What is 'Culture'?

[Nyrael]

I'm not entirely sure I understand the 'Culture' property of noble characters in CK2. Would not European nobility have been mostly consistent across the continent? I assume they'd have all spoken Medieval Latin or French/Italian to one another and their children. Would they not all be following the same trends, wearing the same clothes, travelling to one another's balls? Does a marker like 'Foreigner' have any meaning in such a context? Moreover, why would the peasants know or even care where their lord came from, centuries before the emergence of popular nationalism?

If someone has a source for how all this actually worked in the Middle Ages - whether culture, origin or language were factors - I'd love to read it. But per my current understanding, I don't think 'Culture' should be a character property in CK2.

That would depend on the nation in question.
Croatian nobility for example tended to use Croatian language and Glagolian alphabet... and many of them lacked surnames.
And culture also mattered for Croats: both Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, characters in power at time CK2 starts, were committed to culturally assimilating peasants, citizens and nobles who did not consider themselves Croats (Dmitar Zvonimir went as far as removing Dalmatia from "King of Croatia and Dalmatia" due to considering the assimilation to have been successful).

There is also City of Ragusa claiming to be the cultural defender of Dalmatian nation which caused some tensions in Dalmatia and Senj during Croatia-Hungary.

While culture did not matter at the time as it did in age of nationalism, it did matter tough to different extent from region to region.

 

[Firenz]

The nobles shared kind of "universal" identity (at certain limits) as they were part of the formal and informal European feudal hierarchy from the emperor to the lower knights.

I'd tend to disagree but would be interested to see your sources for this.
There were some aspects of overarching culture among the "European" nobility, however I think that much of that comes from a focus on those unifying factors (religion being the main one). The fact that crusades could be organised between many different countries (for want of a better word) does mean that there must have been a degree of cohesion between cultural groupings but I think that it was far from a homogenous blob of nobles ruling and sharing a culture.

and it may also rely on your definition of culture!

 

[unmerged(319241)]

The nobles shared kind of "universal" identity (at certain limits) as they were part of the formal and informal European feudal hierarchy from the emperor to the lower knights. The peasants were in fact "locals". Now the system of CK2 portraits this other way: the "culture" (you can name it anyway: ethnicity, identity, tradition) of the province (=peasants and townsmen) is the same as the culture of nobles (=game characters).

Don't forget that every lord had minor local barons under him, who all spoke the local tongue. The other languages were only used for communication with nobles of other cultures. And the culture of them would again be defined primarily by the language they were using to rule their country. So I think we can expect many of them to develop some local identity, especially if they had been ruling the country for several generations. They used their local vassals and native peasants to fight wars against each other, they were not fighting together as a group a war against the peasants.

 

[Hroppa]

To reiterate my point that's been buried under the fun furore: check out legal systems. They regularly made reference to people of a specific culture, throughout the period. They often, for example, thought that culture was obvious enough to specify different punishments for different cultures for committing the same crime.

 

[Umkharss]

That regime where every case was ruled according to the legal system and customs of the individuals involved mainly stems from the Breviary of Alaric and from the necessity of ruling diverse populations. That got away during the XI-XIIth centuries, after the re-discovery of the Corpus iuris civilis.

 

[Hroppa]

I'm no expert on this but I can point to examples (e.g. Welsh Law, Kievan Rus Law) that continued right up to the 15th century.

 

[Umkharss]

Well, I was referring to historically relevant areas. *trollface*

 

[unmerged(319241)]

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenspiegel

 

[Jak9090]

regardles of if nobility and peasants considered themselves a specific culture, the culture in which they were born into would influence their perception on the world around them, so IMO the arguments that nobility was one culture, and peasants the other, is completely untrue, a croation noble would have much different ideas and perception on the world then a northren frankish noble.

 

[unmerged(209891)]

I still find the culture system pretty flawed, the idea of a unified "polish" culture in 1066 is pretty farfetched in my opinion. But I have the feeling that its going to be up to the mods to address culture issues, it will probably work fine enough for the purpose of a game so Paradox will leave it be.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

In case anyone is interested, Norman law in England had a concept known as "Englishry". If an unknown man was found dead, it was first assumed that the deceased was a Norman (and thus in theory at least a minor noble/knight/squire) unless the deceased was known to be English (i.e. a Saxon), or a foreigner. Fines were different in each case.

Irish law and culture were quite different from Norman English law and culture. Despite the fact that both parties could probably talk Latin, (with possible references to clerical advisors for the finer detail), and may have been fluent in dialects of each other's language, basic presumptions of law could not be relied on to be the same. Brehon law in Ireland was still at least partially alive, and punishments and social groups were different to those under Saxon, or Norman law. Welsh law in the 1100's considered "natural" children (i.e. bastards) to be capable of inheriting without disfavour when acknowledged, as opposed to Norman law which would place them at the rear of inheritance, if they were lucky, or would require their father to make specific provision for the bastard if anything were to be passed on.

England has never recognised morganatic marriage, but various of the Germans practised it.

 

[Hroppa]

Which is funny given that the most famous Norman (the Conqueror) was himself a legitimised bastard

 

[Gatkramp]

I think the invasion of Normandy just goes to show how little culture mattered - it was a dispute between a Norwegian, Norman, and Englishman over a title, not a people or nation. The various dukes and whatnot of England were as likely to fight and usurp each other as they were the Welsh (more so, considering they were in close proximity).

If this is the case, why did the Norman conquest of England result in an almost universal disenfranchisement of Anglo-Saxon nobles? If culture didn't matter, then this would not have occurred.

It was not until the 19th century that the first efforts were undertaken to suppress the Welsh language, despite centuries of English rule.

If culture mattered so little, why was there such a strong opposition by the Scots and the Irish to their English invaders/rulers? How would the French have reacted if a Irish or Balkan noble attempted to claim the throne?

This never happened in the Middle Ages. Ever. Why would they? They couldn't care less, if taxes were paid. Only in the 18th/19th centuries did nationality politics begin to play a role.

Yet, nonetheless the language and culture of the ruling elite slowly filtered down to the peasant, with the Norman conquest introducing French as a major language and altering English vocabulary and rules entirely. The conquest also saw a large exodus of Anglo-Saxon nobles and peasants from England to Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire. Obviously there was significant cultural components to these events.

Religion is different from culture. Religious identity undeniably played a vast role in the era, but nations/cultures just didn't.

Yet the English parliament and leadership under the British kings didn't see the possessions of the early (1066 - 1453) English kings as being part of England. Nor did they see Ireland or Scotland as being part of England. They looked at these areas as separate nations ruled over by the British. If nations or cultures were never a role in those societies, what led to the failure of these areas to be incorporated?

Do you have sources for those claims?

Do you have sources that support your claims of culture playing no part in the era?

I don't think cultures were completely uniform, but among Christian nobility in continental West/Central Europe, I would assume they were completely negligible.

Don't make assumptions. Culture was not negligible. All the nobles (and peasants) from the various cultures looked down on other cultures they saw as inferior, uncivilised or unchristian. There are many other components to it as well. But saying that culture had a negligible impact in this time is, in my opinion, very ignorant.

Culture wasn't invented. Nor was it something earlier people couldn't understand. It has been present since the earliest days in history, and it will be a very large part of our society until we die out.

 

[Bloodmerchant]

Vassal culture change to liege's culture should require 500 Prestige and cost the same as well.

For the record, there was Welsh resistance to English rule, the English had to first build Offa's Dyke (during the Saxon period) as well as castles (during the Norman period) because Welsh warfare is ill-suited for besieging castles..

 

[unmerged(169164)]

A strange point kept repeated: speaking a language is being of a specific culture.

Even with adopting the hypothesis that nobles were multilingual, so what? Speaking another language does not mean having this or that culture.

but culture just isn't a very important aspect of the game. This is making a mountain of a molehill. A -2.5% to interpersonal relationships is not a big deal.

More interesting, I guess.

So if my character educates one of his younger sons with a foreign educator, the son inheriting the culture of the educator, later, one fief of that foreign culture is conquered by my character, the fief given to that son of same culture, it has no bearing on the revolts risks, on the rate the fief is back to normal etc?

If it is the case, it removes interest from preparing well.
I'd have thought that ruler being of the same culture as the people would have given some kind of bonuses or at least diminish penalties.

 

[unmerged(71030)]

Really interesting discussion, if sometimes needlessly heated.

If this is the case, why did the Norman conquest of England result in an almost universal disenfranchisement of Anglo-Saxon nobles? If culture didn't matter, then this would not have occurred.

Simple political concerns. I don't think culture was as relevant as who sided with whom. If you sided against the Normans, expect your holdings to be confiscated and if you didn't, expect to be rewarded. Honestly, the Norman conquest wasn't turned into a 'nationalistic' struggle until the modern day, when the British were keen to construct grandiose histories for the resilience of their language and ways.

It's what made that BBC program about the history of English so unwatchable for me, the unrelenting, overblown patriotism.

If culture mattered so little, why was there such a strong opposition by the Scots and the Irish to their English invaders/rulers? How would the French have reacted if a Irish or Balkan noble attempted to claim the throne?

No different than if an Occitan or Italian tried to seize it, I would think.

Do you have sources for those claims?

Do you have sources that support your claims of culture playing no part in the era?

No, which is why I asked for some. I didn't request sources because I'm a jackass, I requested them because - I dunno - I actually am keen to read about the topic. Crazy, I know. I'm fairly sure that got across in the rest of that post, which you didn't quote, but I will: "Do you have sources for those claims? I'm interested in this topic, and I'd love to get a look at some modern historical scholarship about this."

Don't make assumptions.

The vast majority of your post is as assumptive as mine. You use words like "obviously" and "in my opinion" with little regard for how subjective your assessments are. I don't have a problem with that, I'm interested in your input. Don't try to claim detached objectivity for your thoughts though, it needlessly turns an exchange of informed opinions into a conflict, and makes you sound obstinate, which I'm sure you're not.

You claim multilingualism was the norm but what makes you think so?

"Approximately half of the people in the world are native speakers of more than one language. This means that as children they had regular and and continued exposure to more than one language." - Fromkin, An Introduction to Language (7ed), p374.

This is a linguistic universal, and the percentage would be much higher if the modern West were excluded. We had it in the West as well, though for the most part we lost it during the era of nationalism, when we decided to organise into nation-states. Multilingualism was the norm in the Middle Ages, much as it is still the norm outside the West.

Well since this is about science i think you should accept the task of proving your assumption instead of claiming it is true until others disprove it.

No, since I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I wrote what I believed, and wanted to read other people's opinions, and if possible hold a bit of an informed debate in the hopes of understanding where others were coming from. This thread has been filled with interesting opinions, some more so than others, but no cogent, well-referenced argument that I found particularly compelling.

I still find the culture system pretty flawed, the idea of a unified "polish" culture in 1066 is pretty farfetched in my opinion. But I have the feeling that its going to be up to the mods to address culture issues, it will probably work fine enough for the purpose of a game so Paradox will leave it be.

All in all, I agree. Alas, I don't think I'll be able to remove cultures from the game entirely, as I'm fairly sure far too many events depend on them, and I don't feel like rewriting the entire game. It's a needless annoyance, though, which imho detracts from the game.

 

[david3k]

In CKI there where "Melting Pot" events (Saxon into English, Gaelic into Scots etc) does anyone know if CKII has anything similar?

To give you the answer:

# Province culture changes
character_event = {
	id = 55000
	desc = "EVTDESC55000"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room #Placeholder
	
	only_rulers = yes
	
	trigger = {
		any_demesne_province = {
			NOT = { culture = ROOT }
			any_neighbor_province = {
				culture = ROOT
				owner = { culture = ROOT }
			}
		}
	}
	
	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 1200

		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { stewardship = 2 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { stewardship = 3 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { stewardship = 4 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { stewardship = 5 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			stewardship = 10
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			stewardship = 11
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			stewardship = 12
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			stewardship = 13
		}
	}

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55000"
		random_demesne_province = {
			limit = { 
				NOT = { culture = ROOT }
				any_neighbor_province = {
					culture = ROOT
					owner = { culture = ROOT }
				}
			}
			culture = ROOT
		}
	}
}

Notice how this means that if, say, a German gets to rule over some Italian Counties, it is impossible to "convert" those provinces to German unless there is some County which already IS German directly connected to those Italian holdings. This way we won't have German Sicily or Frankish Poland.

EDIT: Oh sorry, I didn't see you were referring to the melting pot...

As far as I see there is only saxon/norman into english:

# The English Melting Pot
character_event = {
	id = 55002
	desc = "EVTDESC55002"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room
	
	trigger = {
		year = 1100
		culture = norman
		any_demesne_province = {
			kingdom = {
				title = k_england
			}
			culture = saxon
		}
	}
	
	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 1200
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			learning = 7
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			learning = 9
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			learning = 11
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 0.75
			learning = 13
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { learning = 5 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 1.5
			NOT = { learning = 3 }
		}
		modifier = {
			factor = 2.0
			NOT = { learning = 1 }
		}
	}

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55002"
		culture = english
		random_demesne_province = {
			limit = {
				kingdom = {
					title = k_england
				}
				culture = saxon
			}
			culture = english
		}
	}
}

# It's spreading
character_event = {
	id = 55003
	desc = "EVTDESC55003"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room
	
	trigger = {
		year = 1100
		culture = english
		any_demesne_province = {
			kingdom = {
				title = k_england
			}
			OR = {
				culture = saxon
				culture = norman
			}
		}
	}
	
	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 720
	}

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55003"
		random_demesne_province = {
			limit = {
				kingdom = {
					title = k_england
				}
				OR = {	
					culture = saxon
					culture = norman
				}
			}
			culture = english
		}
	}
}

#Make my court speak English
character_event = {
	id = 55004
	desc = "EVTDESC55004"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room

	trigger = {
		year = 1100
		culture = english
		top_liege = {
			primary_title = {
				title = k_england
			}
		}
		any_courtier = {
			OR = {
				culture = saxon
				culture = norman
			}
		}
	}
	
	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 120
	}

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55004"
		random_courtier = {
			limit = {
				OR = {	
					culture = saxon
					culture = norman
				}
			}
			culture = english
			hidden_tooltip = {
				character_event = { id = 55006 days = 3 }
			}
		}
	}
}

#Make my vassal speak English
character_event = {
	id = 55005
	desc = "EVTDESC55005"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room

	trigger = {
		year = 1100
		culture = english
		top_liege = {
			primary_title = {
				title = k_england
			}
		}
		any_vassal = {
			OR = {
				culture = saxon
				culture = norman
			}
		}
	}
	
	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 720
	}

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55005"
		random_vassal = {
			limit = {
				OR = {	
					culture = saxon
					culture = norman
				}
			}
			culture = english
			hidden_tooltip = {
				character_event = { id = 55006 days = 3 }
			}
		}
	}
}

character_event = {
	id = 55006
	desc = "EVTDESC55006"
	picture = GFX_evt_throne_room

	is_triggered_only = yes

	option = {
		name = "EVTOPTA55006"
		culture = english
	}
}

 

[Hroppa]

Alas, I don't think I'll be able to remove cultures from the game entirely, as I'm fairly sure far too many events depend on them, and I don't feel like rewriting the entire game. It's a needless annoyance, though, which imho detracts from the game.

You can't remove cultures, but you can adjust the relations modifier. Search 'culture' in common/opinion_modifiers.txt

 

[Sinner14]

Culture doesn't matter????

OK, learn history... from the time of the Pharaohs to last nights news.

Frankly, I drone out the current PC babble anyhow but don't dare try to rewrite history, which this game should at least somewhat model, in your utopian fog of Vikings and Venetians holding hands singing Kumbaya while admiring each other as total equals. Or whomever. The only people in the world who don't stand up for their culture come hell or high water are leftist westerners, trust me when I say you have a viewpoint that 99% of the world doesn't share. Everyone else thinks it's a big deal. No matter what your woman's studies professor with a degree in marxism says. Just keep your politically correct paws off my historical simulators before you all ruin them too.

PS: just read the post of the folks complaining that race is related to culture in the game, so says he, that Paradox is now xenophobic since when he manually changed his Irishman to Bedouin his portrait... looked Bedouin now instead of Irish. Oh, and Paradox should be sure the Polish prince with an Ethiopian wife should have their kid's portrait show up as half-black.... Paradox you don't want to go down this path, you can never please these folks. Can my king marry another man and pass the title of England to their adopted Samurai chancellor (he has nice calligraphy after all and his flower arrangement is fabulous!). I'm sure my Saxon nobles and peasants won't mind... By the way what's the succession law for that. Or are you anti gay now too.

 

[Bloodmerchant]

I'm starting to believe that this is a liberal troll thread.