The population was growing at the time, but the populations of Ethiopia and Eritrea are growing today. It's not an indication that the population isn't facing serious hardship and malnutrition, which was the certainly the case during this early medieval period of population growth.Mamlaz said:The period did experience a massive population boom though.
Mamlaz said:It is though, historian Michael Prestwich in his book Edward I states that even in the hostile environment in Wales, the average castle garrison a lord commanded was;
"In 1284 30 or 40 men to each was regarded as appropriate. In the rebellion of 1294-5 Harlech had twenty men, of whom two died during the siege, until reinforcements came from Ireland."
Other castles in less hostile areas had even less men, as few as 4-5.
You are utterly ignorant of the fact that the vast majority of the lords own armed men were not castle dweling rich pricks but freemen selected from those same villages you presume they oppressed.
Thus, if a lord wanted to go into a village to do some dirty business, he would have mighty issues doing so.
I'm not ignorant of that fact. I was not disputing that most of the troops available to a lord were levied from their estate (not necessarily as freemen - peasant designations are a bit complicated, especially if you're talking about Europe as a whole), but the idea that these levies or their families would be remotely confident in any ability to overwhelm the few rich, well equipped and well trained retainers. It's a moot point though, since, a I said, even if they were somehow successful, someone else would come in to punish them.
Mamlaz said:Alright, find me all those primary sources describing those evil lords going about their average day raping people and pillaging their own property.
I will wait.
Keep tilting at straw men, but don't hold your breath.
Mamlaz said:The point is it rarely happened anywhere and had decades of time between them.
I'm not sure how that advances your argument rather than mine. It rarely happened because it almost inevitably failed. It happened sometimes because, even knowing how unlikely it was to advance their interests and how terrible the consequences of failure would be, the complainants were sometimes so desperate that they'd throw in their lot with a suicidal cause.