It's the 1300's and I'm a 10 year old boy in a small French village that is about to be pillaged by an English lord's army. What is about to happen to my family and village?

by Alister_Pendragon

What would happen to me? Would I be forcibly recruited into the enemy's army? Would I be killed?

What would happen to my Father, Mother, and Sister?

What would happen to my village?

Why would the enemy lord be doing this to us when we are simple peasants?

wyrdJ

I will answer what I can for you here. I will leave the rest up to others.

In regards to your village, it does depend upon what the lord is pillaging for. Something you have to realize, is that different soldiers and armies were paid differently. Many times, the soldiers were not paid much (if at all at the time) and they most certainly did not (always) care too much about reputation or honor. Soldiers got their main source of income and joy by plundering people and places. The spoils of war if you would. Now, there is a term for it, called the "Tax of Violence".[1] This basically meant that the soldiers would take things that they wanted from surrounding areas where the army camped and marched, and from whomever they so desired. It did not matter which side the peasants/populace were on or loyal to. This also means that it might even be a French army who takes your supplies!

If this lord is raiding for food and supplies, and not necessarily loot (although that is a byproduct). His main desire is grain, vegetables, livestock, things of that nature. He is taking them from you, not just because you are the "enemy", but because it is far cheaper to take something from your enemy, than it is to transport it from your homeland. This idea and practices dates back thousands of years, with even Sun Tzu writing about it in the Art of War. Sun Tzu writes about how 1 hundredweight of your grain is equal to 10 hundredweight of the enemy's (forgive me if the quote is off. I do not have my copy at hand right now) [3]. Also, in a sense, you are doing two things when you take food from an enemy and use it as your own. You gain something, and you set them back at the same time. Sort of like +100 food to you, and -100 food from the enemy, so it is really more of a 200 food swing (if that makes any sense).

That hopefully gives you a little insight into the "why" question, which is then going to set up into the "What would happen to you and your family?"

Well, if you live through the initial attack, or they are satisfied with just taking things, then there are numerous instances of farmers attacking and killing soldiers as revenge. Simple tools like farming flails, clubs, hammers (blacksmith), or anything else that comes to hand, all can kill just as well as a sword or a spear. I am going to link you to a question from about 7 months ago, which I answered (though specifically looking into the usage of flails, but I do provide sources for the peasants revenge)[2]. Also, depending upon the size of the group attacking you, you village may resist completely.

I hope that this helped answer some of your questions.

[1]Source

[2]Source

[3] Sun Tzu, The Art of War

zombob

Where in France? Normandy, Burgundian lands, Brittany, etc? Is this hypothetical person a Cathar? Each may have a different very different experience.

Also an exact date would also help since many French, Burgundian, Breton nobles were on either side of the War of the Roses at varying times.

For instance the English could be seen as liberators of a Breton city depending on where, who, and when.