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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ComradeGnull" data-source="post: 5982599" data-attributes="member: 6685694">Have you watched the (admittedly somewhat trashy) series The Tudors?  It offers a lot of insight and examples of how fluidly rank could work- and it's set at a late stage of the feudal system, when things had become a bit more regular than in the 12th or 13th Century.  One thing you will notice is that the servants of royalty tend to be very highly ranked- they are the sons of dukes and earls and things, or may even hold titles in their own right.  To wait upon the king was a position of honor and influence, even if you were essentially the guy responsible for carrying the king's potty chair (the Groom of the Stool).  Organizations like the church and military are dominated by family rank and ties.  A yeoman or peasant who joins the church becomes a parish priest at best, more likely a deacon or a choir monk or a lector.  In the military, they become common foot soldiers and rise at most to the rank of sergeant or a similar non-com role.  Members of noble families, meanwhile, send their younger sons into the army to serve as Captains and knights, often as members of the household troops of a powerful noble.  When a noble joins the church, he becomes part of the ecclesiastic hierarchy, serving as a secretary to a bishop or the personal chaplain of a duke, not as the guy who gives communion to turnip diggers.Rank is the intersection of 1) where you were born and 2) who you serve.  Going into the personal service of someone powerful is probably the best path to advancement, as they may oft to bestow personal favors on you and some of their status "rubs off" on you.  Free men, as we think of them, were in many cases poorer and of lower status than serfs because they had to fend entirely for themselves.</blockquote>

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