Each midsummer, commoners flock to their lord’s castle to present their sons in the hope that they will be trained as men-at-arms. For a peasant to have a son accepted into the ranks of a knight’s household is a great honour. Some young peasants will have been guided towards this goal through their entire life, encouraged to stand up straighter and taller than the usual peasant ‘slouch’ to better improve their chances of selection. All morning and afternoon the knight inspects the candidates. By dusk, the luckiest and strongest are selected and are taken back to the castle where they are given basic training and outfitted in the livery of their lord.

The inductee is given an extravagant bounty for joining, though this all too often vanishes as the new recruits are expected to pay for their new uniform, equipment, and even make a contribution to the temples of Shallya. They are given room (a rough straw mattress in a barn) and board (thin gruel and stew) and earn a wage for their faithful service. On paper, their wage is quite generous, far exceeding anything a peasant could otherwise legally earn, but what the militiamen actually receive is but a mere fraction of this total – if indeed they receive anything at all. Every conceivable expense is deducted from this salary, from their food and accommodation through to each and every equipment loss and breakage – some miserly lords will even levy a charge for any funeral expenses incurred!

While not terribly strong or skilful, men-at-arms provide the knight with a body of troops with which he can safeguard his domain. When the knight is summoned away to war he will take many of these troops with him but will always leave enough behind to safeguard his castle and, if needs be, shelter the local villagers until he returns. In more peaceful times the men-at-arms perform routine tasks, watching the borders of the domain and patrolling the knight’s lands.

A unit of Men-At-Arms may be included in your Bretonnian army as a Core choice.

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