Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Real life hangers on at Renaissance royal courts?

patchwork · 03-03-2021, 08:56 PM

The unemployment rate is strongly tied to age, too. In pre-Revolutionary France, every family who was anybody sent the oldest son to Court as soon as he could be trusted out of his parents' sight (or perhaps slightly sooner). There he would engage in the sort of loutish behavior that a noble young man thinks impresses kings, trying to secure an appointment or three. By around 30, he either has a sinecure or two, or he slinks back to the family estate in the country. Middle-aged courtiers with no defined portfolio or duties were rare; but at the same time, something rather like the fraternities in Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds is going on in the King's vicinity.

03-03-2021, 08:56 PM	#10
patchwork Join Date: Oct 2011	Re: Real life hangers on at Renaissance royal courts? The unemployment rate is strongly tied to age, too. In pre-Revolutionary France, every family who was anybody sent the oldest son to Court as soon as he could be trusted out of his parents' sight (or perhaps slightly sooner). There he would engage in the sort of loutish behavior that a noble young man thinks impresses kings, trying to secure an appointment or three. By around 30, he either has a sinecure or two, or he slinks back to the family estate in the country. Middle-aged courtiers with no defined portfolio or duties were rare; but at the same time, something rather like the fraternities in Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds is going on in the King's vicinity.