Post by Katie on Jul 3, 2020 21:25:53 GMT -5
Family and Growing Up in a Medieval World
"Lineage and upbringing is of utmost importance in life. In death, lineage and upbringing remains a matter of the utmost importance. Perhaps even more so. Never forget where you come from...or else you will forget where you are going. Blood is far thicker than water, and even moreso when you are one of us." -- Count Conrad Von Aulpfholm, Clan Ventrue
Family is arguably the most important social unit in the dark medieval world, transcending notions of mere career choice, religious orientation and social class more often than not. Contrary to popular belief in the twentieth century, childhood was not completely miserable in the twelfth century. Mortality rates among infants and toddlers is quite high in the dark medieval era, and young children have routine guardians other than their biological mothers and fathers, but this does not mean that parents were indifferent about their offspring and ignored them. Parents, even in the most dire of times, still suffer from grief and sorrow over the death of a child, often leaving drafted instructions to the remaining children (in the event of their own demise) on proper comportment, education and well-being. Though Cainites are clearly somewhat immune to the vagaries of natural diseases, their mortal families and servants, as well as their ghouls, are not nearly so lucky. Certainly their staple diet is at least a bit better than most mortals of the era if their immortal overseer aids them in such matters.
Childrearing is not as gentle as it will be in the twentieth century, but given the usual difficulties of the era, this does not seem so unreasonable. Peasant children begin working at a young age; performing small, light chores, such as watching over the babies or gathering fruit and nuts nearby. Over time and as they grow, they gradually progress to increasingly adult tasks. There is some time for games and play, but the family depends upon the children’s added labor. The lack of reliable birth control of course allowed for surprisingly large families, but the truth is that children provided a good labor force, even if they were extra mouths to feed. The typical peasant family will have between six and ten children that survive to adulthood, perhaps out of a third again as many children birthed. In their early teenage years, peasant children are either brought to work to learn the family trade by one or both of their parents, or, in some instances, begin to serve as an apprentice to another tradesman or craftsman. Other teenagers enlist in the local militia or city watch, learning the fundamental basics of swordplay and strategy for a potential career as mercenaries or professional soldiers.
Most noble families have five or six children on average who survive to adulthood, maybe losing only one or two over the years. These children have much more opportunity for fun and games than peasant children, at least until they are seven or eight years of age. They will have simple toys and are often taught basic lessons about honesty, charity and honorable behavior. Their fates are usually decided by the time they are five years old (or even in the cradle), the eldest and healthiest of sons and daughters becoming betrothed and prepared for life as privileged lords and ladies, while the others that remain are slated for service in the Church. Rarely did the children of nobles live at home with their parents and servants after their eighth birthdays; instead, they were sent to the house of another allied lord or lady for tutelage in proper arms and warcraft or training in the administration and book-keeping of a medieval manor. This practice, known as fosterage, served a number of practical purposes from cementing alliances with fellow nobles to ferreting out marriage prospects among those who were not yet betrothed.
Marriages tend to take place either because they were organized in advance (betrothals), because of unexpected pregnancies, and because of the rarest of reasons; because two people who genuinely love each other dearly meet and marry (a privilege of being a peasant). Peasant women generally are married off between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, generally to men of the same age or slightly older. Noblewomen generally marry a bit older, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one or so, to husbands who are in their thirties, forties or even fifties, guaranteeing at least a dozen years of potential childbearing (and hopefully even more than that). It’s often difficult for women older than these age groups to find suitable husbands. The trouble with lonely, younger wives and older, busy husbands among the nobility is the influence of the local knightly bachelor. He may be in the service of the lord of the manor and privately seek to assuage the lady’s loneliness. Many of the laws of courtly love and chivalry come into play because of this natural attraction between such lively young folks. Such complications are far less common among the peasantry, ironically.
Life in the Medieval Countryside
"Without the wretches breaking their backs in the fields, our society would quickly spiral into anarchic madness. As inconsequential as a peasant's simplistic life may be compared to our own superior existence, at least they serve a noble purpose of sorts; a divine mandate to serve and follow those who are born better." -- Sister Liseta Illuminada, Clan Lasombra
In the medieval era, the vast majority of the mortal populace of a given kingdom dwells not in the cities, but in the vast, open countryside that surrounds them. The village is the primary mode of communal organization and is devoted almost exclusively to regimented agricultural production—open-field faming, the lifeblood of the peasant economy since the early Iron Age. Villages sprout up anywhere with enough arable land to make a good go at farming, meadowland for the pasturage of livestock, forest for foraging, and water to power a mill, irrigate fields, and to drink. This is not to say that villages are the same everywhere one travels—quite the contrary. There are fairly consistent similarities, however, and the typical Eastern European village centers around either a small church or local manorhouse, with the dwellings of the inhabitants occupying the center of the village and the cultivated fields, pasturage meadows, marshes and forests surrounding it for some distance.
The one thing the vast bulk of villages and their inhabitants tend to have in common is their place in the greater body of feudal society. The feudal system of governance essentially unites the highest levels of European society (i.e., the nobility) in a series of codependent relationships. A lord grants land to a vassal in return for military and other services; lord and vassal swear reciprocal oaths of protection and loyalty; the vassal receives his fiefdom to hold in trust for his lord and to draw revenue from for his own support and benefit. The same holds true at the level of the fiefdom itself. Most fiefdoms are divided up into land-management units known as ‘manors’, with villages considered to be part of the ‘manor’ and the residents of the villages in question being the individuals most directly responsible for cultivating and exploiting the land for their own benefit and that of their liege-lord.
Every village has a lord, either secular or ecclesiastical, but only rarely is a given lord an actual resident of the manor from which he draws his livelihood. Resident lords are usually petty knights who hold only the one manor or middling lords who hold several smaller manors and travel among them routinely throughout the course of the year. Greater lords (earls, counts, abbots, and bishops for instance) can hold scores of manors which they never personally see, administering them solely through a vast network of loyal proxies. Greater or lesser, the lord of the demesne occupies several essential economic roles. He is the estate manager, as only the lord has the legal power to license village markets and seasonal fairs, thus giving the resident villagers a place both to sell their own goods and/or agricultural surplus (without needing to trek to the nearest city), and to purchase goods they cannot produce themselves from other hard-working local villagers, thusly supporting the village economy. He is the chief consumer of the manor’s surplus (if any) and the landlord to whom the resident villagers owe their work service (a set number of days per week that the villagers work the lord’s fields rather than their own personal tracts), harvest service or rental payment in the form of either money or goods. Finally, he wields absolute judicial authority through the administration of the manorial court, the primary means of addressing most low-level civil and criminal cases, and from which he derives another source of income in the form of fines, fees, and confiscations of goods and properties.
Most resident landlords oversee the management of their own fiefdoms with the services of a steward or seneschal and a support staff of lesser assistants. These servants aid in the keeping of the manorial accounts, manor population census, and the collection of the various rents, fines, fees and duties a tenant is required to pay, along with the yearly collections of the royal taxes. Numerous instructional treatises written by successful landlords exist for the benefit of others in their class to refer to for advice and instruction on everything from dealing with tenants whose rents are perpetually in arrears to the standards that should be adhered to when selecting worthwhile assistants.
Most absentee landlords supervise their manors through various appointed officials. These officials—generally a seneschal or steward, the bailiff, and the reeve—are not only his material presence in any given manor, they are also the key executives of the entire manorial system of feudal governance.
The estate seneschal (also known as the magistrate or steward) is the lord’s chief deputy, the manager for the entire complex of lands and human resources that make up an entire manor. The seneschal’s primary duty is to safeguard and increase the lord’s properties and to defend his rights and franchises, generally through periodic visitation of his lord’s manor’s fiefdoms, the supervision of their activities, the auditing of their accounts and representation of his lord’s interests in court both on and off the estate. Secular lords generally employ capable and decorated knights as their seneschals; ecclesiastical lords tend to call upon other pious and ambitious clerics of fine reputation whom they favor. Knight-seneschals are generally compensated for this service through land grants of their own, while cleric-seneschals are generally remunerated with the proceeds derived from the power granted to them through a parish church. More than any other position in the lower-end of the feudal community of the countryside, the position of seneschal is always granted to a noble-borne, which is seen as an intrinsic requirement for earning the prestigious and influential position.
The shire bailiff (or sheriff) combines two major responsibilities in the manor—chief law enforcement officer and manorial business manager. The bailiff, more than even the seneschal who stands above him, acts as the villages’ link to its lord, as he represents the needs of the lord to the villagers and vice versa. He also acts as the physical protector of the villages under his jurisdiction, warding it from violence and theft committed by outsiders as well as crimes committed by resident villagers. Most importantly, however, he directly oversees the day-to-day management of the manor proper, making certain that crops and livestock are properly looked after, not too much is stolen or damaged, and that the villages have everything they need in terms of general supplies purchased from outside the manor. Bailiffs tend to be lesser nobles themselves, like their seneschal overlords, but occasionally they are commoners from the local lands who have distinguished themselves completely from the rest of the low-borne rabble and proven they are worthy of such a prestigious seat of authority. Many medieval treatises on land management enjoin lords from selecting family and friends to occupy the position of bailiff despite the temptation, advising that the post be filled solely on the basis of personal merit and good character. The bailiff enjoys one of the finest medieval compensation packages of any manorial official. He is generally entitled to dwell within the local manorhouse with his family, draw a cash salary plus perquisites such as clothing and oblation, and has access to a fairly substantial yearly manorial expense account. Bailiff’s often have a retinue of armed deputies who act as a policing force for the villages under their jurisdiction, the number and quality of such deputies varying from village to village.
Serving under the bailiff is a full staff of subordinate officials, generally elected by the villagers themselves in a public election held every four years, with the most prominent such office being that of the reeve. Each and every village under the yolk of feudalism has a reeve, or in the case of impressively large villages, a council of several reeves. The reeve is always a villager and, usually, the most prosperous individual in a given village: the best husbandman or the free owner of the largest amount of the village’s own land. As such, all reeves are invariably mere peasants, but from a nobler perspective, they are the crème de la crème of the peasantry—for whatever that might be worth. His main duty is the direct oversight of his fellow villagers’ work obligations, making certain that those who owe labor service either attend to it promptly or provide an adequate substitute, supervising the plowing of the fields and the penning and folding of the livestock, and other such tasks. In some villages, the reeve also oversees the sale of agricultural produce and the collection of local rents. In most, the reeve is the person responsible for maintaining and reporting the village’s annual account of works performed by the tenant villagers. This record includes the amounts of rents collected or in arrears, the receipts of sales, the outlay for manorial expenses and deliveries of produce, payments remitted to individuals for services rendered to the demesne and the “issue of the grange” (the total yearly accounting of the grain harvest yield and the produce of livestock). For his services, the reeve receives no monetary compensation but is instead exempted from the normal villager labor obligations and generally receives at least some of his meals at the manorhouse table, along with concessions such as extended grazing rights for his livestock or even oblation money at major Christian holidays. The other benefit is a rare occurrence, but a chance many reeves pray for; the opportunity for their commoner-borne daughters to be potentially wed to a lesser noble; such as widowed bailiff, the attendant to a seneschal, or even a petty knight.
The vast majority of most of the villagers themselves are, technically, free men—and, in the dark medieval era, that distinction is extremely technical. Being a peasant is not the same as being a slave, though it no doubt feels much like slavery at times to the peasantry in question. Tenant villagers usually own their own land, however small and insignificant, but in return for their right to hold it and use it, they owe their lords substantial labor services, are subject to the justice, fines, taxes and fees of the manorial courts (having no access to the royal courts of law that govern the nobility) and generally also owe rent in cash, goods, or a combination of both to the local lord. Nonetheless, peasants can and do prosper despite their bleak station in medieval life, and some fortunate individuals even become quite wealthy in terms of both money and land ownership—though even the most successful peasant families are never quite as wealthy or comfortable as their noble-borne betters.
As for the Cainites of the countryside, they tend to look for havens in areas where they were born and raised as mere mortals. People rarely venture beyond the safety of familiar villages and territories in the dark medieval era, and it takes extraordinary courage to hare off into the great unknown. Vampires encounter a myriad of special difficulties in doing so compared to their living counterparts, and unless urgent circumstances dictate otherwise, most will prefer to stay in familiar territory.
Some vampires are lucky or savvy enough to keep their mortal homes after their Embrace, but the presence of family and servants can make existence tremendously difficult, as mortals, unlike their vampiric counterparts, grow inexorably older and eventually perish. Cainites, the passionate creatures that they are, tend to find it taxing to endure these losses of companions who were so close to them. Likewise, neighbors may wonder at the changes in a newly Embraced vampire’s behavior. Certain necessities do need to be seen to, such as taxes and rent. Failure to pay can result in a lax Cainite being roused in the middle of the day to be served an eviction notice by the bailiff’s deputies. Routine domestic repairs will certainly need to be addressed from time to time (such as the seasonal re-thatching of the cottage roof), and very few village tradesmen would undertake such work after nightfall, even for a handsome sum. The recent development of glass for homes served as a great blow to Cainites seeking seclusion and shelter from the sun’s hateful rays. While it makes little difference in a peasant cottage, estates owned by the wealthy are expected to have at least one glass window. Despite the murky quality of most glass in the dark medieval period, it is still enough to let a significant amount of sunlight into a building or room, and any amount is far too much. As any vampire can attest, glass is much less effective at blocking the lethal rays of the sun than a sturdy wood or solid stone wall.
Those who inherited or owned castles or manorhouses in their mortal lives may find that while they sleep more comfortably, the castle nonetheless carries its own difficulties and responsibilities. Castle-dwelling Cainites must also find some way to manage the lands and the peasants who farm them, if not directly, then vicariously. Riding out at dusk will allay suspicions for a time (after all, who ever gets to see the lord and lady but on rare occasions?), but after a while, some might wonder why the lord is never seen during the day, or about his strange pallor. A vampire who is fortunate enough to take over a castle or manorhouse should be ready to administer the lands; ambitious neighbors or soldierly errants with sights set on nobility may try and take it away and “do right by it.”
Shelters may be acquired through several means, mostly by repossessing them from previous inhabitants. Cottages are best acquired this way, since there are fewer people to deal with; however, the people within may be well-known and liked in the local area as well. Their sudden disappearance could very well arouse suspicions. Other buildings that can serve as shelter include windmills, gatehouses, stables, barns, outbuildings of manorhouses, and pilgrim’s huts along the roadsides.
Feeding in the countryside does not appear to be a problem at first, with all the myriad of little towns and villages dotting the landscape. However, this is not the case in wilderness like those in remote Bohemia, where a vampire might wander for nights without seeing another soul, living or otherwise. Vampires who prefer this sort of setting must learn to hunt and subsist on animals or starve while waiting for a passing traveler that may never come. There are also other creatures who prowl the countryside in search of human flesh and blood; Red-caps and other Unseelie fae, Black Spiral Dancers, mysterious supernatural entities, and the occasional unbalanced humans may prove to be fierce competition for scarce sustenance.
Hunting animals may fare a Cainite little better, in technicality. Wherever a vampire may roam, she is surely trespassing on someone’s land, most often that of a noble. Being caught hunting on a noble’s lands often results in charges of poaching, which can have penalties ranging from hefty fines to death penalties, depending on the governing style and general temperament of the noble in question. Sometimes, Cainites manage to divert such charges to the unfortunate peasantry, who are certainly hungry and desperate enough to be capable of such unlawful and immoral acts.
The fae also keep particular care over stretches of land that they consider to be theirs, and they will exact their own vengeance against offenders and trespassers—their punishments are also known to be exceedingly ‘creative’. Of course, there are always the Lupines, who linger in or around many scattered villages and settlements across Eastern Europe. Occasionally a vampire and Lupine will discover the other’s unwelcome existence while running down the same deer. The Lupines are notoriously poor at sharing with their Cainite neighbors, and if they even suspect one may be dwelling in their territories and possibly feeding on their livestock or kinfolk, they will not rest until the offender is brought to the ground and ripped to bloody shreds. If reaching that goal means trampling and destroying other Cainites along the way, the Lupines view this as all the better.
Some Cainites learn to drink exclusively from animals, going so far as to keep them only for their weak blood. The presence of animals can make a haven appear more normal, but this practice causes most vampires to scoff at the livestock-eater, resulting in a mocking social classification among the undead for these malnourished individuals; they are known derogatorily as ‘farmers’.
Famines, droughts and pestilence are very hard on the peasantry and animals, and thus on the countryside as a whole. Men are driven to desperate acts, and to find scapegoats for their misfortunes. If the game animals perish, the local predators will have nothing adequate to eat and start competing with vampires and Lupines for what little edible game remains. If the local herbivores die from lack of available food, the hungry predators begin to turn on one another (and even humans) for sustenance. During the worst famines and droughts, those vampires who do not migrate to the city or other distant locales risk falling into torpor from starvation or resorting to the diablerie of other Cainites to sustain themselves. Others will be rooted out and destroyed by Lupines and other predatory supernatural creatures to simply eliminate competition for prey.
Life in the Medieval Cityscape
"Ha! You demand order, expect hierarchy? Yes, yes. It's there, m'lord. In the cracks, m'lord. Between the bricks, the shadows, the crying and the blood. So much blood. But could you gaze upon it without tearing out your own eyes, m'lord? Me thinks not, m'lord. Tell me, tell me...do you want to see it? Or shall I silence myself once again?" -- Gergo the Idiot, Clan Malkavian
For centuries after the collapse of the once-formidable Roman Empire, there was nothing that resembled a city to be found in most of Europe. The Roman model of the city as a central hub of cultural, legal, economic and religious activities for any given region was largely abandoned. The ever-present risk of military invasion and the utter collapse of commerce in the face of widespread, catastrophic agricultural failures made the support structure of such a grand social institution virtually impossible. Eventually, towns and cities began to re-emerge from the ashes of the Empire, only now they orbited a somewhat different nucleus. Whereas the Romans tended to build cities around legionary military encampments, the people of the dark medieval era tend to construct them around churches.
By legal definition in all Christian kingdoms, a ‘city’ is the seat of a bishop or arch-bishop and comprises a cathedral and its dependent population of farmers, craftsmen and merchants. An urban center without an ecclesiastical authority at its center is merely a ‘town’. The dark medieval era is currently witnessing a nearly unprecedented explosion in the size and importance of both sorts of urban centers. The tenth and eleventh centuries saw vast improvements in agricultural technology, the end result of which was a dramatic surge in both available food supply and general population. The early twelfth century saw a sudden jump in commerce—the excess supplies and food stuffs needed an outlet, the ancient art of mining (for silver, iron, bronze and tin) was rediscovered and widely disseminated throughout Christendom, woolen cloth and steel weapons manufactured in northern Europe found an outlet in the Mediterranean, and everyone in northern Europe wanted access to the exotic, luxury goods that the Mediterranean nations could bring to market. This same upward trend will continue well into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to come.
At the core of the new movement of urban expansion lies the concept of the commune, an idea imported from the almost fantastically wealthy and powerful Italian city-states of Venice, Milan, Genoa, the Papal States, Florence and Bologna. The commune is a sworn association of all the businessmen in a given town, who are almost all invariably of commoner stock. In Bohemia, where the nobility has re-inherited the old Roman habit of dwelling in towns, many nobles went into business and helped found and refine the nature of the commune. Nonetheless, nobles and clergy in Bohemian cities like Prague and Brunn are specifically excluded from membership in commune councils. The upshot of this was an alliance of all the local merchants—cloth merchants, silver and gold smiths, produce sellers, wine vintners, armorers and other skilled craftsmen—who closed ranks to assert and defend their rights against their feudal and ecclesiastical overlords. The simple act of settling in a town or city, rather than in the manor-bound countryside, essentially provided a complete escape from the typical feudal duties normally imposed upon the average medieval peasant.
Naturally, this development was not greeted with cheers of glee from all quarters. The commune movement is particularly opposed by ecclesiastical authorities, who correctly assessed the danger the steadily growing cities pose to the sessile social order from which the Church directly benefits. Commune-cities are regularly accused by the Church of promoting heresy, declaring warfare on the clergy, encouraging skepticism and sundry other offenses against the Church, such as refusing to pay feudal labor obligations to ecclesiastical overlords. Secular lords tend to take a much more pragmatic view of the situation, reckoning the commune movement as beneficial to the successful development of towns and, thusly, to the enhancement of their own revenues and holdings. Taxes, tithes and fees paid by busy, prosperous merchants are just as good as the same paid by poor villagers and much more likely to come in the form of cold, hard coin or valuable and useful goods.
Some towns, cities and even successful rural villages have purchased their collective freedoms from the old feudal order. Precisely which freedoms are carefully codified in the form of the town’s charter—a legally-binding feudal arrangement struck between the people of the settlement and their overlord, promising the peasantry certain inalienable freedoms in exchange for monies or service of a more ‘reasonable’ nature. Understandably, this precious document is jealously guarded against all attempts to water it down, take it back or otherwise curtail any of the liberties it granted (as the free peasants most certainly paid a steep price for such freedoms). City and town-dwelling commoners have ceased to be known as peasants, serfs or villagers, shunning such servile titles and in favor of becoming known, for the most part, as burghers.
Almost every burgher is also, simultaneously, either a craftsmen or a merchant of some brand or another. Their homes usually double not only as the dwelling place for their entire family (and any servants they may have in their employ), but also as a workshop and the showroom for their wares. Related crafts tend to congregate on specific city streets or neighborhoods, which thereafter usually carry the name of the trade primarily being conducted upon them. The use of surnames, very uncommon among the peasantry in the countryside and generally related to craft affiliation, is also on the rise among burghers in order to facilitate accurate taxation in areas with much denser populations than the manorial estates outside the walls of the cities and towns.
Guilds are prominent and prevalent in most major towns and almost all cities, and a good number of a city’s successful burghers usually belong to one, particularly if they are engaged in an important trade. Guilds regulate both external, commercial affairs and internal affairs between members. Internal guild issues generally revolve around the codification of fair wages, the durations and conditions of proper apprenticeships, the general welfare of the guild members and their families, and the obligations and dues each member owes to the guild as a whole. Every guild stringently regulates commercial interaction with the buying public since, as the major restriction of competition, the guild is also obliged to maintain and guarantee standards of quality in its merchandise. Guild legislation on this matter is exhaustive and painstakingly detailed, specifying precise types and quality of raw materials that may be used in the construction of any given product, the amount of supervision that must occur during the manufacturing process itself and how the resultant goods may be displayed for sale. Guild inspections are random and no mere formality; scales are checked, goods minutely inspected for flaws or other signs of substandard quality, and any offending items immediately confiscated either for destruction or for distribution to the poor on alms-days. Members found to be in contravention of guild regulations are fined up to the true market value of any substandard goods. Repeated offenses can result in ‘bad business’ fines, public censure, forcible closure of the business, and official and permanent expulsion from the guild’s ranks.
The biggest businesses for most prosperous burghers are the cloth trade (generally wool, the most widely traded textile in the thirteenth century, but occasionally branching into linen, cotton and silk), and banking. The cloth trade is a multifaceted enterprise that, after agriculture, is one of the major driving forces of the thirteenth-century economy, and also one of the most generally volatile. When the textile market is strong and stable, as it generally is, enterprising cloth merchants can not only rake in the profit for themselves, they can support their own cottage industry of weavers, fullers, dyers and finishers, all of whom can make a surprisingly tidy sum for their diligent efforts. When the textile market is weak, however, as it sometimes is when war cuts the lines of communication and trade, the entire enterprise from top to bottom will suffer, though the cloth merchant himself is the one who normally suffers the least. He can, after all, always simply warehouse his goods and wait the instability out; the lesser partners in the enterprise—the aforementioned weavers, fullers, dyers and finishers—are often reduced to penury and begging in the church squares in order to feed their families.
With the profits from a successful textile venture, a medieval entrepreneur has many avenues open to him. Sometimes he remains in commerce, expanding his original textile base into more exotic realms such as the spice, wine and metal trades. In all likelihood, he will invest part of his profits in real estate, such as purchasing a block of tenement-style housing in the city to rent out or forested land outside the city that can be farmed for timber or cleared for rented pasturage. Almost inevitably, a truly prosperous merchant-baron will fall into banking, which is to say, money-lending or money-changing—arguably one of the most expensive but wealth-producing ventures in the medieval economy.
Money is a chancy thing in the dark medieval era, principally because so many people enjoy the right to strike their own coins. Mints are expensive to maintain and carry with them the expectation of a good profit margin for whoever owns them; many produce debased coinage as part of the effort to stretch that margin as far as it can go. Gold is not, at this time, used in the production of coins; silver, on the other hand, usually is (much to the discomfort and irritation of the Lupines). The most common form of coinage in thirteenth-century Europe is called the denier (also called the penny more commonly), comprised of a copper-zinc-silver alloy of wildly variable quality. The most reliable denier, minted in Provins, France, is of thirty-three percent fine silver; more debased coinages, with higher concentrations of copper in their make-up, circulate very widely as well. Obols and half-obols, comprised entirely of copper, also circulate and constitute the medieval equivalent of small change.
Medieval merchants and money-lenders have also struck upon an advance that vastly improves the free flow of commerce—or paper money. The two largest cash denominations in the medieval marketplace exists solely on paper, the livre (or pound) and the sou (or shilling) not yet having any coinage attached to them that circulates regularly. The Italian city-states have minted a high-quality silver coin called the grosso which constitutes the first real shilling coin, but it rarely circulates outside of Italy. Many business and money-lending transactions do not involve the exchange of silver, but rather the exchange of paper. These letters of credit pledge that the holder is good for a stipulated amount of hard currency, to be paid by the issuer of the letter, who then collects from the debtor in either cash or goods at a later date. An even more sophisticated method of purchase and exchange was developed in the great fair towns, where hard currency is slowly but surely being phased out in favor of a new system that employs the widespread use of credit negotiations that take place solely on paper and which terminate in the delivery of verifiable-quality goods, rather than potentially debased coinage.
Similarly, money-changing is a profession that usually revolves around the towns and cities that host major trade fairs. Technically, these individuals are not only entrepreneurs in their own right, they are also licensed officials of the fair and town in which they do business. Money-changing is among the most strictly regulated of professions, subject to a host of ironclad rules governing cash and credit exchange. One such rule is that all money-changers are enjoined to remove from circulation all debased or false coinage immediately; another is that they are legally obligated to apply exchange rates uniformly and fairly, whether the exchange is made for hard or paper currency. Another sideline of the money-changing business is pawn brokering. Prosperous bankers deal with all social classes, not only the other merchants; often members of the nobility will take out sizeable loans when the Church is unwilling (or unreasonable) with their own loans, for which they will supply some item of commensurate value to the banker as surety for their ability to repay the loans. When a noble defaults on a loan, as many do given the average nobleman’s passion for living somewhat above his means, the banker then unloads the ‘pawn’ the noble patron left in his possession in order to recoup the losses. If the proceeds of this are somehow insufficient to cover the debts incurred, the banker is well within his rights to sue a man who is his social superior by several orders of magnitude for restitution. Moreover, he is very liable to win any such suit. It bears noting, however, that the profession of usury—charging interest on lent monies—is considered a sin by the Catholic Church. As a result, the majority of successful moneylenders are actually Jews, since they do not consider usury sinful or worthy of prohibition.
More than any other place in the dark medieval world, the growing cities and towns possess the spark of the future within them and the seeds of the modern world economy, revealing subtle hints of innovations and social growth to come over the upcoming centuries.
Cities are arguably the most natural habitats for most Cainites. The Nosferatu, for example, make great use of any ancient catacombs and viaducts, as well as any available sewer systems. Many Cainites have managed to become so wrapped-up in city life that dwelling elsewhere would prove to be a terrible shock to them.
Havens can be found in any number of places, from cramped alley spaces where the sun never penetrates, to the rooms over shops or in fine palaces. Vampires who lived in the city during their mortal days often attempt to maintain their old residences, albeit with a few subtle modifications. Windows can be shuttered and covered, rousing only mildly curiosity, if any at all, from nosey neighbors. Of course, taxes and rent do have to be paid routinely; even a well-quoted parable from the Book of Nod admonishes Cainites to insure they “render Caesar his proper dues.”
One of the greatest problems facing city-dwelling vampires is that of curfew. At around nine o’clock in the evening, the curfew bells ring out across the face of the medieval cityscape, signaling people to get out of the streets and head homeward, and for shopkeepers who keep particularly late hours to close their stores for the evening. The night watch that patrols the city streets is not known to be forgiving to those who venture out past curfew, since such individuals are usually just up to no good. Someone on official business must carry something that denotes his special status, like a badge depicting his employer’s crest, seal or livery. Vampires on business at such late hours must learn to be both discrete and stealthy, procure crests to help them pass the inspection of the night watch, or learn covert Disciplines that will be of assistance in avoiding notice at all. During the summer months, rising in time to get out into the cityscape before curfew can prove difficult, if not impossible some nights.
Feeding or meeting in a city district with a curfew brings its own special set of problems one must consider. Those Cainites with ghouls usually task them to have fresh blood ready for their masters’ awakening come nightfall, or to at the very least, locate some likely victims for an early evening hunt. Those vampires who are not so fortunate must hunt entirely on their own, often stalking the night watch itself (highly unadvisable in most cities) or simply other mortals out late for whatever reason. A great many become Cauchemars (vampires who feed on the sleeping or unconscious) or Footpads (who feed upon the homeless derelicts and beggars). Meetings among Cainites may take place in guildhouses, shops, palaces, or anywhere a few vampires can crowd into a somewhat private location without drawing undue attention to themselves. Many of these Elysiums are held in the dark, after each Cainite and ghoul present has been identified in some manner.
In cities that possess districts without curfews (a rare occurrence in and of itself), a vampire may move about with relative ease, but must be even more watchful for cutpurses and thieves. Vampires here have a number of choice vessels to feed upon, spawning a number of new types of feeding vampires; Succubi and Incubi (those who seduce mortals and drink only enough to sate their hunger), and Rakes (those who haunt inns, taverns or other gatherings of mortals), in addition to Footpads and Cauchemars. Elysiums and other meeting areas for the undead of a given city are much grander affairs, owing to less of a need to hide.
A problem that faces vampires in any city is the ratio of Cainites to mortals. For example, a decent-sized city with roughly nine-thousand people is considered a valuable and fairly impressive commodity to a court of the undead. Many vampires feed within the city limits to save time or for other reasons, and end up running into one another while on the prowl. Add a curfew and the Prince’s restrictive feeding orders to the mix, and things can become very tense extremely quickly. The risk of discovery increase each time a new Cainite enters the city (or is Embraced by a resident vampire) and begins to compete for already scarce resources. Stories of two Cainites who coincidentally choose the same victim, then wake their victim with the ensuing argument are becoming nigh apocryphal these nights. A wise vampire learns to hunt the suburban areas of the cityscape or just outside the city walls to ensure that he will be routinely successful in his pursuit of fresh blood for sustenance while remaining somewhat safe.
Life in the Medieval Church
"The Church is our last, best hope...to control the face of the civilized world. It is the future of our world and all who dwell within it, and like the God it so piously serves, it is utterly infallible." -- Sister Liseta Illuminada, Clan Lasombra
From humble monks to proud bishops, from the politics of cardinals in Venice to the battle-scarred knights of the Crusades, the Church directly governs a multitude of people (and indirectly governs many more).
The Church is all things to all people. To some it is the last repository of knowledge in the western world, to others a repressive organization that seeks to crush all rational thought and understanding. Some go to the Church to seek out redemption and salvation, the only true paths to Heaven; others curse it as the manifestation of the Anti-Christ’s final victory over God. Whatever one’s personal views, the Church is the fixed center of the dark medieval world (though many proud feudal lords would dispute this quietly among their peers). No other body rivals it for power and influence; no other organization can be said to hold the civilized world in its hands. To the Cainites of the era, it is both a sworn enemy and a boon friend: the one fixed point in centuries of accursed unlife, and the center of resistance to their very existence. In any event, the presence and power of the Church cannot be ignored by either Cainite or mortal.
Divided into two major sects, Christendom is clearly sundered but unquestionably strong. Both sides vie for control and influence over the dark medieval world, with the Venetian Catholic Church in the west and the Greek Orthodox Church in the east (centered in Constantinople, the capitol of Byzantium). Conflicts frequently arise between neighboring nations who have taken opposing forms of Christianity to heart, as their spiritual leaders spur them forth to conquer new lands and convert the populace to the ‘true’ Christian faith. Though unified in the Crusades to take the Holy Land for Christendom, the two massive sects otherwise stand opposed on many matters, only managing diplomacy through some subtle, shared sense of brotherhood under Christ. As of yet, there have been no direct conflicts between the two sects of Christianity, though only time will tell if such a dread and widespread war between the faiths is inevitable.
The public worship of the Venetian Church is its liturgy, principally called the Eucharist, which is commonly called the ‘Mass’ by most people. Recitation of prayers and readings from the holy bible take place in Latin (which is seldom understood by the many parishioners); these sacraments are then followed by the faithful receiving communion, understood spiritually as sharing in the sacramental presence of Christ. The worship of the Church is also expressed in rites of baptism, confirmation, weddings, ordinations, confessions, penitential rites, burial rites, and the singing of the Divine Office.
The Venetian Church also fosters other public devotional practices, including the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary, the novenas (nine days of intense prayer for various special purposes and occasions), pilgrimages to holy shrines, and the veneration of the saints’ statues and reliquaries. Roman Catholics are not encouraged to practice private prayer in the dark medieval world; the Church dictates the practice of worship, considering such secretive privacy in this matter to be dangerously close to acts of heresy.
In addition, the Venetian Church has an impressive array of holy days, following the cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost, as well as a distinctive cycle of commemorations to the saints. Some heretical vampires have adopted some of the Venetian Church’s practices for their own, holding dark holidays in mockery of the holy days and practicing unclean blood magics in place of the purifying acts of communion and confession.
As for the Greek Orthodox Church, it recognizes as authoritative the decisions of the seven ecumenical councils that met between 325AD and 787AD and defined the basic doctrines on the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. The Orthodox Church accepts the earlier traditions of Christianity, including the same sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church—although in the Orthodox Church infants receive the Eucharist and even confirmation—yet married men may become priests, though not bishops or monks. The veneration of Mary as the Mother of God is central to Orthodox worship, and the intercession of the saints is much more emphasized. After an early controversy on the subject, which almost led to outright warfare within all of Europe, the Orthodox Church has reluctantly accepted the Roman practice of the veneration of religious icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the holy saints.
The Orthodox Church is a fellowship of administratively self-governing local churches, united in a common faith, sacraments and canonical discipline; each enjoys the impressive right to elect its own head and its bishops. Traditionally, the Patriarch of Constantinople is recognized as the ‘first among equal’ Orthodox bishops, though he has great direct doctrinal and administrative authority over the whole of the Orthodox Church. He also wields tremendous power through his direct connection to the Imperial Byzantine Court; many crucial decisions and much of the politics that earn the name ‘Byzantine’ derive from the Patriarch. The other major heads of the self-governing churches, in order of precedence, are: the Patriarch of Antioch (while the Patriarch of Jerusalem remains in exile) with jurisdiction over Palestine; the Patriarch of Moscow, who oversees all of Rus and Novgorod, the Patriarch of Serbia (Yugoslavia); the Patriarch of Romania; the Patriarch of Bulgaria; the Arch-Bishop of Cyprus; the Arch-Bishop of Athens and all of Greece; and the Metropolitan of Poland. Up until recent history, when Bohemia converted to Roman Catholicism, there was once a Metropolitan of Prague and all of Bohemia. Now dethroned, the Metropolitan of Prague was exiled from Bohemia by the king and forced to return to Constantinople a disgraced man. This fluid structure of authority means that many of the vampire Clans are fighting over control of the Orthodox Church through ghouls and proxies in their home regions. During the election of the new Patriarch of Constantinople, tensions between the Clans can explode into open conflict.
Monasticism refers to the way of life adopted by those who have elected to pursue an ideal of perfection or a higher level of religious experience. Monasticism embraces both the life of the hermit, characterized by varying degrees of extreme solitude; and the life of the cenobite, the monk that dwells within the community. This rejection of the world always entails asceticism, or the practice of disciplined self-denial, which may include fasting, silence, a prohibition against personal ownership and an acceptance of bodily discomfort. Almost always it includes vows of poverty, celibacy and dutiful obedience to their spiritual leader. The goal of such intense practices is usually a more intimate relationship with God; some type of personal enlightenment; or the service of God through prayer, meditation, or goodly works such as teaching and healing others.
Christian monasticism grew out of two impulses separated by the length of a continent. In the southernmost regions, in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, Cappadocia, and Outremer, men would go off into the deserts and mountains alone and become hermits, or anchorites, purifying their faith through the mortification of the flesh. Saint Anthony the Great was connected with the first Egyptian hermits; Saint Pachomius, with the first communities of cenobites in Egypt; and Saint Basil the Pious, bishop of Caesarea, placed monasticism in an urban context by introducing charitable service as a holy work discipline. In the northern regions of Europe, holy men needed gather together to protect themselves from the wilderness and the pagan barbarians and, more importantly, to form a community in which faith might be kept strong and taught to others, both directly and vicariously.
The importance of the anchorites is that in their loneliness they showed so great a purity of faith and purpose that their example inevitably drew others of like-mind into the fold. Though mocked ceaselessly by the decadent and falling Roman Empire, these men of faith displayed a simplicity of purpose and drive that was compelling. It is sad to relate that many anchorites met their end at the fangs of Cainites—their self-imposed isolation meant they were beyond the protection of society should their faith ever waver in its strength. The early German monasteries were more important; not only did they preserve much of the classical knowledge that was otherwise lost, but they actually sent out missionaries to convert the rest of the local region.
It was the example of these German monasteries, combined with the discipline of the anchorites that prompted powerful Church rulers to create sanctioned monastic communities from the fifth century onward. The organization of western monasticism is due primarily to the efforts of Saint Benedict of Nursia (sixth century), whose Benedictine Rule formed the basis of life in most monastic communities until the mid-twelfth century. The early monasteries were local affairs—part of no established holy order recognized by the Church—until recently; Rome has began to reorganize the monasteries into monastic orders and legally regiment the lives of monks and nuns alike dwelling within the pious arms of monasticism. Among the principal monastic orders that are evolving are the Carthusians and Cistercians; the mendicant orders, or more simply, the friars—Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carmelites—will arise imminently in the late thirteenth century. With central control established and Europe entering a time in prosperity, these new monasteries will grow into huge concerns governing the lands around them and rivaling the feudal lords in power. Monasteries already have grown into vast fortresses of sorts over the centuries, the largest in the known world (in Constantinople) housing almost three thousand people within—from the monks to the nuns, through their servants, scholars and teachers in the great libraries, to the holy knights who protect them all and enforce the Church’s collective will. Along with the cathedrals, abbeys and monasteries stand as centers of the Church’s will and influence, enforcing its power and providing centers of faith and learning across the face of Europe.
It should also be noted that monasteries are not yet austere institutions. They are not only centers of faith and scholarship, but also centers of local community. Traders frequently trek to monasteries to sell their wares, fairs take place within their precincts, and the poor can go for alms or healing any day of the week. Many scions of the nobility have entered into monasteries; some have great reserves of wealth and display an unholy opulence for clergy. Many monks of noble background display far too deep an interest in politics and maneuver with their neighbors for power and influence; also, some noble sons have been sent forth into monastic life to resolve inheritances and never take seriously their role within the Church’s hierarchy, continuing to pursue lives of intrigue and pleasure, albeit discretely. The rise of these noble-borne monks and nuns has led to such blasphemous scandals as abbots and abbesses owning brothels and hunting dogs or even deceptively selling their novices into slavery.
Whereas a monastery that is strong in faith and holiness would be shunned by Cainites, these new monasteries run by dissolute nobles provide excellent hunting grounds and centers of political power. A surprising number of younger vampires have moved from the traditional fortresses and cities of their elders into these newer sites of trade and mortal life. As many nobles deed land to the Church in exchange for assurances of Paradise in the afterlife (among other benefits), some of these monasteries directly rival the feudal lords in power and provide a springboard for ambitious Cainites to advance in their own intrigues. A few monasteries have been turned over to sin entirely by their corrupt, undead masters—such scandals would call down the might of the Inquisition, however, upon the heads of any such heretical, upstart vampires should the secret be revealed.
Some vampires attempt to continue their existences in the monasteries or convents to which they previously belonged in life, or that they have joined in their unlives. Such Cainites will typically find monastic unlife very, very difficult. Such communities have fairly small numbers in general; abbots and abbesses usually believe in getting to know their charges fairly well. The amount of faith found within the walls of a typical convent or monastery can be most uncomfortable for many, no matter how strong a Cainite believes herself to be.
It is far easier to find havens in monasteries than it is in more secular realms, but infinitely harder to maintain them for long. Many monasteries and abbeys were built with several outbuildings used as bakeries, breweries, wineries, storage facilities, smithies, guesthouses, hospitals and various other functions. While it may be no small matter to burrow into the massive potato bin or to curl up inside an empty beer barrel for the day, a monk or nun who does not follow the order of the day will be sought after and disciplined for their impiety. Some Cainites who manage to survive in such religious communities number one-hundred members or more must move their shelters nightly. They usually perform chores or tasks before bedtime to spare themselves from trouble. Still, others move invisibly among the tenants of the monastery, feeding off the sleeping where and when they may safely do so.
Feeding takes special skill in a monastic environment. While some more lazy or impatient Cainites think to save themselves trouble by feeding upon their fellow monastics, a monk or nun who awakens noticeably weaker will suspect disease for only so long. The animals routinely kept in such communities (such as cows, sheep, pigs, goats or geese) may also be fed upon in moderation, but if a cow dies because a hungry vampire overeats, the abbey will suddenly be in need of a new cow (which costs quite a bit in the medieval world) and the abbot may wonder why an otherwise perfectly healthy cow just up and perished one night for no apparent reason. The wise and discrete Cainite learns to hunt outside of the monastery’s walls, going forth into the surrounding towns and villages. He may run into competition from his own kind in such locales, but that can be dealt with; a nosey abbot or abbess can be far more difficult to fend off.
Communities may become slowly accustomed to strange occurrences after enough time, perhaps seeing them as God’s tests laid before them—or perhaps simply bad luck. Then again, such tribulations may cause faith to grow ever stronger (so much so that a resident vampire may have to leave), or a skilled exorcist may be brought in at special request, or simply happen upon the monastery in his travels. Those who are not part of the community may begin to notice things that the inhabitants have grown accustomed to or too dispirited to care about, and newcomers may be able to recognize the activities of the unsavory and supernatural. Such scrutiny, from within or without, can easily be the downfall of an entire monastery if word of such odd occurrences and suspicions reach the ears of the Inquisition.
Those abbeys, convents and monasteries that serve the Cainite Heresy (the blasphemous belief system that revolves around the central principle that Caine was exalted and favored by God for sacrificing his brother, Abel, rather than being damned and accursed for his murderous actions—thusly implying that Cainites are more akin to angels and messiahs than demons and monsters) or related vampiric denominations are often built or furnished with the vampires’ needs in mind. Such places sustain their followers through proximity to a city or by livestock and unfortunate travelers.