“Some systems are very sensitive to their starting conditions,
so that the tiny difference in the initial push you give them
causes a big difference in where they end up. And there is
feedback, so that what a system does affects its own behavior.”
— John Gribbon
***
Emergence is the occurrence of genuinely new and novel qualities that are unique to a system and thus separate from its components.
Emergence can be a tricky concept, but it is an extremely useful model to explore. It allows us to understand why some things are greater than the sum of their parts. It demonstrates that power can arise from components that on their own are relatively powerless.
A school of fish is a perfect example. If you study the movement of one fish you would have no appreciation for the shape and behavior that 10,000 of them together will produce. Essentially, the complex behavior they exhibit as a group is more than the physical motion of each individual fish.
Understanding that organisms, including humans, can self-organize into systems that have properties that are unique to the collective is a lens through which you can better understand the behaviors of large organizations such as a bureaucracy, political system, or a marketplace.
Western Europe in the 13th century was almost dysfunctional. The borders of England, France, and Germany were not what we’d recognize today, and most rulers spent their time (and money) constantly reorganizing the geopolitical boundaries. Peace treaties were seasonal and monarchs would go into enormous debt to finance various exploits designed to take, or take back, land. Taxes were a certainty. Not so much who you’d be paying them to.
Women of the royalty and nobility were a huge component of these ‘raising funds for invasion’ schemes. Maybe beauty mattered, and there is some evidence that Kings and Queens did occasionally love each other. But money mattered more. High-class women came with dowries of lands and goods, which helped fund the ongoing conquests.
So women didn’t get to choose whom they were going to marry. It was like Monopoly trading – I’ll give you Pacific Avenue for St. Charles and Ventor and free rent for the next five rolls.
In 1230 four sisters lived in Provence, then part of the Holy Roman Empire (now part of France). Their father was a Count, which made them nobility, but not royalty. They didn’t have loads of money, but they were pretty. They had good marriage prospects, but not amazing ones. They should not have all ended up as Queens. And yet, that’s what happened.
Nancy Goldstone, in her book Four Queens, explains the geopolitical maneuverings that brought about this extraordinary set of circumstances.
Marguerite, the eldest, was the first to marry. She was chosen by the Dowager Queen of France, Blanche de Castile, for her eldest son Louis IX. Provence’s neighbor Toulouse was acting up, violating his treaty with France and the Dowager wanted friends in the region. A storm was brewing with England, and she knew France couldn’t handle a war on two fronts. So Marguerite, pretty, but of inferior rank, was chosen, as long as her family could provide a dowry of 10000 silver marks (needed for, among other things, dealing with the English). They couldn’t, so they pledged some Provence real estate which was good enough for all parties and the deal was done.
Eleanor was next, the second eldest of the sisters. She married Henry III, the King of England. Eleanor was even a less obvious choice than Marguerite. Henry III was broke, and what little liquid assets the Provence family had all went to Marguerite’s marriage. Goldstone argues that it is the first marriage that made all the difference for the second.
Marguerite’s marriage to the…
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