Maybe a weird/stupid question. Today we have mass media, and any new law/political scandal that happens reaches almost everyone instantly. Previously, radio broadcasts. Before telecommunications, information could go around presumably by letters, word of mouth, etc. Before even any of that, how would entire populations in, for example, the 11th century find out about new laws that were passed in their country, or if their country was going to war, and was it ever possible to communicate this fairly quickly (that is, within a week or two?)
In: 1822
In general, the entire population didn’t need to know about most things. As far as things like war/raising of armies etc – feudalism. The feudal lords were obliged to raise armies (and feed and equip them), and they did so – if you were a tenant farmer living in say East Anglia, one day someone from the local earl would come and announce in the village that X number of men are to be equipped for the army by whichever day. You didn’t really need to know why either….Laws being passed etc – similarly, feudal lords had a duty to collect taxes and ensure administration of laws; assuming that central governments had some sort of diffusion mechanism (by horse messengers, if not directly, at say diet/parliament sessions), you’d rely on the hierarchy to diffuse the laws down.
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