Customs of the Realm

The system of government, social classes, customs, and law in Arthurian society is called feudalism. The king controls the government with the aid of his household and sheriffs, who oversee the commoners, while clergy sees to the spiritual well-being of all. Social class ranks follow a hierarchy of the king, his barons, knights, and finally peasants at the bottom. Customs are ancient, totally oral traditions protecting the specific rights for each social class, while the king’s law works to maintain those rules and punish whoever breaks them. Everything belongs to the king. All rights derive from him. He has distributed some of his rights and responsibilities among his lords who, in turn, may distribute some rights to rule to their knights. All obligations are personal, dependent upon the relationship between a lord and his follower. The followers swear to follow the lord, and afterwards are known as vassals of that lord.

The lord ensures the loyalty of his favored followers by giving them land, i.e., a benefit (beneficium), the single most valuable commodity in the realm. To receive gold is a lesser honor since gold can bribe even a peasant. But a transfer of land is sacred.

So long as the landholder performs their obligations, then the benefits are legally theirs and no one can justly take them away. Typically, a knight’s obligations are to loyally serve in their lord’s military campaigns for forty days a year, and to advise their lord on important matters. In return, the lord owes the vassal protection, sustenance, and livelihood. Thus, there is a non-equal, but reciprocal agreement between lord and vassal.

Obligations may only change if both parties agree. Usually, they change when one person has done something significant for the other. If a vassal rescued the king on the battlefield, the latter might transform their former lifetime gift into a permanent grant that may pass on to heirs. If the knight violates their sworn loyalty, they can lose the land, which returns to the lord. Typical reasons for land to revert to the lord are: treason, failure to support the lord, or the lack of an heir when the grant holder dies.

Ranks of feudal vassalage begin with those closest to the king, both in friendship and in wealth. In Pendragon they are the British kings outside Logres, lords, and office holders. In turn, these lords appoint their own vassals. Knights are the next-to-last class of noble vassals, with squires, knights-in-training, and esquires as a single class beneath knights. Knights may hold their land from the king, a great lord, a baron, or even from a higher-ranking knight, called a banneret.

Church officials and monasteries also rely upon land grants in return for support, holding their properties as vassals of the king, but in a peculiarly special relationship. Bishops and abbots are royal vassals with the title of baron, and have their own knights to protect them, but in everything except treason are outside royal authority and subject only to their own canon law.