Morien
01-23-2011, 01:09 PM
Hi all.
I was wondering how other people handle the issue of female relatives in their Pendragon campaign. The assumption being that the PK is the head of the family and hence responsible for finding husbands and dowries for his sisters.
Here are my thoughts in essence about this. I'd imagine that the suitability of the husband would be mainly a function of three things:
1. Status: This shades into Wealth, but in principle, most of the acceptable suitors should be knights as well. Preferably of proven caliber and fame (i.e. Glory), not mere striplings.
2. Wealth: Landed knights are always much better than household knights, let alone knight errants. Rich knights are better than poor ones.
3. Politics: Is the suitor in good repute with the Liege? Is he from a family we wish to have an alliance with? Will this embroil me and mine in a family feud we currently have no stake in?
Dowry is something that I am having mixed feelings about. On one hand, you might be inclined to try and hoard your wealth, giving poor dowries, but this might reflect badly on you. On the other, generous dowries would mark you out as a generous, openhanded man worthy of praise, which is quite nice, but can mess up your finances. Hence, I'd generally say that dowries are mainly driven by the Status of the brother/father. He doesn't want his miserliness to reflect badly on him. In general, I wouldn't expect a landed knight to afford to give manors away, and even a banneret might balk at such (a gift manor might be possible, though). Instead, most of the manors in circulation in the marriage market would come from heiresses or widows with children (underage heirs).
What kinds of dowries have your knights been giving out with their sisters/daughters?
The desirability of the bride-to-be is of course made up by several things: dowry, status, politics, skills, fertility and beauty. Heiresses with huge tracts of land are very much sought after. But they are likely a minority of all eligible women. There is also a limited number of landed knights. If we assume that all the manors have two sons and two daughters, only one son actually inherits the manor, and we end up with 1 landed knight per 2 eligible women. Hence, it is unlikely that all the women manage to land a husband like that. It depends a lot on the assumed mortality rates of men and women, of course. If women die often in childbirth, while men do not die that often in combat, then there might be a possibility for more women to marry within their class.
My rule of thumb is that, on average, one sister is probably going to get a marriage of equals, while the other ones usually have to marry down. This means that if the head of the household is a banneret, he is probably able to marry one sister off to another banneret, while finding landed knights for the other ones. Some very lucky ones manage to marry a step up, but this would be very rare: a count's daughter likely has better dowry for one than a banneret's. Same of course applies to a banneret's daughters in comparison with a vassal knight's. Marrying down might not mean all the way to a base born peasant, but for example a younger brother of a knight, now working as a steward of one of the estates of his older brother. I think people would be very hesitant to let a knight errant to marry their sister/daughter, due to the itinerant nature of the knight's situation. Still, it would be better than marrying her to a peasant.
And of course there is always a possibility of a nunnery or a scandal and a crossbow wedding.
So how do you handle these in your campaigns? Do you have roll tables for the suitors? How large dowries are you giving out, both to the PKs' potential brides, as well as the PKs themselves when their female kin seeks to marry?
EDIT: And I see that Book of the Manor has some guidelines of the dowry on page 33 (and on the wedding feast, too). Quite close to what I had in mind. I am still curious to hear from other people, too.
I was wondering how other people handle the issue of female relatives in their Pendragon campaign. The assumption being that the PK is the head of the family and hence responsible for finding husbands and dowries for his sisters.
Here are my thoughts in essence about this. I'd imagine that the suitability of the husband would be mainly a function of three things:
1. Status: This shades into Wealth, but in principle, most of the acceptable suitors should be knights as well. Preferably of proven caliber and fame (i.e. Glory), not mere striplings.
2. Wealth: Landed knights are always much better than household knights, let alone knight errants. Rich knights are better than poor ones.
3. Politics: Is the suitor in good repute with the Liege? Is he from a family we wish to have an alliance with? Will this embroil me and mine in a family feud we currently have no stake in?
Dowry is something that I am having mixed feelings about. On one hand, you might be inclined to try and hoard your wealth, giving poor dowries, but this might reflect badly on you. On the other, generous dowries would mark you out as a generous, openhanded man worthy of praise, which is quite nice, but can mess up your finances. Hence, I'd generally say that dowries are mainly driven by the Status of the brother/father. He doesn't want his miserliness to reflect badly on him. In general, I wouldn't expect a landed knight to afford to give manors away, and even a banneret might balk at such (a gift manor might be possible, though). Instead, most of the manors in circulation in the marriage market would come from heiresses or widows with children (underage heirs).
What kinds of dowries have your knights been giving out with their sisters/daughters?
The desirability of the bride-to-be is of course made up by several things: dowry, status, politics, skills, fertility and beauty. Heiresses with huge tracts of land are very much sought after. But they are likely a minority of all eligible women. There is also a limited number of landed knights. If we assume that all the manors have two sons and two daughters, only one son actually inherits the manor, and we end up with 1 landed knight per 2 eligible women. Hence, it is unlikely that all the women manage to land a husband like that. It depends a lot on the assumed mortality rates of men and women, of course. If women die often in childbirth, while men do not die that often in combat, then there might be a possibility for more women to marry within their class.
My rule of thumb is that, on average, one sister is probably going to get a marriage of equals, while the other ones usually have to marry down. This means that if the head of the household is a banneret, he is probably able to marry one sister off to another banneret, while finding landed knights for the other ones. Some very lucky ones manage to marry a step up, but this would be very rare: a count's daughter likely has better dowry for one than a banneret's. Same of course applies to a banneret's daughters in comparison with a vassal knight's. Marrying down might not mean all the way to a base born peasant, but for example a younger brother of a knight, now working as a steward of one of the estates of his older brother. I think people would be very hesitant to let a knight errant to marry their sister/daughter, due to the itinerant nature of the knight's situation. Still, it would be better than marrying her to a peasant.
And of course there is always a possibility of a nunnery or a scandal and a crossbow wedding.
So how do you handle these in your campaigns? Do you have roll tables for the suitors? How large dowries are you giving out, both to the PKs' potential brides, as well as the PKs themselves when their female kin seeks to marry?
EDIT: And I see that Book of the Manor has some guidelines of the dowry on page 33 (and on the wedding feast, too). Quite close to what I had in mind. I am still curious to hear from other people, too.