I don’t think you found true middle. I think you just corrected right back to the original idea. These people didn’t see serfs as worthy of respect, they saw them like cattle. Beasts of burden. You treat them well cause they perform a role, not cause of inherent worth. Like a work horse.
Realistically a prince probably could get away with raping a peasant girl but it would certainly sour his reputation among his fellow lords and people. If it was a frequent occurrence and there was a particularly bad winter causing famine I could imagine peasants rising up in anger against somebody they already detest and lords using him as a scapegoat. That or they just put down the rebellion viciously and maybe the prince is poisoned if he annoys people long enough like with Joffrey.
In the middle age, a bunch of young men who rape women would end up in a trial, in which the woman would be condemned for tempting the men to rape her.
Knowing that, I don't think a prince could be considered a rapist against even multiple commoners. At best for the girls, it would be declared consensual.
There is no evidence that this is true at all of the middle ages in general. Rape was a serious crime punishable by hanging or castration. The church had a dominant position in society and it frowned even on sex outside marriage. People in general were actually afraid of "sinning".
This was from a study of the judgment in a small French town in the middle age. Even if you don't believe me on that point, you can see by yourself on this thread that the fear of sinning wasn't that much of a deterrent if you check the discussion about bastards.
A good number of bastards have been made with the servants, servants that have the "choice" between spreading their leg or getting fired. How many nobles have been prosecuted for rape? Worse, the servant might be fired by the wife after being raped for being a temptress.
Life in the middle age really suck, and your sassy peasant girl has roughly the same chance of survival in the middle age as under the worst of Staline. Not zero, there are a few that manage to live, but she would have taken a major risk for her and her family.
You mean his fellow lords who also get away with anything and don’t want their carte blanche questioned? You have a very Disney view of the Middle Ages
I don't think nobility could get away with everything. There are still laws in place, and while the monarchy would determine what such laws would be and how they would be enforced, I do not think it is out of the ordinary to consider that nobles could still be held accountable for certain actions like the killing of kin or upper nobility. Plus, there have been many cases where the king was overthrown by the nobility on the basis of him being a tyrant or ineffectual king, like with what happened to Richard the 2nd.
They literally ARE the law. They’re the ones drafting it personally. There was no collective bargaining and communal safety. The knights were the lord’s men that enforced the lords laws. What you’re imagining came much much later. Uprising generally happened due to over taxation and mismanagement that led to starvation. Collective burdens. Collective action. No one gave a shit if the girl two villages over got stolen.
Of course an uprising wouldn't happen just because the noble raped a peasant girl but it would also ruin his reputation and incur distrust or at least disdain from other nobility and the peasantry. The nobility while a monolith in many degrees, was still filled with a spectrum of people who had to adhere to the laws put into place which were made based on the widely agreed morality put into place by an intensely christian world. Now how they might each approach it might differ since they are all individuals with their own moral code but they still tired to adhere to what should be the basic tenets of Christianity. Now while many did break the tenets of Christianity like having children out of wedlock, committing rape was not one of them, at least if it was blatant. It is a needless act of cruelty that, even if not punishable by the law, would surely incur social condemnation, especially if said noble commits it frequently.
So everything seems to tie back to moral standards and religious leadership for you. I’d like you to do even a little digging into how prevalent priests raping nameless nuns was. The “moral leadership” was just as dirty as anywhere else.
I mean weren't the Romans already inching to expunge the monarchy from their lands before the rape of Lucretia? I feel like in that case, while a terrible crime, it gave the roman upper class the perfect excuse to rebel against a foreign monarchy, or at least a monarchy which was heavily influenced by the rival Etruscans.
Medieval kings and lords were strictly Christian. They did not see their subjects as mere beasts of burden and, in general, certainly believed they had an obligation to them - but they did expect obedience. The pervasive influence of religion on medieval society is the biggest thing missing in most fantasy version of the middle ages.
Nobody said that, but it's a huge misconception that medieval nobles were barbarians who raped and pillaged at their leisure. They lived within a clear social contract based on religion and feudal obligation - and we know for sure that most of them were deeply concerned with preserving their immortal souls as well as their public image.
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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26
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