Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
Henry is then a commoner.
Ah, not quite, it's a little more complicated then that.
Most European rules about blood, nobility and inheritance are sometimes fairly straightforward, until they're not. In the case of bastardy, the bastard with some noble blood is more than a commoner in view of the nobility and larger society.
Bastards could be legitimized by their noble fathers' recognition of the child's claim to the bloodline, whether baron or king. If they were legitimized, they could inherit lands, depending on the particular monarchy and political influence of the noble, although this was pretty rare due to other claims to lands and titles from others with stronger claims, such as half-siblings, nieces, nephews, or cousins born in lawful wedlock. It also was the case that bastardy in other lands were prohibited from inheritance, with medieval Bohemia possibly in this category.
Even if legitimized bastards couldn't inherit lands, though, they were more often likely given lands and titles, or stipends from the estates of the nobles or crown, if the father was of royalty. Notable examples of bastards, illegitimate or recognized, were John I, Duke of Brabant; Athelstan, son of Edward the Elder; and Henry Fitzroy, son of Henry VIII.
Note that illegitimate daughters of high nobility also had a place in feudal society, in that they could be married into other houses as a hedge in political alliances where no legitimate children were available.
If illegitimate children were not recognized, it still didn't mean perpetual poverty; having a noble's blood in your veins as a bastard could be a significant bargaining chip for your faction if you intend on deposing a rival house, for example. All this is to say that bastardy did not automatically relegate one to the poorhouse.
In Henry's case, it was made common knowledge that Radzig was his father, that is to say it was out in public: Henry was introduced as Radzig's son to Jobst of Moravia no less, a powerful noble at the time. This was no small thing; it brought Henry into the circle of real heavyweight players in Bohemian politics of the time, and the most important thing to remember about medieval politics is that it was personal: it was who you knew that often paved the way to success and wealth, that is, if you had the right bloodline. This is why kings and powerful nobles had courts at the time, because proximity to power was key to success; if you had the King's ear, it made your station lucrative, since very important people would pay handsomely for an ally to favor their cause to the King.
We don't know if Radzig put his recognition of Henry on paper, as that would be a legal requirement for any potential inheritance, and it would most certainly require approval of the King.
Could Henry inherit Radzig's lands? It's not likely; while I'm not knowledgeable of Bohemia's inheritance laws and bastardy, it's more likely that any lands going to any bastard would be opposed by the King, the most obvious reason that those lands would go back to the crown if the King wanted them and Radzig had no legitimate heir with a lawful wife. Moreover, because of the state of chaos at the time, with the King held in custody, it's not likely that any inheritance or grants would even go before a royal court. If Hans Capon, a no foolin' actual noble Lord with pedigree, couldn't get an approval to inherit his lands, it's doubtful that Henry had any shot at all.
But our dear Henry is not lost; Henry has made some powerful friends, and as he continues in the service of the Lords of Leipa, the Burgrave of Prague, and the Royal Hetman, he has all the potential to carve out a very nice future for himself and his children - even with Theresa, a commoner, as his wife. A couple of handy land grants, a few generations of heirs, and a couple of advantageous marriages, it's possible that Henry's descendants could have their own noble house.
Anyway, just my thoughts on a fictional character, right?
He can be given land and titles by present rulers though and become a noble of his own.
That means, if Henry wants to become a noble, he needs to be granted land / titles. He won`t inherit anything. The king will inherit Radzic`s land and titles and then grant it to someone suitable, probably Henry but could also be some political candidate from the Kings court that is in higher favor, e.g. one of the King`s bastard sons. .
Bastards could be recognized legitimate at any age, and this was usually the case since the legal proceedings to do so could take months or years.
That would be an awesome DLC, imho.
I'm pretty sure Henry is currently Radzig's "Squire" - he says as much at different points in the game.
"Squire" (in England) normally means "Landholder", "On the Path to Knighthood", or something as meager as "in service to a noble" (which i think is what applies here), but also "Shield-Bearer" is a common interpretation, which places him above a commoner, but below a knight.
Now, "Squire" is a Old English term, but was prob just used in game for English translation - only the devs know their true intent.
But if you'd like to guess at the next KCD - i suspect the following:
1. Henry will get the sword, but Toth will escape - Henry will find out his father's sword is not as capable as the Sword of St. George - and then hang it on the wall (throw it in his magical trunk?) as a memento.
2. Hans will go off on a few trysts, get into trouble (perhaps from Arse-n-Balls again), and Henry will need to rescue him, after running several fetch quests for the spoiled nobility
3. Henry will continue to have very "good boy" dialogue options and never toughen up.
4. Markvat von Aulitz will be confronted, and not even remember or care that he killed certain peasants - he will ignore Henry, say Henry has no right to claim justice from him (being non-nobility), and he too will "get away"
5. Henry will then join the Priesthood permanently since soo many people liked that part of the game
It will be awesome.
This is not exactly applying here, but to illustrate how complicated such things were I can tell you a thing I remember of my history lessons: There was this principle of porphirogenesis, meaning literally that a person of scarlet should be born in scarlet (scarlet meaning colour of the clothing of nobility). There was once a Czech king (Jiří of Poděbrady) that had sons with his proper wife (not bastards), but he had them before he became a king, and he was only elected to be the king by the nobility when the throne became vacant (he was not king by birth right), so the sons were not considered noble enough to be the heirs to the throne (they were not considered “born into royal scarlet” by the nobility of the kingdom, as the father earned such scarlet only after their birth), and after the king died, the kingdom was left in chaos without an heir to the throne as he did not managed to have another son after he was elected to be the king (and only such son would be recognized by the nobles). And the king when he was alive was not able to do anything about this rule…
I think this is more a commentary on the politics of the nobility, and less about the birth. Bohemia, like the Holy Roman Empire, was an electorate monarchy, so the nobles had much more sway over who gained the kingship than, say, England. In this instance, it appears the nobles would not want the elected king's legitimate heirs to inherit the throne for whatever reason, and used the dubious reason of 'non-royal' birth to justify that. More likely, the electors wanted to hedge their bets, since at that point anyone of them certainly could have campaigned to become the next elected ruler. Note that none of Jiří's children were bastards; they were all born in legitimate marriage, so the bastardy rule doesn't apply here.
If history is any guide, rules on who gets the crown are guidelines at best, since history is replete with examples of usurpers who made claims based on strength of arms and support of key nobles. Even so, to your point, there were certain rules that were hard to break, and the porphirogenesis is among those strong feudal ones ubiquitous across all medieval societies at the time. It is vanishingly rare indeed to see any commoner ascend to royal power; nearly any claimant to a throne would have to have some royal bloodline tie, however weak it may be, to successfully push any claim past the noble classes.
The phrase, 'born into the scarlet' is probably derived from the Byzantine empire's 'born in the purple' euphemism; the English word 'scarlet' originated in Middle English and denoted a type of fine wool cloth that could be any color, not necessarily red. But the meaning is still the same; "who's your pappy?" was still a key requirement, for nearly every societal strata during the middle ages.