Re: [OT] Bureau of Relocation

On 13-May-00 at 20:22, Imre A. Szabo (ias@sprintmail.com) wrote:
> >	    In the novel, Rico (studying to become an officer) is given
> >	    a term paper about war.  He discovers that all war comes
> >	    from population pressure (though sometimes you have to
> >	    dig deep in the records, the Crusades were mentioned).
> 
> Actually, the Crusades weren't launched to control population.  By
that
> time the Viking raids had ebbed and the huge military force to defend
> against them was no longer needed.  This was a predominately feudal
> force, therefore it was impossible to just do a budget cut to reduce
the
> size of the army.  Even worse was that there were all these knights
bred
> and trained for war and no war to fight.  So what do a bunch of bored
> knights do?

Just quoting my historian friend, but she didn't seem to think the war
had anything to do with "bored knights".  Her take on it was a cross
between a population problem and inheritance.  Too many second third
and fourth sons in a system where only the oldest inherits.  You ship
some off to the church, the rest need to establish their own territory
or end up being peasants.

Makes much more sense to me  than, "we're bored, lets go die in the
middle of nowhere".

Roger