I've been searching through the forums and yet for every answer clarifying thing, I found another that would confuse me again or contradict what was said in other posts. So, I'll try to be really clear here, which will be hard since english ins't my first language.

In KAP 5.1, there are 4 Ladies to whom players should marry if so they want. I think those 4 Ladies are just examples for the GM to make things easy in the first few games, but then, there are some new concepts that aren't really well explained in the book.

1- Demesne Manors: As far as I get, those are manors that need no knights to work properly and generate income. Is that right? So, would that be an extra £6 for the knight who marries a Lady with 1 demesne manor? It has no costs at all and all income is now available to the Knight? Or does the new Manor also have some costs that would cut a share of those £6? (simply put: demesne manor = free income?)

2- Enfeoffed Manors: I get they are manors with a Knight living on it. Is it a landed knight, or he is just temporally living in the manor and getting the income in exchange for servicing whoever sired him? Or is the Manor empty and the marrying knight is obligated to put someone on the land (a cousin maybe)? If the knight in the enfeoffed manor is single does the extra £2 of income goes to whom?

3- What kind of relationship the knights living in the enfeoffed manors of the PK's wife have with the PK? Is the PK their liege? Do the have to serve 3 months under his household? Can the PK evict those knights or chose to whom they can marry? Or do the knights answer directly to the PK's wife?

4- Can a PK knight someone and give him one of his manors? In which conditions?

5- In BoM the Income for a manor is given as: £6. Also, the cost of living for a standard knight is given as: £1 for the Knight expenses, £1 for the Squire, £2 for his horses, £1 for his wife and £1 for his children, adding exactly £6, his income. So, a standard knight has a total of £0 per year for extra stuff. I believe he can take a few d from his £1 to some travel expenses, but that is it, right? He has no extra fat to burn here, right?

6- Then in KAP it says if your spend between £9-12 in your maintenance you are living as a Rich Knight, and £15+ then you are a superlative knight. In BoM it is said a Rich knight has an extra Squire, and a Superlative has a couple of them. So, I can easily undestand there the first couple of £ are spent, but what about the rest? Do improvements in your manor counts as maintenance or are they just expenses? Does your wife also get a few extra handmaids?

My players keep me bugging with those questions. They love the book-keeping aspect of the winter phase.

Thank you in advance

Some quick answers below:

1. Demesne: a manor for which no knight service is required. In other words, the 6 libra are pure income. Rare, mostly given to Bannerets to allow higher standard of living, or some of the Earl's own manors to support his retinue and conspicuous living.

2. Enfeoffed Manor: A manor for which the knight service is required. For instance, the manors that the vassal knight PKs start with, are enfeoffed manors from the Earl (the default Salisbury setting). As to whether or not they are held by household knights (income goes to the liege, but he has to support the hh knight at 4L, no matter the harvest) or by vassal knights (vassal knight takes all the income, but is responsible for his own upkeep) is up to the whims of the GM, same with whether or not there are empty household knight slots at the moment (quite likely, if marrying an heiress). Generally, I go for hh knights in 'empty manors', when the manors are few (1-3) and then mix in some vassal knight holdings when there are more manors. If the knight in the manor is single, the extra £2 goes to the PK (if a household knight) or to the knight himself (if a vassal knight). Note that if the manor is far away (like in another county), a steward might be needed to oversee the manor (usually done by the wife). A steward costs £1 - £2, depending if you want to have a 'better than nothing' or an actually good one. If the manors are close-by to one another, one steward/PK's wife can usually oversee several of them. I might start penaltizing Stewardship rolls, if the number grows large, based on the fact that the wife/steward is in effect absent from individual manors much of the time. Since the absences are short, this might not be so bad if she has a few manors in close proximity. However, if she needs to travel a couple of days between each of the 5 manors, this is clearly going to influence her available time in any single manor.

3. Generally, I go for 'husband rules'. So the knights would swear allegiance to the husband who is their rightful lord by 'the right of his wife' (= marriage). Still, if there is a potential conflict situation, they might have a higher loyalty for the wife, and support her. This would be very very rare, but might conceivably happen, especially if there are cultural differences (a Wotanist Saxon lady marrying a Christian Cymric knight after Badon Hill, the manors populated by Wotanist Saxons... the Saxons would have much higher Loyalty to their own lady than towards the conqueror). So yes, the PK would be their liege, as long as he is married to the lady, or acting as a guardian for their underaged children. The PK would NOT be able to evict a landed vassal knight under normal circumstances, unless the vassal knight refuses to swear fealty to the PK for his lands as is right and proper. The NPK's inheritance rights to the vassal manor is protected the same as the PK's claim for the whole lot. With a household knight, things are a bit more tenuous. If the hh knight has not already been taken into the PK's service, I suppose technically there is nothing preventing him from saying that he will find someone else, thank you. However, that might not be the smartest move by the PK, if he is dismissing an experienced older knight of proven loyalty. Note that dismissing household knights already in your service is dishonorable (unless the cur has done something real bad to deserve it, like deserting his lord on the battlefield, or some such) The PK would have a say who the knights under him can marry, the same as the Earl having a say who the PKs marry. The vassal knights would owe 2 months of service to the PK, BUT note that the PK owes those 2 months of knight service from each enfeoffed manor to the Earl in turn. So in practice the vassal knights go ahead to do this 2 months of knight service to the Earl, save for emergencies (or short term raids). Household knights in turn owe their whole time to the PK, so he can send them to the Earl 2 months per year, and use the rest to do his own dirty work. However, an important part of the knight's duty (and indeed, part of the feudal arrangement) is to protect his manor, so if the household knights are constantly away adventuring, that is an open invitation (to bandits, Saxons, other enemies) to raid their manors.

4. Depends a bit on whether or not you think only the higher lords are allowed to knight people, or if normal knights can as well. In any case, if the person is qualified (arms, armor, horse(, skills)) then there is no real reason why he wouldn't be knighted. A PK can give a manor away if he owns the manor (i.e. it is not held by a vassal knight already). Naturally, this will become a bit more tricky when it is the wife's lands, so getting her consent would be the first step. Then you ought to consult your own liege lord. As long as you are not giving the manor away to a hostile power, then you should be OK: the liege lord is mostly looking at the number of knights in a muster, so it matters less to him if they are your household or vassal knights in the end.

5. Nope, no fat. Lean and mean and hungry for loot and more lands, is our basic knight. :) I don't use the clothing degrading rule anymore (is it even still in the 5.1 edition?), unless the knight has especially fine clothing made specifically for the court. I simply assume that it is included in the maintenance to keep his wardrobe adequate.

6. Better food, more logs in the fire, finer clothing, etc... It all adds up. Improvements DO NOT count as maintenance; they are investments to the future! I would allow the wife to get extra handmaidens, probably the same as the extra squires. However, true professionals should be hired with Retinue.

Whew. A bit longer reply than I originally intended. Hope it helps. :)

What Morien said.

Expanding slightly on the answer to (5) - the knight has no fat to burn but life as an ordinary knight is pretty well set up so I don't bother accounting for pennies and farthings.

Also the four example ladies in the book that are mentioned at the start of the OP are not typical matches, they are the top prizes in the local marriage market. As good as a knight can reasonably hope to get.

Regards
Luke