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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 1751876" data-attributes="member: 20741">First off, I think there were is a fortress called Massada and a big monument to William Wallace north of Hadrian's Wall that demonstrate that people certainly DID care who their rulers were.  Be it under a Roman Emperor or an English King. There are dozens and dozens of other examples.While we might equate one robber baron with another using a Marxist class analysis, for the most part, the inhabitants of the era did not see it that way. They had other concerns as to how to keep score. (Religion as ideology, primarily; language was also important in the late medieval period.)Terrorism played a role there too, as the wars became more "popular" in sentiment, and less motivated by mere greed.      The focus of the terror was not necessarily aimed at destabilizing the state (though sometimes it was).  It certainly was aimed at driving out the unwanted.  Sometimes they called it persecution or pogroms when it was state sponsored.  Sometimes we now call it mob violence or sectarian when it was not. (America was initially settled by crackpot religious fanatics for a reason). Most of the time - they just called it rebellion.As for not drawing a distinction between combatants and non-combatants in medieval times - this is patently untrue.  There certainly was such a distinction, throughout  Europe, Arabia, China and throughout Japan.  You've been watching too many movies.Indeed, one of the hallmarks of "total war" in the 20th century was a relatively unheard of targeting of civilians and industry as legitimate military targets.While scorched earth and what might be termed as "ethnic cleansing" certainly did occur - and frequently in European history - ethnic cleansing primarily occurred when a foe could not be conquered and occupied, or language groups and religions greatly differed. But as the Dark Ages ended (Fall of Rome to end of the Viking invasions) and the medieval era began, these sorts of cleansings were rare within Western (Catholic) Europe.  To some extent that continued in Eastern and South Central Europe - but that's when you throw Christianity vs. Islam and Caucasian vs. Turk into the mix. Add the Hun for spice. Whatever justified massive ideological and cultural difference made inhumanity easier to justify. Then it got ugly.But in the areas we think of as "Medieval Europe"? No.</blockquote>

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