I keep hearing excuses like “but your highness the entire crop was destroyed and we’re starving” or “but my lord I’m dying of the plague”. Like ok? That sounds like a you problem. Someone has to do all the work around here and that someone’s not going to be me.
Break from feudalposting, looked it up and what the actual fuck. That better be a myth.
It probably is a myth in the sense that it was some sort of formalized ritual, but I would bet there were plenty of lords who were willing to rape any serfs they felt like raping whenever they wanted. Who was going to stop them?