Hierarchy
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Vagabonds
Neither possessing the status of freemen nor even the holdings of coloni, vagabonds are drifters with no home and no permanent employment. They often make their way through begging, small jobs, or mercenary work.
Coloni
Coloni are the backbone of society in the Kingdom of Hyperion, responsible for resource gathering and other tasks. They are bound in fealty to a member of the nobiles homines class, and look to him as liege lord for both welfare and leadership.
Pedes
Pedes are enlisted soldiers of footman rank who serve as light infantry in squad formations. If they are coloni, they also usually receive a break in their feudal obligations to their liege lords in return for military service.
Milites
Milites are men-at-arms of corporal rank who act as heavy infantry in squad formations.
Serviens
Servientes are enlisted soldiers of sergeant rank who serve as heavy infantry or light mounted cavalry and who are eligible to lead squads. A sergeant is also eligible to receive a small fief called a "grand serjeanty", but not to receive fealty.
Homines Liberi
This social class is composed of free men who are not bound by feudal oaths or spiritual vows. They often live in towns where they work as merchants or serve as employees of noble or royal courts.
Praefectus
Preafecti are minor officials who are at least freemen who serve as administrators in noble and royal courts.
Royal Sheriffs
Royal sheriffs are appointed by the king to act as liaisons to the noble courts of all the counties and to act as representatives of the king's justice.
Heralds
A herald is an officer of arms, usually employed by the king or noblemen to convey messages or proclamations. Heralds both create and regulate the nobles' coats of arms, and have great honor in feudal culture.
Burgi
Burgesses and burg-churls are townsmen and merchants who own buildings near a clanstone. They pay a tax called scot and lot to their elected mayor and aldermen for upkeep of the communities in which they live.
Ministers
These are officials of a nobleman's cabinet who head entire departments of praefecti for a county of Hyperion.
Nobiles Homines
These are individuals recognized by the Royal College of Heralds through heredity or conferment as being of gentle birth and blue blood. All have coats of arms recognized in the lists of heraldry. They are eligible for receiving fiefs as vassals.
Escutari
These are gentlemen who have been selected as squires or shieldbearers by equites or magnates. The shield they bear is their own - as armigers recognized by the heraldic lists.
Equites
Whether called knight, baronet, or thane, an eques is a minor feudal landholder, and may possess a village, manor and attendant coloni as part of a knight's fief. This class has a tradition of chivalry, which includes training in mounted combat.
Magnates
Magnates are lords whose holdings are large enough to have earned them the title of baron, count or duke. Most magnates are tenants-in-capite, direct vassals of the king. All are entitled to a seat in the House of Lords as "Lords Temporal".
Executors
These are the head officials of the executive branch, the Crown, who make up the Royal Cabinet.
Rex
The king is sovereign and monarch and leads the executive branch of government, known as the Crown, which is ceremonially referred to as "the fount of law". He is liege lord of all Hyperion subjects and the head of the Church and the House of Lords.
