[dragonwriter]

> Exactly: they thought that holding land over several generations was indicative of good "blood" (what we would call genetic traits).

While, yes, “good blood” was the social narrative, I think it was a lot more about institutional power (both wealth and connections) than what we would consider “genetic traits”.

[082349872349872]

This is an interesting question. If both institutional power and "good breeding" nearly completely overlap, how should we tell the difference?

At the moment, the best I can think of is to look at how important older ancestors were in a pedigree: if one cares only about institutional power, then one probably only cares about two* generations at most; if one cares about showing sustained evidence of good breeding, pedigrees would include ancestors who are dead and hence hold no temporal power whatsoever.

How does that sound?

* maybe 3 if you had a 15, 30, and 45 year old all as warlords in their own rights, but that's not a generic situation. My understanding is that the usual tenure was to have a single generation holding as much as possible, with the older generations retiring to monasteries to keep the land in the hands of military-age men.

EDIT: the balance of these concerns probably change between peace and war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror had trouble early in his career due to his illegitimacy, but by Nov 1066, he had a clear argument that, in matters of logistics and manoeuvre, he was puissant.

[dragonwriter]

> This is an interesting question. If both institutional power and "good breeding" nearly completely overlap, how should we tell the difference?

We'd look at the existence of things like “corruption of blood” as an imposed social consequences of non-compliance with institutions of social power and and how formally acknowledged vs. well-known but unacknowledged illegitimate children were treated and recognize that “blood” is really code for instititutional position (even if associated with a mythology of some kind of, more lamarckian than darwinian, inheritance as a rationalization.)

[aebtebeten]

Can you explain "corruption of blood" to me? I'm much more familiar with the early feudal period (in which a vassal enjoys tenancy on condition of service) so it makes sense to me that failed insurrections would be obviously result in forfeiture (with the corollary: no land no nobility) leading to a circular argument: he who draws his sword against his lord and succeeds must have had good blood; he who fails must have had corrupt blood.

EDIT: upon reflection, I think we're talking about different things. I'd agree with you that the underlying, possibly hypocritical, calculations are done with an eye to current temporal power; I am trying to explore the models they used and how they attempted to frame realpolitik-based decisions in socially-acceptable manners.

Consider realpolitik in The Republic, where it's explicitly stated that the gold, silver, bronze races are a convenient fiction and there has to be movement between them; in 1984, where it's explicitly stated that IngSoc (and the others) are all pure meritocracies in principle and practice, but there's still not much social movement; in the language of US mobsters "cut in the smart boys from the opposition, so that they can't set up a racket of their own."; in the language of marxists "utilization of potential leadership cadres from historically superseded classes"; and in the language of Vilfredo Pareto "capture of the rising elite".

(last three examples were st^H^Hliberated from Linebarger: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm )