Chapter 61: Is A Threat Achieved

''Prior to the Dragon Era, the Kingdom of the Franks was highly decentralized, with effectively independent great lords ruling over their demesnes. The King of the Franks was essentially only one lord among many, a set of circumstances that had developed since the death of Charles the Fat in 888 AD and the ending of the Carolingian Empire. ''

''The causes of this decentralization from the previously strong centralized empires of Charlemagne and Charles the Fat were numerous, including the effects of Viking raiders (some of whom settled on the north coast of France in what is now Normandy), a general grab for power and land by the noble and ecclesiastical classes, and a corresponding loss of power by the peasantry and royalty. In particular, the feuding between the great nobles and their knights had a chilling effect upon the Frankish kingdom…''

''During the centuries prior to the Dragon Era, trade within the kingdom essentially ceased. Illiteracy was the general rule not only for the peasantry, but for many of the nobility as well. While towns did exist, they were pale remnants of the Gallo-Roman economic network, typically surviving as the seats of ecclesiastical bishops or secular nobility, or as local market centers…''

''The knights, in particular, were problematic in their effects. While certainly of military importance in providing defense against Vikings and other knights, they had become a hereditary caste since the era of the Carolingians. In competition with each other, they had a strong incentive to make war as a way of proving their valor and skill in order to be most attractive as potential vassals to the greater nobles, meaning that they viewed conflict as a first solution to any problem. The conventions of the noble habitus only did so much to stem this tendency towards violence as a means of problem solving, and Frankish knights tended to view anyone that wasn't a noble or knight as an impediment that could be slain out of hand, on the battlefield or off, and often enjoyed petty destruction for its own sake. The situation became such that the Peace and Truce of God was first implemented in the late 900s AD to try to put religious strictures against who and what the knights could simply kill and destroy.''

—A History of Old Francia, 1432, Oxford Press

Foreshadowing
Put spoilers here

Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph mentions the problematic effects the knight and nobles classes have on the Frankish Kingdom in their grabs for power. The chapter shows the following:
 * John, a Norman Shipmaster and Merchant, complaining about the lords.
 * Henry the Sinister lying to Hiccup about his role and Dogsbreath's and Inga's role in the death of the Duchy of Brittany nobles.

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