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Vassals of an Elevated House

Posted by Apostate on 09/23/19
Q: So, when a noble house is elevated, such as from a march to a duchy, what happens to the vassal houses under it? Do they move to the new duchy, following their liege lord? Or do they remain in their original duchy?

A: Traditionally, when a house is promoted all of its bonds are reassessed, and it is seen as proper to allow vassals to have the opportunity to change their liege as well, in the case of fully amicable changes, though most historically stay with their newly promoted liege. This is largely because most vassals were created by having their lands entrusted to them in a fief as a partition of the liege's lands, meaning that both geographically and culturally they are strongly associated, and it is unlikely a neighbor would be a better fit.

That's not necessarily the case, however. There's times when long standing friction has been resolved by a vassal using a promotion as a change to be sworn to a neighbor, or even a more distant liege. The latter is possible, and there are domains that are far flung and do not have a shared border with their liege, but the disadvantages for that are obvious- trade is much more difficult to their historical ties, and militarily they lose their ability to be reinforced from a liege, and in fact it might even be effectively impossible for a distant liege to come to their aid, as they'd have to march across domains that have no obligation to let their forces pass in order to assist them.

So yes, traditionally vassals tend to stay with their promoted liege, but are usually prompted asking if they intend to at the Assembly of Peers for the promotion of a house.