The kingdoms and duchies are westphalian in nature. Borders are extremely firm, there are no marchers between states, there are little to no disputes about what land belongs to who. The subdivisions of barons and manors are treated like modern bureaucratic divisions instead of the statelets they are historically.

Both the nobility and peasantry are nationalistic, the former limits their affairs entirely within their border and never ventures ventures into foreign courts; those who do are seen as treacherous; while the latter hold their loyalty to the abstract concept of their state and are surprisingly well educated in the civics of their country. Their military are professional, with the levy treated like modern conscripts while the warrior class are sword-wielding special forces. The church are also surprisingly secular, they gain their power through abstract social influence over the faithful instead of through their ownership of their own estates and domains.

The economy is capitalistic. Land ownership is treated with modern sensibility where owning a mere piece of paper (or parchment) grants one an inalienable and exclusive right over that land, unlike how it historically was where ownership is often a heavily disputed issue and a source of endless feuds. Likewise, there are no such thing as "the commons" in fantasy and fiction land, all lands are already surveyed, enclosed, and subdivided by offscreen surveyors that must've been either magical or superhuman to accomplish such feat without modern technology.

The merchants are medieval capitalists who often owned means of productions with weavers and millers employed for fraction of their surplus values. Independent ventures like the blacksmiths and shops are treated small business who simply are yet to hit their big break, and will turn into big capitalists with chains of smithies and shops if possible.

TL:DR: it is easier to imagine magical dragons than to imagine a world without capitalism.

  • LeninWalksTheWorld [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    and they are always too clean! Throw some dirt on your medieval costumes for godsakes

    • SaniFlush [any, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Supposedly the literal Vikings bathed more often than the average medieval peasant.

    • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
      ·
      2 years ago

      because medieval people would just be more tolerant of dirt caked on them cause 'olden-times'?

      on the one hand, we've got mountains of evidence ranging from material, medical, and literary sources for the existence of bathing culture in medieval europe

      on the other a constellation of renaissance treatises made by madmen who thought bathing would kill you & bathhouse bans that were targeted at prostitution, not the idea of being clean