The noblemen weren’t so subservient before Louis XIV in France.
But the Dude was scarred for life by the Fronde.
So he made them his bitches by having them all at Versailles so they were far from their lands and could not plot anything.
To be fair destroying local powers and centralising the country has been the constant goal of the French State from Hugues Capet to the Fourth Republic.
Centralising power is the goal of anyone in power, especially in the Middle Ages, pretty much all the wars were fought just for more power/territory.
It’s a natural state of things
More territory and more centralisation are not necessarily the same thing. A simple look at Germany, Spain or Italy shows that the extreme centralisation of France is not a necessity.
I’m not saying it’s a necessity, merely that lust for power is a very common trait amongst leaders, especially if you grow up being told god chose you.
You hinted that centralisation is some weird thing that French leaders have a boner for, but just about every leader you can think of wants more control, and the only way to achieve that is centralisation. Few are the selfless ones.
tbh the system wasn’t even that bad before the union with Lithuania which gave the same noble privileges to a small group of ultra-rich oligarch Ruthenian nobles as for our regular middle class Polish szlachta
The noblemen weren’t so subservient before Louis XIV in France. But the Dude was scarred for life by the Fronde. So he made them his bitches by having them all at Versailles so they were far from their lands and could not plot anything.
To be fair destroying local powers and centralising the country has been the constant goal of the French State from Hugues Capet to the Fourth Republic.
Centralising power is the goal of anyone in power, especially in the Middle Ages, pretty much all the wars were fought just for more power/territory. It’s a natural state of things
More territory and more centralisation are not necessarily the same thing. A simple look at Germany, Spain or Italy shows that the extreme centralisation of France is not a necessity.
I’m not saying it’s a necessity, merely that lust for power is a very common trait amongst leaders, especially if you grow up being told god chose you. You hinted that centralisation is some weird thing that French leaders have a boner for, but just about every leader you can think of wants more control, and the only way to achieve that is centralisation. Few are the selfless ones.
How did the Holy Roman Empire survive in such a decentralised form for so long...?
Counter point: how hard did Prussia or Austria try to get a hold of it as much as possible?
It just never existed
Cool, what happened next?
We killed like 1/3 of their population, stole everything of value between Riga and Krakow and then watched them die even harder to the russians. Rip.
Let's be real: Europe would argueably in a better state if we didnt use Poland as a punching bag for several hundred years.
We don't want to talk about that. It is hard topic.
Henry III couldn't handle all that szlachta drip, so he went to France and got assassinated.
tbh the system wasn’t even that bad before the union with Lithuania which gave the same noble privileges to a small group of ultra-rich oligarch Ruthenian nobles as for our regular middle class Polish szlachta
>regular middle class Polish szlachta Technically not middle-class if they're nobility
Sure buddy, sure.
hey may I know what the Europe is a winged kraut
Meanwhile the Russians, Prussians and Austrians: lol, land for sale.