Now, I'm no modding expert, and I don't know how to script events, so this is not a mod announce. It's just a petition, or maybe an advise.
During the mid-XIIth Century and until practically the XVth C., the European noble youth, starting by those from the Francosphere, that is, French, Bretons, Flemings, Normans and, after the Norman conquest, some Englishmen, left their father's house once knighted, after a time of service as a squire for some lord, and started wandering around the Christian world looking for tournaments, battle, fame and excitement.
This was not an isolate event. Most historians expert on the XII-XIIIth Centuries agree: These young knights craved for adventure, glory. And women. Usually knighted at the age of 19-20, they stopped being pueri, kids, and became juvenes, young. This youth lasted until marriage, which could very well happen at their late 20's, or early 30's. William Marshal, the most famous knight of England (for them, at least), didn't marry until past his 40's!
The life of a young knight usually went like this:
- Around 20's, knighted after a period of squireship (represented ingame, I guess, by the tutory of a guardian)
- Then, the boy "leaves on adventure". Usually their father assigned to them an elder knight to teach them the ways of the sword and also the world. Which tournaments were the best, which teams were better, which knights were too good and too out of league, what was the just price for things, etc.
- Normally, the knight would go on and join a team or company. Sometimes it was his father's liege "team", in which the liege's son led his father's vassal's sons into the wild life of tournament and adventure. It's a very Feudal conception of youth: the young bonded already in the social structue they would occupy once they grow up: with the liege at the top and the rest forming the pyramyd.
- Parents would usually pay for their expenses, because being stingy was a very bad sign, and the price for winning tournaments or the ransoms for prisoners made during one were spent on the spot making humongous parties where nothing was spared.
- During their wandering, these knights gained prestige and fame if they won battles and a name for themselves. When Arnold of Ardres inherited his father's domain at Guines, he was not an unknown spoiled brat. He was the most famous Arnold, winner of tens of tournaments!
- Events would make the kid notorious or not, depending on his choices. Ideally, your chancellor would inform you of your son's movements and whereabouts. Also, they would make friends and enemies among the other wandering knights, or lords, wherever they might fight.
- This could last like 10 years! No estates for the son, he's having a lot of fun on his own! But mortality was high, and plenty of stories talk about families that lost half of their male children to tournaments and youth horsefalls. Arnold of Ardres's grandfather lost his 10 brothers ALL during their "turbulent youth", in this life of adventures.
- Also, they could find women! Say, my son is away on an adventure and he conquers the heart of the heiress of Bordeaux or the dowager widow of Mâcon. Well, he can take her with him! Or send word to you, his father, since marriage was a very important thing and was usually decided by the parents.
- Once married, the knight settles down and dedicates himself to the management of his wife's estates.
- Scholar and Eclesiastic members of noble families did similar things, but instead of fighting in the field, they battled with words in dialectic duels in the learning centers, monasteries and universities of Western and Central Europe.
- Also, no more "unmarried sons" maluses. Noble families discouraged lesser children of marrying, because that would mean to cut down more familiar property or even lead to the creation of too many side branches that menaced to drown the main branch. Two, maybe three sons could marry. The rest, on adventure! If they found a rich heiress faraway, even better. If not, well, they say Crusading is fun. And if that's still not possible... some minor knights became kind-of-mercenaries that fought for money (or what was called "hauberk fief", or some similar names)
***
If someone with modding abilities could take some ideas from here to make some kind of "long pilgrimage", this "errantry", with plenty of events in which to send your sons (well, they would ask it, because they'd be bored and all in your house, since all they've read since early age are tales of errant knights, Arturian songs and the deeds of the wandering paladins of Charlemagne... today kids want to be astronauts and explorers. Later, to go on Erasmus. Back then, they wanted to be errant knights) on this adventure, to seek glory and rename, it would improve greatly father-son relationships and add the last great touch of Medieval flavour that the game lacks.
During the mid-XIIth Century and until practically the XVth C., the European noble youth, starting by those from the Francosphere, that is, French, Bretons, Flemings, Normans and, after the Norman conquest, some Englishmen, left their father's house once knighted, after a time of service as a squire for some lord, and started wandering around the Christian world looking for tournaments, battle, fame and excitement.
This was not an isolate event. Most historians expert on the XII-XIIIth Centuries agree: These young knights craved for adventure, glory. And women. Usually knighted at the age of 19-20, they stopped being pueri, kids, and became juvenes, young. This youth lasted until marriage, which could very well happen at their late 20's, or early 30's. William Marshal, the most famous knight of England (for them, at least), didn't marry until past his 40's!
The life of a young knight usually went like this:
- Around 20's, knighted after a period of squireship (represented ingame, I guess, by the tutory of a guardian)
- Then, the boy "leaves on adventure". Usually their father assigned to them an elder knight to teach them the ways of the sword and also the world. Which tournaments were the best, which teams were better, which knights were too good and too out of league, what was the just price for things, etc.
- Normally, the knight would go on and join a team or company. Sometimes it was his father's liege "team", in which the liege's son led his father's vassal's sons into the wild life of tournament and adventure. It's a very Feudal conception of youth: the young bonded already in the social structue they would occupy once they grow up: with the liege at the top and the rest forming the pyramyd.
- Parents would usually pay for their expenses, because being stingy was a very bad sign, and the price for winning tournaments or the ransoms for prisoners made during one were spent on the spot making humongous parties where nothing was spared.
- During their wandering, these knights gained prestige and fame if they won battles and a name for themselves. When Arnold of Ardres inherited his father's domain at Guines, he was not an unknown spoiled brat. He was the most famous Arnold, winner of tens of tournaments!
- Events would make the kid notorious or not, depending on his choices. Ideally, your chancellor would inform you of your son's movements and whereabouts. Also, they would make friends and enemies among the other wandering knights, or lords, wherever they might fight.
- This could last like 10 years! No estates for the son, he's having a lot of fun on his own! But mortality was high, and plenty of stories talk about families that lost half of their male children to tournaments and youth horsefalls. Arnold of Ardres's grandfather lost his 10 brothers ALL during their "turbulent youth", in this life of adventures.
- Also, they could find women! Say, my son is away on an adventure and he conquers the heart of the heiress of Bordeaux or the dowager widow of Mâcon. Well, he can take her with him! Or send word to you, his father, since marriage was a very important thing and was usually decided by the parents.
- Once married, the knight settles down and dedicates himself to the management of his wife's estates.
- Scholar and Eclesiastic members of noble families did similar things, but instead of fighting in the field, they battled with words in dialectic duels in the learning centers, monasteries and universities of Western and Central Europe.
- Also, no more "unmarried sons" maluses. Noble families discouraged lesser children of marrying, because that would mean to cut down more familiar property or even lead to the creation of too many side branches that menaced to drown the main branch. Two, maybe three sons could marry. The rest, on adventure! If they found a rich heiress faraway, even better. If not, well, they say Crusading is fun. And if that's still not possible... some minor knights became kind-of-mercenaries that fought for money (or what was called "hauberk fief", or some similar names)
***
If someone with modding abilities could take some ideas from here to make some kind of "long pilgrimage", this "errantry", with plenty of events in which to send your sons (well, they would ask it, because they'd be bored and all in your house, since all they've read since early age are tales of errant knights, Arturian songs and the deeds of the wandering paladins of Charlemagne... today kids want to be astronauts and explorers. Later, to go on Erasmus. Back then, they wanted to be errant knights) on this adventure, to seek glory and rename, it would improve greatly father-son relationships and add the last great touch of Medieval flavour that the game lacks.
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