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Cake day: February 10th, 2026

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  • Honestly it depends on the country. Many european kingdoms like Germany, Poland or Great Moravia were more like consolidated tribal confederations at first, so the King was more closer to “first among equals” and only firmly controlled “his” tribal base. In cases like England or Castile where there was massive land redistribution (Reconquista & Norman Conquest) it was closer to what you said. Carolingian Feudalism also worked that way, where aristocrats where more like viceroys or mangers with their lands being “easily” revoked if run afoul of the King - back then most peasants were also free farmers and not serfs.

    Absolutism was then the transitional state towards modern capitalist nation states. It saw the rise of like the principles of “the states does things” and territorialization with things like border patrol or the idea of a closed space constituting a country.












  • Tbf people still call indigenous picts, germanics and illyrians “barbarians” and whine endless about how great rome was. Another related anecdote is that in english they translated medieval german polities as “stem duchies” -> while the original word means just tribal duchies and is the same word used as to describe native polities (tribes). Because they couldnt fathom calling white people tribal.

    But yeah, the erasure of indigenous people is very real. I too often see people in the wild talking as if native americans died out and dont exist anymore or that they arent relevant in the us because its “only” 4 milion people.