What's this?!
A Kuruharan topic that doesn't revolve around Dwarves?! Is he sick?!!
Well...yes, in fact he is.
Anyway, while convalescing I was thumbing through the Tale of Years and it suddenly struck me that for an allegedly feudal kingdom, Gondor seemed miraculously free of the sort of civil strife that historically beset feudal societies (particularly in Medieval Europe). There is only one major internal conflict mentioned in Gondor's history and that had more to do with genealogy than power structure. Then there is also this business about Gondor building an empire (which is not something one normally sees feudal societies able to accomplish, as the lords typically prefer to fight each other than conquer outsiders). Of course, there is the example of Arnor that broke up into pieces.
This is all a bit confusing.
Was Gondor really a feudal system? Was its feudalism something that developed after the failure of the kings? Was it something that Aragorn would try to eradicate as king?
We wonders...
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...finding a path that cannot be found, walking a road that cannot be seen, climbing a ladder that was never placed, or reading a paragraph that has no...
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