What's this?!

[Kuruharan]

They had a common enemy. Whereas in European history a common enemy could be taken advantage of in order to leverage a particular feudal lord's personal gain relative to his king, Sauron could not be so leveraged, for obvious reasons.

Hmmm...potentially profound point here.

However, at the time when Gondor was at its peak, Sauron was nowhere to be found. After his fall at the end of the Second Age, Gondor didn't really have an arch-rival for a long, long time. I'm not sure how influential the potential presence of a common enemy could be.

The Lords of Gondor may swear fealty to the King (or Steward) and bring in their armies when it's called, but that doesn't mean its feudalism. To truly be feudalism the princedoms would have to have sovereignty (to an extent).

I'm almost certain that I saw somewhere that the Princes of Dol Amroth were virtually sovereign. Of course, I can't find it right now so maybe I dreamed it up...

I think Boromir88 has a good definition of what I was wondering about, however, there is one thing that I would add which I believe is the most important factor (at least from my perspective). Who is it that actually controls the military? Do the soldiers from areas away from Minas Tirith swear their loyalty to their local lord or do they swear to the King/Steward? (The issue of mercenaries could complicate things immensely, so I'll ignore it and focus on native troops). Pippin swore to the Steward, but he was essentially swearing from Minas Tirith and I assume that soldiers from the City and its attached lands (Ithilien and Anorien the "royal" fiefs) would swear likewise.

Potential parallel between England and Gondor: I also seem to remember reading somewhere that the Duneadan were a small class of rulers in Gondor over a much larger population of other peoples. This is similar to early Medieval England and the Normans and Saxons. However, I'm inclined to discount the importance of this in keeping the ruling class together. First of all, there is no indication of any tension of this nature (at least internally, the Kin-Strife was similar but external). Second, the Saxon population of England were no barrier at all to the Norman lords avidly thumping each other (see The Anarchy).

[littlemanpoet]

The normal practice was to guarantee so many knights per fighting season to one's feudal lord. If a vassal had twenty knights and had guaranteed (or whatever the correct word is) 10 knights to the lord, that left him 10 knights for other purposes. This seems to be reflected in the part of LotR where the various vassal lords are sending such small pittances of soldiery to Minas Tirith to help.

Gondor always had Harad to contend with. But it seems that there was more nationalistic (if I may use such a word in the context of Middle Earth) fervor in Third Age Midde Earth compared to medieval Europe. Gondorians, given a chance to leverage against the Steward by means of Harad or the Easterlings, one gets the sense from the way Tolkien has presented things, that Gondorians tended not to attempt such things.

Kin-strife, however, was more a problem, eh?

[Boromir88]

This seems to be reflected in the part of LotR where the various vassal lords are sending such small pittances of soldiery to Minas Tirith to help.~lmp

Or it could just be people fled from going to Minas Tirith. There is the part in Minas Tirith when the Lords are coming in with there armies and the statement 'always too few than what was expected.' This could mean maybe what you said, or perhaps people just fled not wanting to fight. That was also I think a possibility, considering soldiers did flee before reaching the Black Gate (whom Aragorn kindly let go); and also there was a problem of soldiers fleeing from their posts during the Siege of Minas Tirith:

'Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must...'~The Siege of Gondor

Or it could just be the people expected more soldiers, when really there weren't any more.

Who is it that actually controls the military?~Kuru

Good question...it is the Lords that march in their army, and perhaps they control their own soldiers, but I think all still remained under the command of the Steward (or King). For Denethor could very well be out there leading the soldiers; he just chose not to and it was Gandalf that took over:

So it was that Gandalf took command of the last defense of the City of Gondor...~ibid

Then later Gandalf passes on this duty to Imrahil:

'You will need every man and mor,' said Gandalf. 'Make all haste. I will come when I can. But I have an errand to the Lord Denethor that will not wait. Take command in the Lord's absense!'~The Pyre of Denethor

It probably should have been Denethor:

'The first circle of the City is burning, lord,' they said. 'What are your commands? You are still the Lord and Steward. Not all will follow Mithrandir. Men are flying from the walls and leaving them unmanned.'~The Siege of Gondor

It seems like the King/Steward is the one that leads the army. When Boromir was still alive and well in Gondor he seemed to be the leader of the troops. One of his titles was the Captain-General which would kind of be like the Commander-in-Chief of the modern day. The person that led the armies into war.

Maybe it's something that depends upon the situation. A large and epic scale war such as the one's the Gondorians were facing here, it's much easier and time efficient to have one leader in charge making the decisions...and not several lords doing their own things with their armies. It's kind of like Shakespeare's Macbeth. Where there are the several nobles that have their armies and they are all brought under command of the Earl (for the life of me I can't remember the Earl's name in the story) when the armies are summoned together.

[Lalwendë]

Interesting you bring up Macbeth as the Lord High Steward/High Steward is an old Scottish title - from the first to hold the title descended the Stewart family and eventually the royal families of Scotland and the UK; the title Lord High Steward is now one held by each Prince of Wales. There was also a Lord High Steward in England and Ireland, England's being merely occasional and ceremonial as time went on and Ireland's being hereditary and still in existence. Whichever way, the Lord High Steward in any of the nations was originally a powerful figure who took on a lot of responsibility from the monarch.

So I imagine that part of Denethor's role was most definitely to muster troops, and this must have been seen as part of his responsibility to act for the absent King.

Actually, this makes me think as the assorted fiefdoms/client kingdoms (what are we calling them now?) are all descended from the Faithful of Numenor, which is similar to the Scottish clans, mostly said to be descended from a handful of mythical and semi-mythical ancestors.

[Kuruharan]

Maybe it's something that depends upon the situation. A large and epic scale war such as the one's the Gondorians were facing here, it's much easier and time efficient to have one leader in charge making the decisions...and not several lords doing their own things with their armies.

Are we supposing that the kings had greater control over the Lords?

As I said above, societies where power (in this case basically reduced to who has ultimate control over the military force) is broadly spread at the top do not generally go forth and conquer empires (at the moment I can't think of a single historical instance where such a society did so, but am open to examples).

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Are we supposing that the kings had greater control over the Lords?

As I said above, societies where power (in this case basically reduced to who has ultimate control over the military force) is broadly spread at the top do not generally go forth and conquer empires (at the moment I can't think of a single historical instance where such a society did so, but am open to examples).

I assume you mean 'feudal' by the above description? Otherwise, the 20th century is rife with examples of democracies demolishing empires. I suppose the Crusades are a different kettle of ...... 'fish' ..... than this too....

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Are we supposing that the kings had greater control over the Lords?

As I said above, societies where power (in this case basically reduced to who has ultimate control over the military force) is broadly spread at the top do not generally go forth and conquer empires (at the moment I can't think of a single historical instance where such a society did so, but am open to examples).

Following lmp's response I'm now confused. Do you mean conquering empires as in beating those empires, as lmp has interpreted or do you mean as in gaining and adding to, creating empires?

If it's the latter then the British Empire was created under democracy, albeit extremely limited democracy; either way, there was a considerable bearaucracy (I bet I've spelled that wrong again, I might stick to 'executive decision making process' in future) to be got through before wars and campaigns could happen - not just Parliament but also the Lords and the Admiralty etc. Not only that but some regiments were virtually laws unto themselves. Just to get a flavour of the machinations it's worth watching Sharpe!

[Kuruharan]

Otherwise, the 20th century is rife with examples of democracies demolishing empires.

Those democracies had centralized control over their militaries.

When I say "feudal" mean a situation where military service is promised by one entity (the vassal) to another entity (the lord) in exchange for something, conventionally in the Western useage this meant land. This added a layer of middle management to the military structure that (in many cases) was not responsive to the commands, requests, or timid pleas of the supposed lord. This problem tends to get particularly acute at the highest levels of this middle layer because those individuals are virtually sovereigns themselves (and in some cases are) and have the resources to successfully challenge their titular superior. Such individuals (historically) seemed more interested in bashing each other or trying to overthrow or break away from their supposed sovereign. This is not a recipe for successful empire building of the type Gondor engaged in.

I guess the factor I'm most interested in determining is where the ultimate loyalty of the soldiers lay. If all of them took their oaths to the King/Steward then (theoretically at least) their ultimate loyalty lay with the ruler. If not, then their ultimate loyalty probably lay with their local lord.

I hope I was able to clarify Lalwende's question as well.