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Social mobility has increased. I won't deny that. There's a lot of mitigating factors on what exactly that means, but in theory the next shitcoin bet I make can make me a billionnaire and there's few social stigmas that would go along me not being an aristocrat.
I think you could go either way as to whether increased cosmopolitanism is a good thing or not. You can do certain things a homogeneous society can't and vice versa, at best it's a sidegrade.
I personally know people that are disgraced, in prison and/or dead for doing that, so I find this claim unconvincing. It's as it ever was. Just with different idols.
And have basically no effect on how the affairs of your community are conducted because that has been thoroughly insulated from that particular ritual.
It's certainly has become far easier to move, but it was actually pretty common for peasants to move around, and the people who couldn't that you're thinking of, serfs, were specifically created as a class to prevent this problem for landowners or as part of specific cultural practices. Shopping around lords for a better deal is not at all unheard of.
It depends. Most did not outright but owned a perpetual lease. (much like people still do in the UK) Most of them owned their dwellings though (or at least their family did).
The history of the practice is actually pretty complex, with early middle ages armies being more like bands of peasants called directly by kings. And the extent to which they were replaced by professional knights and men at arms is debated.
Still, it's pretty consensual at this point that for most of the period armies were composed of professionals fighting limited battles. With peasant levies filling more of a militia role or last resort stopgap than that of a real fighting force. Which I must concede is actually similar to how a lot of Europe treats conscription these days. Perhaps less so as military threats start to loom.
In contrast the the total wars of the modern era that would mobilize huge amounts of men and empty whole countries to the degree that it require women take over industrial production, it's incomparable. That level of discipline was simply impossible with the logistics of the time, and you have to go back to the empires of antiquity to find practices that compare.
Here's a nice article on the topic.
Thanks for this comment, I've learned a lot
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