Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
Rule by duel: A hereditary aristocracy, but with a twist: any commoner can challenge any noble at any time to a formal duel, to the death, and if the challenger wins he wins the title and estate and other entail of the defeated noble. Or the noble can yield without a fight, simply handing over the estate.
But it has to be a formal, public duel, with formal rules and specified weapons, or other equivalent challenge, just killing a noble is prosecuted as murder and the heir inherits as usual.
Probably unstable, but definitely would be interesting while it lasted...
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In Viking times, holmgangs often did have the estate as part of the wager. What that mainly did was multiply the amount of troublesome berserkers.