[veddox]

I partly agree.

> Aragorn is not a ‘feudal king’, he is a king of legend.

I was not using "feudal" to denote a time period in our world's history, but rather a system of governance based on liege-vassal relationships. I agree with you that Gondor feels more classical than medieval, but as a king, Aragorn is quite clearly the liege-lord of vassals (Imrahil, Faramir, the Thain) who hold their lands by his bequest. So while Aragorn is definitely legendary in the sense that he is an idealised fictional figure, in-universe he is very much a feudal king.

> The journey in the Lord of the Rings is almost as much a journey back through deeper and deeper legend as it is through space - the hobbits travel from a Napoleonic era Shire, through Renaissance Rivendell, back to a medieval Rohan then classical Gondor, and then into the strictly mythological Mordor.

Yes, absolutely. Tolkien creates the countries of Middle Earth out of many different historical inspirations, with a heavy dose of mythology mixed in. I find it good fun to see where he got his ideas from - for example the parallels between Beowulf and Rohan (compare the great halls of Heorot and Meduseld).

But of course Tolkien never simply mixed and matched. His creativity drew on things he knew, but he didn't just recombine them, he amalgamated them into something really new. So I agree, seeing Middle Earth as "medieval Europe with a different geography" is just plain wrong, on many different levels. But still we can analyse the ingredients that Tolkien used to create his world, and use that to gain a richer understanding of it.

[jameshart]

The distinction I’m making is that while you can interpret the throne of Gondor as a liege lord with vassals, that is as much because when we are telling a story about a legendary king we understand that idea of ‘king’ in familiar terms, and as western readers our image of a warrior king is rooted in medieval castles and courts.

But Aragorn is as much of a feudal king as Gilgamesh, Minos, or Arthur. The various princes charming, wicked queens, and abandoned princesses of fairy stories are all vaguely ‘feudal’ in feel too but that doesn’t mean the stories are embedded firmly in a world of strict Christendom-style vassalage and primogeniture succession.

My point is really that asking what Aragorn’s tax policy was is like asking what the economic consequences were of King Midas’s reign. By the end of RotK, he’s a ‘king’ in the archetypal, storybook sense. You know: the King. Happily ever after.

[veddox]

Hm, I think I understand your point, but I still disagree. For three reasons:

First, Tolkien isn't writing another Grimms' fairy tale. His world has sufficient depth to it that we can make valid comparisons to real-world societies. Aragorn and Theoden are not generic fairy tale kings of some unspecified country. We know a lot about the geography, culture, history, and political organisation of their realms. We can see how they raise their armies, how they interact with their vassals, how they see themselves. They are not just "vaguely feudal in feel", they are actual (albeit fictional) examples of feudal rulers in action.

Second, these are not just incidental details that make the story more fun to read, they are highly relevant for the development of the plot. Questions of succession, legitimacy, and loyalty drive the attitudes and actions of Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, Theoden, Eowyn, Eomer, and Imrahil. The values to which these characters hold themselves are, in many ways, typically feudal.

Third, we know that Tolkien spent his life studying these societies, and he himself often talks about where he got his inspiration from. Unfortunately I haven't read his letters myself yet, but I know from other sources that he is often quite explicit about where he drew his ideas from (see e.g. here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_J._R._R._Tolkien).

[teapot7]

> is like asking what the economic consequences were of King Midas’s reign.

Massive devaluation of gold, rampant inflation :)