I am carrying this over from the YGWV thread as this is about making our joint Glorantha writings more compatible with the canonical presentation rather than reveling in the grognardy of outdated terms and concepts.
44 minutes ago, Jeff said:I try to avoid terminology like "thrall" or "cottar" in favour of a much more neutral semi-free and unfree.
The neutral terms make this sound very much like absolutist feudalism to me (serfdom was abolished in Schleswig-Holstein only in 1804), but that may just be my German cultural background. A family background in serfdom was still a social issue two generations later in the Schleswig-Holstein uprising of 1848-1851.
Are you advising us to talk about a rider nobility rather than horse thanes?
I tried to find any clues to Sartarite social stratum in RQ2 era texts, but at least at a first glance I didn't manage to find any. As I started my career of looking at Orlanthi society using King of Sartar and the Pavis Box, the terms thrall, cottar, carl and thane are pretty much ingrained in my Orlanthi vocabulary. Thane already was part of the Genertela Box des
Thunder Rebels may be the pinnacle of "antrhopowanking" and went over the top with its subcultitis, but it provided an atmospherically dense image of an archaic culture. In many ways too puritanic, but that's another issue.
44 minutes ago, Jeff said:Note that the younger siblings or adult children of a Free person is considered Free, even if they may technically be dependents of someone else.
Expanding the potential range of free cottagers in circumstances mostly undistinguishable from semi-free status.
The real question is about the upward mobility of the children of unfree or semi-free people.
The Sartarite quota of 10 percent (as an average, rising up to 30 percent in some clans closer to the Esrolian model with a great number of clans closer to the Hendriki model) probably can be maintained without hereditary unfree status. Those unfree people who manage to raise children probably are in a tenant-like relationship anyway, with a mix of domestic and labor duties in the agricultural society.
Do children of unfree and semi-free Theyalans in Sartarite and Hendriki society end up as semi-free tenants, or do they join the (poor) free common group?
44 minutes ago, Jeff said:Here's how those numbers break down in Sartar, Hendrikiland, and Esrolia:
Region
Unfree
Semi-free
Free Common
Free Wealthy
Low Noble
Middle Noble
High Noble
Total
Sartar
10
16
50
16
5
2
1
100
Hendriki
0
16
60
16
5
2
1
100
Esrolia
30
25
25
10
5
3
2
100
These numbers (taking those of Sartar or the Hendriki as a measure) map somewhat strangely on the distribution of stead-holder households (carls, plow-men) vs. cottager households with at best a share in a plow, which appears to divide the "Free Common" category about halfway.
The high percentage of unfree and semi-free people in Esrolia indicates either hereditary serfdom or the power of the grandmothers to designate or sell anyone in their house to serfdom or a semi-free tenant position. Calculated from this break-down, Esrolia has more than half a million unfree inhabitants, and less than 700K free non-noble inhabitants with about 180K nobility of all heights.