Commoners

Most people ~ 95 out of 100 ~ are “common.” God made the three classes, and the purpose of the commoner is to work hard and provide sustenance for warriors and clerics. People are content (i.e. afraid to resist), pliable (i.e. beaten down), and used to (i.e. resigned to) a hard, poor life of toil. As individuals they are helpless, but as part of the king’s lands they have certain inalienable rights, dictated by Ancient Law and Custom, which they know well and defend.

## Legal Classes

Four legal statuses define all commoners: serfs (“unfree” in legal terms), yeomen (“free”), slaves, and burghers (city dwellers).

Most commoners (75–95%) are serfs. By ancient tradition they pay rent in food, are not allowed to leave their homes, must get the permission of the lord to marry, and do work for the lord of the manor. In all affairs that don’t affect the lord they follow their own rules and laws.

Yeomen (0–5%) are free from most work that serfs owe to the lord and have some special rights, but they are still commoners. Their free status does not give them any extra boost socially, or in income, or opportunity to get an overseer job.

Slaves (0–20%) are property, wholly subject to another, and as such have no rights whatsoever. Different counties have different percentages. Slaves are most numerous in the old Roman provinces with latifunda, where up to half the population might be enslaved. The counties with the most slaves are in the east, where yeomen are rare, and least common or absent entirely in the west.

Burghers are few, about five percent of the total population. They all live in towns, and while some are farmers, most are manufacturers, merchants, and traders. Their special status indicates they do not have to do work for their lord, instead paying him an annual fixed fee.

## Social Classes

Several classes of commoners set them apart from each other. These classes are largely differentiated by their financial status.

### Cottars

The “poorest-of-the poor” commoners are the cottars, also called crofters, and bordars. Most of them are serfs. They do not own any plowland and only plow their lord’s fields. They subsist by gardening, and hire out as unskilled laborers when they can. Their annual family standard of living is about £1/10 (24d).

### Villeins

Most commoners are farmers, called villeins (“men of the village”). Many are serfs; some are yeomen. Villeins own some part of an ox team or plow, work their own fields, and spend a day per week (or so) working the lord’s fields. Their annual upkeep is about £1 for a family, with a few rich families doubling that. A rich villein is one with his own plow and full team, and has a standard of living of £4.

### Craftsmen

Some commoners perform specialized jobs that do not allow them to work in the fields (except perhaps at harvest when everyone goes). Common craftsmen and artisans live in villages, towns, and cities, while specialized ones live only in cities. They generally live slightly above normal villein status.

### Townsmen

Towns have some people who live and work there doing only “town things.” These are collectively called the burghers, bourgeois, though the term is laughable when applied to these petty town bureaucrats. But these are the people who create and pay taxes, so no one laughs loudly. They are sub-divided into merchants and traders. In general, a merchant buys and sells local goods, whereas a trader deals in goods that must be brought from elsewhere.

## Noble and Common Social Systems

Nobles have their own social system which literally feeds off of their commoners. Nobles own or hold lands to fight over, pass to heirs, enhance, or lose.

Commoners exist within their own system. Their affairs are of no interest to the nobles, but constitute the very livelihood of the peasants. They own lands, swap and trade, and otherwise carry on without noble regard, save for the fees paid regularly for their private dealings.

### Peasant Wealth

Wealth is measured in land. The commoners agree that the king owns it, and that he grants it at will to his nobles, but this does not affect the peasant’s ownership, which remains intact within the manor of a lord. A manorial lord will oversee the sale and trade of their plots and furrows, but cannot change their ownership.

Peasant lands are measured in terms of the technology of the heavy plow. The plow itself is an expensive piece of equipment. It needs eight oxen to work it all day (two teams of four work a half day each) and at least two men at a time to operate it. To keep eight working oxen, a herd of at least 20 cattle are required, which itself necessitates a half-dozen or more people to herd, milk, and otherwise tend to the animals.

The plowland is the basic peasant unit of land measurement. It is the amount of land that one plow and team can work in a year, plus the other lands (meadow, pasture, waste) necessary to support its constant daytime use during the spring and autumn planting seasons. This averages about 120 total acres. However, in the rich lands of Anglia or Linden Pool, one square mile equals four plowlands, while Summerland and Roestoc requires four square miles for one plowland. One plowland is also a tax measure, called a hide.

### Peasant Obligations

In addition to the labor of trying to make enough food to live, commoners have many other obligations to fulfill. Most of these are onerous to them, but tolerated because it is simply the way that things are. Tradition, even if burdensome, must be maintained. “Better to keep the devil you know,” is a common adage among the peasant folk.

#### To his manorial lord

A tenant villein must acknowledge his seigniorial lord as his lord, be part of his manorial court, and follow the traditions established between lord and tenants, whether free, villein, or serf. This includes:

* Work with his own plow and oxen one day per week on the lord’s demesne fields, or if he has no team or plow, three days with the lord’s equipment.
* Render certain specified foodstuffs to the lord as rent.
* Perform a number of days of various labor (collecting wood, shepherding, collecting pigs, repairing buildings, etc.), commonly called works, as when the bailiff says to the commoners, “You owe 25 works, and the lord will let your purchase back half of them this year.”
* Pay certain fees for permission to do important things like bury one’s parents, get married, or even leave the village for a limited time.

#### To his village

The village is the local unit of peasant organization. Every male adult must:

* Be part of a tithing, a group of five to fifteen men (averaging about ten) pledged together. If one man is guilty of something, the others must produce him at court if he does not volunteer. If they don’t (or can’t) they must stand in for him and pay the penalties for his crime. The frankpledge group also comes together, or sends one or two of their number, to a levy muster.
* Join the “hue and cry.”
* Pay a share of any fee imposed upon the village. The geld levied upon the kingdom is calculated at so much per village.

#### To the hundred

The most important part of this administrative area is its hundred court. Every householder who lives within the hundred, including knights, must:

* Attend the monthly hundred court which meets every three or four weeks at the traditional moot court. He must perform as many suits of ordinary services at the court as is required, such as being a juror, compurgator, or tithman.
* Settle these types of disputes at court: ownership of animals, border disputes, brawling and fighting without wounds or death, the sale of land or beasts, and so on.

#### To the county

The two visits of the sheriff to the hundred are the most important events of the year, other than harvest and sowing. Here the sheriff holds his tourn. He performs the king’s business, starting with the king’s announcements, then enforces the king’s laws, and collects the king’s money from the bailiff. Members of the county must:

* Attend the two yearly courts, which meet at the traditional county moot.
* Listen to and obey all royal announcements proclaimed at the moot. The news is usually bad for the commoners: changed or new laws, changed or new taxes, fines levied on hundreds for unsolved crimes, and fees to be taken for another one of the king’s personal schemes.
* Attend the view of frankpledge, when everyone must show up to be counted.
* Answer muster of the posse commitatus, or send whatever number the king demands.
* Answer a county muster of the levy, called the “horn and hue,” or send whatever number the sheriff demands

## Common Law and Order

Local law enforcement within the peasant community is strict and severe. Restricting violence is the sheriff’s most important duty as far as peasants are concerned.

When laws are broken, many legal requirements must be met to properly deal with the lawbreakers. Anyone, upon seeing any crime, must always first raise the hue and cry. Every peasant must drop their work and witness the discovery or join in the pursuit of the criminal. If the assembling villagers are not enough to subdue the outlaw they must pursue him to the next settlement, who will join in, and so on until he is captured. When he is captured witnesses are named, the right things must be said, and the prisoner must be imprisoned by the hundred bailiff, who delivers him to the sheriff’s gaol. The sheriff will hold him until the trial.

Legal issues within the village are mostly settled in the seigniorial court, but others are handled in other courts with larger jurisdictions.