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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6408407" data-attributes="member: 6669384">In actual medieval society the peasants were property, Serfs who belonged to the land.  Whoever owned the land owned the people.As far as weapon ownership was concerned, it was more common than you might think.First, the vast majority of "weapons of war" were farming tools wielded by peasant yoemanry drafted to service.  Pitch forks, bill hooks, pruning hooks, picks, the list goes on.In England, any man over the age of 14 was required by law to own a longbow, and to practice at least two hours per week.  The local pastor had the right to call the men of the village together for archery practice.Funny story:  A few years ago the pastor of an English congregation discovered that this law was still on the books, and so notified her community (yes, "her":  Some things remain, others change) that they should all bring their bows to the church that Sunday.She was announcing a church picnic, and making fun of the old law, since it's now illegal to own a bow and arrow in England.</funny story>Consider the tale of Robin Hood, which would have been in the late 1100s.  An archery tournament where commoners were invited to compete against soldiers and noblemen.  In a part of the country where there was an uprising going on against the crown.These tournaments were held to ensure that the folk had reason to practice.  They had cash prizes, in a society that ran largely on barter and trade.  Actual coin was something the common folk almost never dealt in, so this was a big thing.The reason for laws like these was so that the King or local nobility could raise troops of archers on very short notice.  It was part of their national defense strategy.But serfdom is something that D&D seldom touches upon.  To even be a traveling adventurer means that the PCs either have to be freedmen, or freeborn.  Without that step up in social rank it's a crime for them to leave the farm, period.  Robin Hood's men became outlaws the moment they abandoned their duties to the landowner and went into the woods.The middle class, which provides all the "general store" scenes in the game, the armorers and weapon smiths, the apothecaries and herbalists, the scibes and the tanners and all of the other places where PCs buy gear and sell loot?  Those didn't exist in any medieval town.  You had to go to a larger city for those.  The crafts existed, but the craftsmen would have been stationed within the keep or castle of the local nobility, who would be the main consumer of their craft.Most peasants could patch tack and harness and do simple carpentry.  They could also make their own arrows, as well as the simple longbows they were required to own.  For anything else, any iron or bronze work, they had to go to their Lord's manor and trade for it.  It was a way for him to control what they might assemble in terms of actual weapons or armor.And, as broken as the D&D economy is, with peasants and commoners earning a scant 1 gp per week, it's vastly overstating their cash flow.Coins of the time were made of silver or gold, period.  No copper, no bronze, no pewter, no tin.  Small change didn't actually exist.  Most of the local economy ran on credit, with a man's reputation for repaying his debts being the major currency.  Yeah, barter and trade on credit.  Hell of a way to run a nation.  But they did and it worked.The smallest coin in England was the Farthing, whose name literally meant "A fourth of a ting".  It was silver, thinner than an American dime, and about the size of your little finger nail.  When used during the Renaissance times they were so small that merchants never bothered to count them.  They were valued by weight.The introduction of copper and other alloys as coinage came well after the medieval period, and were one of the things required for broader trade:  You needed small change when dealing in another town, since your reputation and credit meant nothing there.  Look at that, I've wandered so far off topic I should probably delete this whole thing.  Ahhh, I'll let it stand, and you can ignore it if you like.</blockquote>

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