I learned where the term "indenture" (as in indentured servant) comes from. Apparently in medieval times, after the fall of classical feudalism, but before the rise of the nation state with a standing army, when a king had to raise an army for every campaign, he would contract with each lord to get the services of the lord and his assorted underling soldiers. When they would write up the contract, they would then cut it in half in a wavy pattern (or "indented"), so when they were put together people knew they had the both halves of the same contract. The lord would then be "indentured" to the king for the length of the campaign (or contract life).
I learned this from the book I'm currently reading about the battle of Agincourt. Other funny things about the preparations for the campaign, Henry brought two almoners with him to France. Those were the people in charge of managing his alms giving. And he also brought 18 minstrels, because no self-respecting medieval monarch or aristocrat would ever go anywhere without his band of minstrels.
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2 comments:
Agincourt is awesome. Welcome to my world. And St. Crispin's Day (though he's sadly not a saint anymore as they can't verify his reality) was October 25th, so you're seasonal.
Also, who *does* travel without minstrels? They're pre-technology ipods.
I'm already in that world. I bought the book because Henry V is my favorite Shakespeare play. And apparently the tennis ball incident didn't happen. One, because the 17 year old dauphin wouldn't be making fun of the 26 year old Henry's youth. And two, because Henry apparently was really quick to take offense over anything, so if that had happened, which was actually offensive, he basically would have sailed for France the next day. But the story was spread at the time as propaganda to drum up anti-French sentiment for the war. So Shakespeare didn't make it up himself.
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