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The Medieval Worldview

Contributed by Reason
Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Introducing more of the Medieval worldview into the WH40K setting is, I
find, quite the most rewarding way of making things stand out as
different to other science fiction. From our point of view, people who
lived in the Medieval era, while still being people, had some startling
differences in approach to life and worldview. The past is a foreign
country, strange in many ways.

I haven't been pushing the Medievalism all that much, as

it really isn't all that apparent in the Abnett view of the
Inquisition. That's a little more noir/James Bond/space opera in a
religious setting of massed humanity. But the Imperium you care to
forge in your game is as you care to make it, and one sector may be
quite different from another in terms of its culture.

Lose the Modern Words

This is a wonderous resource that gives the origin dates for words:

http://www.etymonline.com/

If a word arises after 1400 or so, don't use it; you'll be quite
suprised at how the tenor of language changes when you do that. If you
need a word for modern equipment, give it a Latin-based (Tech-based)
name that comes from what it does. Cogitators, for example, or
alchemists.

My Garden of the Prophet

uses this technique. In the WH40K case, one might suggest that using
the language of old times reflects the stasis of Imperial Gothic and
Tech.

Medieval Measurements

Switch to leagues, rods and hands; drams, ells and gallons. Very effective in setting the tone.

Children? What Children?

Medieval period writing and art is curiously devoid of young children.

It is as though they don't exist until old enough to be treated as
little men and women and given an apprenticeship - unless there is the
matter of potential as heir. A range of speculation exists on this
topic, but it may have to do with the extremely high mortality rates.
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So: (1) no children are in the foreground of any plot or situation,

unless the potential of inheritance is involved, and (2) children are
treated exactly as though they are less capable adults.

Scholae for older children are not places of insulation from the world
where the children play, rather they are institutions of
apprenticeship, a single step removed from the guilds and manufactories
that are the destination of the young. Children are treated like less
capable adults in all things - no kid gloves.

Slavery, Pseudo-Slavery and the Fires of Revolt

It is common throughout the Medieval period for the common people to be

slaves - explicitly, or merely through economic chains - to landowners.
A serf is owned by the lord, in name, or in effect through the social
and economic contract inherited by the serf.

Oppression and great disparity in wealth is the norm in such a social

order, punctuated by periods of flailing revolt, bloodily suppressed or
only briefly successful. In WH40K, the lords in this scenario may in
fact be planetary nobles, or may simply be the wealthy: guild leaders,
governors, ranked Imperial servants and the like.

The Chronicled and the Masses

Tales are only told about those at the top of the social order, and
those tales play a part of sustaining that social order. Chronicler is
a noteworthy occupation, a position of influence and renown, and
chroniclers played an important role in propagating the myths that
nobles, ecclesiarchs, lords, guilds leaders and others wish accepted.

The oppressed masses live and die unremarked, their stories untold and
unrecorded. They are the worshipful carpet on which walk kings,
ecclesiarchs and Imperial nobles.

Fear the Mob

The leaders of society lived in fear of the angry mob, for there was no
defense against such in those times. The mob would rule, briefly,
should it be allowed to rise. Cities of freemen were dangerous for
political leaders, and whole orders could be murdered in anger over
trivial matters once the mob was out for blood.

Passion, Foolishness and Pride, Not Logic

The movers and shakers of the Medieval era were frequently young and
often intoxicated. Alcohol was a matter of course, a lot of it, and
people came into power in their teens. Armies were raised and wars
fought over trivial insults and foolish passions. Pride led to great
butchery and inexperience to doomed undertakings.

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Great events in the Medieval era often don't make a jot of sense from
our perspective. They don't have to in WH40K either - let passion,
miscalculation and pride rule the day.

Life is Short, so Life is Cheap

Simple economics: if you have less life ahead of you, it makes sense to
take wild risks. In WH40K, one can see this as more "people are
plentiful, therefore the life of others is cheap." In place of taking
wild risks and dangerous behaviors, other people inflict those risks
and behaviors upon you - they don't care, as a hundred more people
stand in line for the same place.

God is Real, Proceed Accordingly

A Medieval atheist is by definition a strange cultist (and there were

some strange aethist cults in those centuries) denying what is
obviously real and true. The Medieval attitude was less one of belief
than of self-evident truth. Of course God exists, just as does the
table in front of me, next topic now please.

Religion is thereby everywhere and a pillar of society, just as are the

industries of tablemaking. It is no more or less remarkable than
tablemaking in that respect. It just is. The Emperor exists, and the
Emperor protects, and theology is a necessary undertaking for
continuation of Imperial society. A table must have legs, and an
electroconnector must have a prayer seal and the proper incense. A man
must give praise to the God-Emperor upon the holy days in order to
survive and prosper. This is all self-evident, universally known, and
simply the way things work.

But God's Myths are Greatly Varied, And Differences Matter

There is no one story, or even group of stories. Every thread of

religious myth is a potential heresy, and theology a pit of wrestling
snakes. Much of this is unknown to the masses, who are told what to
believe, and most of whom have simple concepts of religious matters in
any case. Theology is secret, professional knowledge.

Thus, mystery cults are common, as is the recycling of old myth into
the presently accepted religion, and continual purges and power
struggles within the ecclesiarchy.

However, wars can be fought over more widespread allegiences to

interpretations of faith. Since God exists (see above), this is all
meaningful and serious for the participants. It really matters, deeply
and utterly, whether you are an Eophite or a Mendiasian. Theological
differences are enough for life and death, for purges and wars, for
burning and suppression, for mass conversions.

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All Information is Secret, Professional Knowledge

No-one gives out knowledge freely. Guilds, protective of their

methodologies, are everywhere. Secrets are the norm. Tricks of every
trade are rediscovered and die with their discoverer a thousand times
over. Every professional and guild in every part of the Imperium is a
tiny rendition of the Adeptus Mechanicum in miniature.

This means there are never enough tablemakers, things are always more
expensive than is necessary, ignorance is rife, and change is next to
impossible to achieve. There is no dialog that will lead to invention,
and invention is suppressed in any case as secrets become doctrines.
Guilds and inviduals use their secrets as the lever to attain power and
influence.

No Market Is Free

Prices are set to some degree on most goods and services, further
helping to limit availability. Prices are controlled by guilds,
Administratum decree, nobles or other interested parties. No-one is
free to legally enter a transaction without interference. Black markets
in every possible good and service are widespread.

The Church is a Power

The Ecclesiarchy behaves as temporal power. It raises armies and

fleets, owns planets, raises vast sums in tithes and indulgences for
priestly services, has its lords and leaders, creates saints from
historical figures, and plays hardball with other Imperial power
structures. It is a nation unto itself, like the Mechanicum, which can
be considered another form of more separatist church.

Feast Days and Religious Festivals

Feast days and required days of religious observance or tithed service

are common. A third of the year was given over to mandatory holy days
in some periods of the Medieval era; work halted for prayer and other
tasks. The magical feats and deeds of saints long dead are retold and
amplified, victories of the church celebrated, martyrs remembered, and
all this used as an excuse for prayer, processions, pomp, ceremony,
feasting, and the redirection of peasant toil to the betterment of
church property. Every feast day in every location is wildly different,
local history and myth blended into the more uniform traditions.

Pilgrimage

The masses traveled great distances to shrines and holy places, often
at risk to life and limb and at great cost. Pilgrims formed
associations and brotherhoods to sponsor the cost, or nobles and lords
demonstrated their piety by footing the bill for their followers and
serfs. Pilgrimage was as much a part of religious life as feast days.

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Law is For the Masses, Not Their Rulers

Common law is made by those at the top of society for their own
benefit, and is enforced by servants of lords and landowners. Baliffs
and magisters serve their lords, to keep the peace amongst their serfs
and prevent ill happenings. Law amongst lords is what those lords make
and can enforce amongst one another - tradition, violence and
self-interest ever warring.

In the Imperium of Mankind, there is constrant strife between and

within the powers of the Adeptus branches. Those with power are little
subject to the Imperial Creed enforced upon the ignorant masses, but
their must constantly strive to maintain their place or be overturned.

No Mass Production

There was no mass production in the Medieval era. Every item was
produced by someone, somewhere. Every item was individually crafted. In
the WH40K setting there are obviously mass produced items - but these
are all low-level materials, and comparatively unvaried in range.
Anything other than the STC pattern objects is hand-crafted.
Cogitators, tech-devices, furniture, weapons. Everything is unique,
made by someone, not by automation in a factory.

What this means in effect is that more goods are non-fungible,

individualistic, expensive, harder to replace. You might be used to
fungible shoes. WH40K hive-serfs are not. Every starship is utterly
unique. A plasmagun was made by the Magos Irek for a favored Tech-Adept
three hundred years ago. And so forth.

Specialization in Trades

The absence of automation and guild structures lead to a great

specialization in trades. A man might train for one tiny portion of
trade and perform it for a lifetime. A scrivener would not learn to
perform the duties of a monk scribe, or those of an accountrix, despite
being able. These are different guilds, different secrets, different
cultures. The horizons of work for any low-born person are small indeed.

There is Nothing New, Versus the Inventors

The later Medieval period was in fact a time of invention and progress.
But the ecclesiarchical and guild line was that all wisdom was already
set down. You are not permitted to deviate. So a class war of sorts
took place between those who created new things and reworked the
traditions of the old, and those who held to past scripture, received
wisdom, and knowledge. For the most part, the traditionalists won the
battles and lost the long war. Change happened, but very slowly.

In WH40K, this battle is that of the Mechanicum versus tech-heresy,

nobles versus the mechant upstarts, guilds versus freelancers, and the
structures of the Imperium versus social change.

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Voices are Few, Media Tightly Controlled

Media is costly and controlled prior to the printing press. Few

official voices speak widely to the people: the ecclesiarchs, the
chroniclers, the nobles. These official voices are fiercely defensive
of their position, partially due to their power it gives them,
partially for fear of the mob roused by demagogues.

New voices are unusual and dangerous. In WH40K, this might all
translate to vox and pict networks rigidly controlled by guilds or the
Administratum, where they exist at all. Librarums are rare and literacy
discouraged.

The Cult of Death

Death is accepted, even celebrated. It is everywhere in art, writing

and the records left behind from Medieval times. I believe it is
related to the general earthiness and acceptable of bodily functions
and fate. People were not hung up about sex, death, excretion and
wounds, as illustrated by the level to which lords and peasants alive
could joke about all these things. These are all a part of life, out in
the open.

Another explanation: immortality is the purpose of religion, and the

omnipresent talismans of death are a large part of the way in which
that was expressed. Release from a life of toil to the reward.

Medicine is Magic, Plague is Common

Medicine is poorly understood, and as for all professional occupations,

deeply secretive and very expensive. Some is good, most is poor, and
the profession of doctor merges with hedge-wizard and ecclesiarch at
the more mystical end. No-one understands how to prevent infectious
disease, so plagues periodically sweep through the poor populations
while the wealthy insulate themselves from contagion.

Seers, Signs and Portents

Seers are believed, and signs and portents valued. Haired stars,
mysterious deaths, plagues, flights of birds. Everything is an omen to
some. Like the Medieval church, the Imperium has a mixed relationship
with those who claim to see the future. Some become feted as saints,
others are hunted down and slain or sent to the Black Ships. But both
lords and masses are hungry for portents of the future and the
God-Emperor's will, and the eager see signs in everything.

Further Reading

A Distant Mirror. Can't recommend it highly enough.

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Principia Infecta

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