This brief article was released in Adventure magiazine back in the 1920s. The readeri s Dale Grothman. Thanks to him, and his production team at Librivox.
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A general rule, oppression in the Middle Ages was strictly a one-way affair; the lords oppressed the people, and that was all there was about it. But there were exceptions to this general rule; for example, the feudal law seemed to run rather sluggishly in the neighbourhood of Liege.
In the fifteenth century, at the time when feudalism was at the apogee preceding its decline, this manufacturing city, under its ruling Bishop, had an extremely short way of dealing with intrusive nobles. The city is surrounded by heights which, commanding it, offered most eligible
sites for feudal castles, since one of the feudal jests with the commonalty was the stopping of provisions until a ransom should be paid. But according to Michelet
“Some morning, the mountain would hear no sounds from the city, and would see neither fire nor smoke. The people had struck work. Presently from twenty to thirty thousand workmen would defile through the gates, march on such or such a castle, dismantle and lay it level with the ground. They would indemnify the baron with lands in the plain — where, to interpolate a remark, he could not watch them—”and a good house in Liege—” where they could keep an eye upon him. The archives of the city, quoted by the same historian, relates that one of the barons in question, Sir Radus, returned from a journey he had taken in company with the Bishop of Liege, to find the spot on which his castle had stood entirely bare.
“By my fay, Sir Bishop,” his astonished voice comes to us down the ages, “I know not whether I am dreaming or awake; but I was accustomed to see my house, Sylvestre, here, and now I do not perceive it.”
“Be not angry, my good Radus,” replied the Bishop gently. “You shall not be a loser by it.” One imagines the gentle churchman looking slightly embarrassed. “But,” he adds diffidently, “I have had a monastery built out of the stones of your castle.”
Games From Folktales 