The Traveller's Recovered Field Notes, Entry 02
Section I, Before The Crusades, Power and Isolation in Europe
Section I, Before The Crusades, Power and Isolation in Europe
The traveler is standing at Europe’s starting point. The world is organized around a feudal system built on land, loyalty, and force. Trade is local and risky. Education is controlled by the Church. Most people are illiterate and never leave home.
Anchor figure: William the Conqueror. Watch how power works when kings rule through conquest rather than law or learning.
The Traveller's Recovered Field Notes
Observer log, Norman Europe baseline
The ownership of land decides everything.
Before the Crusades, most of the Europe I know is built around feudalism. Life is land-based, rural, and local. Most people live and die within a few miles of where they were born because travel is slow, dangerous, and expensive. If people cannot move, ideas and innovations cannot move either. Europe becomes inward-looking, focused on survival and local control, not global connection. I see how power works here. Power comes from land ownership and military service. A king grants land, fiefs, to nobles in exchange for loyalty and soldiers. Nobles rely on knights to fight. At the bottom are peasants and serfs who work the land, produce food, and hold little freedom or political power.
Wealth is measured mainly in land, and in the number of people forced or bound to work it, not in money. Education is scarce. Most people cannot read or write. Learning is controlled largely by the Roman Catholic Church, preserved in monasteries, and written by monks in Latin, a language common people do not know. Much of what is taught is religious instruction, not science, mathematics, or experimentation. Tradition and religious authority shape daily life. Trade exists, but it is local and risky. Roads are poor. Bandits are real. Political instability makes long travel dangerous. Merchants have limited access to luxury goods, spices, and advanced technologies common in parts of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Without strong trade networks, Europe’s economy grows slowly and remains fragile.
When I hear stories of the Norman Conquest of 1066, it sounds like the clearest picture of this world. William the Conqueror takes the English throne through military force, not negotiation or law. After victory, he redistributes land to loyal followers, strengthening feudal control. His rule rests on castles, armies, and personal loyalty, not written laws or representative government. This is kingship through conquest and control, not exchange. That is the setting where my journal begins. Europe is powerful in warfare, but limited in knowledge, trade, and global awareness. The Crusades are a violent disrruption to the isolation.
Observation: When wealth is land and power is force, change is slow. A system like this resists outside ideas.
- Feudal Europe is inward-looking and land-based.
- Power comes from land ownership and military loyalty.
- Education is limited and largely controlled by the Church.
- Trade is local, slow, and dangerous.
- Kings rule through force, not shared law or representative government.
Europe can fight, but it cannot easily exchange. The Crusades will break that balance by forcing sustained contact.