One other comment on social estates in the middle ages (it's more accurate to use 'estates' than class in the medieval context)

I should have mentioned the gentry. In the countryside various people, some rich peasants, some retired or semi-retired mercenaries, or artisan or merchants who moved out of the cities, and a variety of others, lived in an estate between the peasantry and the nobility. In England the Yeoman farmer fit into this niche. In Central Europe the wealthier peasants (Bauer) sometimes did (depending on where this was specifically). These people, families, were vassals of lords or sometimes towns or monasteries, often fought like knights mounted on horseback, sometimes as part of a small unit (lance) led by an aristocratic knight or a burgher-knight, sometimes on their own or as leaders in their own right.

These people, the gentry, formed powerful estates in some areas. As in they would act together sometimes politically and militarily. Notably in Poland, Switzerland, Bohemia, and Catalonlia. They formed kind of a rural middle class.



somebody mentioned outlaws. This was a big thing.

One of the most severe punishments in medieval law was exile. Greatly feared. Town law wasn't that strict but if you disgraced or dishonored yourself it could start a downward spiral. Once exiled from the town (which could either be temporary, 1 year and 1 day, or permanent - 100 years and 1 day) you had a chance to get into another town but it would get harder if your reputation suffered. If you were known to have done something really bad you may be marked like with a cut on your ear or something.

You could also be made an outlaw formally.

Either way you then may be forced to live on the fringes of society in the rural areas which could be very rough and dangerous. Outlaws infested the roads in many areas, probably most of rural Europe, and both towns and princes struggled to keep the roads safe and free.

There were also something like 'travellers' and people like the Roma who moved around like nomads and sometimes got in trouble in various ways.

Life on the road sounded pretty rough in these days, and from the records a lot of people lived that way. Until they didn't!

G