Felagund
Mithlond
Aug 20 2023, 10:46pm
Post #1 of 1
(8164 views)
Shortcut
|
|
The Kin-strife: Gondor diminished; Gondor replenished / part III
|
Can't Post
|
|
The Kin-strife as a war of competing visions of Gondor
In the previous section, I explored how Gondor’s interactions with its Northmen neighbours had precipitated changes, exerted over a relatively compressed time period, in Gondor’s military and foreign policy, as well as to presumably ancient norms about who a member of the royal house could marry. This was, I reckon, nothing less than an evolving vision of Gondor, including of what it needed to do to continue prospering in the world and what was acceptable – or at least tolerable – in its royal dynasty as a state institution. I would also argue that necessity and pragmatism drove much of this. As examined earlier, Rómendacil needed fresh manpower and firmer northern frontiers and acted to achieve those objectives, even if it meant changing from the ‘business as usual’ model. Whether or not he personally approved of Valacar’s marriage to Vidumavi comes across as similarly subordinated to what he felt he needed to accept in order to preserve the evolution he was spearheading. Yet, there was another, competing vision of Gondor recounted by our feigned historians. This one did not welcome the changes that Rómendacil, Valacar, Vidumavi and Eldacar introduced or represented. And regardless of how fragmented its proponents may have been in reality, it was a vision that in essence defined itself in opposition to change. The Kin-strife subsequently throws these competing visions into sharp relief, as the proponents of one attempt to extirpate the adherents of the other. Yes, this was a struggle for power, with a king being violently overthrown by a member of a cadet branch of the royal family, but also a struggle for what Gondor ‘should’ look like. What this reveals about Gondor as a polity is the focus of part III of this study.
The most evident fault line revealed by the Kin-strife is ethnicity or, more precisely, rigid definitions of ethnic identity. As discussed briefly in part II, the Kin-strife had an explicitly ethno-chauvinist dimension and this is set out as a key driver of the opposition to the path Rómendacil was taking Gondor. To quote more fully from ‘Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion’:
“For the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them; and it was a thing unheard of before that the heir of the crown, or any son of the King, should wed one of lesser and alien race… the Dúnedain feared that her [Vidumavi’s] descendants would prove the same [“short-lived according to the fate of lesser Men”] and fall from the majesty of the Kings of Men. Also they were unwilling to accept as lord her son, who though he was now called Eldacar, had been born in an alien country and was named in his youth Vinitharya, a name of his mother’s people.”
For reference, the draft of the Kin-strife for the Second Edition of LotR is even more explicit in its xenophobic tone (‘The Making of Appendix A: The Realms in Exile’):
“There [in southern Gondor] were gathered many of those who declared that they would never accept as king a man half of foreign race, born in an alien country. ‘Vinitharya is his right name,’ they said. ‘Let him go back to the land where it belongs!’.”
In other words, a significant proportion of Gondor’s ruling elite were deeply sceptical about the Northmen on ethnic grounds, or at least about those who resided within the borders of Gondor, and therefore were unsurprisingly appalled that the royal house of the Anárioni had admitted an outsider. And while disgruntlement at disruption that came with an influx of newcomers, and perhaps even envy of the rapid mobility of some of these ‘new men’ (“and [Rómendacil] gave to some high rank in his armies”), may have played a part in the hostility of the local elite, what unites the reactions is the view that the outsiders are inferiors at a racial level. And again, this isn’t particularly surprising given that a fundamental part of the Númenórean world view was that they were superior to other Men. They were the ‘High Men’. Everyone else was at best of the ‘Middle Men’ or at worst, of the ‘Men of Darkness’ (‘The Window on the West’, LotR; ‘Of Dwarves and Men’, HoMe XII). Distant kinship was acknowledged with the former but that did not change the fundamentals of who was superior and certainly, if the Kin-strife tells us anything, this did not easily allow for admitting such inferior kin into the ranks, let alone into the royal house. This was, to these ‘high men of Gondor’ about adulteration. Interestingly, the lid was just about kept on this simmering tension until the prospect of Eldacar’s accession to the throne became impossible to ignore. That is, it wasn’t until the ‘mixed race’ offspring of this controversial marriage was in touching distance of the crown that the civil war commenced in earnest. It’s possible that Rómendacil and Valacar were simply adept at containing the division in their respective lifetimes but that’s not mutually exclusive to the idea that Eldacar’s imminent rather than ‘at some point in the future’ accession swept away any final inhibitions about insurrection. At any rate, I regard this as emphasising the ethno-chauvinist dimension to the Kin-strife.
The fate of the Northmen who were living in Gondor at the time of the Kin-strife and the make-up of the leadership of the rebellion are further, intertwined cases in point. Although there isn’t much in the way of detail, when Eldacar escaped the sack of Osgiliath, where he had been successfully besieged by the rebels, he was joined in exile by “the Northmen in the service of Gondor”. This doesn’t come as a surprise, given the marriage of Valacar and Vidumavi had exacerbated the existing prejudice the ‘high men of Gondor’ harboured when it came to the Northmen who had come to live and serve within Gondor’s borders. With Eldacar dethroned because of his mixed heritage, Gondor cannot have been a safe place for the Northmen. Turning to the rebellion’s leadership, the insurgents, described as “confederates”, were “led by descendants of the kings” and the usurper who emerged from this pack was “one of those nearest by blood to the crown”, Castamir, the great-nephew of Rómendacil and second cousin to Eldacar. Again, the emphasis is on ‘blood’ or more precisely, from the rebels’ perspective, ‘pure blood’. The struggle for ‘purity’ in the royal house went hand in bloody hand with the likely ‘cleansing’ of Gondor of its Northmen population.
The feigned history illustrates a second fault line in the Gondorian polity: that of regional allegiance. We learn that towards the end of Valacar’s lifetime there “was already rebellion in the southern provinces”, although whether this marked the ‘official’ outbreak of the Kin-strife is both confirmed and contradicted in the feigned history (‘The Realms in Exile’ contra ‘Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion’). The names of these provinces aren’t given, although there are a few to choose from, such as Harondor, Lebennin and the territories centred on the havens of Pelargir and Umbar. The power base of the rebel leader Castamir, who later usurped the throne, is also described, and may cover off some or all of the aforementioned rebel ‘southern provinces’:
“He [Castamir] was not only one of those nearest by blood to the crown but he had the greatest following of all the rebels; for he was the Captain of Ships, and was supported by the people of the coasts and of the great havens of Pelargir and Umbar.”
Once we get into the reign of this usurper, the chronicle further states that “he [Castamir] cared little for the land, and thought only of the fleets and purposed to remove the king’s seat to Pelargir.” This emphasis on the coastal nature of Castamir’s core support is again apparent during the endgame of the Kin-strife, when the by then defeated ‘Castamirid’ faction, comprised of “many people of the fleets”, holed up in Pelargir before escaping to Umbar. For comparison, the draft of text later incorporated into Appendix A of the First Edition of LotR is interesting for its nuanced efficiency in combining the rebellion’s ‘southern’ locus with the maritime connections: “The most favoured especially by the fleet, and ship-folk of the southern shores was the Captain of the Ships, Kastamir…” (‘The Heirs of Elendil’, HoMe XII).
Turning to the support base that Eldacar drew upon, we have already seen that he could rely on the ethnic affinity of the “the Northmen in the service of Gondor”. However, the aforementioned regional fault line was also a factor. Eldacar’s main redoubt in Gondor during the first stage of the Kin-strife was Osgiliath, although draft material for Appendix A to the First Edition of LotR adds that both Osgiliath and Minas Anor were held by the beleaguered king (‘The Heirs of Elendil’, HoMe XII). At any rate, the inland capital city of Gondor was in Eldacar’s hands. His supporters are also described as “Dúnedain of the northern parts of the realm”, who joined him in exile in Rhovanion; he retained sympathisers in “Minas Anor and Ithilien”; and during his resurgence “folk flocked to him from Calenardhon and Anórien and Ithilien”. Eldacar’s support is thus very much concentrated in the north and north-central regions of Gondor and exclusively in the hinterland of the realm, hundreds of miles from the sea.
The implication is that there is a ‘north’ versus ‘south’ dimension to the conflict, potentially further refined as setting coastal interests against those of the hinterland. Castamir not only ticked the ‘ethnic purity’ box but he also perfectly embodied the southern and coastal interests: before the Kin-strife he was Captain of Ships and his supporters, the “people of the coasts and of the great havens of Pelargir and Umbar”, were the strongest group within the rebel confederates. This cleared the way for him to emerge from the pack of other potential pretenders – “other descendants of the kings” (‘Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion’), also described as “descendants of Atanatar II” and, alternatively, as “descendants of Kalmakil and Rómendakil II” in draft form (‘The Heirs of Elendil’, HoMe XII). Once in power, Castamir is described thus: “he cared little for the land, and thought only of the fleets”. And he further burnished his regional-factional credentials, and exacerbated the realm’s divisions, by planning to “remove the king’s seat to Pelargir”. This disposition and decision to relocate the capital are cited as specific reasons for how sympathy in Anórien and Ithilien for Eldacar turned into outright support during his bid to reclaim his crown – catalysts for Eldacar “seeing his time” to sally from his exile in Rhovanion.
What can we deduce then from our feigned historians about these dividing lines? Polarisation of some degree clearly existed before the Kin-strife broke out. Rómendacil and Valacar’s attitude towards the Northmen, with its pragmatic approach to managing frontiers, manpower shortages, and marriage into the royal house, was unpopular with the ‘Númenórean purity’ brigade long before Eldacar came to the throne. Similarly, the ‘southern provinces’ were already in rebellion against a king based further to the north by the time the civil war formally begins. The Kin-strife builds on these divisions, exacerbates them and becomes a fulcrum for two violently competing visions of the kingdom. Moving into more speculative territory, were the southern ‘confederates’ any more ethno-chauvinist than Dúnedain from the more northerly regions of the kingdom? Was Tolkien, in his choice of language, even quietly playing on the Confederacy versus the Union, North / South dynamic of the American Civil War? Personally, I don’t think so, although the choice of language, racial overtones of the conflict, and geographic locus did make me pause for a moment. I note, however, that Tolkien uses the word ‘confederacy’ elsewhere (in the context of the Wainriders), in a way that suggests to me that he simply found it an effective means to describe a grouping of many elements. As discussed previously, it is clear enough that the rebels were not a singular bloc, at least not at first; and that Castamir was the chief of the strongest faction amongst those who had ‘confederated’ in their opposition to the king, including other junior members of the Anárioni.
Nonetheless, there is an interesting association between region and the ethnic aspect of the Kin-strife and its antecedents. Speculating again, this may have had something to do with the state of the frontiers in question. As we have seen, in the north the situation was fluid during the successive regency and kingship of Rómendacil. The Easterlings, absent from Gondor’s list of woes for more than six hundred years, were back to trouble the kingdom’s northern flank. And the Northmen were a new factor in the region, sometimes friendly to Gondor, sometimes opportunistically joining the Easterlings in their attacks, and too powerful and sensitively located to ignore. Compare this to the southern frontier at that time where, just 200 years previously (in Rómendacil’s youth) Gondor had dealt such a crushing blow to the hostile peoples of Haradwaith that “their kings were compelled to acknowledge the overlordship of Gondor… did homage to Gondor, and their sons lived as hostages in the court of its King.” Indeed, it was ironically only with the seizure of Umbar by the Castamirids, fleeing their defeat in the Kin-strife, that Gondor’s “hold upon the Men of Harad was loosened.” There was no need, apparently, for a pragmatic accommodation on Gondor’s southern borders in this era: domination was, if not total, near enough to it.
For some of Gondor’s earlier history, a similar situation likely existed on the northern frontier too. Decisive victories over the Easterlings in the course of the reigns of two kings, Rómendacil I (r. III.492-541) and his son Turambar (r. III.541-667) culminated in the extension of Gondor’s borders beyond the Anduin, perhaps as far as the sea of Rhûn (‘Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion’). However, the picture is very different six centuries later. In contrast, the kings in Osgiliath and the Dúnedain of the northern provinces would have had, by necessity, a different perspective of their nearest liminal exposure. Gondorian security, let alone supremacy, was far from guaranteed in this region, prompting the leaders of the day to adapt to the local circumstances. Even if a Númenórean living in this part of Gondor remained convinced of their racial superiority vis à vis the Northmen and looked wistfully on the ‘overlord model’ to the south, the reality was that some kind of a modus vivendi had to be reached. And that would have meant for some, at least, serving in the same army together and sharing the same risks and goals with regard to the Easterling foe. I’ll speculate that, over time, these kinds of compromises may have eroded some of the prejudices of the ‘high men of Gondor’ in that region. Certainly, there was enough affinity for the Dúnedain of the northern provinces to rally to the banner of a deposed king who was half of ‘alien race’ and marching at the head of a revanchist force featuring Northmen veterans of the Gondorian army.
Earlier, I highlighted the hinterland-coastal dynamic to the regionalism of the Kin-strife. Turning back then to this, the context of the particulars of the confederates’ nascent leader, Castamir is interesting. Not only was he a Númenórean of the southern provinces with, quite probably, little experience of seeing the world as one where compromises with other nations of Men were necessary; but also he was about as ‘coastal’ in pedigree as you could possibly imagine. Speculating again, in joining the rebellion was Castamir also tapping into, and reflecting, an outlook in parts of the Gondorian polity that the kingdom’s coastal regions were insufficiently respected or valued by the kings, ruling as they did from inland Osgiliath? If so, Castamir would have some history to draw upon, or abuse as the case may be, in articulating the grievances of his supporters. Gondor had become a thalassocratic power in the centuries following Anárion and Isildur’s construction of a co-kingdom centred on inland cities – Osgiliath, Minas Ithil and Minas Anor. Indeed, it had been ruled by four successive ‘Ship-kings’, the last of whom, Hyarmendacil I had died only a century or so before the birth of Castamir and three hundred years before the outbreak of the Kin-strife. It’s possible to speculate that the peoples of the southern coastal provinces may have harboured an inherited memory of a golden age, where the great sea havens and fleets were the foundation of Gondor’s power and prestige. And a golden age lost. That is, until the inland kings ‘surrendered’ their right to rule through their abominable embracing of the Northmen, and Castamir emerged to lead these people to restored, rightful glory and pre-eminence. This more speculative take on the feigned history would help to explain the roots of Castamir’s power base, as well as the diehard nature of Castamirid support in Pelargir and Umbar even after the decisive defeat of the Usurper’s forces at the Battle of the Crossings of Erui in III.1447.
If part of Castamir’s actions and opportunism can be hypothetically understood in terms of seeking to restore a cherry-picked, earlier version of Gondor, it’s also worth remarking that he was prepared to do what even the Ship-kings didn’t venture: moving the seat of the king to Pelargir. Yes, the first of the Ship-kings, Tarannon Falastur had a royal residence in Pelargir (‘The Istari’, Note 7, Unfinished Tales) but that’s hardly on a par with what Castamir had in mind. What Castamir was intending can be interpreted as a far-reaching re-ordering of the kingdom. In this vision or re-imagining of Gondor, the kingdom’s centre of gravity would shift, formally and symbolically, from the hinterland to the coast. This in itself further inflamed the regional-factional fault line, serving as a catalyst for the hinterland populations of Anórien and Ithilien to decisively throw in their lot with the resurgent Eldacar. Although Castamir’s usurpation of the throne in III.1437 had already meant, de facto, a shift in power from north to south and from the hinterland to the coast, formalising this was evidently a bridge too far for Gondor’s ancient twin heartlands. In his own way, Castamir was therefore not only a traditionalist and reactionary, fighting against Northmen interlopers and ‘contamination’ of the royal house, but also a revolutionary and change agent, who sought to move the foundation stones of the kingdom as originally laid out by Isildur and Anárion. In turn, his chief foe, Eldacar can be seen as similarly paradoxical: on the one hand, the embodiment of a challenge to the old order, and on the other the champion of dynastic rights and the restoration of constitutional order.
In part I of this essay I remarked that the relative scarcity of source material would inevitably limit the breadth and depth of any analysis, particularly in comparison to, say, a study of a historical civil conflict. However, the feigned history of the Kin-strife does provide for two reasonably clear-cut fault lines within the Gondorian polity: ethnicity or race; and regional affiliation and division. In and of themselves, they don’t spontaneously or inevitably generate a civil war. But they are the necessary kindling for one, with the spark for the violent conflagration being fear of change. Change that was epitomised in the cumulative rise of the Northmen within Gondor’s borders, as soldiers and high-ranking officers; as the spouse of the crown prince; and in the succession of a king whose parentage was part Northman, part Númenórean. As explored above, based on these ethnic and regional cleavages, speculative observations and analyses are possible, concerning the causes and key features of the Kin-strife. For example, frontier pragmatism versus frontier supremacy, and a grievance-sustaining desire for a return to a thalassocratic golden age. Yet, even stripping out the speculative, what remains is a feigned history of two violently clashing visions of Gondor.
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
|
