There's an awesome, AWESOME, medieval game designed by an independant company in Turkey called "Mount & Blade" It has absolutely no fantasy elements in it, not even health potions. It's mostly a hack and slash, but you do get to join one of the warring factions and own and manage a village and stuff. Mount&Blade is based on very realistic cavalry combat that most games leave out or don't feature enough. It takes a while to master but once you do it's an amazing game. Very realistic and the scenery and characters are like what you would find 1000 years ago. It's so good and no one's ever heard of it. I can give you the website:

www.taleworlds.com

Check it out; I'm really trying to get people into Mount&Blade because it's so unknown and its such an amazing game. Paradox Interactive is a husband-and-wife team in Turkey and the full version was just released back in November, I believe. Please check it out. It's one of my top favorite games.