Project: Economics and demography from the ground up

[Beruin]

Well, this ties in with some of other threads about trade and trade routes, but is a rather different approach. I'm currently trying to detail Anuirean economics from the ground up, starting with the 'average' holding of a typical peasant, and from there jumping to the level of the manor/village, then the province and so on.

I hope to accomplish several things with this:

At first, this just provides some background material useful for painting a more colorful picture of Anuirean daily life, but I also hope to get a clearer view of province ratings, population density, possible taxation, trade routes etc.

I also would like to develop logistic rules for military units to add an additional strategic element to warfare.

In the end, though this is still a long way off, this might change quite a lot of the domain rules in my campaign.

Well, I guess this might be a too detailed approach or just plain boring for some of you, so I'd like to know if at least some of you would be interested in seeing this kind of detail.

I'm also still wrestling with a few numbers/measurements, notably with the size of the Anuirean acre. I'm using quite a lot of historical background material and the size of the 'average' medieval peasant holding is quite consistent throughout Europe, a virgate (in German: Hufe) consisting of 30 acres (Joch or Morgen in German).

However, the German equivalent is only about two thirds the size of the modern English acre (about 2,500 square meters) and I wonder which scale to use. I once read that the English acre had been about the same size in the early Middle Ages, but couldn't find more information about this.
Well, setting an Anuirean acre as roughly 2,500 square meters would make the math a bit easier for me, but if you are interested in seeing my description and would rather prefer to keep the acre as is, I would work with this.

Of course, this also has repercussions on the possible population density wthin a province.

So, what do you think?

[kgauck]

I think its a great project and would be willing to put effort and prior work on the subject toward it.

[Sir Tiamat]

[…]

At first, this just provides some background material useful for painting a more colorful picture of Anuirean daily life, but I also hope to get a clearer view of province ratings, population density, possible taxation, trade routes etc.

I also would like to develop logistic rules for military units to add an additional strategic element to warfare.[…]

So, what do you think?

I am also struggling with logistics in my house rules… I am still working on it, but I assume that a certain province level is needed to support a certain nr of units…

When an army is on an expedition this support (+/- 1 GB of a units upkeep) usually comes from friendly provinces (supply line), but can also come from enemy provinces (pillaging). Pillaging will pay 1 GB of support per pillaging unit.

Supply lines can be cut by enemy troops; this works essentially the same way as pillaging, paying 1GB of support per enemy unit up to a total of GB in the supply line…

I am very interested in your views of army supplies in order to improve my rules

[Sir Tiamat]

You can the current status of my thoughts on supply lines under “Unit Supplies” in the “Cry Havoc in Birthright” house rules. I would advise you to take a look at the province growth house rules they are quite good….

I just thought that the maximum nr of GBs that can be pillaged based on province level or severe taxation… could also be pillaged on beforehand by the defender… That would be similar to a tactic of scorched earth.

[ShadowMoon]

Sounds like a worthy project, count me in ^^;

...

[Jaleela]

Well, this ties in with some of other threads about trade and trade routes, but is a rather different approach. I'm currently trying to detail Anuirean economics from the ground up, starting with the 'average' holding of a typical peasant, and from there jumping to the level of the manor/village, then the province and so on.

I hope to accomplish several things with this:

At first, this just provides some background material useful for painting a more colorful picture of Anuirean daily life, but I also hope to get a clearer view of province ratings, population density, possible taxation, trade routes etc.

I also would like to develop logistic rules for military units to add an additional strategic element to warfare.

In the end, though this is still a long way off, this might change quite a lot of the domain rules in my campaign.

Well, I guess this might be a too detailed approach or just plain boring for some of you, so I'd like to know if at least some of you would be interested in seeing this kind of detail.

I'm also still wrestling with a few numbers/measurements, notably with the size of the Anuirean acre. I'm using quite a lot of historical background material and the size of the 'average' medieval peasant holding is quite consistent throughout Europe, a virgate (in German: Hufe) consisting of 30 acres (Joch or Morgen in German).

However, the German equivalent is only about two thirds the size of the modern English acre (about 2,500 square meters) and I wonder which scale to use. I once read that the English acre had been about the same size in the early Middle Ages, but couldn't find more information about this.
Well, setting an Anuirean acre as roughly 2,500 square meters would make the math a bit easier for me, but if you are interested in seeing my description and would rather prefer to keep the acre as is, I would work with this.

Of course, this also has repercussions on the possible population density wthin a province.

So, what do you think?

Instead of re-inventing the wheel form the beginning with the project, you might want to look at a couple of social histories, like 'standards of living in the later middle ages', and the Gie's 'the medieval village'. All the pertinent information is contained to begin a basic foundation, and then you can run from there.

Keep in mind with feudalisim, the monarchs own all the land, and then the land is loaned out in return for vassalage, making a huge branching pyramid. Even temples would owe vassalage for land held. Some land may be held on alliodal terms, but even marches on frontiers find those carving them out owing dues to feudal lords, (the emperor being at the top, when there was an emperor - the 12 original duchies were the vassals of the emperor).

I should note I have written a 60 odd page supplement called 'Everyman' (after Langland), detailing the very sorts of daily aspects of life you are looking to write about. It was written for our specific campaign, and has a bunch of house rules, but you can take what you like from it, an alter it as you see fit if you would like to firm out a foundation for your project. My undergrad history courses would at least have not been for my amusement alone. ;)

[kgauck]

I don't think we need to go back to foundational texts. Magical Medieval Society is a great place to start. Its d20, its entirely OGL, and it summarizes much of the kind of stuff we're going to need.

If we do like a reading list, Marc Bloch's Feudal Society would have to be included, because of its focus on mentalities, which is what role players need most.

[kgauck]

My old document Calculations of Arable Land seems to be old enough to pre-date the forums, so I'll just re-post here.

Calculations of arable land
Assumptions:
1) A well fed populous consumes 4 hectoliters (400 liters) of grain per person per year.
2) 5:1 should be our base harvest (five grains) per grain sown in good areas, 4:1 in poorer areas. The worst areas only achieve 2:1.
In France from 1300-1499, the ave is 4.3
In England from 1250-1499, the ave is 4.7
In England from 1500 as far as 1700, the ave is 7.0
In France from 1500 all the way to 1820, the ave is 6.3
In Germany and Scandinavia from 1500-1699, the ave is 4.2
In Eastern Europe from 1550-1820, the ave is 4.1
3) 1.5 hectoliters are sown on 1.0 hetares (1 hundedth of a sq kilometer, or 2.5 acres)
Sow 1 hectoliters on .67 hectares, produce five hectoliters of grain. Save one for the following season, and consume four. So, assume generously that 5 people require 3 hectares (.3 sq hectometers, or .03 sq kilometers, don't you love the metric system!) Now take into acount the fallow system used. Northern Europe used a three-field system, Southern Europe used a two field system (weaker soils, more emphasis on wheat). In the far North, Scotland for example, wheat gets harder to grow, so oats and rye rotate through a poorer system.
Wherever the BR information states a good agricultural area, assume the numbers above: 5:1, perhaps even 6:1, and a three field system.
When the BR sources look less favorable there are two things to consider:
1) northern lattitude- reduce to 4:1 grains harvested per sown, it drops productivity by 25% (3 to eat rather than 4, because 1 hectoliter is always required for the following season) 2) southern lattitude- reduce to a two field system drops by 17%.
When the BR sources suggest a poor agricultural area, drop yields to 50% (either 2.5:1 in a three field, or 3:1 in a two field system).
Also keep in mind that the technology information given on p. 19 of the BR rulebook recommends (implicitly) reducing yields of Rjurik, Vos, and humanoids. Anyone specifically interested in these economies should contact me for the more complicated information on their diverse agro-economies. The Vos, in poor areas will have some 2:1 yield agriculture, but you can surely see that other investments in hunting, raiding, or brutal population limitation will be applied.
Animals;
Livestock will tend to improve your crop fertility, but require a huge investment in land. Overall animals are the best investment in terms of return on labor and soil fertility, but they are the worst return in terms of land use.
So, the system I use goes like this:
Using a six mile hex (the distance a dwarf can walk in normal day), we get an area of almost 31 sq miles per hex, or about 8029 hectares. This will support some 13400 people, if all the land is agricultural. Since its not, we need to consider how much of it is. There needs to be enough forest to support the needs of wood of the community, even in non-forested areas. A minimum of 5 to 10% of the land is going to be forested. In England, 15% of the land was forest, meaning it was used by the manor. And additional percentage would be forest not used, but that would be reflected in other kinds of hexes. Some of the land will be inhabited, but not suited to agriculture. Of this, 10% is small, 20% is normal, 40% is a large amount. A minimum of pasturage would be 5%. England had about 25% of its land set aside for pasture, although as mentioned in "Animals", this will depend on available land vs calorie needs of the population. Animals requires a tiny fraction of the labor of crops, but only produce 20% of the calories of cropland. From this we see that in dense cultivation (75% arable is probabaly the maximum) , a hex could support 10000 people. However, most areas were in the range of 25% to 50% arable. If hexes were to commonly vary between supporting 2500 to 5000 people, an arbitrary 4000 per hex could be envisioned if it were considered that the numbers could be higher of conditions permited.

Hexes devoted to farming, then could be said to have 4000 or more people.
Hexes of mixed forest and farm land produce for 1000 people
Simple forests produce a *maximum* of 100 persons worth of subsistance. That's still 5 persons/sq mile, high for forest land, but a plausible maximum.
Hills and plains can support 1000 people (most of whom are not living in these hexes) by herding animals. The hills are supporting a very low population directly, but the export of animals and animal products (in exchange for grains, tools &c) supports higher farm populations and urban populations. Remember, grain must be transported to market, cattle can walk itself to slaughter.

These figures assume the 5:1, three field data. Remember to increase the hexes required as mentioned above. When it comes to importing food, try to avoid it when possible. The cost of grain transported over Roman roads increased the cost of the grain by 1% per mile. 100 miles, doubles the cost of grain. In medieval England, where labor was cheaper, the cost increased more at a rate of 1% per 5 miles. The same 100 miles represents a 22% increase. By sea is more reasonable. In 1828, it was cheaper to ship 1000 leagues by sea than 10 leagues overland. Realms importing food must have exports.

My 6 mile per hex maps use 14 terrain types, which I use to calculate the carrying capacity of a province as well as movement for day to day campaigning, and theoreticly military movement if a PC ever wishes to direct his war machine at that level.

[Lord Rahvin]

Sir Tiamat suggested that a province should be of a certain province level
to maintain so many military units, but there`s another factor to this issue
for those of you interested in such details. A large army (or even a small
one) existing in a province is basically a large surplus of money, potential
cultural exchange, and a demand for labor entering into a province
simultaneously. The demand to muster troops, or at least to maintain
existing troops, within a province would likely be a huge burden on a small
province, but at the same time, would allow the use of untapped economic
resources within a recessive province.

I mention this to allow for the possibility that supporting a continued
military presence might actually be beneficial for provinces, increasing
their province levels. Whether or not the actual population increases would
depend on your views regarding labor migration and the flexibility of guild
structures.

Even if the soldiers aren`t directly *in* your province, the act of
maintaining those troops would mean lots of gold (or, ahem, alternative
abstract measurements of currency if you`re in to that sort of thing) payed
for in maintenence costs, and these gold (or other) would be going to the
various provinces to pay for food, weapons, horses, alchohol, etc. Since
this gold would further enhance the economy in these provinces, and likely
find their way, eventually, into the hands of realm rulers, temples, and
guilds, this could very well be abstracted as an increase in province level
for each province in the realm.

I`m just trying to suggest that "must be X level to maintain Y military
units" might be a bit too simplistic if your goal was to go into
macroeconomic detail.

[Beruin]

Instead of re-inventing the wheel form the beginning with the project, you might want to look at a couple of social histories, like 'standards of living in the later middle ages', and the Gie's 'the medieval village'. All the pertinent information is contained to begin a basic foundation, and then you can run from there.

Well, I'm not really trying to re-invent the wheel here, I'm already using quite a number of books on the subject, ranging from "Beer in the Middle Ages" to "Plants that changed the world", though you just brought me to order Gies
"Daily Life in the Middle Ages", a combination of their books 'medieval village', 'medieval castle' and 'medieval city' ;). I also use a number of historical sources like price lists and tax rolls, some online resources and a number of RPG supplements like Pendragon or Harnworld, though with regard to the latter, I'm still missing a few items I'd like to have, e.g. "Magical Medieval Society", "Harnmanor" or Pendragon's "Lordly Domains".

Despite the abundance of material, I still have the feeling that I'm dealing with bits and pieces of information, some numbers here, a few other there and I'm trying to form them into a coherent whole I can use, so my first task with this project is to bring the information from different sources together and organize the results.


Keep in mind with feudalisim, the monarchs own all the land, and then the land is loaned out in return for vassalage, making a huge branching pyramid. Even temples would owe vassalage for land held. Some land may be held on alliodal terms, but even marches on frontiers find those carving them out owing dues to feudal lords, (the emperor being at the top, when there was an emperor - the 12 original duchies were the vassals of the emperor).

Yep, though this is mainly the underlying theory. In reality, feudal obligations could conflict and when land was held for several generations the vassal would often regard it as his own.


I should note I have written a 60 odd page supplement called 'Everyman' (after Langland), detailing the very sorts of daily aspects of life you are looking to write about. It was written for our specific campaign, and has a bunch of house rules, but you can take what you like from it, an alter it as you see fit if you would like to firm out a foundation for your project. My undergrad history courses would at least have not been for my amusement alone. ;)

I would really appreciate seeing this, esspecially the house rules you came up with. If you have this as a document on your computer you could mail it to me at tiemach@uni-muenster.de.
This would really be kind.:D

[Beruin]

I don't think we need to go back to foundational texts. Magical Medieval Society is a great place to start. Its d20, its entirely OGL, and it summarizes much of the kind of stuff we're going to need.

Well, sadly I only have a few excerpts of this text, though its on my wish list for the near future. The new Silk Roads supplement also looks interesting with regard to trade.


If we do like a reading list, Marc Bloch's Feudal Society would have to be included, because of its focus on mentalities, which is what role players need most.

Well, many of the books I use are in German, but I offer a few English titles:

[
Cambridge Economic History of Europe
Vingradoff's Growth of the Manor
Braudel's Structures of Everyday Life
Seebohm's English Village Community
Bennett's Life on the English Manor
Caulton's Medieval Village, Manor, Monastery

[Beruin]

My old document Calculations of Arable Land seems to be old enough to pre-date the forums, so I'll just re-post here.

Thanks for posting this again. I remember seeing this, though must admit I had forgotten it. My thought on yields is similar, I also thought to go with a yield of 5:1 (for the winter field after lying fallow that is, for the summer field I'd go with 4:1). However, in my view, Anuirean agriculture is advanced enough to also plant part of the fallow with legumes like peas or beans and with fodder crops like clover, thus increasing yields.

As a sidenote, in medieval Europe crop yields apparently got worse from west to east. Accordingly, for the Vos and Rjurik lands I might go as low as a yield of 3:1 (However what about the Druids?).

Okay, I definetely come back to your post later in more detail.

[Beruin]

My 6 mile per hex maps use 14 terrain types, which I use to calculate the carrying capacity of a province as well as movement for day to day campaigning, and theoreticly military movement if a PC ever wishes to direct his war machine at that level.

Ah, nearly forgot to ask: Could you post your terrain types and perhaps any accompanying rules?

Please, please, please...;)

[Beruin]

I am very interested in your views of army supplies in order to improve my rules

For now, I can only offer a general outline, but I'm thinking along the following lines:

For starters, I want to calculate the produce of an average peasant holding and then a manor or village in detail, down to the bushel of wheat.
This produce will then be grouped in larger cargo units like waggon or ship loads and abstracted into more general categories according to type and value/scarcity. Other resources from mining and craftsmanship shall also be figured in on the city or province level. This owes a lot to the cargo rules from Mongoose's Conan supplements Pirate Isles and Free Companies and will look something like this:

Category

Foodstuffs


common

Grain
Ale/Beer



uncommon

Meat
Fish



rare

Exotic fruits
Spices



Raw Materials


common

Lumber
Wool
Stone



uncommon

Leather
Wax



rare

Silk
Furs


Minerals/Metals


common

Iron
Cooper



uncommon

Silver
Jade



rare

Gold
Gems


Crafted goods


common

Rope
Simple Tools



uncommon

Paper
Clothing



rare

Armour
Weapons


Well, this is just off the top of my hat and more categories of goods as well as an additional rarity (very rare) might be useful, but you get the idea.

Then you can assign what every type of unit needs for each warmove or domain turn. For instance, a unit of archers might need 10 cargo units of common foodstuffs and one common and one uncommon unit of raw materials (material for repairs, new bowstrings, wood for arrows and broken bows etc.) each month on campaign, while a unit of knights might need 20 units of common and 4 units of uncommon foodstuffs (knights eat more and better and then there are the horses), 2 units of uncommon raw materials and 2 units of uncommon crafted goods.

I would then develop a new type of military unit, the supply train (not much combat ability, but carrying capacity and speed would be important). This unit, as a caravan, could also be required to maintain trade routes. Well, I have not really thought this all through, so this still needs a lot of work.

[kgauck]

Basically, for ease of using d20, I use the standard terrain types (PHB p. 163-4, DMG pp. 86-102). The only additional terrain type I use is mixed forest and farm, which has the same movement characteristics of forest, but supports more people with additional farms.

Armies move more slowly than individuals, normally a good army moves 12 miles per day, so I halve the numbers for individuals.

Mobs of civilians (say refugess fleeing invasion) move even slower, perhaps at one quarter the rate of an individual.

[Sir Tiamat]

Sir Tiamat suggested that a province should be of a certain province level
to maintain so many military units, but there`s another factor to this issue
for those of you interested in such details. A large army (or even a small
one) existing in a province is basically a large surplus of money, potential
cultural exchange, and a demand for labor entering into a province
simultaneously. The demand to muster troops, or at least to maintain
existing troops, within a province would likely be a huge burden on a small
province, but at the same time, would allow the use of untapped economic
resources within a recessive province.

I mention this to allow for the possibility that supporting a continued
military presence might actually be beneficial for provinces, increasing
their province levels. Whether or not the actual population increases would
depend on your views regarding labor migration and the flexibility of guild
structures.

Even if the soldiers aren`t directly *in* your province, the act of
maintaining those troops would mean lots of gold (or, ahem, alternative
abstract measurements of currency if you`re in to that sort of thing) payed
for in maintenence costs, and these gold (or other) would be going to the
various provinces to pay for food, weapons, horses, alchohol, etc. Since
this gold would further enhance the economy in these provinces, and likely
find their way, eventually, into the hands of realm rulers, temples, and
guilds, this could very well be abstracted as an increase in province level
for each province in the realm.

I`m just trying to suggest that "must be X level to maintain Y military
units" might be a bit too simplistic if your goal was to go into
macroeconomic detail.

You have got a point, but the implications of the (minor) beneficial effects of troops are great if one intends to incorporate them.

Every goldbar spent in a region (closed system) will generate more revenue than a single GB. However since the GB’s are first taken from the entire population this effect is limited. Moreover it depends on the capacity of a region to provide for demand, whether this is a good thing. It will only work in times of lesser demand; if the only blacksmith is already swamped with work it will only cause inflation.

That said, troops are a special way to spend resources in a region since they themselves do not provide an economic benefit. A GB spent on a harbour or road may increase revenue apart from the extra work they generate in the province. A unit does not however provide extra revenue, apart from the extra demand: troops tend to eat the food the province provides without helping to create additional crops –not to speak of plunder.

Especially in an abstracted medieval society like birthright it may be best to assume that economic all costs and benefits are already incorporated in the price. The size of a province will nonetheless limit the maximum size of a friendly or raiding army it can feed. Still, the amount of troops a province can support can be great or small, whatever we want it to be. :)

I really like simplicity BTW ;), one can easily make things more complicated, but it takes a lot of effort to introduce an extra layer of option and detail, while at the same time keeping it simple and playable.

[Lord Rahvin]

Side issue related to my discussions with Sir Tiamat related to this topic:

(too much to quote directly)


I don`t remember what the population levels are supposed to repreent
off-hand. Let`s say, for the moment, that population level is 5,000 people
although that`s probably way off. Now, let`s assume that the economy
`settles` at this population level. There`s no reason to assume that at a
settled population/economic level, the economy is `maxed out`. That is, the
blacksmith in your example would welcome more work. If there`s a lot more
work than can handle, more people will want to become blacksmiths. The
amount of blacksmiths that can be supported in a province are directly
controlled by the Guild, probably represented by the percentage of Guild
control in the province (and thus, the amount of Guild holdings in
proportion to the province level.)

Let`s assume a province level of 3 and 15,000 people. Now, add in two
military units. Let`s say, that`s 400 people, or about 2.5% increase in
foreign demand with no noticeable increase in production. If troops buy
goods from villagers, villagers will be richer and turn around and spend
that money, giving their gold to villagers. Total spending will thus
increase. Total demand will increase. As demand increases, supply
increases. More people work to full the demand. Villagers from nearby
provinces come to the new markets. The town utilizes and exploits whatever
comparative advantage it has. Trade via trade routes is increased. Taxes
are increased, increasing government spending for roads and troops and other
stuff which utilizes labor and resources from nearby provinces.

It`s likely that an economy can support any increase or decrease in
population of about 2% or less per domain turn without a signficicant BAD
THING happening. Beyond that, you`re probably looking at economic
destabilization in the form of random events and losses of morale. I would
imagine a strong guild structure could prevent the random events, while a
strong temple structure could prevent the morale losses. (That is, a strong
guild structure is one where that are no "vacant" guild holdings left.)

On the other hand, "safe" population increases and military deployments
could result in increases to the overall population and productivity, in the
form of additional `virtual` province levels for purposes of collecting
income from existing holdings and trade routes. The amount of total virtual
province levels a province could support would probably depend on it having
a strong law holding structure (no "vacant" law holdings). Of course, these
economic advantages probably wouldn`t apply if the village wasn`t at a high
morale or if the military units were acting as law holdings into themselves
(in which case, you could just plunder the province for money, if you`re
into that sort of thing).



The implications are huge whenever money, information, and people are moved
around from place to place.

Of course, now imagine what happens to the town when 10 military units (or
about 2000 people, 12% of the population). That`s probably way too many.
Worse, imagine what happens to the town if 4 military units (about 800
people, 5%) suddenly leave, die off, or are mustered into the army from the
villages...?

If you`re looking for detail, these effects are not minor by any means.

If you`re looking for simplicity... well...

[kgauck]

There`s no reason to assume that at a
settled population/economic level, the economy is `maxed out`. That is, the
blacksmith in your example would welcome more work. If there`s a lot more
work than can handle, more people will want to become blacksmiths. The
amount of blacksmiths that can be supported in a province are directly
controlled by the Guild, probably represented by the percentage of Guild
control in the province (and thus, the amount of Guild holdings in
proportion to the province level.)

Because the guild controls the supply of blacksmiths, its safe to assume that the number of blacksmiths is correct for normal smith work. The existing smiths will not welcome more smiths (and in the towns at least) can control access to market entry. A manor can employ as many smiths as it pleases, but you have to pay them to stand around if you want slack, and they will attempt to obtain additional business to earn money on the side, which will annoy the town smiths. A medieval economy generally doesn't have enough surplus to support idle hands (soldiers took day jobs in cities into the 18th century because their garrison pay was too low to live on). Typically civilian products were just displaced by war-time production.


Let`s assume a province level of 3 and 15,000 people. Now, add in two military units. Let`s say, that`s 400 people, or about 2.5% increase in foreign demand with no noticeable increase in production. If troops buy goods from villagers, villagers will be richer and turn around and spend that money, giving their gold to villagers. Total spending will thus increase.

Again this assumes unused capacity in the system, and medieval economies don't have unused capacity. Feeding the 400 soldiers means that food once in the mouths of others is now in the mouths of soldiers. If the province has a food suplus, the food is not being sold to towns If the province has no food surplus than its the local towns who get less food. This means the price of food goes up as towns folk are effectivly bidding against one another for food. To cover the costs of bread, towns folk may try and raise the prices of their goods. This 400 new mouths, far from being good for the economy has probabaly produced inflation, and may produce actual want.


Total demand will increase. As demand increases, supply increases. More people work to full the demand. Villagers from nearby provinces come to the new markets. The town utilizes and exploits whatever comparative advantage it has. Trade via trade routes is increased. Taxes are increased, increasing government spending for roads and troops and other stuff which utilizes labor and resources from nearby provinces.

In a free market economy things work this way, but in exchange we accept certain ills, such as a business cycle, structural unemployment, and a welfare system to prevent structural unemployment from being starvation. Medieval economies who experienced people moving from nearby provinces to our towns would actually experience a labor shortage in the nearby provinces, reducing wealth there, and extra mouths to feed here, causing inflation, off-setting their productive gains here, possibly by quite a lot.

Medieval economies are not flexible and adaptive. This is in part because of the high investment required for the start-up of any economic activity, and also because the suplus generated by any activity is so small. The peasant leaving can't sell a house, (in part because his house may not be his to sell, and because there are no buyers) but he must aquire one. He has spent 10-15 years learning a profession, and cannot learn a new one (the one in demand in the new market) quickly. New tools must be aquired, and in the mean time, he must eat. If he has a family (and most certainly must if the population is not in decline for this very reason) they must eat too.

We are all familiar with the requirement that a person must live a year and a day in town before he is freed of other (peasant) obligations, and the reason for this is that the default expectation, based on cold experience, is that such a move is not likely to work out, even one peasant at a time. This dismal evaluation of economic flexibility and adaptation already assumes a high medieval death rate in cities (and elsewhere). If these places are not so full of lethal disease because of temples and priestly magic, then the situation is more troubled, as there are few places for new people.

So it must be until industrialization makes it possible for the new people to cheaply aquire new goods and for the new people to find unskilled labor.

[Green Knight]

kgauck has a lot of good points here; Cerilian economics should be based on medieval standards rathern then modern-day models and theories.

Even the existing domain system used in BR assumes that provinces and holdings generate a vast amount of capital that can be invested in various endeavours; some of which will have an almost guaranteed return rate.

I'm not saying I have a perfect fix for this; but I would like to point out that it would be an error to assume that taxation and trade should produce large amounts of capital that can be freely moved about and invested.

[Lord Rahvin]

Because the guild controls the supply of blacksmiths, its safe to assume
that the number of blacksmiths is correct for normal smith work. The
existing smiths will not welcome more smiths (and in the towns at least) can
control access to market entry. A manor can employ as many smiths as it
pleases, but you have to pay them to stand around if you want slack, and
they will attempt to obtain additional business to earn money on the side,
which will annoy the town smiths. A medieval economy generally doesn`t have
enough surplus to support idle hands (soldiers took day jobs in cities into
the 18th century because their garrison pay was too low to live on).
Typically civilian products were just displaced by war-time production.


As you can tell, my knowledge of economics is based on current day models,
not midieval ones, but my understanding of guilds weren`t that they would
create a shortage of craftsman, but rather that they would centralize
economic power on selected Masters. That is, a master might have countless
apprentices of incredible skill that would be limited to apprentice status
until the Guild approves them (or they pay guild fees), and thus, they
couldn`t setup their own competing shops against other masters. It was my
understanding that most of the gear an army needs would be delegated to
apprentices anyway, with the master blacksmith acting as a sort of
combination of trainer, merchant, and supervisor.

Also, I vaguly recall the guild structure resulting in an excess of
apprentices ready to become a master who couldn`t because of the needs of
their village as dictated by their guild. If those needs went up, the
Guilds have a vast potential of unused capacity to increase thier supply of
trainers, merchants, and supervisors. The only requirement for this is the
assurance that they these "promotions" won`t result in reducing the current
business income of other masters in the city. Of course, once the soliders
leave, the Guild may have some problems with too many blacksmiths about, but
it seems to me Birthright guilds that span many provinces and realms are
within their rights to migrate masters that are to heavily concentrated in
one area.


Again this assumes unused capacity in the system, and medieval
economies don`t have unused capacity. Feeding the 400 soldiers means that
food once in the mouths of others is now in the mouths of soldiers. If the
province has a food suplus, the food is not being sold to towns If the
province has no food surplus than its the local towns who get less food.
This means the price of food goes up as towns folk are effectivly bidding
against one another for food. To cover the costs of bread, towns folk may
try and raise the prices of their goods. This 400 new mouths, far from being
good for the economy has probabaly produced inflation, and may produce
actual want.

Okay, this seems silly to me. By this argument there could never be trade
or trade routes. Or Rule for that matter.
I understand the dangers in raising the population significantly, but it
seems absurd to assume the current level of production is the maximum
possible safe output.



In a free market economy things work this way, but in exchange we
accept certain ills, such as a business cycle, structural unemployment, and
a welfare system to prevent structural unemployment from being starvation.
Medieval economies who experienced people moving from nearby provinces to
our towns would actually experience a labor shortage in the nearby
provinces, reducing wealth there, and extra mouths to feed here, causing
inflation, off-setting their productive gains here, possibly by quite a lot.

Medieval economies are not flexible and adaptive. This is in part because
of the high investment required for the start-up of any economic activity,
and also because the suplus generated by any activity is so small. The
peasant leaving can`t sell a house, (in part because his house may not be
his to sell, and because there are no buyers) but he must aquire one. He has
spent 10-15 years learning a profession, and cannot learn a new one (the one
in demand in the new market) quickly. New tools must be aquired, and in the
mean time, he must eat. If he has a family (and most certainly must if the
population is not in decline for this very reason) they must eat
too.

This arguments strike me as very logical, especially the reference to the
time required to learn a profession. It still strikes me as odd that you`re
saying we should assume a lack of excess labor in a mideival economy as a
basic premise. And it seems to me that guilds (or masters within a guild)
would make accomodations to attract and maintain additional apprentices for
as long as it is profitable to do so. Thus, they wouldn`t own their own
home in either province.

[Jaleela]

As you can tell, my knowledge of economics is based on current day models,
not midieval ones, but my understanding of guilds weren`t that they would
create a shortage of craftsman, but rather that they would centralize
economic power on selected Masters. That is, a master might have countless
apprentices of incredible skill that would be limited to apprentice status
until the Guild approves them (or they pay guild fees), and thus, they
couldn`t setup their own competing shops against other masters. It was my
understanding that most of the gear an army needs would be delegated to
apprentices anyway, with the master blacksmith acting as a sort of
combination of trainer, merchant, and supervisor....



Not exactly as you envision. Historically, armourers in large manufacturing centers (Lombardy, Milan, Innsbruck, Cologne, Liege, etc.) had shops that did essentially function as piecework factories in places like Pakistan and China today, but the masters controlled graduated apprentices reffered to as 'journeymen', These are the skilled labourers that you imagine, not the apprentices learning the trade.

It is true in any craft guild that masters in later Medieval Europe did make entry as a master into a uild not an easy thing, and this was excaserbated by other economic conditions in towns where the economic reality made otherwise perfectly qualified journeymen unable to amass the resources to set up shop themselves. What endeed up happening most often is that as certain monarchs grew more powerful, or developed better means of accessing cash, they sought to import such journeymen as master craftsmen, setting them up in colonies in towns yrying to produce quality armours locally - Louis IX, and his father Charles both encouraged Italian immigration to Tours, and Phillip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy did the same in Bruge (Ghent was notoriously unreliable politically). Een in Scotland, we find French brigandiers, or makers of brigandines, being encouraged by the crown of Scotland to settle in Edinburgh and other towns as early as the 1460's.

In places like Milan, which was the center of large scale armour production in Europe from the end of the 13th century, until the German armourers overtook them in the beginning of the 16th century, armourers actually sib-contracted with specialist makers. A few homogenous suits still exist in places like the castle Churburg, which have one set of armourers marks on a set of greaves, with another on gauntlets, and the overall makers mark dominating. Armourers craft guilds required an apprentice to produce individual components, and be tested in the manufacture of each, and not many were liscenced to manufacture every component of a suit of plate (specialist armourers manufactured brigandines, and padded armours, and mail - each type of armour would only be made by a specialist on the field) The ones liscenced to manufacture an entire harness of plate were truly masters.

A shop like the Missaglia shop in Milan, literally contracted orders for hundreds, and even thousands of individual components (hundreds of partial and full suits a year), and this shop made every type of component, except for mail, but even they subcontracted out bits like hinges, and had the armour polished by shops specializing in polishing (with water powered grinding wheels with leather surfaces, impregnated with brick-dust, and lubricated with olive oil. Few original armour surfaces survive - they were variously treated over hundreds of years, but when conservators in modern museums have dismounted pieces that have never been before dismounted - the brow reenforce of a close helmet called an armet, in example, the original surface revealed was a near mirror polish. From personal experience, a mirror polish would be easier to maintain than a satin one (rust sets in what are microscopic scratches real quick).

Most footsoldiers armour would have one of several finishes - a rough satin polish, black from the forge, with the forge-scale still on it (it is rust-resistant), or the same, but pained, with either linseed oil and lampblack, or egg-tempra paints, or tin dipped. Noblemens armour could be blued, gilded, plum-russetted, etched, and even set with gemstones (several historical accounts exist of the latter, and while historians used to dismiss this as exaggeration, in the 1990's they pulled a royal helmet from the early 15th century out of a well at the Luvre. It had been a royal palace at that time. The helmet was of gilt latten - that is heavily gilded with a mercury gilding process, repoussed (that is with raided designs), with an integral crown, and with a few bits of enamelwork still clinging to it. The helmet actualy is listed in an inventory prior to 1415, and it was stolen in the 1420's. The thieves tried to scrape the gold off it, and prsed out the gems and enamelwork, and apparently smashed it in frustration, then tossed it down the well.

Sorry for writing a short book, but arms and armour , and researching it is a particular hobby of mine. Anyways, I hope that helps understanding craft guilds a littls. Merchants actually tended to be middlemen, and manipulated the craftsmen, making most of the profit. As they tended to have the only means of accessing markets outside of the towns items were made in, and controlled the trade in raw materials, the craftsmen and artisans had no choice but to take the deal these large merchants offered, and this is the sort of people represented by the guild holdings in the game, rather than the craftsmen themselves. They didn't controll the craftsmen though, they controlled the access to the external market, and in many cases the raw material of manufacture. Sometimes craftsmen and merchants would be at odds, to the point of open warfare (or riot, in a city).

[AndrewTall]

Okay, this seems silly to me. By this argument there could never be trade
or trade routes. Or Rule for that matter.
I understand the dangers in raising the population significantly, but it
seems absurd to assume the current level of production is the maximum
possible safe output.



I expect that the point was that something is already being done with any surplus - bring in soldiers and that existing usage is displaced.

So if previously surplus grain was fed to animals, fermented, etc then after the soldiers move in and need it for bread the old use has to be reduced, so the peasants do without their exports (likely briging in some coin), or eat less meat, etc. In general the likelihood is that whatever the locals were doing with the surplus before the influx was whatever they found best - the influx therefore will at best be neutral (previously you exported for coin, now you sell locally) or be negative (previously you fattened geese and sold pate and meat at a premium, now you sell grain direct for only a modest gain).

If the influx of large numbers of soldiers is very large compared to the population then it almost inevitably becomes a problem - the soldiers are likely to be posted near towns meaning that they camp in fields otherwise used for pasture, etc they chase the local women, steal livestock, etc, etc.

Whether the influx is a benefit or problem depends on the flexibility of the work-force (can the blacksmith go from repairing plows to mail?) The willingness of the army to assist locals (does the local lord have his men help with the harvest, raise barns, maintain roads and fords?) The culture of the society (do villagers trust anyone born outside the village? Do the soldiers consider the 'peasants' vermin to be crushed at whim?), etc, etc.

[Autarkis]

Well, the problem of attempting to match the Birthright economy to either modern day economic principles or medieval economic principles are that both will not accurately reflect the addition of divine or arcane magic to 1) the development of technology and 2) the addition of "unskilled" individuals being able to mimic craftsmen through spells.

For instance, some Divine spells:

Control Weather can have an impact on crop growth, without a material cost. 2 miles or 3 miles can have a large impact on a parched community with no material cost. Take into a account a realm spell similarly...

Create Food/Water and its corresponding Realm Spell: Maintain Armies or Bless Land, and you have a fairly good way of keeping individuals fed.

Mend and its higher level equivalent, Make Whole, and craftsmen whose job it is to repair items have competition.

Heck, even some Arcane spells can have an impact:

Shrink Object: Allows for more items to be transported, decreasing storage costs and travel costs

Tenser's Floating Disc: Helping with the loading/unloading of materials

Unseen Servant: Though limited in what it can do, it can cut back on manual labor

Most of the spells are either level 0, 1 or 2 and has no or minimal material impact. This adds a whole complexity in identifying why/how the economy is being run and what the sources are.

[Jaleela]

Well, the problem of attempting to match the Birthright economy to either modern day economic principles or medieval economic principles are that both will not accurately reflect the addition of divine or arcane magic to 1) the development of technology and 2) the addition of "unskilled" individuals being able to mimic craftsmen through spells.

For instance, some Divine spells:

Control Weather can have an impact on crop growth, without a material cost. 2 miles or 3 miles can have a large impact on a parched community with no material cost. Take into a account a realm spell similarly...

Create Food/Water and its corresponding Realm Spell: Maintain Armies or Bless Land, and you have a fairly good way of keeping individuals fed.

Mend and its higher level equivalent, Make Whole, and craftsmen whose job it is to repair items have competition.

Heck, even some Arcane spells can have an impact:

Shrink Object: Allows for more items to be transported, decreasing storage costs and travel costs

Tenser's Floating Disc: Helping with the loading/unloading of materials

Unseen Servant: Though limited in what it can do, it can cut back on manual labor

Most of the spells are either level 0, 1 or 2 and has no or minimal material impact. This adds a whole complexity in identifying why/how the economy is being run and what the sources are.

Clearly, people imitating the effects of craftsmen and artisans and offering such items for sale would be treated with great hostility. A historical dispute between the saddler's guild and the loriners in London (who made the bits for bridles, and the stirrups and such for saddles), where the loriners wished to create a seperate guild ended with riots and murders on the street. A magic user looking to compete with artisans would face the exact same sort of violence directed towards them.

Also, the craft guilds have the force of law behind them, that is, a town or city government would intervene, arresting, and likely deporting any unwise enough to flout the laws regulating trade. It upsets the natural order.

Last but not least, Birthright is intended to be a low magic world, and having artisan magic users indulging in such mundane activities as mending pots to compete with tinkers, or sellers of used clothes, are wasting their talents and energies for what would be a laughably small sum of money (subsistance wages, in the case of people mending things). If they wouldn't do the job for the same sort of money as a tinker, then they would have no business, as people would opt for the cheaper solution every time.

As for using magic for transportation of mundane goods on a commercial basis, you are in direct competition with the carters that serve merchants, and would have had monopolies on cartage over certain stretches of roads - so again, your magic users would have a bunch of people out for their hides - a comparison to Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters in this case would not be inappropriate! ;)

I would pose the idea that if magic is so commonplace in a campaign that it is being used in everyday use by common people to replace mundane chores and crafts, then what you are playing is a standard D&D campaign in a high-middleing to high magic world, and not Birthright. In our campaign, the magic-users that engage in trade work for the aristocracy, making or enchanting very expensive, and rare objects, and make as much as a very highly paid master craftsman, like a goldsmith (at the least), or make as much as a minor nobleman in fees.

On the other had, I concur with your ideas regarding divine magic being used to influence agriculture - in this case, the priests aren't competing with anyone (except maybe different temples competing with each other), and are benefitting communities as a whole. Everybody loses if there is a famine. In our campaign world, the effects of divine magic on crops essentially creates a small surplus of food, or higher food production than in the middle ages, with slight increases to lifespan and overall health of communities, and a slightly reduced death rate in childbirth, childhood, and due to illness - basically turining the productivity level of countries from third world countries (which essentially is what medieval technological societies are), into second world countries, where famine isn't quite such a concern, and the population enjoys a little better health. :)

[Beruin]

I agree with Jaleela here, we're not in Eberron after all. In general, the question how D&D magic would influence and change a medieval society has come up quite a few times before, in connection with differing topics (and several published Campaign worlds come up with a sort of magical-industrial revolution as an answer). However, if we want to preserve a medieval feel to the campaign, I fear there is no really good answer, short of thoroughly reworking the magic rules (at least I've yet to see another answer). I guess we just have to live with a certain inconsistency in this regard:cool:



On the other had, I concur with your ideas regarding divine magic being used to influence agriculture - in this case, the priests aren't competing with anyone (except maybe different temples competing with each other), and are benefitting communities as a whole. Everybody loses if there is a famine. In our campaign world, the effects of divine magic on crops essentially creates a small surplus of food, or higher food production than in the middle ages, with slight increases to lifespan and overall health of communities, and a slightly reduced death rate in childbirth, childhood, and due to illness - basically turining the productivity level of countries from third world countries (which essentially is what medieval technological societies are), into second world countries, where famine isn't quite such a concern, and the population enjoys a little better health. :)

Well, looking over the spell lists in the PHB, I believe the overall effect of divine magic is not that great. I think we can safely ignore the higher level spells like control weather here, there are just too few casters capable of using these and these casters will probably have a certain area they are interested in, creating a number of pockets were the conditions are better than everywhere else.
Spells that really influence agriculture start at spell lvl 3 with Create Food and Water and Plant Growth. Well, I guess there are still not that many 5th level clerics/druids around to have more than a minor effect. In relation to the population and the entire area under cultivation in Cerilia, the effect of these spells is not that great.
The realm spell Bless Land has one effect, it raises the income of the regent, but it does not really say how that is accomplished and well, I'd just leave it like that.
Well, the only spell that really has a serious impact then is the 0 lvl spell create water. This one will probably rule out or at least greatly reduce the danger of droughts. However, food crops might still be ruined by too much water at the wrong time...Evil:D

[Beruin]

In case you wondered, I will probably finish and then post my write-up for the "Generic Anuirean Peasant Holding" during the weekend.

[Lord Rahvin]

While you`re at it, I can use a minor baron`s Estate (Law) Holding... :)


On 5/24/07, Beruin <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
>
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
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>
> Beruin wrote:
> In case you wondered, I will probably finish and then post my write-up for
> the "Generic Anuirean Peasant Holding" during the weekend.
>
>
>
>
> Birthright-l Archives:
> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
>
>
>

[kgauck]

My own view on magic in crafting (indeed on magic in most things) is that its already built into the system. Which is to say, I'm assuming that a certain low level magical assistance is being offered to craftsmen to get the mundane results we expect. Magic isn't added on top of normal skill craftsmen, rather I assume is neccesary to avoid penalties.

The medieval craftsman might wear a medalion with the patron saint of his craft or his guild, pray for prosperity, make special offerings for blessings, and generally seek divine favor in his profession. Spells are just the game-mechanical application of the divine.

So I certainly see temples of Sera activly blessing and assisting the crafters, and other temples generally blessing and assisting other constituancies (warriors, scholars, wizards, rulers, sailors, and on and on).

So when we envision a medieval world, I already assume its magical.

However, outside the normal divine service to the followers of the faith, consider the ratio of spellcasters to mundane services in need of magical augmentation. Shrink Item, for example, is a true magic spell, requiring a spellcaster with a bloodline, and it only effects 2 cubic feet per level for a day per level. This is really a personal service spell, to make the wizard's own load easier to carry. Trade involves tons of transport often over many days. The ratio is such that even if wizards went around as a public service reducing the loads on travelers, the effect would only be noticable to the horse pulling the load for the days effected. One could further qibble about how much weight is effceted , whether magical items are as good as normal items (this is an interesting Ars Magica line of discussion) and so on.

[kgauck]

As you can tell, my knowledge of economics is based on current day models, not midieval ones ...
... which has got to be more useful on a day to day basis.


but my understanding of guilds weren`t that they would
create a shortage of craftsman, but rather that they would centralize
economic power on selected Masters.
Its not a shortage, but the goldilocks spot that the guild is after. Every master gets the just right amount of work. Everyone else is a dependent of the master, so too little work means the master is feeding and housing too many dependents. The apprentices he is obligated to retain under the terms by which he took them, the journeymen he could turn out. Even so you now have a journeyman with no food, no shelter, no prospects, and maybe a few coins in his pocket.

A shortage will occur when demand goes up (such as wartime), but that's a burden borne by the customers who are turned away: "sorry, no nails, the duke needs rivets."


It seems to me Birthright guilds that span many provinces and realms are within their rights to migrate masters that are to heavily concentrated in
one area.
This can happen on a very small scale. There is generally one blacksmith per 1500 people, and weaponsmiths and armorsmiths generally are fewer than one to 2000 people, so there needs to be a huge change in the number of people to buy nails and horseshoes to justify the moving of one blacksmith.


Okay, this seems silly to me. By this argument there could never be trade or trade routes. Or Rule for that matter. I understand the dangers in raising the population significantly, but it seems absurd to assume the current level of production is the maximum possible safe output.
Things like trade routes and rule actions cannot mean that a ruler plonks down a few GB and suddenly alters the number of people here and their trade patterns. What it must mean is that he is gaining control of pre-existing but unmanaged activity. When I rule up a guild holding, I'm not building new shops in hopes that suddenly the demand for belts, nails, and candles will suddenly increase, rather I must be enticing existing bucklers, blacksmiths, and chandlers to join my organization. They can place my badge on their door, sign, or window, and we both make money.

On the other hand, there is a hard ceiling to how many rule actions a ruler can take. First there is the rate at which you can make new people (it takes nine months to make a new consumer, and about a dozen years to make a new producer, plus another seven to ten to make a good quality producer of something. That's a lot of realm turns. Then there is the physical limit of how many people you can have in a place. Getting people into a region beyond the carrying capacity of the region is generally bad news.

They are ways around these problems, mostly based on assuming that the rule action mostly represents getting control of already existing stuff, but you still need an idea of what the maximums are.


It still strikes me as odd that you`re saying we should assume a lack of excess labor in a mideival economy as a basic premise. And it seems to me that guilds (or masters within a guild) would make accomodations to attract and maintain additional apprentices for as long as it is profitable to do so. Thus, they wouldn`t own their own home in either province.
In general, medieval economics is a mess and everyone ends up poor. Surpluses of wealth just don't show up much in medieval economies (and what there is, is mostly in the hands of a very few people) so we can't assume that people have a cushion of suprlus to fall back on if the pace of demand slows, or a new competitor moves in, or prices fall, or the the wind changes direction. Basically every change means that people harmed by that change are now desperate. The fact that a few people might be doing a little better doesn't offset this, because their good fortune is generally spent on recovering from the recent bad things that happened to them (fix the leak in the roof, repair the gate, buy a new goat to replace the one that was eaten by a wold last year).

People are just too close to basic subsistance to welcome or embrace change.

[ryancaveney]

you just brought me to order Gies "Daily Life in the Middle Ages"

Their books are fun. I will also heartily second Kenneth's recommendation of Marc Bloch.


I'm still missing ... "Harnmanor" or Pendragon's "Lordly Domains"

I've got both in front of me. What would you like to know?

Harnmanor works at a very low level, detailing the size and economic functions of every family within each individual village. Owning one of these isn't even a BR Law(1) holding, but it's more detailed than running a sizable realm in BR (as one might expect in Harn). Because of this, I think it's actually better at fleshing out a Pendragon player knight's domains than is Pendragon's own Lordly Domains. It's certainly the best village generation system I've ever seen, but it would take far too much effort to do this for more than a handful of the most important and frequently-visited villages.

Lordly Domains is in between the Harnmanor and BR scales, and is broadly reminiscent of the old D&D Companion Set's Dominion rules. Each settlement is described mainly by a single number (its population, in units of 480 people), and a player knight is expected to start with one and acquire a few more. If you're running a mostly adventure campaign with land ownership as a background, it's just about perfect -- in that case, you don't even need BR rules as such anymore. My main beef with it is the nonlinearity of income growth with population, which begins to seriously break down in the presence of cities; as with BR, the real problem is the lack of limitation on (the equivalent of) the Rule action. If as a DM you distribute settlements and wilderness by hand, leaving some room for growth but not too much, it might be made to work. My preference, as with BR, is to say that in most regions all the people are already there -- all an individual ruler can do is convince his neighbors to sell him additional manors to add to his demesne.

It would not be unreasonable to take a single BR domain and divide it up into Lordly Domains fiefs, or to take a single Lordly Domains fief and model it as a collection of Harnmanor manors. However, do not try to go straight from BR to Harnmanor, unless you actually want to decide the exact number of acres farmed by each and every peasant family in the realm. If nearly all your campaign takes place inside one BR realm, by all means use one of the more detailed systems for it, and conventional BR for its neighbors. To run something as big as all of Anuire, however, BR itself is about as low-level as I could imagine going while staying relatively sane.

While we're on the topic of other RPG rulership supplements, you should know that Ars Magica's Ordo Nobilis has lots of great descriptive text, but almost no rules at all. I have a similar complaint about Mongoose's d20 Strongholds & Dynasties; it's got lots of game-mechanical detail on castle construction, but precious little on the land ownership that supports the castles. Fields of Blood basically IS Birthright d20, even to the extent of using "RP" for its rulership coinage (though they say it stands for Resource Points) and "realm actions" for the things that the "regent" does. It includes lots of the Civilization computer game-esque buildable improvements, like hospitals, signal towers and fishing fleets. It's actually rather good. I haven't got Magical Medieval Society yet, but I am eagerly awaiting its imminent delivery from Amazon.


Despite the abundance of material, I still have the feeling that I'm dealing with bits and pieces of information, some numbers here, a few other there and I'm trying to form them into a coherent whole I can use

Adding more sources will make this problem worse, in that there will be even more bits and pieces and even less coherence, but I find it more entertaining. =)


Ryan

[Gwrthefyr]

And would have included beneftis from the Agro revolution, but once I get my hands back on it, Napoleon III had an aside on food consumption statistics in France in his socialist pamphlet Extinction du Pauperisme. While wheat consumption was roughly equal (I don't remember the units), the rich consumed about 1kg of meat daily (a sixth in the working class), usw for wine and sugar.

The old Medieval Demographics article considered a max of roughly 180 people per settled square mile*, with at most 2/3 settled (that would probably have accoutned for the density of places like Flanders) in the low Middle Ages/pre-Renaissance period.

*Thinking of it; besides the lapsus (180/acre would have been high-end urban density), for others who can't be bothered to make the conversion, that's slightly less than 70/km2

[ryancaveney]

usw

For those who don't speak German (und so weiter), that means etc (et cetera). =)


The old Medieval Demographics article considered a max of roughly 180 people per settled acre, with at most 2/3 settled (that would probably have accoutned for the density of places like Flanders) in the low Middle Ages/pre-Renaissance period.

That is an excellent article. It's part of my justification for saying "all the people are already there" when discussing province level. That is, since a BR province is 900 to 1600 square miles (pg. 33), and maximum population per province is 100,000 (pg. 34), that gives a maximum density of 63 to 111 inhabitants per square mile, right in the reasonable range for well-settled lands. Therefore, to prevent Cerilia from being massively underpopulated and to prevent the Rule action from creating people out of thin air, I (and several others) claim that all plains provinces always have about 100,000 people; whether it is considered a Level 1 or a Level 10 province is determined by how much direct control over it the owner has (how much land is in his personal demesne, or how good his local administrators are, or other social improvements).


Ryan

[dalor]

The only thing I don`t like about the people already being there is that Cerilia is a Fantasy Setting...

Why not have so few people living in an area.

Movies like Willow, The Lord of the Rings or what have you almost always portray the lands as very nearly empty and almost nearly reclaimed by nature. I think it is what lends a feeling of desperation when the heroes arrive:

With so few people clinging to their daily lives, raiding monsters take on real danger to civilization itself...but on the other hand, if there are 100,000 people in the province, then what fame are the heroes likely to gain when the impact on the province is really not all that great when a band of monsters attack a single outlying hamlet with only 100 people in it and make off with a couple of captives.

I like the sparse populations given.

As for why you are able to raise the number of people in a province, I`ve always thought of it this way:

Anuire (as an example) stays pretty much static in its population, with the various nations having ebbing and flowing populations depending on what is going on.

When the character permanently rules up a province, new settlers are coming in from all over: returning relatives come "home" to a more safe land, new craftsmen hear the area is in need of their skills, people tired of war in their own nation trickle into the safer land and etc...

Is it comparitive to our own worlds history of how things medieval work as far as population...sure is not; but it makes it feel more fantastical to me.



--- ryancaveney <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> The old Medieval Demographics article considered a max of roughly 180 people per settled acre, with at most 2/3 settled (that would probably have accoutned for the density of places like Flanders) in the low Middle Ages/pre-Renaissance period.
> -----------------------------
>
> That is an excellent article. It`s part of my justification for saying "all the people are already there" when discussing province level. That is, since a BR province is 900 to 1600 square miles (pg. 33), and maximum population per province is 100,000 (pg. 34), that gives a maximum density of 63 to 111 inhabitants per square mile, right in the reasonable range for well-settled lands. Therefore, to prevent
> Cerilia from being massively underpopulated and to prevent the Rule action from creating people out of thin air, I (and several others) claim that all plains provinces always have about 100,000 people; whether it is considered a Level 1 or a Level 10 province is determined by how much direct control over it the owner has (how much land is in his personal demesne, or how good his local administrators are, or other social improvements).
>
> Ryan

[Jaleela]

The real problem with the sparse populations given is that they could not possibly support the towns listed in the domain sourcebook. People need food, and you need 80 to 90 people growing food to support every 10 people who are not farmers. You just can't get away from that fact of life in an agrarian society.

I don't agree with having a level 1 province haveing 100,000 living in it in a plains state, but for every town you have of a couple of thousand people, you need to have , say, 20 or 30 large villages and a number of hamlets planting crops to support the town.

Since most Cerilian heros are regents of one form or other, or are blooded, your concern regarding them going unoticed is unfouded, in my opinion. Remember, to a population with a large number of farmers, a few people that do drive off mosters attacking them most assuredly will be noticed and become famous. You just don't have that many adventurers in an agrarian society, so the ones you have will be noticed - assuming they do heroic things, and aren't the typical self-centerd D&D heros only concerned with amassing personal wealth, and using henchmen as human shields.

[kgauck]

Also keep in mind that full of medieval people is pretty empty. Modern populations are as much as ten times higher than medieval figures. Admittedly Italy and France had much larger medieval populations. Second, since people cluster, medieval places between villages tend to be pretty empty.

In a genuinely empty land (as the BR numbers provide) finding people like armorers becomes impossible a level 2 province would have one and a level 4 province would have eight. Annual production of armor somewhere around two dozen suits of armor, maximum. How about two grain merchants in a level 3 province and four of them in a level 3. How exactly do these guilds make any money at all?

Empty lands leave the landscape full of adventures in wilderness where the PC's home castle can be near dragons, giants, goblins, a necromancer, and ancient ruins without peasants running about the place, but they also don't provide the civilization (trade, cities, commerce) that the game takes for granted too.

[AndrewTall]

My tuppence.

As I read the books BR populations are of taxpayers (or possibly hearths, thanks Ken) not of actual people - so you could easily have 3-5 times as many people as the numbers indicate without changing the setting otherwise.

I'm happy to say that 1-2 levels of population are simply disassociated from those around them - but not that 6-7 levels are missing - I think that the local lord would notice that only 1 town in 10 paid their taxes...

I would agree that BR should have more wilderness as thats a core adventure need, to justify it I would suggest that unlike RL the presence of the odd monster or three in a wood might discourage its exploitation. As such rather than saying hamlets and villages are 10 miles apart in low level provinces, the humans could inhabit only part of the province (say humans in the south, goblins in the north, and nobody anywhere near the behir to the west)

Some other places in the books - Sorelies in Alamie for example, could recently have been pillaged by goblin raiders and so be below the 'normal' population level, we see a snapshot of Cerilia after all, not necessarily the stable position.

Ideally I would want the system to reflect L1-2 provinces as mostly empty - possibly with only one part actually inhabited. L3-4 should be reasonably populated with a number of villages and a few towns, L5-6 should have quite chunky populations with a proper city, L7+should be a major urban centre...

[kgauck]

I'm happy to say that 1-2 levels of population are simply disassociated from those around them - but not that 6-7 levels are missing - I think that the local lord would notice that only 1 town in 10 paid their taxes...Sorelies in Alamie for example, could recently have been pillaged by goblin raiders and so be below the 'normal' population level, we see a snapshot of Cerilia after all, not necessarily the stable position.

I think the Sorelies case might be more common than not. If Cerilia is in more or less a constant state of war, then perhaps plenty of provinces have been pillaged and the controls of central authority both in terms of infrastructure (the courthouse burned along with all the tax rolls) but the personell too (and they killed the county assessor). So gradually and with effort, these must be rebuilt.

Medoere strikes me as oddly low in population (along with some of Roesone) and I think the reason is the recent wars of independence. The new powers are having to establish their governance, being unable to just take over for Diemed.

[Gwrthefyr]

Normally, these numbers were taken from the french Finance department of the time (1840's); these are probably less interesting for questions of productivity than for questions of consumption, I guess, so I won't bore you with the long tables throughout the book.

Average - Wheat: 2,71hL (which produced 328 rations); Meat: 20kg; Wine 70L

Upper Classes - Wheat: 365 rations (roughly 3,02hL, self-extrapolated); Meat: 328,18kg; Wine: 365 L
- This would probably apply not only to the aristocracy (chivalry/gentry, urban patriciate, upper nobility), but also, likely, to master merchants and craftsmen as well as important clergy.

(sugar consumption, for a period prior to the age of exploration, is less interesting, but for completeness' sake, the average was 3,4kg, while the upper class average was a whopping 50kg)

[dalor]

I had the same problems with the towns and cities in small population provinces having so many people.

Unlike the Medieval history we are used to, apparently Cerilia has a much stronger economy perhaps...especially with so many guilds being a facet of just about any province you can think of. Nearby (meaning close by provinces) could support the cities from provinces that don`t have cities or towns.

Also, as far as the population of such cities coupled with provinces, you can simply not worry about the gritty details...

Suspension of Disbelief is vital to any campaign setting, just like any session of D&D in general; but getting weighed down by so many details can cause just as much of a problem...at least for me and those that I have played with.


--- Jaleela <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> The real problem with the sparse populations given is that they could not possibly support the towns listed in the domain sourcebook. People need food, and you need 80 to 90 people growing food to support every 10 people who are not farmers. You just can`t get away from that fact of life in an agrarian society.
>
> I don`t agree with having a level 1 province haveing 100,000 living in it in a plains state, but for every toen you have of a couple of thousand people, you need to have , say, 20 or 30 large villages and a number of hamlets planting crops to support the town.

[kgauck]

Getting weighed down by so many details can cause just as much of a problem...at least for me and those that I have played with.

Success in this area is not to focus on details, but broad principles. Forays into details are like experiments to confirm that you've settled on the right broad principles. What most simulationists are looking for is elegance. What we really want is a beautiful system that takes us from pages 136-142 in the DMG through individuals using the Profession check to determine income to towns, manors, holdings, provinces, and up to BR realms and domains without many problems.

[ryancaveney]

In a genuinely empty land (as the BR numbers provide) finding people like armorers becomes impossible... How exactly do these guilds make any money at all? Empty lands leave the landscape full of adventures in wilderness where the PC's home castle can be near dragons, giants, goblins, a necromancer, and ancient ruins without peasants running about the place, but they also don't provide the civilization (trade, cities, commerce) that the game takes for granted too.

To my mind, that's why there are uncontrolled wilderness areas and awnsheghlien. The densely populated plains of Anuire (Alamie included, IMO) provide logistical support for adventurers who travel away from home to wander the Five Peaks and infiltrate Markazor. Wilderness adventures and economic foundations are provided by two different groups of provinces.


As I read the books BR populations are of taxpayers (or possibly hearths, thanks Ken) not of actual people ... I'm happy to say that 1-2 levels of population are simply disassociated from those around them - but not that 6-7 levels are missing - I think that the local lord would notice that only 1 town in 10 paid their taxes

My perspective is related to demesne land, subinfeudiation and efficiency of exercise of feudal rights. That is, every town is paying taxes to somebody, but the share of that which actually makes it all the way up the chain to the province ruler, and the amount which he has to pay out again in order to maintain smooth functioning of the system, varies greatly. I have come to believe that province level is primarily a measure of that variation in administrative effectiveness, rather than a direct relation to population density.


Medoere strikes me as oddly low in population (along with some of Roesone) and I think the reason is the recent wars of independence. The new powers are having to establish their governance, being unable to just take over for Diemed.

I view it as being very high in population, as it must have been in order to have had sufficient resources to successfully break away from Diemed. In my model, the very low province ratings represent that the leaders of the rebellion had to promise all sorts of concessions to the local landowners below the BR scale, thus greatly weakening the powers of the central government to get anything else done now -- issuing Magna Carta, giving the power of the purse to the parliament, etc. In my view, the war reduced the province levels not by *depopulating* those lands, but rather by *decentralizing* them. IMO, the many Rule actions which Suris Enlien should now undertake do not represent attracting vast numbers of new settlers, but rather extending the degree of administrative control she has over the people who are already there.


Ryan

[kgauck]

I view it as being very high in population, as it must have been in order to have had sufficient resources to successfully break away from Diemed. In my model, the very low province ratings represent that the leaders of the rebellion had to promise all sorts of concessions to the local landowners below the BR scale, thus greatly weakening the powers of the central government to get anything else done now -- issuing Magna Carta, giving the power of the purse to the parliament, etc. In my view, the war reduced the province levels not by *depopulating* those lands, but rather by *decentralizing* them. IMO, the many Rule actions which Suris Enlien should now undertake do not represent attracting vast numbers of new settlers, but rather extending the degree of administrative control she has over the people who are already there.

This is how I understand Medoere too, my expression was confusing since I cluttered my expression with assumptions about what province levels imply in the rulebook about population levels.

[Beruin]

Sorry for the long silence, RL intruded more than I liked during the past fortnight. Anyway here's what I have so far:

Pierden the Peasant holds a virgate of 30 acres of arable land at the manor of Sir Norvien the Noble in the province of Maesford/Alamie. His family consists of six persons, three able-bodied adults (he, his wife and his eldest son), two younger children and his elderly mother.

In addition to his fields he also has a large garden of 1 and a half acres on which his house is built and he has the right to use part of the commons in proportion to his holding. All in all, his holding looks like this:

30 acres of arable land:
- 10 planted with winter crops
- 10 planted with summer crops
- 10 lying fallow

8.5 acres of meadow provide the hay to get the livestock over the winter

17 acres of pasture

13 acres of forests, shrubs and/or heath provide firewood and additional pasture, especially for his pigs

1 acre of garden (the remaining space is taken up by a barn, a shed and his cottage)

16.5 acres are ‘waste’, unusable for cultivation, taken up by roads and buildings, or water.

Thus, Pierden the Peasant uses 69.5 acres for agricultural production and all-in-all his holding encompasses 86 acres.

A few remarks:
First off, after reviewing my available evidence and sources I decided to stick with the size of the virgate and the acre as is. Pierden is a rather well-off peasant and many of his not-so-fortunate neighbours only possess a holding of half the size.

Second, land use can of course vary widely depending on the local conditions and customs in agriculture. I came up with the following general formula for the distribution of agricultural land:
Arable: 25-55% of the total available land (Average: 35%)
Pasture: 10-40% (Average: 20%)
Meadow: 5-20% (Average: 10%)
Heath/Shrubs/Forest: 10-25% (Average: 15%)
Remaining ‘Waste’: 15-30% (Average: 20%)


I also aimed for a-bit-of-everything kind of holding, and the numbers above do not take any specialisation into account. The setting of his holding reflects this. For Cerilia, a holding like this is probably most often found in the central heartlands, especially the realms Alamie, Tuornen or Ghoere. Along the south coast, in southern Avanil etc., there is a greater emphasis on vegetables, fruit and wine, leading to an increase of garden land and probably a decrease of pasture.

Okay, next will be yields and livestock, I hope I can finish that soon.

[Beruin]

Their books are fun. I will also heartily second Kenneth's recommendation of Marc Bloch.



Adding more sources will make this problem worse, in that there will be even more bits and pieces and even less coherence, but I find it more entertaining. =)

Marc Bloch is already beside my desk, the Gies' collection has arrived and my girlfriend is already grumbling that our little son will soon break his neck stumbling over one of the 40-something books currently strewn around my study, so I guess I can't complain over lack of entertainment;)





I've got both in front of me. What would you like to know?

It would not be unreasonable to take a single BR domain and divide it up into Lordly Domains fiefs, or to take a single Lordly Domains fief and model it as a collection of Harnmanor manors. However, do not try to go straight from BR to Harnmanor, unless you actually want to decide the exact number of acres farmed by each and every peasant family in the realm. If nearly all your campaign takes place inside one BR realm, by all means use one of the more detailed systems for it, and conventional BR for its neighbors. To run something as big as all of Anuire, however, BR itself is about as low-level as I could imagine going while staying relatively sane.

Thanks for the write-up. I recently got Fields of Blood and I must say I really like it, though I dislike the large numbers of RP's they're dealing with. That said, I don't want to detail each and every peasant family in Anuire of course, but construct an 'average' peasant holding and an average manor I can extrapolate from.

On the Province/Domain level I envision something like a modular design, i.e. a basic agricultural backbone determining basic taxes/population with additional resources like minerals or pelts or regional specialties like horse breeding or wine-growing added in, similar to the way Fields of Blood handles mines, but with a bit more detail. Borrowing from Civ III, I also would like to add in strategic resources, i.e. you need horses and iron to build a unit of knights in a province, and if these resources are not available on the spot you have to get them there, probably increasing cost.


Success in this area is not to focus on details, but broad principles. Forays into details are like experiments to confirm that you've settled on the right broad principles. What most simulationists are looking for is elegance. What we really want is a beautiful system that takes us from pages 136-142 in the DMG through individuals using the Profession check to determine income to towns, manors, holdings, provinces, and up to BR realms and domains without many problems.

This sums it up quite good, I think. I'd be happy if something like Harnmanor d20 results along the way, and it would really be great if you could compare
my results with Harnmanor. This might really help to spot inconsistencies, errors etc.

[ryancaveney]

I also aimed for a-bit-of-everything kind of holding

This looks really good!


Pierden the Peasant uses 69.5 acres for agricultural production and all-in-all his holding encompasses 86 acres. Pierden is a rather well-off peasant and many of his not-so-fortunate neighbours only possess a holding of half the size.

Very true -- this is a rich man, as peasants go. However, poorer families will generally still work a similar amount of land (because land produces nothing without labor) -- it's just that most of the land will belong to someone else.


Okay, next will be yields and livestock, I hope I can finish that soon.

I'm going to take a run at this from the Harnmanor perspective, to show you what their numbers look like. Their monetary system is based on the silver penny, so that's what all the numbers below will be reported in. For comparison purposes, one penny will buy a gallon of ale, a hot meal at an inn, or a day's stabling for your horse. A battle axe will run you 100 pence, a warhorse 600, and a full suit of chain mail about 2,000. Expected yearly personal expenditure on standard of living is 120 for a slave, 300 for a basic domestic servant (chambermaids, stablehands, washerwomen...), 1100 for a metalsmith, and 3000 for the lord of the manor. The typical manor is about 300 people on 1500 acres; all this is the necessary economic infrastructure to support *one* heavy cavalryman (the lord) and 3-5 light footsoldiers, since his warhorse alone requires a further 1800 pence per year in upkeep.


30 acres of arable land (20 planted, 10 fallow), 8.5 acres of meadow, 1 acre of garden

Harnmanor at the basic level lumps all these together for ease of calculation, but more complicated rules allow you to consider things like the individual yields and weather hardiness of rye vs. oats vs. barley vs. wheat, etc., per acre. The basic level then is an average number, representing a typical mix of different crops. That yields at harvest, per acre, 60 pence (modified by land quality, infrastructure investment, weather, and management skill; maximum variability is a multiplier of 0.33 to 2.32, but usually between 0.8 and 1.2) at a cost of 6 days of labor over the course of the year. By that count, each year Pierden's various crop lands yield on average 2370 pence worth of food output, and require 237 worker-days to till.


17 acres of pasture

In a similar manner, this yields on average 1530 pence in return for 170 days of labor. In this model, pasture yields a higher return per acre than crops, but a lower return per day of labor. The average collection of livestock associated with this is two oxen, one milk cow, ten goats, twenty sheep, and 34 pigs.


13 acres of forests, shrubs and/or heath provide firewood and additional pasture, especially for his pigs

This yields on average 234 pence worth of fish, small game, furs, berries, herbs, etc. at a cost of 39 working days. These woods will also expand by a quarter-acre per year unless they are cut back; standard procedure is to let new seedlings sprout, while cutting down the same acreage of 50-year-old trees. This process, called assart, will require 7.5 days of labor and yield 30 pence worth of lumber.

In total, then, Pierden's lands yield 4164 pence gross income (mostly in food, but also "industrial" products such as hides, wool and timber), and require 453.5 days per year of labor to operate. Any labor deficit will reduce the gross income extracted, but his household has enough workers to make effective use of all his land.

This brings us to expenditures. He needs to reserve 204 pence to feed his livestock over the winter, and 474 pence to seed the cropland next spring (ideally, he'd keep a 25% extra safety margin on that as a hedge against pests and spoilage). It costs him 339 pence and 169.5 days of labor just to maintain the quality of his lands at average level; if he spends more, yearly return will increase over time, but if he spends less it will slowly decrease. If he is a free tenant, he owes his lord 668 pence in rent and fees; if he's a serf, he'd owe just 92 pence cash but also 344 additional days of labor on the lord's lands. He is expected to tithe 416 pence to the local church. That makes a total of 2101 pence and 623 days of labor as a free man, or 1525 pence and 967 days of labor as a serf.

Even if he, his wife and his son work as hard as slaves (300 days per year), they can't make the labor requirement of serfdom, especially as raising the two young children will cost his wife another 120 day-equivalents of labor. They would have to spend all the money they would have saved, plus a bit more, to hire some of their poorer neighbors as seasonal help. Given that and his very large (for a peasant) holdings, let's assume he's a free tenant farmer. At a total of 743 days (including his wife's childrearing time allocation), his family is about as fully employed as they'd really like to be (estimated at 250 days of effective field work per adult per year, half that if you force 8-to-12 year olds to work). They have 2063 pence worth of the raw materials for food, clothing and shelter to show for all their labor (much of the remaining 110 days per year is spent turning that into *actual* food, clothing and shelter); again counting pre-teen children as half an adult, that works out to a living standard of just over 400 pence per year per person, or the same as the baker or gardener at the manor house. This is a well-nigh perfect match to your sources! Harnmanor, then, is bedrock we can build on.


Ryan

[kgauck]

I sent away for Harn Manor last night, so I should have a copy in a week or two. Magical Medieval Society starts with the manor as the smallest unit.

As far as average peasant holdings go, averages are great, because they allow us to think about bigger scales without troubles about what individual holdings look like, but its important to remember that a holdling this size could vary in yields considerably. It could be so unproductive that after a few years the family begins to starve slowly. (Almost any land can be productive for a few years.) Or it could be so well situated that it grows double or better yields.

So one of the questions to consider is what variation looks like. Within a manor its fine to stick with the average, because the manorial system would divide up the best and worst lands to everyone, so everyone got some good, average, and bad lands to work. But between manors, or between provinces, variation could be substantial. Erosion, soil fertility, the kind of soil (sand, clay, &c), moisture, seasonality of moisture can have a huge impact. The DM doesn't have to work any of this out, he can just cut back incomes by as much as half, or increase them as much as doubling them, and just use these kinds of explanations.

Why is this province a 2, and the province next to it a 4? Both are listed a plains? Attribute it to differences in soil, rainfall, and variation in elevation. It can mean all the difference.

[Jaleela]

I sent away for Harn Manor last night, so I should have a copy in a week or two. Magical Medieval Society starts with the manor as the smallest unit.

As far as average peasant holdings go, averages are great, because they allow us to think about bigger scales without troubles about what individual holdings look like, but its important to remember that a holdling this size could vary in yields considerably. It could be so unproductive that after a few years the family begins to starve slowly. (Almost any land can be productive for a few years.) Or it could be so well situated that it grows double or better yields.



You can say that again. Not only does soil conditions impact crop yields, social conditions impact them as well. My husbands family was from Northumberland, allegedly at one point owning 10,000 hectacers - farther North into the Cheviots than Southwestern Scotland by a large bit. My husband jokingly describes a lot of the landscape as being 'like the moon, but with grass'. :)

While the soil was potentially very productive, it was largely unproductive from the end of the Scottish Wars of Independance, until into the reign of James I of England, due to social conditions. The border between England and Scotland was kept as a nearly lawless demilitarised zone, with constant raiding and counter-raiding back and forth between the local families on either side of the border.

As a result, the locals would not invest much effort into growing crops, and kept their valuables as movable chattles, and pretty much everyone lived in as burn-proof a stone building, usually a hall over an undercroft, with as strong a door and as few and small windows as possible. Anybody with any money at all lived in a crude peel tower, and had a walled enclosure called a 'barmkin' to put cattle in during a raid. Lawlessness was rampant, and took a very long time to stamp out, and didn't finally end until the worst troublemakers were deported to Ireland or sent off to the army in Flanders.

This is pretty much how I envision the border between Boeruine and Taeghas - Taeghas described as being a constant battleground between Avanil and Boeruine.

[ryancaveney]

between manors, or between provinces, variation could be substantial

Yes, definitely. Harnmanor's approach involves several multiplicative modifiers. All of them are constant within a single manor, but vary from manor to manor. Land Quality ranges from 0.75 to 1.25; it is an unchanging feature of the local geography. Fief Index also ranges from 0.75 to 1.25; it reflects infrastructure improvement, so substantial upkeep must be paid, and paying more or less can produce small changes over time. Weather Index is rolled randomly every year, and produces another multiplier from 0.65 to 1.35. A skill success roll for the managing official (separate for woods, crops and pasture) is another 0.9 to 1.1. Combining all these multipliers gives the overall factor of 0.33 to 2.32 I mentioned yesterday. If the optional detailed crop or herd rules are in effect, an additional skill roll modified by environment and crop hardiness provides another 0.9 to 1.1 (to each separately), which further increases the range of variation to 0.30 to 2.55; only the first two (land quality and fief index, which stay basically constant from year to year) gives multiplicative variation from 0.56 to 1.56, which is reasonably close to "half to double".


Why is this province a 2, and the province next to it a 4? Both are listed a plains? Attribute it to differences in soil, rainfall, and variation in elevation. It can mean all the difference.

Another thing one can do is simply vary the amount of arable land. That is, in some provinces, 70% of the total acres are clearable (usable to grow crops or graze herds), but in others only 30% are. On the other hand, that degree of variation is probably best left as the way to implement differences between, rather than within, terrain types. On the other other hand, the assart rules give an easy way to calculate how long it will take the guilds to turn Talinie into plains provinces, and how much money they will make in the process.


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

While the soil was potentially very productive, it was largely unproductive... due to social conditions. The border between England and Scotland was kept as a nearly lawless demilitarised zone, with constant raiding and counter-raiding back and forth between the local families on either side of the border.

This is one of only two ways that, in my "all the people are already there" province level model, rulers can affect the actual population level: too much pillaging in too short a time reduces the population level, as well as the control level. Recovery time is affected by how much pillaging continues, but is generally quite slow. Even slower is recovery from the other method -- the Death Plague realm spell -- because fewer people are driven away rather than killed outright, and because people who do escape (or come from outside) are even less likely to want to move back.


Ryan

[Beruin]

Thanks a lot, Ryan, great post. You really gave me something to work with.



I'm going to take a run at this from the Harnmanor perspective, to show you what their numbers look like. Their monetary system is based on the silver penny, so that's what all the numbers below will be reported in. For comparison purposes, one penny will buy a gallon of ale, a hot meal at an inn, or a day's stabling for your horse. A battle axe will run you 100 pence, a warhorse 600, and a full suit of chain mail about 2,000.

Establishing what the produce or the holding will be worth in D&D will be a real headache I fear, given that the prices in the PHB do not really make much sense. I assembled quite a lot of historical data on prices and seriously think on completely reworking the price lists, but this is of course a whole lot of rather tedious work and it also makes the results not very usable by others. For now, I'm undecided what to do...

As a sidenote, I believe Harnmaster is more early medieval than generic D&D or BR, and the comparatively high price of chain mail suggests this.



The typical manor is about 300 people on 1500 acres; all this is the necessary economic infrastructure to support *one* heavy cavalryman (the lord) and 3-5 light footsoldiers, since his warhorse alone requires a further 1800 pence per year to support.

These numbers seem a bit high to me for an ‘average’ holding. Manors of this size surely exist, but I will go with a smaller one I guess. For Eastern Europe I found data varying from 3 to 13.5 households per manor, for Westphalia in Western Germany the vary from 9 to 60 households, some manorial accounts from the English Hundred Rolls I came across have between 20 and 50 households.
For the ‘average’ manor I picture the following numbers at the moment:

The manorial demesne holds 120 acres of arable land and a proportionate amount of other land, i.e. is four times the size of Pierden’s holding. The manorial household consist of 12 people in all, of which 8 are able-bodied adults, including the manor holder, man-at-arms and servants.

There are 3 peasants holding a full virgate similar to Pierden.

4 peasants hold a half-virgate.

8 Cotters only hold small amounts of land, which sum up to another virgate.

Assuming 6 people per peasant family, and 3 per cotter family, this gives 78 people in all. The overall area of the manor comprises 860 acres, of which 695 acres are used for agricultural production. This keeps the manor in the DMG’s thorp category, which is a good thing I think. Larger manors can be described as the sum of smaller manors. For a larger scale, it might also be useful if we round this off to about a square mile of agricultural land for a manor, and about 1.5 square miles of total area, assuming stretches of no-man’s-land or wilderness between manors (or ducal forests, or land to wet or dry for agriculture or whatever). This would give us a population density of 52 people/sq mile or about 20 people per square kilometre.

[kgauck]

I assembled quite a lot of historical data on prices and seriously think on completely reworking the price lists. I tried that once, I found the D&D prices pretty good. The realm problem was that the PC's were assumed to have way too much money. Their starting gold is huge, the money assumed in treasure is gigantic. If you ditch all of that and just focus on prices and the price of labor, the D&D price list works out very nicely to historical price lists.

[Beruin]

Harnmanor at the basic level lumps all these together for ease of calculation, but more complicated rules allow you to consider things like the individual yields and weather hardiness of rye vs. oats vs. barley vs. wheat, etc., per acre. The basic level then is an average number, representing a typical mix of different crops.

I decided to do a bit of both. From the figures I gathered the crops usually planted in the summer field, notably barley and oats, produced considerably
smaller yields than wheat and rye, usually planted in the winter field. I believe the main reason is that the summer field, being the second field in the planting cycle, lost nutrients during the previous growing season. I therefore decided to differentiate between the fields, while still lumping the crops within each field together.


In a similar manner, this yields on average 1530 pence in return for 170 days of labor. In this model, pasture yields a higher return per acre than crops, but a lower return per day of labor. The average collection of livestock associated with this is two oxen, one milk cow, ten goats, twenty sheep, and 34 pigs.

I'm not really done with my livestock calculations, but from the evidence I have I'd say too many pigs, too few cows here.


Even if he, his wife and his son work as hard as slaves (300 days per year), they can't make the labor requirement of serfdom, especially as raising the two young children will cost his wife another 120 day-equivalents of labor. They would have to spend all the money they would have saved, plus a bit more, to hire some of their poorer neighbors as seasonal help. Given that and his very large (for a peasant) holdings, let's assume he's a free tenant farmer. At a total of 743 days (including his wife's childrearing time allocation), his family is about as fully employed as they'd really like to be (estimated at 250 days of effective field work per adult per year, half that if you force 8-to-12 year olds to work).

Well, the size of the holding does not really need to have a relation to the status of the holder as a serf or free tenant. The cotters I mentioned above include the village poor of course, but might also include the manor priest, the miller or other rural craftsmen who would not be necessarily poorer than their farming neighbours.
With regard to work-load, does Harnmanor take draft animals into account?

Sigh, I really have to think on ordering a copy. However, the retailers I found here in Germany charge nearly double the list price at Columbia Games. This makes me a bit reluctant.

[Beruin]

I tried that once, I found the D&D prices pretty good. The realm problem was that the PC's were assumed to have way too much money. Their starting gold is huge, the money assumed in treasure is gigantic. If you ditch all of that and just focus on prices and the price of labor, the D&D price list works out very nicely to historical price lists.

Hm, not to sure of this. If you take gold pieces for silver, it might work out.

[Beruin]

As far as average peasant holdings go, averages are great, because they allow us to think about bigger scales without troubles about what individual holdings look like, but its important to remember that a holdling this size could vary in yields considerably.

So one of the questions to consider is what variation looks like. Within a manor its fine to stick with the average, because the manorial system would divide up the best and worst lands to everyone, so everyone got some good, average, and bad lands to work. But between manors, or between provinces, variation could be substantial. Erosion, soil fertility, the kind of soil (sand, clay, &c), moisture, seasonality of moisture can have a huge impact. The DM doesn't have to work any of this out, he can just cut back incomes by as much as half, or increase them as much as doubling them, and just use these kinds of explanations.

Why is this province a 2, and the province next to it a 4? Both are listed a plains? Attribute it to differences in soil, rainfall, and variation in elevation. It can mean all the difference.

Here's a settlement quotient taken from Wilhelm Abel, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 19. Jahrhundert (History of German Agriculture from the early Middle Ages to the 19th Century)

Empty/Hostile: 0
Repellent: 0.1-0.5
Unfavourable: 0.5-0.9
Average: 0.9-1.3
Favourable:1.3-2.5
Advantageous: 2.5

Abel gives examples for different regions with these settlement quotients. To a certain extent (high mountains aren't mentioned) these take terrain into account, but if toned down a bit these quotients might form a base from which to build modifiers. These could be applied to yields and maybe even income and population density on the province scale.

[ryancaveney]

Thanks a lot, Ryan, great post. You really gave me something to work with.

My pleasure! Anything to be able to insert some math into the discussion, ;)


Establishing what the produce or the holding will be worth in D&D will be a real headache I fear, given that the prices in the PHB do not really make much sense.

Yeah. Looking at commodities doesn't give any consistent scale. Looking at daily labor salaries, however, a very good argument can be made that one Harnic penny equals one D&D3e silver piece. I'd advise using that for starters, until someone else has a better idea.


As a sidenote, I believe Harnmaster is more early medieval than generic D&D or BR, and the comparatively high price of chain mail suggests this.

Yes. They consciously aim more for 12th century than 15th. Still, it's far better than nothing.


These numbers seem a bit high to me for an ‘average’ holding. Manors of this size surely exist, but I will go with a smaller one I guess. For Eastern Europe I found data varying from 3 to 13.5 households per manor, for Westphalia in Western Germany the vary from 9 to 60 households, some manorial accounts from the English Hundred Rolls I came across have between 20 and 50 households.

Wow, those Eastern European numbers are really small! Were their households bigger, or were the fiefs really that tiny? Twenty peasants are just not going to be able to support an armored knight. Oh, and I misspoke: the standard knight's fee manor in Harn is 1200 acres in total, not counting waste (pasture, fields and woods only; waste is considered to be between manors, not within them). Not 1500, but still distinctly bigger than what you're using.


The manorial demesne holds 120 acres of arable land and a proportionate amount of other land, i.e. is four times the size of Pierden’s holding. The manorial household consist of 12 people in all, of which 8 are able-bodied adults, including the manor holder, man-at-arms and servants.

If there's anyone not a medieval history nut who's still following this thread, let me point out that none of those twelve people actually work that land -- the labor comes from the half-villeins and cottars, as their feudal obligation instead of some taxes or working in exchange for food.

The minimum Harnmanor household consists of 13 people: 5 nobles (the landowner, his wife, their two children, and a lady-in-waiting) and 8 commoners (chamberlain, cook, alewife, and 5 domestic servants). It costs 11700 pence per year to feed, clothe and otherwise support these people (8500 nobles, 3200 commoners). The nobles will also need at least one warhorse and three riding horses at an additional yearly maintenance cost of 4500 pence, for a total of 16200. Can these lands produce enough surplus for that? We'll see.


There are 3 peasants holding a full virgate similar to Pierden. 4 peasants hold a half-virgate. 8 Cotters only hold small amounts of land, which sum up to another virgate. ... The overall area of the manor comprises 860 acres

Exactly ten times Peirden's holding, making my math much simpler. :) Unfortunately, the result is that the lord would only get 6680 pence out of it, or not even enough to support just him, his wife and his horse. If we cut the peasant standard of living in half, he gets 16995, which does support the household described above, so it can work. However, he has additional feudal taxes to his superiors and political expenses of 3440 pence, which is partially offset by taxes and tolls charged on passing merchants in the amount of perhaps 2400 pence (times a number between 0.5 and 1.5, depending on proximity to major towns and transportation routes, times a random factor between 0.3 and 1.8). This means he's probably not going to be able to afford that lady-in-waiting (a major social blunder), and his peasants are not doing very well. This is the reason that the standard manor size in Harn is significantly larger than what you gave, and has a higher proportion of the cleared land dedicated to grazing.


Assuming 6 people per peasant family, and 3 per cotter family

The Harnmanor values are d6+2 and d6, averaging 5.5 and 3.5, so they're using the same source. =)


This would give us a population density of 52 people/sq mile or about 20 people per square kilometre.

The Harnmanor rule of thumb is four cleared acres (half crops, half herds) per person, and manors are 80% cleared (the rest is woods). Thus if every inch of a square mile (640 acres) were arable, it could support 128 people at that clearance fraction. I have no problem assuming that the Anuirean heartland is only 22% waste, giving me the 100 people per square mile I need for 100,000 people in a plains province. Number of clearable acres (as well as yield per acre, for most reasonable lands) then drops with terrain type as needed to explain the rest of the max province level table. IMO, glacier provinces have zero clearable acres -- the 1,000 people there are supported almost entirely by fishing, with a small amount of hunting. There aren't any desert provinces in Cerilia (check the map -- all the desert is in Aduria), so I haven't yet had to decide how to treat them.


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

I'm not really done with my livestock calculations, but from the evidence I have I'd say too many pigs, too few cows here.

I concur. I'm eager to see what you come up with, and adjust accordingly. I think part of the trouble is that Harnmanor puts the pigs in the pasture (crowding out the cows), when they really ought to be in the woods (competing with no other livestock). They also don't have any poultry at all, which seems quite wrong.


Well, the size of the holding does not really need to have a relation to the status of the holder as a serf or free tenant.

This is quite true. My motivation for making Pierden free in my calculations is just that his lands are too large for him to work them all and also give labor service to the lord. Actually, by Harnmanor standards he's got almost two virgates (56.5 cleared acres in total), which does make him rather more likely to hold at least some of that land free of service.


With regard to work-load, does Harnmanor take draft animals into account?

Sadly, no, apart from declaring that the freedom to assign livestock percentages is limited by the requirement that 20% of them be oxen. Ox-days per acre-year is a number I'd really like to see.


Ryan

[kgauck]

From the evidence I have I'd say too many pigs, too few cows here.Not in Germany. Keep in mind that the English consumed an unusually high quantity of beef (hence Beefeater) and the Germans consumed an unusually high proportion of pork. Italians, and to a lessor extent Spaniards and French, consumed less meat than the northern Europeans. The Italians had 5-7% of their land set aside for pasture. Beruin assumed Pasture: 10-40% (Average: 20%). Italy needed meatless Fridays, and as a penninsula, could do a lot of fishing.

When you get into the Aelvinnwode, like Cariele, Talinie, northern Moried, then a lot of pigs makes sense. Heartlands may be more beefeating, and the south coast may be more like Italy. Too many people to spare land for cattle, all grains, and then to augment their 5-7% pasture, they fish the seas and import some cattle from the heartlands and slaughter them for beef.


Well, the size of the holding does not really need to have a relation to the status of the holder as a serf or free tenant.It does on the larger end. Unfree labor needs to be able to work its own lands without hiring labor. There may be communal practices that involve sharing labor, but ultimatly the manor can't operate with a labor shortage. Planting and harvets can include labor hired by the lord, but the rest of the labor must make sense in terms of the manor, and ideally the holding. Once we start talking about free labor, all bets are off, because yeoman regularly hire labor.


Ox-days per acre-year is a number I'd really like to see.The acre was selected as approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day. So by definition, an acre requires one ox-day. Give it up to the medieval folks for using measures that, no matter how confusing in the modern world, made a whole lot of sense in their world. Depending on the quality of the soil, you would plow three times for good soil, and up to five times for heavy clays.

[kgauck]

Ryan's comments on the size of the manor assume a noble household, but I'd like to suggest the household for a manor this size might be gentry. Unblooded, untitled decendents of knights and even lessor nobles (not immediatly) would fill the gentry class. They are the poor country cousins of the nobility, but would be able to associate freely with the knightly classes, relations in higher classes, and as dependents of higher classes. See my wiki article "Social class". There are probabaly two to two and a half times as many gentry as their are knights plus nobles. Each would own one such estate. Their feudal obligation would not include knights but would look like "three and a half men-at-arms". This is probabably the gentleman, his son, his part-time law-man, and the biggest, toughest hired laborer.

Larger nobles will own such little manors, but will own many such, and will own larger as well. Imagine a knight who owns three such manors.

On Eastern Europe. Its a mess. The Romans left infrastructure and knowledge of mass, organized agriculture which trasitions from the villa to the manor, plus the remnants of towns. So consider further that western Europeans used the old Roman collar, which was limited by crossing the neck of your beast, so that past a certain amount off pull, you choke your beast. That puts a clear upward limit on the pull of your beasts. But in eastern Europe, plows were often attached to the tail of the beast, getting much, much less pulling power for your plow. The medieval era invented the shoulder harness type collar, which uses the beast's shoulders and gets twice the pulling power as a neck collar.

Eastern Europe has fewer frost free days, is dryer than the Maritime climate of the west, and has a tendency, especially in the north, to get more rain in winter than in summer. Western Europe has more alluvial soils.

Where western Europe had more favorable climate and soils, they also had the Roman inheritance to build on. In eastern Europe, they start with a nomadic, semi-agricultural people well into the middle ages, and no infrastructure or towns. And as they develope, they do so on a weaker ecological basis, colder and dryer with less alluvial soil.

[kgauck]

Hm, not to sure of this. If you take gold pieces for silver, it might work out.

Not neccesary. A laborer earns 1sp per day, and works 200 to 250 days a year. Total earnings of 20 to 25 gp per year. (DMG 105) His annual living expences probabaly vary from 18 to 27 gp per year, and his level of work will track very closely to his expences. Saving money just makes him a target for thieves and he has no place to put accumulation. Even if he did have savings, a shortsword is half a year's wages. The only weapon that would make any sense is either free (a club or sling) or is a shortspear.

Price lists I have gone over from 1350 to 1550 show the same basic data. People like this fight with tools on hand.

The skilled smith earns 3-4 sp per day, and has an annual income from 60 gp to 100 gp per year. Of course he lives like a smith, not like a laborer, so his expences vary from 50 to 100 gp, and include more tools, better clothes, better meals, and nicer dwelling, and very probabaly a guild due or feudal tax around 10-12 gp. A guy like this wants masterwork tools. Also keep in mind he has to aquire a shop. So he works as a journeyman for 5-10 years, saving his surplus. He has an income of 2-3 sp per day (the master taking the rest) and earns 45 gp in a year, and lives mostly like an unmarried laborer at 15 gp per year. In two years he has 60 gp and can afford masterwork artisan's tools. He still has no money for a shop. DMG II lists the start up costs for a business in the hundreds or thousands of gp. That's fine for a PC, who leaves bags of copper and silver behind because the weight to profit ratio is too low. A blacksmith's shop probably costs 500 gp to start up, and the two easiest ways to get one is to inherit one or to have a lord buy one because he wants a smith at his castle. Our journeymen blacksmith living like an unmarried laborer could aquire one on his own in about 17 years assuming things go alright. Add his two years of working to get masterwork tools and he's looking at a lifetime of working as a journeyman (unmarried) to aquire a shop. He has no heirs, his life expectancy isn't indefinate, so I doubt many people would even do this to begin with.

I expect the journeyman lives more according to his station and seeks out a wife. He hopes to marry a smith's daughter and get an inside track on inheriting a working smithy. Or he marries a washerwoman or some other woman capable of bringing an independent income into the house so his savings will earn him a smithy in his later years.

Where is the problem then in D&D costs?

[kgauck]

Now that we have a manor described by both Beruin's method and Ryan's Harn Manor, I'll run things through Magical Medieval Society and see of they all line up.

Our manor is 860 acres, 200 acres producing crop, 100 acres lying fallow, 85 as meadow, 170 as pasture, 130 of forest, 10 acres of garden, 165 acres lost to unproductive ground of one sort or another.

Based on 300 arable acres, we should support a population of closer to 133 people. If I recall the population of Beruin's manor it was closer to 100, having 7 peasants and 8 cottagers, plus the household. The balance is probabaly consumed by the lord's household and as surplus sold to towns.

The modifiers to consider here would be -50% for cold weather on arable (Rjurik)
+20% for warm weather on arable (Khinasi, maybe the South Coast of Anuire)
Routine plant growth +33% (Rjurik)

The lord's income would then check the following:
Beehive (per hive) 1 gp
Carpenter 11.5 gp
Dovecote 5 gp
Forest (per acre) 4 gp
Livestock (per acre of pasture and fallow acres) 17 gp
Mill (grain) 575 gp
Millpond 29 gp
Mine See table
Pound, animal (all acres) 1 gp
Oven, communal 134 gp
Quarries See table
Smith 11.5 gp
Staples (per cult. acre) 7.2 gp

No mention of bees or doves.
130 acres of forest 520gp
355 acres of pasture, fallow, and meadow, 6035gp in livestock
Carpenter 11.5gp
Smith 11.5gp
Mill and millpond 604gp
Oven, 134 gp
200 acres of cultivation 1440gp in staples
the gardens produce 100gp in vegetables for the lord.
no mine or quarry
The pound captures strays and makes 1gp in fines
Assarting half an acre is worth 175 gp in wood

So far we're at an income of 9032 gp annually.

These fees are levied per adult
Fees 5.75 gp
Justice 3.8 gp
Rent 4.8 gp
Tax 1.9 gp
Toll 0.5 gp
Weekly Market 1 gp
Biannual Fair 4 gp

Fees and justice only apply to serfs, but the figures assume a proportion of free and unfree. 353gp
Ren only applies to free, again assumptions of proportion, 178gp
Taxes and tolls 90 gp
The privledge of holding markets and fairs is granted by the lord. This might properly be a guild function in BR, though.

620 or 621 gp for fees, fines, and taxes.

Expences
Alms 1-5% of income
Assarting (per acre) 50 gp (included in calculations above)
Maintenance Consumption 5-30 % of income (5% gentry, 15% noble)
Scutage 10% income
Tax 20% income
35% plus alms for gentry, 45% plus alms for nobles
Add 12% for staff
Let's give 3% alms because then we get even numbers.
50% for gentry, 60% for nobles

Steward 360+10% per additional manor
Chamberlain 300 gp
Barber 300 gp
Doctor 300 gp
Falconer 300 gp
Huntsmen 300 gp
Keeper of the Wardrobe 300 gp
Tailor 200 gp
Other servents 50-200 gp

Generally I require a Steward to oversee the operation, and he collects 10% of the revenues for himself if he supervises the manor alone. When the lord is present to supervise, the steward just collects his salary.
If the manor has a household, it needs a Chamberlain. If I own two manors, I need only live on one, especially if they are adjacent or nearby.
All the rest would be essential for a count or jarl, but as you slip down to lords and gentry a lot can be cut back or eliminated.

Assuming 800 gp for salaries (Steward, Chamberlain, assorted others) we have 4223.5gp for the gentry, and 2661 gp for the noble. Then we need to think about his horse, and armor, and men-at-arms and so on.

[Dcolby]

Kgauck,

You must have been a fan of the Chivalry and Sorcery system...any edition will do.

[Beruin]

My pleasure! Anything to be able to insert some math into the discussion, ;)

Glad to have someone along to complement my meagre math skills;)



Wow, those Eastern European numbers are really small! Were their households bigger, or were the fiefs really that tiny? Twenty peasants are just not going to be able to support an armored knight. Oh, and I misspoke: the standard knight's fee manor in Harn is 1200 acres in total, not counting waste (pasture, fields and woods only; waste is considered to be between manors, not within them). Not 1500, but still distinctly bigger than what you're using.

Well, in Eastern Europe the size of the land directly farmed by the manor were larger (BTW, these were early modern numbers from the 16th century), so the manor household was probably considerably larger. With regard to the knight's fee manor, for England I found a demesne size ranging from 45-240 acres (fields only), with 120 acres being the standard. The demesne again took up between 20-50% of the total manor area (Once again, these numbers vary widely in both directions, but this is the range I found most often). The Gies’ book on a medieval village mentions 24 tenants for a small manor, but this probably means households.

Regarding waste, this area also includes the space taken up buildings, roads and pathways, hedges, the balks which divide the different strips in the fields, the water area of the manor etc. In my first write-up of the peasant holding I also included the garden area here. A better term would perhaps be ‘infrastructure and waste’, because most of this space is necessary for the functioning of the manor, but does not directly produce food. We might lower the number a bit, and the size of all this area is difficult to establish, but I would regard 10% of the total area as the absolute minimum. And this is of course directly within the manor.



If there's anyone not a medieval history nut who's still following this thread

Granted, we’re going into much detail here, but I hope the results will be usable without a history major. Anyway, I guess we do have a number of history nuts here;)



The minimum Harnmanor household consists of 13 people: 5 nobles (the landowner, his wife, their two children, and a lady-in-waiting) and 8 commoners (chamberlain, cook, alewife, and 5 domestic servants). It costs 11700 pence per year to feed, clothe and otherwise support these people (8500 nobles, 3200 commoners). The nobles will also need at least one warhorse and three riding horses at an additional yearly maintenance cost of 4500 pence, for a total of 16200.


Ryan's comments on the size of the manor assume a noble household, but I'd like to suggest the household for a manor this size might be gentry. Unblooded, untitled decendents of knights and even lessor nobles (not immediatly) would fill the gentry class. They are the poor country cousins of the nobility, but would be able to associate freely with the knightly classes, relations in higher classes, and as dependents of higher classes. See my wiki article "Social class". There are probabaly two to two and a half times as many gentry as their are knights plus nobles. Each would own one such estate. Their feudal obligation would not include knights but would look like "three and a half men-at-arms". This is probabably the gentleman, his son, his part-time law-man, and the biggest, toughest hired laborer.

Larger nobles will own such little manors, but will own many such, and will own larger as well. Imagine a knight who owns three such manors.


I was thinking along a similar line as Kenneth. I’d like the manor we come up with to be able to support a poor knight, but for a greater lord who owned several of these manors, this manor might also be supervised by a bailiff, who lived in the manor house, but might nevertheless just be a commoner.
Note: Bailiff is the term I found for the ‘official’ overseeing one manor, a steward oversees all the manors (or at least a greater number) for his lord, travels from manor to manor and also conducts the manorial court.

Moreover, I’d like the manor to form a convenient building block from which to move to the town/city/province level, while still staying near historical reality. I tried to do this with regard to the manor’s area, but perhaps it would better to increase the population to roughly one hundred people. This would however turn the manor into a small village according to the DMG numbers, so we can’t say anymore ‘Look guys, this is what a thorp looks like’. Well, I’m undecided, so what do you think?

With regard, to the manorial household, I did not have any reliable numbers, but my rough thought was to make the household large enough to farm half of the demesne for themselves if need be, with the other half of the labour coming from the peasants. So I did picture them working the lands themselves, at least in part. My household therefore consisted of: Minor knight, wife, three kids (one counting as an adult), squire, bailiff, two men-at-arms and two servants with kid.

[Beruin]

My motivation for making Pierden free in my calculations is just that his lands are too large for him to work them all and also give labor service to the lord. Actually, by Harnmanor standards he's got almost two virgates (56.5 cleared acres in total), which does make him rather more likely to hold at least some of that land free of service.

Well, bear in mind that a large part of his land is Commons, I assigned a share of these land to him in proportion to his fields (Btw, every mention of 'virgate' I found, measures a virgate only according to the fields, the pasture is ignored, apart from sentences like 'the manor has pasture for the cattle ').

Historically, the poor might use a comparatively larger amount of the commons, simply because they needed it, but I ignored this, as I hope this will even out.

[kgauck]

Thorps might be only found in rougher, frontier areas, and not part of a manorial system. The average thorp might four households out in the middle of nowhere.

[Beruin]

Okay then, if we let thorps stand like that, we could add another 4 cotters, one half-virgater, and a full virgater, given us 12 virgates in all and raising the number of villagers to 102. This manor would take up 834 acres in agricultural area, 1,032 acres in all, rounded up to 1.75 square miles. This would raise the population density a bit to about 58 people per square mile or 22.6 people/sq kilometre.

Okay, this really looks good to me. Using my model of province level = about 10,000 people, a hundred of these manors would constitute a province (1). 175 square miles would be settled, near enough to the 10 % mark of total province area I envisioned.

[Beruin]

The average collection of livestock associated with this is two oxen, one milk cow, ten goats, twenty sheep, and 34 pigs.





I'm not really done with my livestock calculations, but from the evidence I have I'd say too many pigs, too few cows here.




Not in Germany. Keep in mind that the English consumed an unusually high quantity of beef (hence Beefeater) and the Germans consumed an unusually high proportion of pork. When you get into the Aelvinnwode, like Cariele, Talinie, northern Moried, then a lot of pigs makes sense.

I came up with 5-6 pigs for Pierden’s household as a sustainable maximum average, based solely on the amount of forest. The real question here is the number of oak and beech trees and their yields. From the data I had, I could construct an average tree covering 200 square metres with his foliage and producing 60 litres of acorns/beech nuts in an average year. A pig would need about 16 hectolitres of this food during the 10-12 weeks of mast in autumn, resulting in 1 pig per 1.32 acres covered with oaks and beeches. As wood is also needed for other purposes and not all of the forest will be oaks and beeches, I’d say one pig per 2-2.5 acres of forest is probably realistic. In good years, this number might double, but these would only occur once every five years.
Btw, an estimation of a 12th Century German peasant household of slightly larger size (35.4 hectares) by the already quoted Abel also assesses 5 pigs for the household. As pigs were only masted in the forest for about three months, they had to be fed for the remainder of the year. They mostly survived _ barely - on scraps, were lead into the freshly harvested fields to scrounge for food, but were also fed legumes and oats. A much higher population of pigs would probably have faced difficulties in coming up with enough food, while still fulfilling the needs of other livestock and the human inhabitants of the holding.

With regard to Germany, the number of pigs went through the roof only since the second half of the 19th Century, with the advent of permanent stabling and a more industrialized agriculture. I guess the German reputation for pork eating stems from this time.



The acre was selected as approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day. So by definition, an acre requires one ox-day. Give it up to the medieval folks for using measures that, no matter how confusing in the modern world, made a whole lot of sense in their world. Depending on the quality of the soil, you would plow three times for good soil, and up to five times for heavy clays.

Well, an older English book (F. Seebohm, The English village community) claims that the acre was the amount of land a team of eight oxen could plough in a half day. The book goes on to explain that the German ‘Morgen’ (literally meaning ‘morning’, thus alluding to the half day) was smaller than the acre, because here a team of only four oxen was used.


Heartlands may be more beefeating, and the south coast may be more like Italy. Too many people to spare land for cattle, all grains, and then to augment their 5-7% pasture, they fish the seas and import some cattle from the heartlands and slaughter them for beef.

Mhm, while I generally like these divisions, a more productive agriculture needs manure, and lots of it. An advanced agriculture with higher yields is therefore complemented by raising livestock and this also means pasture. If we go from medieval yields of 3-3.5:1 to late medieval/early modern yields of about 5:1, as I would think preferable for Anuire, we probably need more than 5-7% pasture.

[kgauck]

There is a clear pattern of German pork emphasis well before the 19th century. Voltaire makes fun of German pork eating all throughout Candide, for example. Medieval meat eating was a special occasion. Industrial era meat eating, as evidenced by the 19th century figures makes meat eating an every day event. What we have done is to make the medieval feast diet, our everyday diet.


A more productive agriculture needs manure. I quite agree, but we need to be careful not to put in place all of the elements of a second agricultural revolution. It might properly be the job of a wise regent to put in place the changes neccesary to import grain rather than meat on the hoof. Or the amount of nitrogen fixing plants used might compensate. This might be planted clover during fallow, or planting peas and other beans during the spring.

Only the English made good use of soil amendments, the French maintained a very large population without good soil husbandry. As a result French fairy tales often involve people escaping poverty, whether Cinderella (whose fairy god mother gave her a tree that bestowed fruit on a magical command word, not prince charming) or the ubiquitous Jack who outwitted people. English nursery rhymes were often more pleasant, and involved characters like Little Jack Horner, who had enough to eat. France experienced traditional revolts every so often, something that England didn't experience sometime during the Reformation (its hard to tell how much food prices motivate some otherwise religiously motivated uprisings). We should have some idea what trajectory Anuire or other places will have. The happy English path of plenty, the more troubled French path, or some mixture or combination.

[Beruin]

Kenneth mentioned bees and beehives in one of his post. Despite trying hard, I only could come up with a few hard numbers. A bee hive produces about 80 pounds of surplus honey a year (another source said 7-10 kg, a vastly different amount). Given the less advanced medieval methods in hive building and honey extraction, I'd say fifty pounds was probably the maximun that could be gained.

Abel's already mentioned peasant household assessment figures a consumption of 30 kg honey per person and year or 180 kg in all, which sounds quite high.
Using these numbers as a guideline (glad if someone could come up with more info), Pierden has 4 beehives, collecting about 200 pounds of honey and 20 pounds of wax a year.

Does this sound too high?

[kgauck]

From Magical Medieval Society:


One swarm can make up to three gallons of honey, with 10% of the honey in the comb. Some beekeepers are very destructive in collecting honey and wax, destroying the hive and killing the swarm in the collection process. Larger manors have beekeepers that manage to preserve the hive after harvesting the honey and wax. These manors usually have buildings to keep the hive through the winter.
Collecting Honey and Wax is done in September. In May, peasants hunt for wild bee swarms and transplant them to the manor.

Beehives are often taken from the forest or a wild habitat and transported to the manor. Providing the manor with honey and wax, beehives do not take much labor the whole year, except at harvest. A manor typically has one beehive for every 75 acres in the manor. A lord may employ a beekeeper in his permanent manorial staff to ensure that the hives are not destroyed in harvesting the honey and combs.

MMS estimates 1gp of value per behive. The manors they built didn't always include behives, and when they did the number was several for the whole manor. A single peasant with 4 behives sounds like an entrapreneur.

[Beruin]

Honey weighs approximately 12 pounds per gallon (~1.4 kg/l). This would then be 36 pounds per beehive, fine with me.
Using the MMS numbers will give our manor about 15 beehives, or 1.25 per virgate. Okay, seems to sound more reasonably and this will set annual honey consumption at 7.5 kg per head, slightly more than 20 grammes a day or about 2 spoonfull. Should be enough to sweeten the morning porridge, but not much more...

The value of the beehive seems quite low to me, given the large need for sweeteners and wax, though I can't find a d20 price for honey right now. ICE's ...an a 10-foot pole sets honey at 16 gp (middle ages) or 16 sp (renaissance) per pound

[kgauck]

ICE's ...an a 10-foot pole sets honey at 16 gp (middle ages)

That's probabaly about right, if the lord is 1) using most of the honey, rather than selling it, or 2) only taxing the honey. The lord is probabaly doing both. At the end of the day, the lord gets 1gp per hive and someone is entitled to eat the rest, probabaly most going to the lord's houshold.

[kgauck]

As I think about population density, 58 people per square mile seems fine for a great deal of Cerilia, since we can just add these basic manors up to a density of 58, but we can't get above that density with this manor. The 834 acres of farm land should support as many as 208-210 people, or twice our population so far. Well, we can add in the noble house, we can add a miller, smith, and carpenter, and their families, and assume 20 people in a town somewhere. 102 villagers, 18 in the noble house and servants, 15 in craftmen and families, 20 in a town somewhere, and we have room for 55 more people who are probabably rural. A population this size might have seven clergy members somewhere, though half of this number may be concentrated in a monestary somewhere, while the other half is here in the village.

I wonder if we should look at our labor costs more closely and see if we have enough labor for this manor. If I recall correctly, Pierden's land was large enough that all of his allotment of labor would be taken up with his cultivation, so that his share of pasturage, and so on, required extra labor.

Getting to a population denisty of 180, the medieval maxiumum for concentrated agriculture, would require 315 people on our little fief. Even if we don't have fiefs for such concentrated, intensive agriculture, its nice to know what that looks like.

[kgauck]

I added three industrial craftsmen, a miller, smith, and woodworker, and assigned each 15 acres, plus a religious institution with 45 acres. Labor for acreage (834 already identified, 90 new acres) is 5814 days. Pasture is 1122 days. Maintenance on fields and pasture is 2839 days. Forest is 258 days, plus 15 more for assart. That leaves 952 days. Assuming 750 days for industry, that still leaves 202 days for other activities (beekeeping, orchards, building a millpond, military service).

I will observe that there is no demense as yet. With 202 days, that leaves enough labor for a demense of 22 acres.

There is no reason at this point to include a demense, but when we get as far as figuring how many troops can be supported, we might think that the land is not particularly martial if we don't include more demense than roughly 2% of the manor.

HarnManor figures cleared acres/40 = tenant households, and given our existing cleared acres, we have 28 tenants by this reckoning. But with 4 villeins, 5 half villiens, 12 cotters, and 3 craftsmen (not including the 3 clergy), we have 24 tenants. Now if we include the 3 clergy (and assume households) were close enough to call it good.

So, do we want a demense, and if so, do we just short the peasants we've been discussing, or add 4 cotters to add some 222 acres and create a demense of 244 acres?

[Gwrthefyr]

How many workdays/tenant are you using for your calculations? Urban craftsmen would have had around 100 available off days in the year (Sundays, and about as many holidays).

I'd say add them (in other circumstances, I'd favor upping the density a bit, but we already have more or less established guidelines; this might also be done, though - Anuire might have lots more ranches, which could equilibrate, and maybe explain or be explained by the comparatively low density, although I don't have numbers on hand and this is just a wild guess); that would make roughly 1.400 acres (if I calcuted right), which is just slightly bigger than the usually mentioned average for a knight's fee.

[kgauck]

250 work days per adult.

[Beruin]

Well, I did include a demesne of 4 virgates. The whole manor looks like this:


Manorial Household & Demesne: 12 people, 120 acres of fields, 34 acres of meadow, 68 acres of pasture, 52 acres of forest/heath, 4 acres of garden, 66 acres of infrastructure, water and waste, 344 acres in all.

4 villeins like Pierden holding the same together, 6 people per family, 24 people in all.

5 half-villeins holding 2.5 virgates together, 6 people per family, 30 people in all.


12 cotters holding 1.5 virgates together, 3 people per family, 36 people in all.


Total:

Population: 102
Area: 360 acres of fields, 102 acres of meadow, 204 acres of pasture, 156 acres of forest, 12 acres of garden, 198 acres of infrastructure, water and waste, 1,032 acres in all.


We might perhaps double the acreage of gardens to 24, reducing the waste to 186 acres, so that each cotter holds at least 1 acre of garden.

I also assumed that the village priest and village craftsmen would be included in the number of cotters, each holding only a small amount of land (3.75 acres of fields on average) and mostly making a living through their jobs. So your three craftsmen plus one priest would leave 8 cotters and their families as the working poor of the manor.

The population sounds about right for me, I found some figures for 13th Century Germany speaking of 5 to 15 households per manor, with 7-10 being the average, so I wouldn't increase these numbers considerably.

The population density for settled land is about right for me, but I also admit that if I use my population model (10,000 people and 10% of total area settled per province level), the density becomes quite low for the overall province area , i.e. a province 3 with roughly a third of the land cultivated would only have about 20 people per square mile in all, a province 1 only about 6 people/sqmile.

For me that's a figure I can live with for a fantasy world, though you might have just started to win me over to Ryan's 'the people are already there' model…
At least, I’m thinking of raising the population per province level somewhat, to about 12,000 people/level.

I also realize that this basic model does not allow for a greater population density (well, increasing the number of cotters at the expense of demesne/virgates and half-virgates will increase the density), but as a simply solution, I'd propose the following, based on Abel's settlement quotient:


Repellent conditions (native speakers, perhaps there is a better synonym?): multiply total yields/income and population with 0.5
Unfavourable conditions: multiply total yields/income and population with 0.8
Average conditions: No change
Favourable conditions: multiply total yields/income and population with 1.2
Advantageous conditions: multiply total yields/income and population with 1.5

As a probably better alternative, you can just apply a conditional multiplier ranging from 0.1 to about 2 to apply to each manor or province population and yields. Now, if some could come up with a dice mechanic randomizing this…

With regard to province levels and province conditions, I would also like to introduce something like the following:

Let’s assume a plains province has about 1,000 square miles of its area that is suitable for agriculture, i.e. could be filled with manors like the one above.

This results in a maximum rural population of 58,000 people, or in my reckoning a province (6). A province (7) or higher then starts to become more urbanized and needs to import basic foodstuffs for its inhabitants to survive. If we assume a medieval division of 90% of the people growing food, and 10% following other occupations, we can assume that a province needs the agricultural surplus of 10 province levels per level over 6, i.e. of five provinces (2) or any other feasible combination. A province (8) would then need the surplus of 20 other province levels, while the Imperial City of Anuire, producing nearly no food of its own – apart from fish, that is, but let’s ignore this for the moment - would need the staggering amount of 100 province levels to support its population.
Assuming a more advanced level of agriculture in Anuire, it’s probably better to suppose a population proportion of 80% rural/20% other, reducing the above to 5 province levels per level above 6 and the needs of the Imperial City to still sizeable 50 province levels.

For a rule like this, the breaking point between province levels six and seven makes sense, giving the description in the original rulebook.
For some, this may all sound a bit unwieldy and perhaps unnecessary, but I see a number of possibilities here:

First, strategic warfare might be used to block a high level province’s access to some of its rural neighbours, cutting supplies and possibly resulting in famine and/or rebellion.

Second, it might be made harder to raise provinces over level 6. At the very least, the supply must be secured by roads, trade negotiations whatever.

And third, Bob Reeds ‘The Cerilian Book of Trade’ pdf (Thanks again, Jaleela, for providing this) distinguishes between short-distance “bulk commodities trade routes” with lower income (reduced by 2 GB) and the standard ‘luxuries’ trade routes. I like this distinction, but so far an incentive is missing for players to build the lower income routes. A rule like the one above provides this.

Okay, in case you wondered, here’s the fragile connection between the first and second half of this post: A province with favourable conditions might add a level before it has to import goods and will still count as self-sufficient (and rural) at level 7, one with advantageous conditions might add two levels. For instance, the province of Anuire will probably be favourable or advantageous and could contribute the surplus of its 7 levels to supply the Imperial City.

[Beruin]

You might want to check out Ian Hollands pdf on medieval farming for the Chivalry&Sorcery game. It's freely downloadable from:
http://www.locs.org/hserule/

[Beruin]

Okay, I'm very slowly making progress in determining livestock for Pierden's holding.

Here's what I came up with for poultry, based again on rather sketchy evidence, so including a lot of guesswork.

Pierden tries to support a constant flock of 12 poultry units.
A poultry unit is one duck, two hens or roosters, or 0.5 geese, so Pierden's flock amounts to 24 chicken or 6 geese or any combination thereof.

A poultry unit yields 80 eggs a year and about two pounds of meat if slaughtered. It consumes about 20 pounds of grain a year in addition to foraging (or is it grazing?).

[Beruin]

I still haven't come around to finish livestock for Pierden the peasant, but her's something for you to work with.
It's Abel again, assessing a peasant holding of 35.5 hectares (nearly 88 acres), consisting of 0.5 hectares garden, 16 hectares fields, 5 hectares meadow, 14 hectares pasture.
He assigns the following numbers of livestock, stating that they might be a bit too high, certainly not too low:


4 horses
2 colts/foals (What's the difference in English?)
4 cows
6 cattle
5 pigs
12 sheep


He does not include a number for poultry, but assigns 600 eggs for the consumption of the peasant family.

And I don't really know why he distinguishes cows from cattle ( 'Kühe' and 'Rinder' in the German text). My guess is that cows produce milk, while cattle are for beef production, but Abel doesn't really say.



Ox-days per acre-year is a number I'd really like to see.
Ryan
I don't have much info on time requirements, so I'll use what you came up with using harnmanor or MMS:WE. However, using horses has the main advantage AFAIR that horses walk significantly faster than oxen (though I have no idea how much faster) and therefore considerably reduce the time for plowing an acre. Using horses might reduce the labor requirements for fields by 10, maybe even 20%.

[kgauck]

Germany had a population density of 90 per sq mile. There was tremendous difference between the west and the east. There was less of a difference between the south and the north, but its a noticeable thing. If we are looking at Swabia or the Rhineland, we should expect a population density well above 90, (closer to 120), and a population in Brandenburg and Saxony that is much lower (60?), and Mecklenburg and Pomerania still lower (40-50?).

I don't want to make Cerilia as densely populated as the Langudoc or Provence, but I do think there will be places that will be the dense. We have plenty of mountains, forests, and other provinces that will be nearly empty, plus as mentioned some border provinces that might be devestated. If our highest population density is 60 or so, then our average is going to be near 30. That's just too low it seems to me.

[kgauck]

Horses are faster than oxen, but tire more quickly, can't handle harder levels of work, and if you push them past their limits, they break down and become useless after a few years. Horses are handy for wealthy farmers who can use more than one team of horses. Oxen are slower, but can slog on day after day in some of the most demanding agricultural tasks.

[AndrewTall]

[LIST]
Repellent conditions (native speakers, perhaps there is a better synonym?): multiply total yields/income and population with 0.5



I would suggest 'harsh' or 'adverse' instead of repellant.

Repellent would be conditions disliked, considered unclean, etc.

Harsh would indicate unforgiving terrain / weather, adverse would perhaps be too strong a word, indicating that conditions were against the farmer.

Hmm, finally a question in this thread I understand...

[Gwrthefyr]

Germany had a population density of 90 per sq mile. There was tremendous difference between the west and the east. There was less of a difference between the south and the north, but its a noticeable thing. If we are looking at Swabia or the Rhineland, we should expect a population density well above 90, (closer to 120), and a population in Brandenburg and Saxony that is much lower (60?), and Mecklenburg and Pomerania still lower (40-50?).

I don't want to make Cerilia as densely populated as the Langudoc or Provence, but I do think there will be places that will be the dense. We have plenty of mountains, forests, and other provinces that will be nearly empty, plus as mentioned some border provinces that might be devestated. If our highest population density is 60 or so, then our average is going to be near 30. That's just too low it seems to me.

Doubling the province populations (problem - the level 10 provinces would have late 18th century densities, but the biggest city would now not be smaller than Venice at a comparable period to when BR is generally situated; doubled, Ilien would have the density of Flanders and between 100k and 120k inhabitants), or upping them all one level (problem - balance effects) might be an interesting way to achieve a better average; it would also allow the big three's armies to look less like modern mobilizations and more like the feudal/early renaissance armies they supposedly are.

[kgauck]

18th century populations are 50% to 100% higher than those I propose.

[Gwrthefyr]

That's why I commented on it as a problem; however, there is no realm I recall on Cerilia that has a consistent string of level 10 provinces (I don't even remember there being more than two on the entire continent). Renaissance France would be required to have all level 8-10 provinces to have its entire population represented, which would probably be absurd given places like Auvergne or the Pyrenean principalities.

Doubling while upping one point for Anuire (and the humans and halflings in general, probably, except for those provinces where the support limit is reached) would create at least two more provinces besides the Imperial City that are net importers of food - Anuire and Ilien (min. population either 128k by squaring or 144k by cumulative increase); Ilien, however, would have been the Deretha trade hub until Diemed was torn apart, and has two light density principalities in what should be some of Anuire's best land*. Some of the new level six and seven provinces might also need to import food, but they are generally built around princely capitals and thus have a back country to rely on.

At the current level, Gaston Phebus' mid 14th century principality of Bearn would have been composed of a level 7 and a level 4 provinces. And Roesone has a starting army that would be about 2% of the population that it can keep financing without blinking despite its overall administrative weakness (or at least, that it could). And even level 3 provinces would barely have a single urban center, at best a smallish town.

* Even with my modification, Roesone has a density of 41,5h/sq.mi. tops. Put together, the three southern Dieman/Deretha breakaway states, using my highest population number (552.000 inhabitants) and my lowest surface estimate (9.900 sq.mi.), average at a max of 56. Besides some of the dukes that have many higher-level provinces, there are vast swathes of fairly empty land in Anuire proper (excluding the non-human lands, the human-ish Awnsheghs and the anarchy in the Five Peaks).

[geeman]

At 10:11 PM 6/11/2007, kgauck wrote:

>Horses are faster than oxen, but tire more quickly, can`t handle
>harder levels of work, and if you push them past their limits, they
>break down and become useless after a few years. Horses are handy
>for wealthy farmers who can use more than one team of horses. Oxen
>are slower, but can slog on day after day in some of the most
>demanding agricultural tasks.

Horses also require a level of technology to employ in agriculture
(special harness and tack) while oxen have a ready made hump that can
be easily strapped to a plow. Oxen are more readily turned into food
than horses because they are generally meatier, though one can eat
either, of course, and can eat cheaper provender. In the log run,
horses outpace oxen agriculturally and because they are more versatile.

Gary

[ryancaveney]

That's why I commented on it as a problem; however, there is no realm I recall on Cerilia that has a consistent string of level 10 provinces (I don't even remember there being more than two on the entire continent).

There is only one level 10 province: the Imperial City of Anuire. There are no level 9s. There is only one level 8: Murthang, capital of Kal Kalathor. There are eight level 7s, three of which are in Muden; the others are Ariya, Avanil, Djafra, Ilien, and Darres' End in Grabentod. There are 27 sixes, including three in Boeruine, two in Muden, four in elven lands, and three in the Zweilund islands(!). There are 54 fives, 108 fours, 175 threes, 210 twos, 171 ones and 84 zeros, for a total of 839 provinces (including Mieres and Thaele, which aren't technically in Cerilia). If we take the rulebook province-population level table seriously, using population in thousands = province level squared (interpreting zero level as 250 people rather than none), that implies there are only 7.2 million people -- including humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, goblins, orogs and gnolls all rolled into one -- in all of Cerilia's 0.8 million square miles, leading to the ridiculously low average population density of the whole continent as just nine intelligent beings per square mile! Just how far too low this is can be debated, but at the very least it's a factor of four, and even ten could be argued. Even adding two to every province level (except the Imperial City's) only brings the rulebook-style population up to 18.7 million, and adding three levels to every province (capping the Imperial City and Murthang at 10) gets us to only 27 million people, which just meets the absolute minimum large-scale population density from Medieval Demographics Made Easy. This and the Rule action (creating people from nowhere) is why I decided that province level and population simply can not be the same thing.


Ryan

[Thelandrin]

Well, you could simply indicate that population is 5x the square of the province level and forbid ruling a province to increase its size. Would that solve the problem?

[ryancaveney]

Well, you could simply indicate that population is 5x the square of the province level and forbid ruling a province to increase its size. Would that solve the problem?

I experimented with this for a while, but found it didn't solve enough of the problem. That is, a scaling factor can indeed make the total continental population be a reasonable number, but it doesn't fix the very large local variations -- why would two adjacent provinces of the same size and terrain type in the same realm so often differ by a factor of ten in population? It also requires population densities in some areas to be unreasonably high to balance the unreasonably low numbers in others. In addition, if players can't Rule up their domains, I think too much game fun is lost. Therefore, I found it more satisfying in the end to declare that population was a function solely of terrain type, while province level represents something else. That something else, namely centralized political control, is something I want to vary much more from realm to realm than population density (which in the end is determined almost solely by agricultural methods).


Ryan

[Gwrthefyr]

Before the agricultural revolution, population growth was pretty much at a snail's pace. So I don't really find it necessary for my players to have the occasion to rule; then again, I've actually done the suggestions I gave (which tends to make the unviable realms of Cerilia sufficiently viable to mount a defence - if they want to do more, like colonies or conquest, they'll have to borrow, and some guilders will be happy and have their Fugger bank or their VOC, and some will suffer from Henry VIIIs, but I digress :D), with some minor tweaks for balance (levels not attributed somewhere transferred elsewhere).

[kgauck]

Before the agricultural revolution, population growth was pretty much at a snail's pace. So I don't really find it necessary for my players to have the occasion to rule.Agreed, and yet the state grew and grew and grew, and transformed itself into a powerful instrument unlike the medieval state. If you want to reflect that a ruler can reform the state, inmprove it, streamline it, adapt it to current conditions rather than the conditions for which it was devised, the it makes sense for a ruler to have some capacity to implement these reforms and obtain greater power in the realm and more money in the treasury.

Something is being ruled up. It certainly shouldn't be population, and it almost certain is Administration.

[Beruin]

At 10:11 PM 6/11/2007, kgauck wrote:

>Horses are faster than oxen, but tire more quickly, can`t handle
>harder levels of work, and if you push them past their limits, they
>break down and become useless after a few years. Horses are handy
>for wealthy farmers who can use more than one team of horses. Oxen
>are slower, but can slog on day after day in some of the most
>demanding agricultural tasks.

Horses also require a level of technology to employ in agriculture
(special harness and tack) while oxen have a ready made hump that can
be easily strapped to a plow. Oxen are more readily turned into food
than horses because they are generally meatier, though one can eat
either, of course, and can eat cheaper provender. In the log run,
horses outpace oxen agriculturally and because they are more versatile.

Gary

The required technology would be no problem in Anuire, I'd say - the eldest illustration of a horse collar dates from around the year 800, I picture Anuire as easily having this technological level.
With regard to the Oxen/horses debate, I'm no expert on this subject, but all sources I found claim that horses are generally superior.
Yes, they need special food, oats mainly and therefore limit the amount available for human consumption and they're also not very often

But, here are advantages compiled from a number of sources:


They walk 50% faster while doing the same amount of work and can draw more than a metric ton with the horse collar
They can be worked two hours longer than oxen before they tire (yes, I know that contrasts Kenneth statement, but that's what I found)
It's possible to plow deeper and wider than with oxen and this increases yields significantly


So for now, and given that medieval cattle was quite smaller compared to modern breed I'd still say that horses would warrant a bonus to labour requirements.

[kgauck]

With regard to the Oxen/horses debate, I'm no expert on this subject, but all sources I found claim that horses are generally superior.
There is no debate that horses are better in agriculture if you have no problems of scarcity.

Horses cost more, often double, what an ox costs
Horses must be fed grains, oxen eat grass
Horses require more expensive equipment to make them functional
Horses last for five years of hard work or ten years of good work, much less than oxen
Horses are more prone to injury and disease

If you can afford the more expensive animal, its feeding, upkeep, equipment, care, and shorter working life, the horse's speed and other advantages can pay off on the investment. But what peasants are known to have ready capital available for investment? Horses only came to outnumber oxen in England in the 19th century, and in America, as people moved west, oxen were always the first draft animals only to be replaced by horses as the famer/settlers began producing on their investment.

Consider the advantaged of oxen
Requires no food other than grass
Becomes food (beef!) when its working life is over
Cheap to aquire, cheap to put to work, cheap to maintain
Stronger than horses
Don't break down like horses will under hard work
Good traction in mud and sand because they make a constant effort (slow twitch muscles) rather than the jerky effort (fast twitch muscles) of a horse.

If you have the money to spend on horses, they are a good investment which will pay off despite the deficiencies. Oxen are slower, there is no getting around it. Horses are more versatile and can perform more varied tasks in the manorial life.

Let's not lose sight of that fact that the watch word of the medieval era is scarcity of wealth.


They can be worked two hours longer than oxen before they tire (yes, I know that contrasts Kenneth statement, but that's what I found)
This is true if you only need that extra work occasionally. If you do that every day, your horse will be a broken down nag in 5 years, and your ox will still be plugging away just as the tortise beat the hare.

[Gwrthefyr]

Agreed, and yet the state grew and grew and grew, and transformed itself into a powerful instrument unlike the medieval state. If you want to reflect that a ruler can reform the state, inmprove it, streamline it, adapt it to current conditions rather than the conditions for which it was devised, the it makes sense for a ruler to have some capacity to implement these reforms and obtain greater power in the realm and more money in the treasury.

Something is being ruled up. It certainly shouldn't be population, and it almost certain is Administration.

I agree, but the problem is that the link between improved administration/agriculture (actually, checking, the Netherlands started their agricultural revolution somewhere in the 16th century; it pretty much started in Flanders: but, it's at least a century later than most DMs will want it to be) and diminished source fails me. It's not like four-field rotation is much harder on the land.


On the Horse-Oxen debate - maybe the eastern regions of Cerilia (at least western Khinasi) might be better suited for such a situation?

[ryancaveney]

I agree, but the problem is that the link between improved administration/agriculture ... and diminished source fails me.

Me too. Which is why I determine source limit by population (terrain type alone, barring special circumstances) rather than administration (province level).


Ryan

[kgauck]

Going by 1500, which is as good as any other date for Anuire, Brechtur, and Khinasi, I find the following regions to have a population density over 100 peolpe per square mile:

Normandy, Brittany, the Isle de France, Chamagne, Flanders, Holland, Brabrant, Burgundy (both duchy and county), the Biscay coast from Bordeaux to Saintes, the French Mediteranean coast, all of Italy between Rome, Venice, and Turin, Northern Sicily, the Neopolitan coast from Naples south to the "ankle", the Irish Pale, the Rhineland, and the Danube valley from Ulm to Vienna.

As such, it only makes sense that Anuire and other highly developed places (Ryan has identified the highest level provicnes) will have such high population densities, or at least in the ballpark. But since we are inclinded to not confine ourselves to province levels (since these can only be minimums of population) I would identify the whole South Coast, except the Erbannien and Bliene as such an area, the coast of Boeruine and Thaeghas from Tariene to Bhaine, and the Maesil river valley at least as far up river as Ghiere, if not as far as Brynnor, Bevaldruor, across to Haesrien.

The rest of Anuire might certainly top off at 50 (or so) people per square mile.

Regarding the Rjurik, I wrote in an earlier thread:

When averaging huge population differences such as the province 4's along the coast of the Tael Firth and the great empty spaces of the Northlands, you have overlooked the fact that the 4's generally stay on the coast and empty lands stay empty. People are not distributed evenly througout the Rjurik lands, but are concentrated along the coast and the Hjarring River. [...] So a third of all Rjurik live in this 10 province band with five identified cities.
Several factors incline me to suppose that the maxiumum population density here is more like 60 people per square mile. Such as the general climate effect of reducing crop yields by a third, and the sense that even the urban Rjurik are not living like Renaissance Italians in their urbanity and density, but more like Renaissance Yorkshire, Lorraine, or Hannover, densly rural with a few great cities.

Outside Rjurik and Anuire, I would prefer to defer on the specifics.

[kgauck]

Medieval kingdoms were consitited by a small power base where the king was very strong, and a weak zone of extensive domination, where the king was weak and his vassals were strong. Throughout the kingdom the king might own a sixth fo the land, making him far more powerful than any of his barons, but in the perifery of his country, he share of the land might be one tenth, while the great local baron might control a forth or a third. Likewise the king had his power-base region, where he owned a great deal of land, like his baron, plus he had a smattering of holdings elsewhere, plus the obligations of many lessor lords. So coming into a country and raving a frontier province might really mess up the local great baron, but the impact on the king is very small.

Birthright re-creates this by making certain provinces vastly better for a given ruler than most of his provinces. Take the province of Anuire, which is a province 7, Darien holds all the law, his vassals hold 6 of the guild slots. Duriene and Bhrein may have as many people as Anuire, but Darien only has enough control over them to merit a 4 rating. Local powers have the remaining power. If an enemy took Duriene, he might capture as much wealth and population by occupying Anuire, but the harm to Darien is much greater in the latter case.

There is no reason that Anuire should have more people than Tour's Hold or Maesford (unless you think brutal warfare has disrupted the province), but there are good reasons that Anuire is more tightly controlled by Darien than Tour's Hold or Maesford are by their regents.

[Gwrthefyr]

Weirdly, that would make an interesting case for treating province levels as any other sort of holding levels (dividable) - mechanisms are another matter I guess (and DMs may not like the actual map looking like something out of a Central European history book).

The Ruins of Empire PBEM campaign has a modified mechanism to determine support limit (reduced support limits, modified by climate, natural irrigation, and whether the land is a minor/major capital - I'd consider modifying it for agricultural methods and other irrigation (a costly asset, but it would likely be present in some of the richer plains states)); that could give a good estimate of the typical population level in most provinces.

[kgauck]

DMs may not like the actual map looking like something out of a Central European history book.
I love maps of the Reich, which is what I assume you mean, since Poland and Hungary were gigantic single states.

Overall I think the modern mind suffers too much from a facination with the unitary state which came about in the 19th century (when the state was really strong) and so overlooks its much more fragmentary nature in the medieval world when overlapping jurisdictions and claims of authority made for weak notions of sovieriegnty. Other entities could make claims on aspects we would normally regard as the natural functions of the state, from control of the law, administration of welfare, the censorship, taxation or exclusion from taxation, control of land not merely as private property, but as distinct authorities.

[Gwrthefyr]

For an early renaissance/late medieval period, a lot are vague, though.

Early Tudor England also has a certain interest in that after the succession wars, the aristocracy and richer bourgeoisie seem to have gone a period of decadence as the middle ages waned in the islands.

Notes on income from the nobility (peers and gentry alike, slightly more than 9.000 families in a country of about 4 millions)
Henry Algernon Percy, 5th earl of Northumberland, maintained a household of 166 servants which cost him 933 pounds, 6 shilings 8 pence (224.000 deniers) yearly. Henry VII's household ran on around 15 times that. Adding up the other various expenses, he died, in 1527, 17.000 pounds in debt with only 13L 6s 8d (3.200d) available.
The Peers, roughly 40-50 families, had incomes from aroun 500-1000 pounds a year. The Gentry, about 9.000 families, varied between 10 and 800 pounds of income (by comparison, a freeholder needed an income of 2 pounds to vote).

I think it has already been noted, the average journeyman earned about 5-6d for each working day. By comparison, MP received a pension of 4s/day for knights and 2s/day for commoners.

The Irish tribute amounted to 80d for 120 cultivated acres, and 5% duties (the burghers of Dublin, Waterford and Drogheda being exempt).

Faced with rebellions, Henry VII raised troops at the following costs (daily wages)
- 18d for a horse lance (Knight, Squire, Page)
- 8d for a mounted archer
- 6d for an archer
For the navy, they rented ships at 1s/month/ton, and (weekly wages)
- 3s 4d (40d) for the captain
- 1s 3d (15d) for the sailors
- 6-9d for the apprentices.
Henry VIII, for his wars, also attempted to raise troops, but it was a failure (in daily wages)
- 3s4d (40d) for the knight in charge of the lance, who then had to pay the upkeep for the rest of the lance from this
- 1s6d (18d) for a page
- 9d for a squire
- 8d for each archer
Resulting in a net loss of 3d for the knight.

Taxation under Henry VII
- The Fifteenth and Tenth (extraordinary property tax, 1/15 of Rural Property, 1/10 of Urban property), stable at 30.000 pounds
- The Domain, at the death of Richard III, only brought in 13.633 pounds (up to 32.630 pounds in 1505).
- Duties, again reaching a low of 20.000 pounds at the death of Richard III, were upped and reached 32.950 pounds in the first decade of reign, and 41.000 pounds in the lest decade. Most of them went to the upkeep of border fortifications (Calais, Berwick, etc.)
All in all, with the multiplication of fines, seizures, benevolences, musical dioceses, and various exactions and abuses (including an aid for the knighting of prince Arthur two years after his death), he brought the crown's income up from 52.000 pounds in his first year to an average of 142.000 for the last five.

Examples - 1492. He raised 100.000 pounds in additional taxes for an expedition against France, who had reneged on Henry's pensions, the expedition only cost 49.000 pounds and Charles VIII yielded and paid the 74.500 crowns' worth of pensions. A subsequent expedition in Scotland and against rebels in Cornwall and the south west brought him to raise 160.000 more pounds - he spent 60.000 and raised 15.000 in fines on the rebels.

[kgauck]

Henry VIII's rather long reign was also a period of tremendous inflation as the American gold and silver started flowing into the country. Especally at the end of the reign, prices can be much higher than at the begining. For adjusting for inflation, I use the price of bread.

[Gwrthefyr]

Henry VIII's rather long reign was also a period of tremendous inflation as the American gold and silver started flowing into the country. Especally at the end of the reign, prices can be much higher than at the begining. For adjusting for inflation, I use the price of bread.

Yes, I know, but I didn't have that data on hand, however, for the Henry VIII section, I used data from the Holy League period (the wages for the army come from 1513 - similarly, the notes on Ireland come from the Poynings ordnances, which means about 1494, before inflation had the time to kick in). I skipped a whole section because it was after the conquest of Mexico and Peru.

Otherwise, the undated stuff comes from Henry VII's reign, mostky.

[Beruin]

Okay, once again I couldn't find as much time to put into this project as I'd liked too and some parts took a lot longer than anticipated, especially the research. I'm slowly becoming an expert on animal husbandry it seems, in theory that is.

I have attached a 7-page-pdf file consisting mainly of tables detailing fodder yields, animal weights and requirements and the resulting stock numbers for Pierden's holding. This is probably a bit more detail than some or most of you will ever need, but I hope it'll constitute a viable base to build on.

So, please tell me what you think, where additional information is needed, how to make the whole more reader-friendly and point out any obvious errors.

To summarize the results, here's Pierden's stock:


Poultry: 11 hens and a rooster, 3 geese, one drake and 5 female ducks are kept throughout the year.

Pigs: 3 sows and a gilt (a younger sow) are kept throughout the year. During the autumn mast this rises to 4 sows and 3 porkers/gilts.

Winter flock: Pierden maintains 2 Oxen, 2 milk cows (a young one and an older milk cow) and a calf, 3 goats and 2 sheep.

Summer flock:Pierden maintains 2 Oxen, 2 milk cows, 1 heifer and 2 calves, 5 goats and 4 kids, 2 ewes and 3 lambs.


Next, I will calculate the total livestock of the peasants (simply Pierden's stock times eight) and the demesne herd which will include a number of horses, and the male animals used for breeding. The yield in animal products will then follow.

Btw, Kenneth finally won me over to oxen for a simple reason: The additional fodder (i.e. oats) required by horses seemed too much for Pierden's holding to provide.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll probably will only find the time to continue posting sometime next week, but I'm looking forward for replies.

[Gman]

Ok - who was it that ate the Paladin's destrier.... HMMM come on own up !-someone worked out the Meat yield!!! :)

[Beruin]

LOL, I should've guessed that this was the first reaction..

Still, what's a paladin to do when his men-at-arms are starving in hostile territory....:D

[Gwrthefyr]

LOL, I should've guessed that this was the first reaction..

Still, what's a paladin to do when his men-at-arms are starving in hostile territory....:D

For a second reaction [flourishes lightly, but heartily] magnificent, I bow to your meticulous details.

[Lee]

In a message dated 7/10/2007 11:46:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:

Still, what`s a paladin to do when his men-at-arms are starving in hostile
territory....:D


Eat Sir Robin`s minstrels. (yay, yay)

Lee.



************************************** See what`s free at http://www.aol.com.

[Gwrthefyr]

Most of the material is between the baroque and the industrial periods (thus, modern), but there's some material that goes from the late medieval to the renaissance in between.

http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.php

[kgauck]

This data would be good for modeling price fluctuations across time and space, but I don't see much other use for it. What did you have in mind?

[Gwrthefyr]

This data would be good for modeling price fluctuations across time and space, but I don't see much other use for it. What did you have in mind?

Looking up the italian data now, and the rest later? I'd just taken the time for a cursory look and it seemed somewhat interesting.

[EhtoZ]

So, please tell me what you think, where additional information is needed, how to make the whole more reader-friendly and point out any obvious errors.

To summarize the results, here's Pierden's stock:


Poultry: 11 hens and a rooster, 3 geese, one drake and 5 female ducks are kept throughout the year.

Pigs: 3 sows and a gilt (a younger sow) are kept throughout the year. During the autumn mast this rises to 4 sows and 3 porkers/gilts.

Winter flock: Pierden maintains 2 Oxen, 2 milk cows (a young one and an older milk cow) and a calf, 3 goats and 2 sheep.

Summer flock:Pierden maintains 2 Oxen, 2 milk cows, 1 heifer and 2 calves, 5 goats and 4 kids, 2 ewes and 3 lambs.


This has been a very interesting read. I wonder if you've done any more with this yet?

I'm also curious to find out how HarnManor and A Magical Medieveal Society handles livestock. How do they match up to what Beruin came up with?

Here's hoping this thread isn't dead yet. ;) I'd love to see more brainstorming.

[kgauck]

Magical Medieval Society only provides income from total livestock by manor. It is calculated at a rate of 17 gp per acre of pasture, meadow, and fallow fields. With 426 acres, the village considered would earn 7242 gp for the lord of the manor.

If I wanted numbers, I would look at S. John's demographics page, where he suggests 1.5 foul per person, and .7 meat animals per person. If the village has 102 people, that's 153 foul and 71+ meat animals.

Of course meat to grain is a widely variable figure and I would avoid hard and fast numbers except for behind the scenes averages.

[Beruin]

This has been a very interesting read. I wonder if you've done any more with this yet?

I'm also curious to find out how HarnManor and A Magical Medieveal Society handles livestock. How do they match up to what Beruin came up with?

Here's hoping this thread isn't dead yet. ;) I'd love to see more brainstorming.

Well, I've taken a bit of a break from this project during the past weeks, but I'm definitely still working on it. The next steps are not that hard to calculate, but also a bit routine. The peasants of the manor simply maintain a total of eight times the number of livestock determined for Pierden, i.e. 16 oxen, 16 milk cows, eight calves, 24 goats, 16 sheep make up the peasant herd in winter and 24 sows and 8 gilts are kept throughout the year.

I decided to include the animals needed for reproduction in the demesne herd for ease of calculation. In addition to a bull, a billy, a ram and a boar, Sir Norvien as a minor knight maintains a heavy warhorse, a riding horse, a pack horse and also two medium draft horses. I still have to figure out how much fodder this leaves for other animals and whether the large number of horses can really be maintained (after all, they alone need 192 bushels of oats a year, the produce of about 32 acres).

With regard to A Magical Medieveal Society, it doesn't really say that much about livestock apart from assigning 17 gp's of income to the manor per acre of pasture and fallow. XPR's Silk Roads however has a long list of trade goods including livestock. The main difference here is that apart from horses the animals have a significantly larger weight. (e.g. 1,000 lbs for a cow and 150 lbs for an ewe). I guess these numbers were probably derived from modern breeds and I believe my numbers a probably a bit more realistic for a medieval/renaissance setting. Also, larger animals need more fodder and the manor could therefore only support a smaller number of animals. I have finally managed to acquire Harnmanor on ebay for a reasonable price, but as it hasn't arrived yet, I can't say anything in this regard yet.

For brainstorming, I still haven't got around to calculate the agricultural production and meat and dairy yields for Pierden and the manor. If this is done I would like to calculate the food consumed on the manor and the remaining surplus (and also the taxes/income for the manor). I would like some input on daily/yearly food requirements here. So far, Dragon 94 had an article 'An army travels on its stomach' that assigned a daily ration of three pounds of grain and one pound of mixed other foodstuffs like cheese, meat, fruit and vegetables per person. The following link also has some excellent data:http://www.geocities.com/chybisa/economic/bread.html

I also would like to tie my write-up to the d20 skill system, something like assigning a DC of probably about 15 for an average yield, with higher results increasing yields and lower results decreasing them, all modified by climate, terrain and weather. Well, there are certainly some people here with a better grasp of d20 mechanics who might have some ideas here. This will probably not be used everytime, but could be useful for a campaign where the PCs start from scratch, i.e. something like recreating the foundation of Endier in the Spider's Test novel or the setting portrayed in the Giantdowns accessory.

Speaking of the Giantdowns, I would also like to hear ideas for cultural adaptions for the Rjurik, the Khinasi and the various non-human cultures like dwarves, elves and even the goblins.

I would also like to see resource management, crafts and industry and the trade rules a bit more developed. Mongoose's Strongholds&Dynasties has some basic ideas in this regard.

Finally, the questions remains how the rules for manors could be incorporated into the domain rules. There are three general possibilities here:
- the income generated by manors is already figured into the domain income, assuming that every regent just holds a number of manors.
- manors can be regarded as assets generating additional income. The PS of Roesone does something similar I believe.
- the Ruins of Empire pbem house rules introduce the manor holding as a new holding type. This is probably somewhat similar to Kenneth's administration holding and introducing another income-generating type of holding might be problematic.

Okay, this was a small extract from my 'things I would like to develop' list. After all, I called this a project for a reason and I don't expect to finish this anytime soon. Anyway, I'd love to hear your ideas...:D

[Beruin]

As an afterthought, I'm expanding my 'worldbuilder' library at the moment and would like to know if anyone has checked out Gary Gygax' Nationbuilder and whether it includes something useful for BR.

[Thelandrin]

Whilst Mongoose's Ships of Blood has a fun trade system, it does lend itself to making money rather fast, unless you are ruthless at enforcing taxes, sinking ships, sea monsters, pirates, inadequate supply of goods etc.

[kgauck]

A good trade system should produce break-even results with average talent. So the ways to make money include:
Better negotiation for cargos, but cheap, sell dear.
Better navigation and piloting, make one more run in the same amount of time.
Better seamanship throughout the crew, take less storm damage and toss less cargo overboard during storms.