Chapter 132: Noble title, please chat privately if interested!
In this current era, how are the rights and obligations of lords and vassals defined?
At least in today's Andal Kingdom, many situations can actually be negotiated.
Antolia in the past is a living example.
Every year in the year of the jackdaw, the plateau hounds from the abandoned land will bring extremely tragic losses to this land.
Therefore, Leon's father, the previous generation Viscount of Antolia, Arthur Jimena, reached an agreement in communication with the Duke of Galicia. As a lord, the Duke of Galicia did not need to send troops to assist. But it has to provide other conveniences for the Jimena family.
Now, since Leon has become the new lord of many southern nobles, there are naturally countless agreements reached by the nobles and the Bravis family in the past.
However, no matter how much we talk about it, there still needs to be an initial standard first.
The laws of the Kingdom of Andal set limits on this.
Since the vassal's territory and power come from the lord, therefore, since the nobles in the southern part of the kingdom have become vassals of the Jimena family, they naturally need to pay taxes and serve for Leon.
However, the tax mentioned here is not tax in the usual sense as Leon understood it in his previous life. It mainly refers to the inheritance tax of noble vassals.
Take the Lord of Greywater, for example.
In normal times, at least when the Duke of Galicia was still alive, the Earl of Graywater Castle did not actually need to pay much tax to Leon. Even if he had to pay, it would only be a small symbolic payment.
Only when Eli Wayne, the current Earl of Graywater Castle, dies and his son Collund Wayne inherits the title of Earl of Graywater Castle, does he need to pay tribute to his lord, who is now the Marquis of Antolia? Ang Jimena paid a considerable amount of inheritance tax.
Of course, since the amount is not low, in most cases it can be paid in installments.
When Leon first inherited the title, the reason why Antolia faced a serious shortage of funds was actually related to the inheritance tax paid to the Bravis family at that time.
Therefore, the source of income of noble lords in this era mainly comes from their own direct territories, such as land tax, commercial tax, poll tax, marriage tax, and the income from some independently operated industries.
However, special circumstances also exist.
For example, if the vassal under Leon's command is underage, then Leon, as the lord, can actually obtain most of the income generated from the custody of the underage vassal's territory before the vassal reaches adulthood.
At the end of each year, vassals would basically pay a small sum of money to show their loyalty and goodwill.
Precisely because of the above, the obligation to pay taxes is actually very weak, and the highlight is mainly military service.
The vassals under the lord have the obligation to serve the lord. Since the population of each noble realm in this era was generally small, providing levies to the lord and accompanying the lord on expeditions became the main obligations of the vassals. .
It's just...
Leon doesn't like this distribution method very much.
He has a brave and capable Antolian army under his own hands, so how can he care about the conscripts sent from various noble leaders?
Could it be that the levies from the major noble territories could march to the abandoned land instead of the Antolians?
This is almost impossible.
Unless you need a large number of vassals to strengthen your momentum during war, otherwise, the obligation to serve is not very necessary. Therefore, Leon planned to have a good discussion on this topic with his vassals at this banquet.
For example...
"In peacetime, your obligation to perform military service can actually be offset by service payments."
Rather than asking his vassals to serve in Antolia, Leon actually hopes that his vassals will all If you can be more direct, what kind of service can you do when you have nothing to do? Wouldn't it be nice to just give money? !
The reason why other noble lords were particularly concerned about their obligation to perform military service was mainly because their armies could not fight, so they used the levies that their vassals regularly paid tribute to fill their numbers.
But Antolia obviously doesn't need to be like this.
However, Leon's proposal obviously caused quite a stir in everyone's hearts.
After all, although there have been precedents for the service payment before, it is actually not very common.
However, Leon felt that the nobles under his command would still give him some face.
Every lord must have the means to contain his vassals.
Before, the Duke of Galicia could rely on the supply of food to gain an advantage in negotiations with Antolia, but now, Leon can also rely on Antolia's strong military power to gain greater ground for itself. Benefit.
Even if you can't really fight, it is still an invisible psychological pressure.
Therefore, Leon was not in a hurry about this. Instead, he raised an issue that had been prepared for a long time - the ownership of the title Earl Colt.
In fact, from the bottom of his heart, Leon didn't really want to enfeoff the land in his hands.
This is probably a common problem among travelers from the previous life.
However, since you have come to another world, you must abide by the unspoken rules of that world.
Of course you can change, but it must be subtle, but you must make progress steadily!
For example, the service payment mentioned by Leon before was actually an attempt by Leon to expand tax sources.
Leon's ultimate goal was to realize the possibility of fully taxing vassals. However, he was really worried that if he took too big a step, he would be in trouble, so he tried a little bit in the form of service payments.
The same is true for the two noble titles of Earl Colt and Viscount Shenmulin, as well as the noble fiefdoms under their names.
Leon wanted to keep them all, but the current situation of this era allowed him to keep at most one.
According to Leon's plan, the title of Earl Colt must be divided.
Colt City and Antolia were already separated by several noble territories. If he stayed, Colt City would become an enclave of the Jimena family.
On the other hand, if Leon retains the title of Viscount Chen Mulin, no one will object.
After all, everyone is a noble from the south of the kingdom, and they all know what kind of human tragedy happened in the fiefdom on the edge of Antolia during the cold winter last year.
Who dares to touch that eerie aristocratic land?
nobody!
However, in order to make it more reasonable for him to include Shenmulin into the direct territory of the Jimena family, Leon still deliberately mentioned: "Do you have
any ideas about the title of Viscount Shenmulin?"
(End of this chapter)