Comment by tome
2 hours ago
> Aristocracy became useless around 1600-1700, when gunpowder meant that peasant armies took over instead of knights
Does this view rest on the claim that the only use of the aristocracy is warfare?
2 hours ago
> Aristocracy became useless around 1600-1700, when gunpowder meant that peasant armies took over instead of knights
Does this view rest on the claim that the only use of the aristocracy is warfare?
That's the reason it rose, that was part of the "social contract".
Clergy to protect from the gods, nobility to protect from other organized groups of humans, peasants to provide food and beasts of burden, artisans to build things.
Of course, once a class that doesn't have to do backbreaking work is established, rooting them out is difficult. The clergy was also hard to reduce.