Is Ernaldori canonically a slave-owning clan?

[Brootse]

There are some slaves in Clearwine Fort, and the rest of the Colymar has some slaves, but is Ernaldori a slave-owning clan?

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Brootse said:

is Ernaldori a slave-owning clan?

I don't believe any of the Colymar have traditions as slave-owning.

[Joerg]

None of the five original clans should be slave holders, as they are Hendriki. Neither the Annmagarn, by extension. No idea about  the adopted triaties (Runegate and Tree Brothers - Namolding and Lysang and what became the Antorling) or the clans without any previous tribal association (Hiording, Varmandi, Enjossi, and the extinct Jenstali and Karandoli). The Colymar acquisitions in the Taral and Zarran Wars went after geographical continuity rather than ideology. Why else invite the Elmali into the tribe?

Breaking up the slave-ownership by tribes doesn't makes sense looking at the migration histories. It may make a difference if slaves are owned by the tribal temple alongside cattle and sheep.

I don't think the Colymar tribe as a whole and as an owner of chattle property has slaves. Certain clans may have them. (In fact, the Hiording swan maiden back-story lifted from Wayland's Saga smacks of a form of slavery.) Three times in Colymar history, a broken clan was revived adopting new leaders from the original five clans - the Taraling, Antorling and Karandoli all were re-formed that way. I don't see those clans approving of slavery, either, although the Taralings under Blackmor may have differed.

The Seven Brothers clan is a bit of a mystery.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Joerg

[g33k]

It's worth noting, OTOH, that Esrolia (arguably the center of Ernalda-worship) is among the MOST slave-holding cultures (or "un-free," as Jeff has it) of the Earth-Storm cultural complex.

From the name, I'd take the "Ernaldori" to be the "most Ernaldan" of the Colymar...

 

In the end, one can just fiat it (either way), if one wants, for one's own table!

 

[Brootse]

From the Gamemaster Adventures:

Colymar: p. 12: 5,300 are adults... About 3,000 adults are free farmers or higher in status; the rest are half-free tenants, foreigners, or slaves

Clearwine Fort: p. 22: 100 slaves;

I wonder who those slaves are then. Perhaps tribally owned Lunar or Tarshian prisoners of war? Those numbers seem a bit high to be just prisoners from other clans who are waiting for ransoming.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Brootse

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

I wonder who those slaves are then. Perhaps tribally owned Lunar or Tarshian prisoners of war? Those numbers seem a bit high to be just prisoners from other clans who are waiting for ransoming.

For the Colymar tribe, that's a lot indeed... although out of these 2300, most might be foreigners, and the "half-free" might be otherwise free members of the clan who happen to be currently indebted to someone and working that off? (I seem to remember something along those line for what "half-free" means, but I could be misremembering)

As for the slaves, a whole bunch of them could be slaves accompanying foreigners and visitors from other clans.

[Brootse]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

For the Colymar tribe, that's a lot indeed... although out of these 2300, most might be foreigners, and the "half-free" might be otherwise free members of the clan who happen to be currently indebted to someone and working that off? (I seem to remember something along those line for what "half-free" means, but I could be misremembering)

As for the slaves, a whole bunch of them could be slaves accompanying foreigners and visitors from other clans.

Half-free basically means that they don't "own" the cattle or sheep they herd, or the land they farm, or their own workshop, so it's just poorer clansmen. Most of the Colymars in that class are not slaves. Clearwine Fort has 300 outsiders or foreigners, so the slaves could be included in that.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Brootse

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

From the Gamemaster Adventures:

Colymar: p. 12: 5,300 are adults... About 3,000 adults are free farmers or higher in status; the rest are half-free tenants, foreigners, or slaves

Clearwine Fort: p. 22: 100 slaves;

I wonder who those slaves are then. Perhaps tribally owned Lunar or Tarshian prisoners of war? Those numbers seem a bit high to be just prisoners from other clans who are waiting for ransoming.

100 slaves are quite a lot, but then, there used to be the Lunar slave manor in or right next to Ernaldori lands, and not actively enslaving others doesn't automatically mean that you manumit everybody formerly belonging to the Lunar landlords of that manor - at least not, until some debt is paid off.

 

40 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Half-free basically means that they don't own the cattle or sheep they herd, or the land they farm, or their own workshop, so it's just poorer clansmen. Most of the Colymars in that class are not slaves. Clearwine Fort has 300 outsiders or foreigners, so the slaves could be included in that.

"Don't own" is a bit of a misnomer, as the clan temple or the tribal temple claim ultimate ownership to all the land.. Semi-free means that you are entitled only to half the harvest or other income from your work, the rest is going to some other party as rent - usually the temple, sometimes directly to a local official or a local steadholder.

If you are from a Carl (or in Blandistan terminology, "free" or "wealthy free" household), your household holds one or two hides of arable land (and/or orchard, vineyard, nearby pasture) that your household has the responsibility to till and harvest. Your taxes are paid from that. The cattle, sheep, pigs and possibly steeds (donkey, horse, Praxian steed) and fowl may be different. Your household will have been assigned the care of a certain number of cows, oxen, maybe a breedin bull or two and a few bullocks, by the clan temple or (indirectly, through assignment by the clan chief) by the tribal temple. As the beasts go through their generations, some of these may be asked as a dividend to serve as sacrificial beasts, or to be used as payment for some trade or some tiribute obligation the clan (temple, ring) may have to make good for. Some of the cattle may be directly owned by the household and normally exempt from taxation claims, and some of it may be personally owned by an individual. As for sheep, the situation looks like it is similar, while riding steeds and beasts of burden (horse, Praxian beast, donkey, mule) may be personal, household or tribal property.

This has been discussed already a quarter of a century ago:

https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol01/1028.html

https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol02/0593.html

And kept turning up, often in posts by the Seattle Farmers Collective.

https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol04/3928.html

There was also the occasional comment by Greg on the topic, like

https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/WorldofGlorantha/2007/2031.html

But still, this keeps cropping up in our discussions, as the economics behind that are somewhat different from our monetized society with predominantly personal property.

 

Such problems aren't unknown in the real world - inheritance of a business or property built up by an entrepeneur to several heirs may result in a collectively owned business with a board of directors, or it may go to mainly one of the heirs along with an obligation to pay off the other potential heirs with some of the proceeds. Such as a dowry, or the modern equivalent thereof (like a security for a business loan or a mortgage).

 

[Brootse]

29 minutes ago, Joerg said:

"Don't own" is a bit of a misnomer, as the clan temple or the tribal temple claim ultimate ownership to all the land.. Semi-free means that you are entitled only to half the harvest or other income from your work, the rest is going to some other party as rent - usually the temple, sometimes directly to a local official or a local steadholder.

Yeah, I meant own with quotation marks. Edited them in.

[Sir_Godspeed]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned explicitly, but "half-free" aren't slaves, they're tenant farmers, or in older terminology, cottars, basically. I'm not sure if stickpicker fall under this as well, though I'm guessing so.

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm not sure if this was mentioned explicitly, but "half-free" aren't slaves, they're tenant farmers, or in older terminology, cottars, basically. I'm not sure if stickpicker fall under this as well, though I'm guessing so.

Cottar is a different expression from semi-free, at least when it comes to having a vote in the clan moot.

Cottars and Stickpickers have to struggle mightily to obtain (or to hang on to) the armament requirements that give them a voting right in the moot. That economic reality makes Orlanthi clans a republic, but not anything resembling a modern democracy. (Although some modern-day democracies - as opposed to modern democracies - put up huge deterrents to certain elements of their population keeping them from participating in a vote, too. Or make it extremely hard to obtain citizenship.)

They may take such items to a vote as a loan by a patron who wants their vote on a certain subject in their favor, leaving them free to cast their votes on other issues at hand at the moot. This might be a rather common occurrance in clan or tribal politics.

 

There will be quite a few free men with the standards of living of a Cottar but without being in a tenant relationship to the temple or some Thane or rich Carl. And there will be people with full Carl status but hardly any agricultural activity or possession, unless they have tenants doing that job for them. A clan's master potter may own a plow and a team, but leave it and tending to the oxen to his tenants rather than doing that himself.

There is a possibility that urban citizens maintain ownership over a plow and a team of oxen in the same way, taking a certain rent from that, possibly as a loan rather than as a patron-to-tenant relationship. In such a relationship, giving back the loaned items between periods when they need to be used will free you from all obligations, so you can remain a free person while still eking on by a cottar's standard of living.

[Sir_Godspeed]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Cottar is a different expression from semi-free, at least when it comes to having a vote in the clan moot.

It might not overlap completely, but according to @Jeff's comments, cottar is subsumed under the more general term "semi-free". 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Kloster]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

(Although some modern-day democracies - as opposed to modern democracies - put up huge deterrents to certain elements of their population keeping them from participating in a vote, too. Or make it extremely hard to obtain citizenship.)

IIRC, the last swiss landsgemeinde with votes done by putting his sword up were done around 30 years ago, and were stopped when the last counties adopted the right to women to vote (among other things, women could not carry a sword).

[Jeff]

On 5/24/2020 at 8:21 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

It might not overlap completely, but according to @Jeff's comments, cottar is subsumed under the more general term "semi-free". 

 

Thanks for reposting that. I am not using the term "cottar" at all as it is laden with cultural associations that don't necessarily line up with the Orlanthi. Here's that definition of terms again:

UNFREE 

This is a person who is not free to do as they will, but instead is designated as property of someone or something else. The exact nature of a slave varies greatly. Domestic slaves have some skills useful within an educated context. Crafts slaves have some useful crafting skill. Labor slaves are unskilled and generally miserable.

Ransom: none

SEMI-FREE 

This is a person who is not property but is not a full free member of the community. A client of another person is typically semi-free as they are not independent of their patron. They are bound to their lands or professions, or work somebody else’s land, livestock, or workshop and are usually unable to leave without permission of their lords. They do have some legal rights and are protected by their patrons.

Ransom: 150 to 250 L

FREE COMMON 

This is a free person with legal standing in the community. They usually must have some property or other means of reliable income, and are expected to perform some responsible civic duties as well.

Ransom: 500 L

FREE WEALTHY 

This is a Free Commoner with enough wealth to be armed and equipped better than their peers. They might have military duties, like thanes; religious duties, like priests or scribes; or they might be wealthy farmers, merchants, or crafters. They have increased social standing and civic responsibilities. They may have reached this status through their own pluck, official appointment, or other means.

Ransom: 1000 L

LOW NOBLE 

This is the equivalent of a landed knight or chieftain, the lowest of aristocratic circles in many cultures. This is the equivalent of a chief priest of temple.

Ransom: 2000 L

MID NOBLE 

This is the ruling class – the equivalents of barons, counts, tribal kings, high priests, city mayors, etc., or important retainers of high nobles. They are generally urbanized in customs.

Ransom: 4000 L

HIGH NOBLE 

This is the uncommon nobility, of the highest rank. This includes the rulers of an entire region – kings or queens who rule over many tribes (such as Esrolia, Sartar, Tarsh, etc.), Lunar Satraps, and the Prince of Sartar.

Ransom: 40,000 L

[Akhôrahil]

On 5/24/2020 at 2:21 PM, Joerg said:

Cottar is a different expression from semi-free, at least when it comes to having a vote in the clan moot.

Also when it comes to being bound to the land - the Sartarite cottar might have serious practical economic issues with leaving, but isn't legally forced to stay. This isn't serfdom by any means.

On 5/24/2020 at 2:21 PM, Joerg said:

Cottars and Stickpickers have to struggle mightily to obtain (or to hang on to) the armament requirements that give them a voting right in the moot. That economic reality makes Orlanthi clans a republic, but not anything resembling a modern democracy. (Although some modern-day democracies - as opposed to modern democracies - put up huge deterrents to certain elements of their population keeping them from participating in a vote, too. Or make it extremely hard to obtain citizenship.)

They may take such items to a vote as a loan by a patron who wants their vote on a certain subject in their favor, leaving them free to cast their votes on other issues at hand at the moot. This might be a rather common occurrance in clan or tribal politics.

I like this - it further makes it clear that the status of the cottar is as a client and non-landowner, not a serf. 

On 5/24/2020 at 2:21 PM, Joerg said:

There will be quite a few free men with the standards of living of a Cottar but without being in a tenant relationship to the temple or some Thane or rich Carl. 

I'm less certain about this - if you can't maintain Free standard of living, I believe you're likely to slip into a Cottar state sooner or later. This is a status society, and if you can't display your status, things might go poorly for you next time there's a land use redistribution. Although perhaps there might be mitigating factors - everyone remembers how you held the line in That Battle, or you might be the only one crazy enough to run the Rotwood Stead and no-one is taking it away any day soon.