Encabezado de página
Vol. 53 No. 1 (2021)
Artículos

A Digital Theory of Feudalism: Dynasty, Power, Vassalage and State in the Game Crusader Kings (2012-2020)

  • Felipe Augusto Ribeiro
Felipe Augusto Ribeiro
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
DOI: https://doi.org/10.19130/medievalia.2021.53.1.25628

Published 2022-03-22

Keywords

  • game,
  • feudalismo,
  • vassalagem,
  • Estado,
  • neomedievalismo
  • game,
  • feudalism,
  • vassality,
  • State,
  • neomedievalism

How to Cite

Ribeiro, Felipe Augusto. 2022. “A Digital Theory of Feudalism: Dynasty, Power, Vassalage and State in the Game Crusader Kings (2012-2020)”. Medievalia 53 (1):191-219. https://doi.org/10.19130/medievalia.2021.53.1.25628.

Copyright (c) 2021 Medievalia

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper deals with the representation of elements considered “medieval” in the world of videogames. Approaching the Crusader Kings series, it investigates how the game’s developers operated some important concepts in Medieval History, such as dynasty (or family), vassalage and State. The problematization involves some questions: how does the game portray a dynasty or a medieval family? How does it understand vassalage? What concepts it has of power, feudalism and State? With such questions, the work aims to make an introductory analysis to the game, using a descriptive method that observe, part by part, its basic elements. Based on the premise that videogames, as works of neo-medievalist culture, assume and reconstruct visions of History, the paper outlines a hypothesis: in order to give meaning to the challenges that it poses to players, the game would convey a true “digital theory” of what the Middle Ages would have been, with its supposedly intrinsic feudalism.

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