what if Alfred the great and his successors annex their conquests in Danelaw as crownland turning england into a centralized state ?
Alfred the great Turns Danelaw into Crownland
- Thread starter octoberman
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How then it is administrated ? With appointed official who stay temporary ? With churchman ? With military veterans ?
All of them has drawback. Pool of administrative official in medieval England is not that many. If children of great families receive it, they would strengthen his family. If official had children they would try to make it hereditary. If it temporary, official would squeeze as much money from it as possible, damaging it. Churchman would try to make it belong to his office (bishoporics, etc).
All of them has drawback. Pool of administrative official in medieval England is not that many. If children of great families receive it, they would strengthen his family. If official had children they would try to make it hereditary. If it temporary, official would squeeze as much money from it as possible, damaging it. Churchman would try to make it belong to his office (bishoporics, etc).
Yeah, even if they're nominally temporary appointees, there's always the chance they'd entrench their hold on it during times of royal weakness or fecklessness.
But that's what happened????
Well not exactly as the WI implies but that's pretty much what happened later in Saxon England.
Take Edgar the Peaceable's reforms for example. He pretty much established England as one of the first absolute monarchies in Europe at the time. Through his system of Shire-reeves (the ancestors of the modern day sheriff), and his policies with land restistribution and the limitations on inheritance, the local nobility was essentially hogtied and bound to the will of the King (and church kind-of).
Now these reforms fell apart with Edgar's early death and the assassination of his son Edward the Martyr, as the nobles under Æthelræd the Unready took advantage of the King's minority and personal weakness to basically dismantle the system set up by Edgar.
churchman and military veterans with churchman administering civil matters and veterans administering military and criminal matters and they are rotated on a regular basis to prevent them from developing a base of power
Alfred's nobles would not accept so much power being taken by the king at that time. The Danelaw was not a centralised entity, but a series of Jarls, all with absolute power in their own lands.
The attitudes at the time were not around the 'nation' and the King. The king was seen as a more 'first among equals', since the witenagemot appointed the King, and a position that needed to be limited rather than a position to be elevated.
As Alfred and his successors conquered north, local saxon/angle lords were needed by the crown to do this. The reality is, the local lords have power to negotiate _during that conquest_, but know that this power goes after the Jarl is removed. They know that afterwards, the King's power expands, so the negotiations are about limiting the amount of power they allow the King to accumulate.
The attitudes at the time were not around the 'nation' and the King. The king was seen as a more 'first among equals', since the witenagemot appointed the King, and a position that needed to be limited rather than a position to be elevated.
As Alfred and his successors conquered north, local saxon/angle lords were needed by the crown to do this. The reality is, the local lords have power to negotiate _during that conquest_, but know that this power goes after the Jarl is removed. They know that afterwards, the King's power expands, so the negotiations are about limiting the amount of power they allow the King to accumulate.