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A Duke's remorse? (fwd)




Poster: clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)

> Poster: Bob & Diana Cosby <cosby@erols.com>
> 
> A question please.  What could a Duke do that would earn him public
> admonishment from the King yet he retains his title and lands--like a
> stain on his good name.  Yes, this will evoke subsequent resentment from
> the Duke to the King.  The year in question is 1280.  Thank you very
> much in advance.

Depends on where, of course. Dukes were rather a rare set of
creatures in the 1200's. For the most part, the Iberian Peninsula
didn't have any such types (indeed, noble titles in that part of
the world aren't _quite_ like the Franco/Anglo/German model). In
Germany, practically nothing. A herzog (duke) was, like every
other noble in the Empire, very much his own boss. In France, the
Duke of Gascony (aka the king of England) and some of his fellow
dukes (like he of Brittany) probably got slapped on the wrist
every so often for ignoring the king's order, and doing justice
or conducting foreign affairs quite as he saw fit. England, as
usual, is an odd duck here, because the English nobility didn't
rule contiguous parts of the land, with rare exceptions (the
Earls of Chester and the Earl-Bishops of Durham among them),
and instead held bits of land scattered all over the place. This
_usually_ made them less prone to getting uppity, because one's
possessions could be threatened on all sides by one's neighbors
and cut to bits piecemeal. My guess is that he'd get repriamnded
for underhanded dealings with France or for permitting some
low-level civic disorder to get out of hand.

Pedro
-- 
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html 
clevin@ripco.com
Craig Levin
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