Talk:Feudal duties

Droit du seigneur

Editor Srnec removed this sentence:

Some feudal duties, such as droit du seigneur, were less common,<ref>Wettlaufer, Jörg (2000). "The jus primae noctis as a male power display: A review of historic sources with evolutionary interpretation". Evolution and Human Behavior. 21 (2): 111–123. Archived from the original on 23 January 2001. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)</ref> while others, such as military service, were almost universal.

because (a) I'm not sure this is a reliable source for this claim and (b) the source does not clearly say that the "droit" in question was *ever* exercised. The cited article makes it clear that the actual instance of whether the droit du seigneur was exercised during the Middle ages has been widely debated. The existence of a jus primae noctis in the Middle Ages was an eagerly disputed topic in the nineteenth century (Schmidt 1881, 1884; Pfannenschmid 1883; Hanauer 1893; cf. Schmidt-Bleibtreu 1988). The author of the cited source goes on to say most historians would agree today that there is no authentic proof of the actual exercise of the custom in the Middle Ages, Thus I do think that to the extent that it existed, it can be said with authority that it was a "less common" feudal obligation/right. That the right was ever exercised is not in dispute, as the above author points to its early use by Gilgamesh, and its appearance in other feudal societies. --Bejnar (talk) 02:02, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't a feudal "duty" in any case, and the article cited shows, if anything, that it wasn't "feudal" at all. "Less common" is too weak: at most some late medieval folks believed that it was a customary right that formed the basis for certain contemporary practices. Srnec (talk) 03:20, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

As an aside, my questioning the source was based solely on the journal title. Evolution and Human Behavior does not inspire confidence about historical questions relating to feudalism. Srnec (talk) 03:23, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

While one should not confuse "feudal" with "the European Middle Ages", what would you suggest as a good example of the less common feudal duty? --Bejnar (talk) 13:36, 24 October 2014 (UTC)