Lord Darcy (character) - Social Structure

Social Structure

France and the British Isles are combined into a single state as the Anglo-French Empire, whilst Russia, Italy, and Germany continue as loose collections of small states. Society is stratified—most important government positions are held by nobles, who dispense justice and still maintain private soldiers. The Church is powerful and a central component of everyone's life (there had never been a Reformation, or it took a very different form, as some of the worst abuses of the late-Medieval/Renaissance Catholic Church seem to have been eliminated or minimized). However, serfdom is as dead as in our own world, and the rights of the common people appear to be as well protected as in our world's Western democracies, if in different ways.

Anglo-French regard themselves as fortunate in comparison to the subjects of the Polish King, who are reported to be living under a terrible tyranny. The characters expressing this are all living in the Anglo-French countries, but include a Polish refugee, whom the Italian government accused of black magic, and who is compelled to spy for Poland by a threat to her uncle.