High Towers and Strong Places: A Political History of Middle-earth by Timothy Furnish

Author:Timothy Furnish
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Military History, Fiction-Fantasy, Political History, Alternative
Publisher: Oloris Publishing LLC
Published: 2016-03-29T22:00:00+00:00

Among the enemies of the Men of the West, there were two major groupings—which also represented two entirely different political arrangements. The Wainriders and Balchoth (as well as, possibly, other unnamed “Easterlings”) were nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples92 who originated to the east of Mordor and the Sea of Rhûn—as such, they were organized at the pre-/non-state level, perhaps as tribes or clans. On the other hand, the Haradrim, who lived south of the River Harnen, and primarily in and around the former Númenórean and Gondorian port of Umbar (over 300 miles due south of the southern tip of Belfalas, Gondor’s southernmost province by the time of the War of the Ring), clearly were organized at the state level. While no king of Harad is ever mentioned in the sources, the fact that the Haradrim were, in times past, a hybrid people with traditions and even blood ties to not just Gondor but also, earlier, Númenor itself93 would have almost certainly meant one-person rule there—but possibly a form of despotism in which the man at the top owed his power to force and cunning rather than descent, ability, or accepted tradition as in the parent realms—because if Harad had had routinized monarchy, the extensive records of Gondor would almost certainly have mentioned some of its rulers and dynasties. Of these two major non-Western groups of Men, Easterlings and Haradrim, the former, in particular, proved themselves amenable to Sauron’s power of “reducing them to a vassalage, in which they would march with the Orcs, and vie with them in cruelty and destruction.”94

The last grouping of Men which must be accounted for is the Dúnedain of the lost kingdom of Arnor (between 861 and 3021 Third Age), and their Rangers, such as Aragorn before his crowning as King Elessar. Tolkien records that the leaders of the northern descendants of Númenor were called “Chieftains” after the demise of Arthedain and its last king, Arvedui (d. 1975 Third Age),95 and that they not only led “a secret and wandering people”96 but took upon themselves the task of protecting Eriador and its inhabitants from Orcs and other evil creatures. As such, they are perhaps best described as a semi-nomadic, post-state folk, roving east-west from the Evendim Hills to the Misty Mountains, and from the North Downs at least as far south as Sarn Ford on the Brandywine River.97 The Dúnedain, in general, and the Rangers in particular, however, were unique in that, although peripatetic and in some measure scorned, they preserved in unbroken succession the legitimate monarchy of an imperial state under the guise of a (mere) chiefdom—and, eventually, restored the imperium’s line.

Hobbits, by about the mid-point of the Third Age, had concentrated in the Shire, in central Eriador, after gaining permission from King Argeleb II of Arthedain to settle there. In the Shire they created the most democratic polity in Middle-earth.98 Hobbits evolved from having “hardly any ‘government’”99 to a tripartite, divided system of political rule, consisting of the following offices: Master of Buckland; the Thain; and the Mayor of Michel Delving.

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