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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1412924" data-attributes="member: 8447">Hmmm, this is a lot of questionable material tied into one place..."Dark Ages" is a terribly elastic term.  Few, if any, historians even use the term any more, preferring "Late Antiquity" or "Early Middle Ages" (along with other terminology) depending on when and where you are talking about.  Robin Hood began as a head-cracking, out-for-himself ruffian who drank and laughed a lot in late 14th century ballads, not at all tied to "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", much less Kings John and Richard.  His tie to peasantry is pretty vague, but his "career" began more as a yeoman-class bandit, only morphing into "defender of the poor" sometime in the 18th century.As for serfs being tied to the land, well...  Yes, in certain areas ... at certain times ... with those peasants belonging to certain classes, but often the ties were as much traditional ("Yes, sir knight, this might be your land, but my family has always farmed it and you're not taking it away from me!") as legal.  And "Middle Class" really isn't a solid concept until the 18th century, any more than social mobility really is.Civil & Canon (Church) Law were, indeed, separate for most of the Middle Ages, but there were many non-priests who also fell under Canon Law -- scribes, clerks, university students, and they defended their right to be charged under Canon Law strenuously.  Everything else was Civil Law, including the Guilds.  Yes, the Guilds were sometimes self-regulating, as were certain cities, but their charters could be revoked by kings and lords if they did not play ball.  And "Guild Law" primarily related to business standards (the narrow range in which you could set prices, the narrow band of quality acceptable in the guild, membership, funeral dues, etc.), rather than anything to do with a criminal justice code.**pant pant**See what happens when you get a Medievalist started?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Any wonder that a large chunk of my non-D&D time was spent playing Ars Magica?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  ;D</blockquote>

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