Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Prologue, 3 On the Ordering of the Shire
Continuing with my close read and historical comparison of the Prologue in Lord of the Rings: Part One, The Fellowship of the Ring, I move on to “3 Of the Ordering of the Shire”. This section begins by listing the parts of the Shire: North, South, East and West Farthings; Tookland; the East and West Marches of semiautonomous Buckland; and “the Westmarch added to the Shire in S.R. 1462” (Fellowship, 10), offering the first piece of foreshadowing for the section. The rest of the section describes the lack of government and laissez-faire attitude of the nobility, the economy and rudimentary police force, and the postal service. Through this information provided in the text, I compare the culture of the Shire to other cultures in Western Europe to determine what equivalent time in history is the 15th century of Shire Reckoning (S.R.) when the main story is set.
Let’s Talk About Feudalism
The Took family with its Fallohide ancestry and connection to the high king of Fornost were the de facto rulers of the Shire. Their leader, the Thain, “was master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms” (Fellowship, 11). In other words, he acted as judge during peace and general during war, not unlike feudal lords of the European Medieval Period.
Feudalism in England lasted between the 10th and 13th centuries, although the people of the Middle Ages would not have used that term. The academic concept of feudalism arose much later, with the term “feudal system” arising in 1736, and the term “feudalism” from 1773. The word is not related to feud meaning argument, but from Medieval Latin, when feudum was the estate of a lord. English society was structured like a pyramid. At the top stood the king who owned all land. He gave units of land, or fiefs, to high ranking lords or nobles known as suzerain vassals, who swore fealty to the king, meaning that they would faithfully serve him and protect his kingdom during war. In turn, those lords gave land to lower ranking lords called tenant vassals who swore their own fealty. This exchange of land for fealty might go on for several levels.
To manage the land, lords lived in a manor and kept peasants for “planting, harvesting, and caring for crops and animals”. Some peasants were freeholders who owned their own land and worked on public projects like repairing roads and bridges or learning a trade. Others were serfs or villeins, bound to the land of lord and not allowed to leave without his permission. This class was kept in debt with heavy taxes, faced severe punishment for the slightest disobedience, and were treated as chattel or property. During my research, I saw the frequent but unattested phrase “a serf owns ‘only his belly’”, which seemed like something a wealthy Hobbit would say. Generally, all peasants were restricted from owning weapons for self-defense but were drafted into the military or “sworn to arms” during wars to protect their lord or king.
Medieval Europe was not the only time and place to develop what is now called feudalism. Similar systems developed in China during the Zhou period from 1046 to 256 BC, and in Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868 AD. In all three of these locations, the system is no longer in place today. During the Middle Ages in England, the system became too complex and weakened the relationships between levels of the pyramid. The Black Death epidemic caused mass death across Eurasia, creating areas with no noble family to rule the land and not enough peasants to work it. The Hobbits had their own “Dark Plague” in S.R. 37, although a better comparison would be the “Long winter and the famine” that caused the “Days of Death” during S.R. 1158 through 1160 (Fellowship, 5-6). Finally, late medieval kings gave money to lords instead of land, which had a genuine trickle down effect. Serfs received payments in coinage, and some bought their freedom. Many serfs in England were freed after the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, forty years after the Black Death. The practice phased out slowly across Europe and was aided by the revolutions of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Scottish Parliament passed the Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act in 2000, showing that although no one is regarded as a serf today, acts created to keep people in debt bondage might still be hiding in our laws.
If the Shire is modeled after a European late feudalist society, then an equivalent date would be around the 13th century AD. Unlike England with its lengthy list of kings and a few queens, the Hobbits lived in a Feudal system where the king had disappeared. Only the top level of vassals, the Thain of the Shire from the Fallohide Took family — also known as The Took — and the Master of Buckland from the Stoor Brandybuck family — formerly called the Old Bucks, and Tooks in all but name by the 15th century S.R. — remained in the pyramid. Originally, these suzerain vassals must have given land to tenant vassals from the Harfoot upper class who had family names like Baggins, Bulger, Boffin, Chubb, Grubb, Proudfoot, and Whitefoot. Working their land were Harfoot peasants — Cotton, Sandyman, Twofoot, Noakes, and Gamgee — called “rustic Hobbits” within the text (Fellowship, 47). Tenant vassals were not nobility but a wealthy merchant and banking class, similar to the burgesses of England, burghers of the Netherlands, and bourgeois of France.
However, these families had more power than their Late Medieval equivalents, as many hobbit-lads of this class married hobbit-lasses of the nobility, as was the case for the parents of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. This ability categorizes them as landed gentry, a legal and social status created in England by Statues of Additions in 1413 during the Post-Medieval period, which allowed commoners with wealth to be addressed as gentleman or lady and intermingle with the lower nobility. Modern readers likely are familiar with this class through the central characters in books written by Jane Austen during the late 18th and early 19th century, also called the Regency era. The families in these books, as in history, were separated from their roots as merchants and instead lived off rental income from the lower classes living on their estate, becoming destitute if they could not maintain or inherit land.
Markets & the House of Medici
Hobbits had their own markets such as “the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe” held at Midsummer (Fellowship, 11), along with the concept of lending money (The Hobbit, 22), although there is no mention of interest or formal banking. The upper class Harfoot families bore resemblance to the real-life Medici family, a Florentine Dynasty from the late 14th through late 18th century, but the economy of Europe needed to greatly change from feudalism to globalization before they could rise to power. Markets developed in Medieval Europe between 1050 and 1330 at the end of the feudalist period as the king’s gifts of land turned to gifts of coinage. Medieval peasants believed strongly in “just price, fair profits, and mutual social responsibility… and gains at the expense of the poor were condemned”. This attitude appears to be shared by upper class Hobbits, “as a rule, generous and not greedy” except in matters of food (Fellowship, 10), although their attitudes towards the poor are far from exemplary.
During the 13th century, the Polo family established a trading route on the Silk Road and wrote about their adventures. Brothers Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, along with Niccolò’s famous son Marco, have names resembling “the Fallohide brother, Marcho and Blanco”, who first received “permission from the high king of Fornost” (Fellowship, 5) to colonize the Shire. The pair became suzerain vassals and by extension enabled these ancestors of the Tooks to take the title of Thain from the Old Buck family. The concept of the high king was so prevalent for Hobbits even centuries after his disappearance that they still referred to their enemies as those who “had not heard of the king” (Fellowship, 11).
Back in the real world, Italy underwent a commercial revolution thanks to these new imports, enabling Giovanni de Medici to open Medici Bank in 1397 and popularized double-entry bookkeeping. The bank skirted a ruling by the Catholic Church that banned usury, or lending money in return for interest, by introducing a “letter of credit” that built in interest to repayments without calling it interest. Besides banking, this era ushered in marine insurance, commercial courier services, and international systems of credit. The next Medici in line, Cosimo the Elder, developed a similar philosophy to the shopkeepers at Medieval markets: “Be inoffensive to the rich and strong, while being consistently charitable to the poor and weak.” While the bank was bankrupt by 1494, the family remained in power until the 18th century, marrying into royal families, positioning sons to become popes, and patronizing the arts.
Shirriffs and Sheriffs
Another clue to the equivalent historical time comes from the mention of an early policing force, the shirriffs. This unusual spelling is a classic Tolkien insistence that as an author of the Oxford English Dictionary, he should be allowed to spell words closer to their origin in Middle English. The modern “sheriff” is from Middle English shir-reeve and Old English scirgerefa, along with the Saxon shyrereeve. The compound word combines “shire” with “gereva” meaning steward.
In the Shire, Shirriffs were led by the First Shirriff and collectively known as the Watch (Fellowship, 11). Unlike modern police, they did not have standard uniform besides a feather in their hat and, according to the narrator, spent most of their time corralling stray animals. Only twelve Shirriffs were employed for Inside Work, or three Shirriffs for each of the four Farthings. A varying number of Shirriffs were employed for Outside Work and were called “Bounders”, as they walked the boundaries of the country to keep away Outsiders (Fellowship, 12). An increasing number of Bounders were employed in the 14th century S.R. in reaction to a growing number of potentially dangerous Outsiders.
In Medieval England, the sheriff collected rent and taxes for the king and rallied the posse comitatus, a Latin term for what Americans would call the militia, along with acting as a judge. Perhaps this was the job of the First Shirriff before the fall of the high king of Fornost during the 4th century S.R. Real world sheriffs were originally elected, although the election process grew out of control, and Edward II assigned sheriffs instead. Because the posse was responsible for defending themselves and the kingdom, kings made rules about the combat gear and weapons all citizens needed to have on hand.
In 1181, Henry II of England issued an Assize of Arms listing the supplies for knights, laymen at two different income levels, and burghers. Other highlights from this ruling include forcing Jews to give up any means of physical protection such as coats of mail, banning merchants from selling timber or boats outside of England, and the Modern English translation using the word “chattel” to indicate all types of property, not just enslaved people. (According to Etymonline, the modern meaning arose in the 1640s due to the Transatlantic Slave Trade but was popularized by abolitionists like my friend Abby Kelley Foster during the 18th and 19th century. She hadn’t gotten a mention in a few weeks, and it was about time.)
In 1242 or 1252, with the exact year apparently a heated debate among academics, Henry III of England issued an updated Assize of Arms. This decree included two knights to assist the sheriff in assembling “citizens, burgesses, freeholders, villeins, and other men aged from fifteen to sixty years”. With the inclusion of the peasant class and a lack of antisemitism, the degree indicates that laws concerning arms holders have relaxed in the sixty or seventy years since the last assize. A clause that “all men sworn to arms shall be obedient to their mayors” shows that the posse report to an elected or appointed commoner rather than a noble.
This form of policing changed gradually over time. By the 1730s, paid watchmen or constables patrolled cities each night. Acts of Parliament throughout the early 19th century added city police forces to urban areas due to rising crime rates from the Industrial Revolution. These new systems did lower crime rates, although urban dwellers voiced concern about having a police state during periods of peace.
Mayors in the Shire and in Post-Medieval Europe
What did the office of mayor actually entail in Late Medieval England? Often the post was not much different than the Mayor of Michel Delving in the Shire, whose one duty in times of peace “was to preside at banquets”, although the Postmaster and First Shirriff reported to him (Fellowship, 11). The Mayor or Lord Mayor of London likewise served, and still serves, mainly ceremonial purposes but remains among the most honorable positions in the city. To be elected as mayor, the man needed to be a member of a merchant guild such as the Grocers, Drapers, Goldsmiths, and Fishmongers and could be a member of the nobility. The term lasted for a single year, unlike the Mayor of Michel Delving, who served in seven-year terms.
The first Mayor of London was Henry fitz Ailwin de Londonstane, meaning “Henry son of Ailwin from London Stone”, who held the post for life from 1189 to 1212, right at the end of the feudalism. Besides presiding over city ceremonies, he gave orders to build with stone instead of wood to prevent fires and settled property boundary disputes. Today, this position has even less power with the creation of the position of directly elected Mayor of London in 2000, who serves as the CEO of Greater London Authority. However, the role has become open to more Londoners, with two women having served as Lord Mayor and the current Lord Mayor, Michael Mainelli, originally from the United States.
In contrast, Germanic countries like the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire had city-level leadership known as burgemeesters or burgermeisters, which translates to “merchant class master”. This role began during the 13th century, once again at the end of feudalism, but few surviving records exist on the extent power these leaders possessed. They were elected by the burghers rather than appointed by the nobility, and they presided over a city council. The power of the burgermeister grew to the point that in the 17th century, he was consulted before any major action was taken within his city. The system was considered highly effective by political science experts; in fact, prior to World War I, Germany had one of the most efficient volunteer and charitable giving organizations in the West, with these operations managed by the burgermeister. If the 15th century S.R. was analogous to the 17th century in the real world, the office of the Mayor of Michel Delving could transform into a more powerful position.
We Love the Postal Service
Finally, the Shire has a Postmaster and Messenger Service (Fellowship, 11), which appears similar to a modern postal system. England long had a system of messengers for the nobility and later the merchant class, but the ability for commoners to send letters was much more recent. In 1512, Sir Brian Tuke became the first known English Postmaster-General. Charles I issued the Proclamation for the Settling of the Letter-Office of England and Scotland in 1635 and put Thomas Witherings in charge of the operation. Charles II established the General Post Office (GPO) in England through the Post Office Act of 1660, which brought the system under the control of Parliament and appointed Henry Bishopp as the first postmaster. While Bishopp’s tenure only lasted a year, he found time to invent the postage stamp and the postmark along with keeping a very tiny dog as a pet who appeared in his official portrait. This work was the foundation of the modern postal system.
The GPO was rebuilt in 1678 after the Great Fire of London. Two years later, in 1680, William Dockwra and Robert Murray founded “Penny Post”, allowing anyone to ship a package across London for a mere penny. Other post office inventions over the next two hundred years included postal worker uniforms in 1793; the first purpose-built mail facility designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1829; adhesive stamps invented by Sir Rowland Hill in 1837; the Penny Black Stamp just for letters in 1840, putting the onus on the sender to pay for postage instead of the recipient; and the first post office pillar box in 1852.
The outbreak of World War I radically changed the work of the post office. At the time, the system had over 250,000 employees, a revenue of £32 million, 5.9 billion items sent via post per year, and responsibility for the telegraph, telephone, and a savings bank. 75,000 staff members were released for war services, while an additional 12,000 postmen served in the Post Office Rifles (POR). 35,000 women became temporary postal workers. By the end of the war, the Treasury was drained, and Penny Post ended after almost 240 years, as the price to send a pack across London was raised to one-and-a-half pennies.
Over the water in America, the first post office was established in a Boston tavern in 1639, four years after Charles I made his proclamation. Benjamin Franklin managed the British colonial mail service in the thirteen colonies from 1753 to 1775, when he became Postmaster General of the Post Office of the United States. By 1831, the United States had “twice as many post offices as Britain and five times as many as France”. US Postage Stamps for letters were sold beginning in 1847, seven years after England debuted the Penny Black Stamp. The now-famous phrase “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” appeared in 1914, another invention of the World War I era.
Conclusion
While the Shire is not based on an exact period of English or Western European history, clues provided in the Prologue give an indicator of what Tolkien had in mind when describing the fictional country. The Shire appears to be a post-feudalist or post-medieval society, setting the time in the 16th century or later. The powerful Took and Brandybuck families, who gained land as vassals of the high king of Fornost, are vestiges of feudalism, although their familiarity with families of the commoner upper class indicates their need for liquid assets. Wealthy commoner families like the Bagginses resemble the landed gentry of England, expertly studied by Jane Austen in her writing between the late 18th and early 19th century, along with the House of Medici, who were in power from the late 14th through the early 18th century. While the lives of the lower class or peasants are not mentioned, consistent with other essays written by historians during the 1950s, the dialogue portions of the book indicate that remnants of peasantry and serfdom remain among the “rustic” Hobbits. All classes were guarded by the Shirriffs, similar to the precursor to the modern police system that arose in England during the late 12th century AD, while the ceremonial Mayors appeared around the same time period and exist to the present day. The final clue of a postal system indicates that the 14th century S.R. would be equivalent to the mid-17th century AD to the early 19th century AD, as post offices exist but no postal stamps are mentioned.
When placing these dates on the chart below, no complete overlap exists due to a shift in what was admired by the upper class of commoners at the same time that methods of protection changed. Much like the Hobbits of the Shire becoming complacent after years of peace and prosperity, the landed gentry no longer tried to emulate the cutthroat mercantile power of the House of Medici but instead lived off the inheritance of their ancestors, a benefit from the aftermath of feudalism with its strict social hierarchy still embedded in the law. Furthermore, this law was no longer upheld by sheriffs in collaboration with the people but by a government-sponsored police force. Due to this sharp change in ideals around the mid- to late 18th century, coinciding with the rise of Revolutions across Europe, I will be drawing from two separate times in history for my interpretations of the Shire. The positions of the Shirriffs and Mayor, exterior architecture, and relationship between the upper and lower classes will reflect the early 17th century or Post-Medieval period, while technology, interior architecture, fashion, and relationship between the layers of the upper class will reflect the early 19th century or early Industrial Revolution period.
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12th |
13th |
14th |
15th |
16th |
17th |
18th |
19th |
20th |
21st |
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Feudalism / Medieval |
Post-Medieval |
Revolution |
Modern |
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Regency Period |
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Medici Family in Power |
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Sheriffs & Posee |
Constables to Modern Policing |
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Lord Mayors |
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Early Postal Service |
Modern Postal Service |
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