Event Ideals (fighting)

[Robert G. Ferrell]

>Cynric says:
>
>"Like it or not, the chief occupation throughout the middle ages was war."  
>
>Not quite. For the upper portion of medieval society, perhaps. But they
>were smaller in numbers than the other two estates. The majority of people
>were peasants. Their chief occupation was raising and harvesting food. 
>
>They were highly affected by war, but it was not their chief occupation.
>
>In both the SCA and period, the armed combatants get far more attention
>than their numbers would suggest.
>
>Stefan li Rous
>
>
There's a little thing called "literary license" that some writers employ to
emphasize a point.  It goes hand in hand with "figures of speech."  The use
of these tools can sometimes be difficult to convey without modern
typesetting conventions such as italic fonts; evidently I failed to make it
clear that I was trying to be ironic.  But since I recently made exactly the
same mistake when reading one of Antonio's posts, I can't really seize the
intellectual higher ground here.  I am a satirist, so taking anything I
write at face value can be a bit treacherous. Your point about the masses
being ignored is well taken and quite true.  But of course, we aren't trying
to represent the masses in the SCA, only the gentility...