This A-Z, I’m looking at aspects of medieval history that might be useful for writers. Today, I want to look at the different ways some medieval societies thought about royalty. Writers tend to portray fantasy rulers one of two ways: either as an absolute ruler whose word is law, or as a failed absolute ruler whose word is still law but who is controlled by his or her advisors.
Yet absolute rulership wasn’t really the case for much of the Middle Ages. Kings were bound by convention and precedent, and had to take oaths to abide by pre-existing laws. Most routinely renewed the charters of their ancestors. They were frequently great landholders, but they did not own all land in some neat “feudal” pyramid. Nor were they seen as divinely chosen in the early part of the period. Abbot Suger of St Denis is credited for introducing that notion to France, but it was far from universal.
The fact is that practically nothing was. There were Kings and there were Emperors. There were principalities and city states. There were areas where the nominal authority of kings was ignored by their barons (as in much of France or as with the lords who owned Yorkshire during the Anarchy), and kingdoms where there were regents or councils of regents. Even our most accepted ideas about royalty, with automatic succession by the eldest son/child, weren’t the case in England before the Norman invasion. Prior to that, a successor was chosen by key barons from a group of “Aethlings” qualified by blood. So be prepared to do what you want with your royalty. You can bet that the medieval period did.