Can you have a classical and medieval area in the same world?

Question

Say my main character lives in a well developed empire akin to Rome, with high stability and relative social mobility. Beyond the edges of the empire, there is a vast area of small warring states, where technology, science, and development are a long way behind, and the feudal system is alive and well.

We're talking major differences here. My main character is shocked to find that roads are mostly unpaved in the medieval region, and has trouble comprehending the idea that people can be tied to land.

I know the modern world has massive gaps in development between areas, but the variation of wealth was generally less extreme in pre-industrial times.

Could both of these coexist on the same planet at the same time? Why or why not?

Answer 1

While I am answering to you using the marvel of the times called Internet, there are people living what is to all extent in the stone age (have you ever heard of the Sentinelese?) or what we call medieval age in term of freedom of doing as they like.

Also technology-wise, there are still places where having a toilet with flushing water and sewer/septic tank is only one of the wildest dreams one can have, same as in medieval Europe one would throw their night excreta out of the window down on the road.

Just to give you a concrete example, years ago a family friend went to visit a mission in a remote location in Africa: upon reaching it he was given a bottle of water and told he could choose when to shower, only once during his stay. He choose to shower before leaving and then, while waiting for dinner, decided to freshen up using the water in the bottle. When he got thirsty he asked for some water to drink and was told he had the bottle he was given, if he wanted more, he could pick the jar and walk the 10 km until the nearest water source and fill it up.

Additional historical example: the town of Matera, in the South of Italy, where until the mid of the previous century people lived into caves while the rest of Italy was about to embark in the economic boom.

So, if this is happening in our real world, nothing stops you from making it happen in your world.

Answer 2

Treat it like the colour purple.

The Last Emperor.

If you want to write a character who's naïve in this way you're going to need to place them in a similar situation to the protagonist in the 1987 feature film The Last Emperor.

The MC grows up in the ultimate sheltered environment. He is from birth living in a culture that absolutely forbids one of his station from seeing the colour purple - or even knowing of its existence. The name of the colour is not mentioned to him at any point (on pain of death), the cloths he sees, the flowers planted in the Palace Gardens (citadel gardens).

Upon the fall of that regime, the emperor (in the film at least) survives to adulthood with all the many shocks to his awareness that may bring.

Similarly, your character's curiosities must be curtailed about certain matters that they must not see. His peers must undergo the same strictly-sheltered education.

Most importantly, no overheard conversations must betray the secrets of the realm - perhaps permanently, or perhaps until it's time for a kind of initiation-rite like Rumspringa is to the The Amish, a subsect of the Anabaptist Christian movement.

They segregate themselves from the greater society, the adults (exclusively) deal with the outside world and the children are kept apart from such influences until the proper time - Rumspringa. This entails the young (with all their strict religious training) venturing into the big cities and living-it-up in whatever way they want to or can.

Many (most I believe) return to their parent communities and stay. They thrive and make families of their own. Others are able to adapt to the outside world adequately (eg. Kate Stoltz, who went on to become a model and fashion designer in New York, stepping away from her Amish roots). Others still fall by the wayside, taken by addiction and the depredations of the world.

Your character.

The Amish as a model falls down as they're agriculturalists. You could have your character from a community of aristocracy/wealthy industrialists or the other ruling class, whatever you call it - this should be easily able to be engineered into a segregated living-space for the children.

At least in the Medieval period there's no need to worry about the bad influence of Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile Phones, Newspapers, Billboards (with writing) and books (except The Book).

Beware.

A sub-culture held in such a position of blissful ignorance must impose absolutely totalitarian rule over every area of their lives. A child who found the truth prematurely might need to receive "special treatment" (extreme unction on the one hand Vs anathemization on the other) in order to accept the revelation silently.

Answer 3

Yes they can coexist. It is the case today with certain examples others mentionned. Also several fiction books already gave examples of such a situation.

These differences can be created purposedly, by snowballing on the technological gap and maintaining the pressure on the "medieval" peoples. These differences can be enforced by "racial" considerations, strong religions with deadly taboos and rituals.

These differences can also appear because of a different repartition of natural resources, for example sparse water sources or less forests will make survival more important and occupy more of their times, with less time available to other tasks.

The differences can come from a combination of both natural and artificial/cultural causes.

Note that an empire that maintains its superiority through artificial tools such as dogmas and religions will always become decadent and fall apart before their citizens know it.

Answer 4

Suppose that a traveler left the Roman Empire, or China, or India, or the Caliphate, or some other advanced civilization, and traveled to a different society. They could travel to societies classified as barbarians or even as savages as far as their technology or social organization went.

Do you remember reading The Hobbit (1937) as a child? I read it years before reading The Lord of the Rings, so for years all I knew about Middle-earth was what I knew or could deduce from The Hobbit. As Bilbo and the dwarves travelled east into a region called "Wilderland" or "The Wild" things became a lot wilder and less civilized.

Here is a link to a site which has a copy of the map of Wilderland from The Hobbit.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Map_of_Wilderland#/media/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Map_of_Wilderland.jpg

And I noted how, shortly before they met the trolls, they said that people in those regions had "never heard of the King".

So I deduced that somewhere in the west beyond the borders of the map of Wilderland there was a "Tamerland", or a "Milderland" which included Bilbo's homeland. And I suspected that there was a large and powerful and peaceful Kingdom that probably included where Bilbo and the Hobbits lived and the home of Thorin's exiled dwarves.

And apparently as you travelled east the control of that kingdom got looser and looser and more and more wild creatures in habited the land and did what they pleased. And to the east of the mighty kingdom's gradual borders there was only anarchy and tribes of wild people, except in Rivendell, the Elf Kingdom in Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain (once Smaug was gone), Laketown, and the Iron Hills, and possibly in the lands that the Wood-Elves traded with.

As it turned out in The Lord of the Rings the kingdom in the west had fallen a thousand years ago, but people still remembered it a little by saying that evil beings "had never heard of the king".

I also noted that in The Hobbit evil beings seemed to come from the North.

So I noticed that in The Hobbit the north and the east seemed to be the directions of evil and things seemed to be worse in those directions.

And that seemed strange to me, a kid in the USA. In US tv shows and movies the opposite was the case. The north and the east were the directions of relative good, of civilization and peace and safety. And the south and the west were the directions of relative evil, of savage violence.

The south was the region of the rebellion against the US government in the Civil War. And the west was the region of lack of civilization and of wild violence from hostile Indian tribes and evil outlaws.

And that was actually pretty much the historical situation.

I remember reading about 19th century Indian campaigns in the middle plains regions by a reporter who covered them. As he traveled west he travelled through regions which were equally civilized. But after he crossed the Mississippi civilization diminished the farther west he went. St. Louis, Missouri was the 4th most populous city in the USA in 1870, with half the population of Philadelphia and a third the population of Manhattan. And the farther west the reporter went by train and stagecoach the smaller the towns and villages got and the less settled the land was and the greater the probability of encountering hostile Indian warriors.

In the 19th century most of the Indian tribes and nations west of the Mississippi were much less civilized that the rest of the USA. Many tribes relied on hunting and gathering for all their food. Many others depended on farming for much of their food but also hunted and gathered a lot. And other tribes were primarily farmers, like most white Americans.

Some groups in the arid southwest dug irrigation canals to water their crops. But the plains the level of civilization had taken a downturn. Many southern plains tribes relied on farming for a major part of their food. But when horses were introduced to the nomadic hunting and gathering tribes on the plains, they could now hunt a lot of buffalo and feed themselves well. So they flourished and multiplied and their warriors raided the sedentary farming communities.

The French in the Mississippi Valley armed tribes with guns and sent them to attack the tribes on the southern plains who were a buffer for Spain. The Comanches moved down from the north and attacked the southern plains tribes, almost exterminating the Plains Apache.

So the level of culture on the plains suffered a sharp downturn in the century or two before the western Indian Wars.

The tribes in the west had almost no metallurgy. They could beat iron into spearheads and arrowheads. Traders who sold them muskets and gunpowder also sold them lead and molds for making lead balls. They could heat up the lead and pour the liquid lead into the molds to make balls for their guns.

In the middle and late 19th century breechloading rifles and carbines were introduced. Some repeating rifles and carbines had magazines containing several cartridges so they could be fired several times without reloading. Indians also acquired those improved guns.

Those rifles used metallic cartridges which were preloaded with the gunpowder and with the bullets. And those cartridges were much more expensive than gunpowder and lead.

So the Sioux invented a process to reuse metallic cartridges, saving every used one that they could. They would load the empty used cartridges with gunpowder and with lead balls they made with their molds.

That was quite inventive. But on the other hand lack of knowledge of chemistry caused many Sioux to waste a lot of time trying to turn the black sands of Powder River into gunpowder.

And the west was rather savage in the ethical sense. The Karankawa tribe of Texas were reputed to be cannibals, though many believe it was propaganda by their enemies. The last Karankawas might have been exterminated in an attack in 1858. Another Texas tribe, the Tonkawa, were also reputed to be cannibals. They were moved to the Indian Territory. In the Civil War they supported the Rebels, so a group of pro-Union tribes attacked them in the Tonkawa Massacre of October 23-24, 1862, killing about half the tribe. Some reports say Comanches roasted the Tonkawas alive.

The Pawnee practiced occasional human sacrifice. White Americans and progressive Pawnees eventually convinced the Pawnees to end it after the one in 1838.

Many tribes had warrior cultures, where the only only way for a young man to gain wealth was to steal from other groups, and the only way for a young man to gain reputation was to fight against other groups. So each warrior tribe was in a constant state of low intensity warfare with all their neighbors except for their few allies. And anyone living within raiding distance of a warrior tribe could be attacked at any time.

So the USA is an example of an advanced society which contained many regions which were much less advanced, and where the local governments were, to say the least, not very obedient to the central government, and where violence was common.

Answer 5

The Classical and the Medieval did already co-exist - but it is a spectrum, and one improved on the other.

Similar to L.Dutch's answer, it is indeed possible to have distinct technology levels co-exist. The answer is of course a Yes. In fact, many Classical elements existed throughout the Middle Ages, and even exist today.

But implied in the question is a small degree of myth - that 'Classical' civilisations are advanced compared to the dark aged 'Medieval' ones.

The definition of Classical eras and Medieval eras (more properly known as the 'Middle Ages') may seem distinct, but consider it more of a 'process of refinement'. The Greco-Roman civilisations basically defined parameters that were later retained and developed as civilisations transitioned to later Byzantine, English, Ottoman and other Empires throughout Europe and the world, such as:

• Town Planning and Organisation. Basically, the concept of intentionally planning cities, of linking them logically with roads, and having a rigid ownership structure, are classical ideas. These were not discarded later, in fact many Roman roads and routes are the exact same roads we use today. In fact, during the Middle Age period, these networks were developed to a degree that were not possible before, including trade routes to the East (China) and links across oceans.
• Technology. There is a myth that because Romans had concrete and future kingdoms and empires did not, that somehow post-classical civilisations were inferior. This is incorrect - many innovations and technological advancements were made in the post-classical period. In fact, it could be argued the reverse.
• Culture. Although the Classical period is often depicted as the epitome of culture, one could argue that the following Byzantine / Holy Roman Empire, or other Kingdoms were actually more complex requiring more structural institutions. Intricate arrangements, alliances, all contributed to a complex web of traditional and institutional structure that the Romans would find envious.
• Organisation. Your question referenced the Feudal system - this is only one of the systems in Europe. The main organisational system was of course the Church. The Church was an incredible, a later globe spanning organisational movement that reached far beyond what the Roman Empire ever could and linked many more disparate cultures together in common purpose.

A complete list of notable scientific achievements during the Middle Ages can be found here.

So in many respects, your character that steps from Classical to Middle-Age eras would be suddenly amazed at the remarkable improvements in medicine, the innovations and discoveries developed in monasteries in Physics, Astronomy and Philosophy, the technological improvements to metallurgy, mechanics and craftsmanship, and would struggle to comprehend the intricate web of alliances and complexity of institutions, and he of course would be in awe of the Church.

So the answer is Yes, but though the Classical era may have laid the obvious foundation for these, the following kingdoms built on these foundations and developed them far beyond what Classical people ever could.

Answer 6

Yes, this factually happened in the Classical Era.

Medieval feudalism began in Germany long before the fall of Rome. Before Rome first invaded Germania, Germany was made up of many small iron-aged tribes where warriors would swear loyalty to their chieftains. However, when Rome began to threaten Germany, these chieftains began forming larger kingdoms by swearing loyalty to one another thus forming the original prototype for medieval feudalism.

So, this system already existed in Europe a few hundred years before the fall of Rome, and they existed as next door neighbors as it is in your setting.

As for your specific details

Lack of Roads: This will be a big one. A lack of roads was a major reason that Rome struggled so much to conquer Germania because their legions had a hard time traveling en masse in the overgrown Germanic forests.

Landed Peasants: This will not be the slightest bit surprising to a classical civilization. Most classical era populations were anywhere from 50-90% slaves. The average medieval peasant actually had more authority over where they worked and who they worked for than the average Greek Helot, Roman Servus, or Egyptian Sqrw-anx. The most surprising thing to a classical person would actually be the lack of task masters. In most classical civilizations, the lowest members of society worked under armed guard to make sure they did not rise up or run away. The fact that serfs were not freemen, but could be trusted to stay and work in one place out of a system of pure honor would be the only surprising element of landed serfs.

Other major differences to consider

Literacy: Most people in the Classical Era had at least a basic level of literacy. Written language was everywhere including store signs, financial records, libraries, etc. However, Germans, and many early medieval civilizations that followed had very little literacy. A Roman would feel at a loss in a civilization that keeps financial records by carving tallies onto sticks or than does not not have any labeled shops. Instead the Germans maintained everything through oral traditions; so, the prominence of bards who could recite history and other knowledge verbatim would have likely been fascinating as well.

Law: Germanic Law was much more simple than Roman Law because there was no Senate or Written record of laws. Instead Germanic culture, as well as many early medieval cultures maintained order almost exclusively through arbitration and tradition. So, a Roman would likely struggle a lot with the idea that nothing is technically illegal, but "being a ####" is still punishable if someone calls you out on it.