it appears that there will be a reckoning when Trump leaves the WH.



Rather, I'm pointing out that you juxtaposed an idealistic version of the Middle Ages with a dystopian vision of democracy. You must compare them as they actually functioned in reality.

Your misconceptions could easily be corrected. I see your retired, you have time right?

Feudal Monarch of the Christian Middle Ages- the age of Self Government

 

[The Barbarian]

Your misconceptions could easily be corrected.

But you seem to have no response at all to the information I gave you. I'm pretty sure why.

I see your retired, you have time right?

More significantly, when I was in the AF, I was stationed where there was little to do but take college classes or go drinking. So I accumulated a lot of coursework in European and American history. Wouldn't hurt you to do some reading.

I'd suggest This might be a start.
The Rise of Christian Europe

It's not too academic and it will give you a quick idea of things. You might also read historian Barbara Tuchman's work A Distant Mirror, which gives a good idea of what was going on in the 14th century, as encountered by French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy.

Suffice to say, history does not record what you've assumed. And while the winners do write history, the losers are no more likely to be right. That's what historians are for. Read and learn.