Quote:You can't have a kingdom with just a ruling class, though,

Oh, sure you can. In fact, in antiquity it seems to be the norm. Evidence suggests that the Etruscans were little more than a warrior class who descended on Central Italy an replaced the ruling class with themselves. They left the peasants alone.

For that matter, with its talent for hyperbole the bible claims that the Assyrians deported the 10 tribes but even the Assyrians do not say that. The inscription by Sargon II claims that only 20,000 odd people were deported and replaced by others. That means the bulk of the population, the peasants, stayed right on their land but working for new "management." Again the bible indicates that the Babylonians took all the population of Judah into captivity but no such thing happened. As before, the upper classes were deported while the peasants stayed behind to work their farms for new Babylonian overseers who based themselves at Mizpah as nearby Jerusalem had been burned to the ground.

The peasants performed a useful service. They grew the food. I rather doubt they gave a shit which hand was holding the whip.

(February 7, 2013 at 2:26 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:You can't have a kingdom with just a ruling class, though,

Oh, sure you can. In fact, in antiquity it seems to be the norm. Evidence suggests that the Etruscans were little more than a warrior class who descended on Central Italy an replaced the ruling class with themselves. They left the peasants alone.

Which means that the Etruscans' equivalent of a kingdom didn't just have an Etruscan ruling class - it had peasants as well otherwise the Etruscans would have had to do all the mundane work themselves. As I said in my previous post - so the rest of the population did all the work required to keep a kingdom running. It's likely that some of the Hyksos kingdom's residents were native Egyptians while others were Habiru who had wandered in from various places and settled down.

I said "it was likely" because we don't have a census giving us details of which ethnic group was doing what under Hyksos rule. A lot of the peasants were likely to have ancestors going back to Egypt's dim and distant past while some peasants could have been descended from other ethnic groups who had wandered in at various times.

A much later example was the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. They were Greeks. Ptolemy was a Macedonian general of Alexander's. The simply grafted themselves on to the structure and started calling the shots.

To a peasant farmer 200 miles up the Nile all the change would have meant was: "Oh, there's a new pharoah? What's his name? Watch out for that cobra over there."

When, or if, the new king got around to replacing the local peasant's immediate overlord it may have had a little more impact but the odds are that he would simply go on growing grain as they had always done.

(February 7, 2013 at 3:43 pm)Minimalist Wrote: A much later example was the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. They were Greeks. Ptolemy was a Macedonian general of Alexander's. The simply grafted themselves on to the structure and started calling the shots.

To a peasant farmer 200 miles up the Nile all the change would have meant was: "Oh, there's a new pharoah? What's his name? Watch out for that cobra over there."

When, or if, the new king got around to replacing the local peasant's immediate overlord it may have had a little more impact but the odds are that he would simply go on growing grain as they had always done.

Change in rulers doesn't always go unnoticed by peasants.

England In The Middle Ages

Quote:The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. William the Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles. The new rulers introduced a feudal approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery but creating a much wider body of unfree labourers called serfs.

Another change brought in by the Normans were the Royal Forests.

Quote:In Anglo-Saxon England, though the kings were great huntsmen they never set aside areas declared to be outside (Latin foris) the law of the land.[2] Under the Norman kings, by royal prerogative forest law was widely applied.[3] The law was designed to protect the venison and the vert, the "noble" animals of the chase – notably red and fallow deer, the roe, and the wild boar – and the greenery that sustained them. Forests were designed as hunting areas reserved for the monarch or (by invitation) the aristocracy (see medieval hunting). The concept was introduced by the Normans to England in the 11th century, and at the height of this practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, fully one-third of the land area of southern England was designated as royal forest; at one stage in the 12th century, all of Essex was afforested, and on his accession Henry II declared all of Huntingdonshire forest.[2]

Peasants noticing any difference under Hyksos rule would depend on whether they were treated better or worse than under Egyptian rule.

PS: Anglo Saxons slaves didn't gain anything by the Normans eradicating slavery. This article sums the status of slaves up briefly.

Anglo Saxon Life - Slavery

Quote:Slavery - the way in...
How did one become a slave? You could have the bad luck to be born a slave, of course. Beyond that, war was the most frequent source of slaves. Many conquered Celtic Britons would have become slaves. People could also become slaves if they were unable to pay a fine. In some cases a family would sell a child into slavery in time of famine to ensure the child's survival.

...and the way out
Slavery was not necessarily a lifetime sentence, however. A slave could be ransomed by his or her relatives or granted freedom in an owner's will. If a person became a slave because they were unable to pay a debt, they might be freed when the value of their labour reached the value of the original debt.

There was no way out of being a serf under Norman rule.

(February 7, 2013 at 4:15 pm)Confused Ape Wrote:

(February 7, 2013 at 3:43 pm)Minimalist Wrote: A much later example was the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. They were Greeks. Ptolemy was a Macedonian general of Alexander's. The simply grafted themselves on to the structure and started calling the shots.

To a peasant farmer 200 miles up the Nile all the change would have meant was: "Oh, there's a new pharoah? What's his name? Watch out for that cobra over there."

When, or if, the new king got around to replacing the local peasant's immediate overlord it may have had a little more impact but the odds are that he would simply go on growing grain as they had always done.

Change in rulers doesn't always go unnoticed by peasants.

England In The Middle Ages

Quote:The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles and their supporters. William the Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles. The new rulers introduced a feudal approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery but creating a much wider body of unfree labourers called serfs.

Another change brought in by the Normans were the Royal Forests.

Quote:In Anglo-Saxon England, though the kings were great huntsmen they never set aside areas declared to be outside (Latin foris) the law of the land.[2] Under the Norman kings, by royal prerogative forest law was widely applied.[3] The law was designed to protect the venison and the vert, the "noble" animals of the chase – notably red and fallow deer, the roe, and the wild boar – and the greenery that sustained them. Forests were designed as hunting areas reserved for the monarch or (by invitation) the aristocracy (see medieval hunting). The concept was introduced by the Normans to England in the 11th century, and at the height of this practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, fully one-third of the land area of southern England was designated as royal forest; at one stage in the 12th century, all of Essex was afforested, and on his accession Henry II declared all of Huntingdonshire forest.[2]

Peasants noticing any difference under Hyksos rule would depend on whether they were treated better or worse than under Egyptian rule.

PS: Anglo Saxons slaves didn't gain anything by the Normans eradicating slavery. This article sums the status of slaves up briefly.

Anglo Saxon Life - Slavery

Quote:Slavery - the way in...
How did one become a slave? You could have the bad luck to be born a slave, of course. Beyond that, war was the most frequent source of slaves. Many conquered Celtic Britons would have become slaves. People could also become slaves if they were unable to pay a fine. In some cases a family would sell a child into slavery in time of famine to ensure the child's survival.

...and the way out
Slavery was not necessarily a lifetime sentence, however. A slave could be ransomed by his or her relatives or granted freedom in an owner's will. If a person became a slave because they were unable to pay a debt, they might be freed when the value of their labour reached the value of the original debt.

There was no way out of being a serf under Norman rule.

You cannot compare Anglo-Saxon England with Ptolemaic Egypt. Especially given that the Ptolemaic considered themselves just another dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs (they the last dynasty of Pharaohs). Not to mention the fact of the considerable Greek influence in Egypt in the centuries before Alexander conquered Egypt. The centuries afterwards would see increasing Hellenic influence on Egyptian culture, however it was a quite gradual process.

Also in the ancient Egyptian religion the Pharaoh was considered the incarnation of the god Horus and the son of Ra. The were to the Egyptians an another dynasty of the God-King Pharaohs, there had been dynasty of foreign Pharaohs before in Egypt.

The Norman conquest of England lead to the wide-scale replacement of the Anglo-Saxon nobility (and higher levels of the clergy) with those from France. Also not to mention years after the Norman conquests the English revolted many occasions. Including a major one in the North which lead to the "harrying of the north".

Hence the need for Norman nobles to build castles all across the English countryside in the years after the conquest. This would not be surprised since the English (as they called themselves even back then) had a strong sense of national identity and the most centralised government in Europe.

Also by the way the Normans did not abolish the institution of slavery in England in the years just after the conquest. The slave class in England became over the decades before and after the conquest into serfs, which was a process paralleled across Western Europe during this period.

After the Black Death serfdom in Western Europe effectively disappeared for all practical purposes, although it would centuries later until it was abolished legally. Although in Eastern Europe it thrived until the 19th century.

(February 5, 2013 at 12:17 pm)Greatest I am Wrote:

(February 4, 2013 at 7:13 pm)Gooders1002 Wrote: I would like to see how far it goes in peer review.

So much for independent thought.
You are just like a Christian sheep.

Regards
DL

Well I was covering my ass as if I say something It will be wrong so I give up.

Quote:Change in rulers doesn't always go unnoticed by peasants.

Did they do anything about it?

(February 7, 2013 at 11:10 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Change in rulers doesn't always go unnoticed by peasants.

Did they do anything about it?

I am not sure about the Egyptians in the Hellenistic period, however the English after the Norman Conquest certainly did. Namely the later revolved against Norman rule which required the Normans to build a lot of castles across the English countryside.

Quote:however the English after the Norman Conquest certainly did.

The peasantry or the nobility? Peasants were not terribly effective soldiers. This isn't Hollywood where a guy with a stick knocks a trained knight off his horse.

Quote:I am not sure about the Egyptians in the Hellenistic period,

Egypt had been overrun by so many different conquerors in the first millenium BC that another one was nothing new. The Greeks were the latest in the line of Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, and Persians and the Babylonians tried like hell but didn't quite make it.

(February 8, 2013 at 2:04 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:however the English after the Norman Conquest certainly did.

The peasantry or the nobility? Peasants were not terribly effective soldiers. This isn't Hollywood where a guy with a stick knocks a trained knight off his horse.

Dislodged nobility and clergy lead these revolts, with representatives of all classes comprising the manpower. These revolts were supported by a considerable proportion of the English population.

Lots of men with sticks (pikes) could really do damage to a knight and his horse.