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by jameshart
749 days ago
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The distinction I’m making is that while you can interpret the throne of Gondor as a liege lord with vassals, that is as much because when we are telling a story about a legendary king we understand that idea of ‘king’ in familiar terms, and as western readers our image of a warrior king is rooted in medieval castles and courts. But Aragorn is as much of a feudal king as Gilgamesh, Minos, or Arthur. The various princes charming, wicked queens, and abandoned princesses of fairy stories are all vaguely ‘feudal’ in feel too but that doesn’t mean the stories are embedded firmly in a world of strict Christendom-style vassalage and primogeniture succession. My point is really that asking what Aragorn’s tax policy was is like asking what the economic consequences were of King Midas’s reign. By the end of RotK, he’s a ‘king’ in the archetypal, storybook sense. You know: the King. Happily ever after. |
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First, Tolkien isn't writing another Grimms' fairy tale. His world has sufficient depth to it that we can make valid comparisons to real-world societies. Aragorn and Theoden are not generic fairy tale kings of some unspecified country. We know a lot about the geography, culture, history, and political organisation of their realms. We can see how they raise their armies, how they interact with their vassals, how they see themselves. They are not just "vaguely feudal in feel", they are actual (albeit fictional) examples of feudal rulers in action.
Second, these are not just incidental details that make the story more fun to read, they are highly relevant for the development of the plot. Questions of succession, legitimacy, and loyalty drive the attitudes and actions of Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, Theoden, Eowyn, Eomer, and Imrahil. The values to which these characters hold themselves are, in many ways, typically feudal.
Third, we know that Tolkien spent his life studying these societies, and he himself often talks about where he got his inspiration from. Unfortunately I haven't read his letters myself yet, but I know from other sources that he is often quite explicit about where he drew his ideas from (see e.g. here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_J._R._R._Tolkien).