In a world defined by conflict and chaos, violence was the foremost measure of an individual's or group's worth—and the foundation of everything.
To put it bluntly, most kingdoms were no more solidly built than joint-stock trading companies. At least the companies usually shared common interests. A kingdom, by nature, was simply an alliance cobbled together from military groups of various sizes.
These military groups generally had limited governing ability, so many of them ruled in a "colonial" fashion: they centered their power on a castle or fortress, ensured control over transportation hubs and major towns, and outsourced the rest to their vassal knights.
Their crude way of parceling out land, population, and taxes brought a rapid short-term increase in standing professional military forces, but severely overextended their control over their territories.
This awkward state of affairs often made it seem as though lords were farmers who wanted to rule but lacked the power to do so, periodically harvesting the crops that grew freely on their farms instead of truly governing the land and its people.
Even if the people on their land were replaced, it would have little impact on the ruler as long as the castle remained untouched. A farmer only needed to care whether the wheat was plump, not what kind of stalks it grew on—unless the stalks mutated enough to hinder the harvest.
This meant that, between the lands that seemed to have been divided up like pieces of a puzzle among the various lords, there were actually vast power vacuums. Perhaps only the key towns under their direct control were considered genuine subjects.
Even the townspeople were gradually rising in prominence and seeking a measure of autonomy from their lords. Some accumulated wealth; others allied themselves with the Church. Once they had enough influence and