baron_steffan for the pointer to this fascinating article on the subject of feudalism -- or more precisely, the falsity of feudalism. This eight-page discussion concisely explains how a post-medieval concept got quickly turned into a be-all-and-end-all explanation of how the middle ages worked, and how, over the past few decades, scholars have begun to recognize that it is oversimplified to the point of being more hindrance than help. (Summary: feudalism as usually understood in the SCA was more the exception than the rule; the "feudal system" as an overarching principle simply never existed. Reality just wasn't that neat.)The article is doubly interesting as an example of applied memetics, though. This is historiography, not history -- the article is mainly focused on how this idea got entrenched, and how hard it is to dislodge the notion now that it's widespread. Once people set up a mental pattern, it tends to stick, and this is a great example of how reisistant people can be to recognizing that the world doesn't conform to their preconceived notions...
Therefore, in the interest of historical accuracy, I need to communicate historically inaccurate ideas and propagate those ideas as far as possible. To be anything but historically inaccurate would be historically inaccurate.
It's a confection of rationalization, but works for me...
*...and this probably will go into Silverwing's Laws as "Lackey's Principle"....
** Go ahead; ask me why %^)....
Don't even get me STARTED on "The British are coming!" by Paul Revere. First of all, that was before the Revolution - we were ALL British. Second, what he was really communicating was that the army was on the march, and probably would have said, "The regulars [regular army] are out."
But people LOVE the old quote. *sigh*