Frisians attack Norman Tower

Clip from the 1965 movie "The War Lord".

The War Lord is a 1965 film starring Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth, Guy Stockwell, Maurice Evans, Niall MacGinnis, Henry Wilcoxon and James Farentino, with Jon Alderson, Allen Jaffe, Sammy Ross, and Woodrow Parfrey. The film was directed by the future Oscar winning Director Franklin J. Schaffner, and the screenplay was by the acclaimed John Collier. The film is an adaptation of the play, The Lovers, written by Leslie Stevens, the creator of The Outer Limits.

Up until this film, most Hollywood representations of feudal life were glamorized. The War Lord attempts to portray the 10th century in a more accurate fashion as dirty, violent and ruled by brute force. The social stratification imposed by feudalism governed every human relationship, with power devolving from the duke who owns all the land in his realm and parcels it out in fief to counts who run the law courts and keep law and order and collect fees for the duke in each county. The counts parcel out their fief's to lesser lords down to the knight and the peasantry at the very bottom, virtual slaves. Every one up the line getting a fee or service from the person below with the pesants getting what was left, which was not much.

Charlton Heston plays Chrysagon de la Cruex, a knight in the service of a duke, after 20 years he retires and is given a small fief to rule as the local lord for his many years of service to the duke. The fief is on the coast of the North Sea. By the sea is an old abandoned tower that needs to be repaired. He repairs the tower and begins to rebuild the duke's authority and to defend the area from Frisian Raiders from the Netherlands. He makes progress until he falls in love with one of the local women.
Chrysagon encounters Bronwyn, his future love, as she is harassed by his own men. Gradually he finds himself falling for the girl he's rescued. Bronwyn's father, the village chief, later asks Chrysagon's permission for Bronwyn to marry. Chrysagon approves, but soon regrets the decision. He wants Bronwyn for himself.

He later learns of "Droit de seigneur", a right which permits the Lord of the Domain to sleep with any virgin woman on her wedding night. But custom demands Bronwyn be given up by dawn. The following day, Bronwyn is not returned. What the village doesn't realize is that she's chosen to stay of her own free will. The villagers are infuriated when Bronwyn does not return and call in the Frisian Pirates to help them get her back.