@Liquidxlax
That's actually quite wrong, ever heard of "Noblesse Oblige"? Nobility was charged with the protection of the town's people, taking produce in exchange. The whole heavy tax things we see in manga and other media only happened during extreme times, such as between wars. Also, you have to keep in mind that common sense was different back then, you can't judge someone from way back with today's standards.
Lords depended on the people's produce to live, and they had to distribute that between most of the town's inhabitants during dire times, the remaining time they had to use it to maintain relationships with the other nobles and keep appearances, or another nobles could snatch their territory, killing all of its people with the lord, most of the time branding them as traitors or whatever. Nobles had their roles, as did the other people that made up a country.
It's obvious by today's standards that the nobility system was very flawed, even with the control the king had, it was still impossible to keep everyone in check without today's communication tools, but then again, today's system is also very flawed, albeit less than the other one.
And remember, any recorded events are because they were noteworthy, not because they were the norm. They didn't have the resources to write everything up.