1994 / Original language: English / Color / Stereo

As the Renaissance sweeps across Europe, reason and intellect are the ideals which will shape the New World. However, the majority of people still view the world through a curtain of superstition and religion, fearful of the unknown. When Courtois, a confident young lawyer, leaves Paris it is with two aims : to bring a new sense of justice to the masses, and to live the idyllic rural life he has always dreamed of ; but realism and common-sense are no match for the traditions of the past.
Abbéville, his destination, is a small farming community stuck in the Dark Ages, ruled by the brooding figure of Seigneur Jehan d'Auferre, a feudal overlord who has nothing to gain from the enlightenment of his subjects.
Sheltered from the outside world the villagers are blinkered to the coruption about them, and suspicious of outsiders. The out-dated laws practised by the local court-house still allow animals to be tried and hanged for capital offences.