Fief: A Look at Medieval Society from its Lower Rungs
Enjoy a trip to a world where powerful priests can charge sinners with the death penalty¸ and where knights gather for illegal combat sports... where thieves can thumb their nose at the authorities from within the walls of a church¸ and where a foraging band of the king's own soldiers is more dangerous than a pack of brigand outlaws. In the midst of all this¸ ordinary people survived to work the land¸ weave the cloth¸ and pray for safety from famine and plague. The real Middle Ages were as brutish and wild as any fantasy world. Fief: A Look at Medieval Society from its Lower Rungs is a sourcebook that examines the Middle Ages from the viewpoint of the ordinary farmer¸ priest¸ and landholder - the inhabitants of a feudal manor. It's a friendly primer on the basics of medieval life¸ and a treasury of hard-to-find details for the Game Master or enthusiast¸ from prices and wages to laws and penalties¸ from superstitions and beliefs to the rigors of ordinary life. Fief is by Lisa J. Steele¸ author of Medieval France from White Rose Publishing¸ GURPS Cops and GURPS Mysteries from Steve Jackson Games¸ and Fief's best-selling companion volume: Town: A City-Dweller's Look at 13th to 15th Century Europe. Produced and indexed by S. John Ross¸ creator of the All-Systems Library and of works ranging from Risus to the Star Trek Narrator's Toolkit to GURPS Russia.