Was intra-realm/vassal vs vassal warfare really a thing during the middle ages?

[Dahoota]

Vassals fighting each other and increasing their power is a pretty common thing in CK2, in a large realm there is almost always some kind of vassal war happening.

But it just occurred to me that in all the historical reading I've done, I can't think of a single example of it.

Civil wars were obviously a pretty regular occurence, as was intra-realm raiding in some areas (eg Ireland and Scotland). But I've never read about dedicated wars inside a realm, the only exception being perhaps inside the HRE. But for much of the HRE's history it was a fairly loosely formed state with the Kaiser often not actually having that much power.

Anyone know of any examples? Or was it just not done nearly as much as in CK2?

 

[Drake_Hound]

On political level it was done plenty of times. a lot of county and kingdoms on eastern Europe simply disappeared.
On the western Europe it wasn't done as often. cause of religion and Pope Intervention.

So what they decided was more like political warfare and assassinations and marriages.
Rarely did they field real big battles. the examples you are looking for was more in Scotland. where vassals just right out murder eachother .
Or war of the rose comes to mind. was called a civil war. but true fighting was usually decided really quickly .

lose a battle lose a war. and everybody goes home till the next battle there was always a next.
Infact prelude to the WW1 explains why French was so harsh with treaty of versaille against Germany after WW1 cause of the humiliation suffered pre WW1 . and lose of disputed territory.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

It happened alot.
I have seen plenty of cases for example from Southern France in the 11-13th century. I have also seen cases from Poland and Scandinavia (though "dukes" and "counts" wasnt an established system in Scandinavia, I have seen many cases of war between feudal families over land etc). I also think it was quite frequent in Scotland (where it was more like clan feuding, but still) and England. So that is of course a limited part of Europe, but it is also all the parts of Europe from which I have read historybooks, account etc. So I asume than when it happened from France to Scandinavia, and England to Poland it likely happened in other places as well.

The same with factions for lowering "crown authority", you don't need to look far into any history book to find those.