I'm trying to estimate the extra income an Earl will receive beyond the base value from his lands.

Lordly Domains is not a great help as I want to keep things compatible with Book of the Manor which the other PKs will be using.

In Appendix B - money you never see - we see that each vassal knight with a manor contributes about £3 in food and goods to his liege. Some of this is kicked up to the King but it is not clear. I'm going to guess a third goes up leaving £2 for the liege.

In addition the gift imbalance at christmas nets the Lord £1 per manor.

Thus if the Earl has 100 manors his income would be £900.

I assume that a demense manor well administered will thus provide £9 to the Earl while an enfoeffed manor provides £3 and a knights service. Does that seem right?

Court fees were an important part of an Earls income. Anyone have any ideas on the rough value of such fees annually?

Another PK has been named Sheriff of the County by Arthur so will sit in court as well. Customs varied but at times the Sheriff got a cut of such fees. Any ideas?

any help much appreciated.

I'm trying to estimate the extra income an Earl will receive beyond the base value from his lands.

This is precisely what the Book of ESTATE, WARLORD and UTHER are about.


In Appendix B - money you never see - we see that each vassal knight with a manor contributes about £3 in food and goods to his liege. Some of this is kicked up to the King but it is not clear. I'm going to guess a third goes up leaving £2 for the liege.

I've read and reread a lot of books for BoESTATE. It presents a stable economic system, in large part because my players and I have grown weary of spending as much time on the economics as on adventure.
As a result, though, there is actually no or negligible money kicked upstairs.


In addition the gift imbalance at christmas nets the Lord £1 per manor.
Thus if the Earl has 100 manors his income would be £900.

It's probably a good idea to NOT measure things in manors. For the sake of the game there is still the idea that a knight's manor = £10 (not 9), and that it costs £10 per year to support a knight. This being in the "money you do see" system.
But lords also have income that does not go towards upholding knights.


I assume that a demense manor well administered will thus provide £9 to the Earl while an enfoeffed manor provides £3 and a knights service. Does that seem right?

Every knight costs £10


Court fees were an important part of an Earls income. Anyone have any ideas on the rough value of such fees annually?

The normal seignorial fees are included int he regular income
If a lord holds the court fees for a hundred, then the £ amount = 1% of the assized value of the hundred
If he does not have to pay the shire court any fees, he gets to keep an additional 6% of his income
while if he holds the shire court rights, he gets 6% of the assized rents
Furthermore, the various liberties are 3%, divided into 3 chunks of "miscellaneous liberties"


Another PK has been named Sheriff of the County by Arthur so will sit in court as well. Customs varied but at times the Sheriff got a cut of such fees. Any ideas?

Sheriffs will be detailed int he Book of UTHER
They do not officially get any income for doing the job, but actually get whatever they can extort or skim
The amount in the Uther period is up to the assized value of the hundred or shire, but with penalties
As time goes by, this amount decreases


any help much appreciated.

I don't want to publish all the details from the books here, but I hope this is useful

Thanks Greg. I'm trying to run the County without having the Earl account for every £. The initial number-crunching is just to set some baselines which will then be hard-baked into the matrix.

My plan is to boil this system down to a steward vs misfortune roll and have the result Matrix a la BoM give a description of how things go in the County.

The PKs sub-fiefs will be done first as per BoM and their results will modify the county misfortune. Then the Earl makes a couple of rolls/decisions based on his priorities for the year

Incredible: 3 Benefits

Excellent: 2 Benefits

Good: 1 Benefit

Regular: Nothing (or 1 Benefit AND 1 Calamity at players option)

Meagre: 1 Calamity

Bad: 2 Calamities

Very Bad: 3 Calamities

Negligible (3 Calamities plus add d6 to misfortune next year)

Benefits and Calamities will be spent (or perhaps rolled? still thinking on this) to modify - Earl's Disposable Income/Treasure, Army Strength, County Fortifications, County Infrastructure (roads, bridges etc.), Land Quality (field clearance and investments), Hate (landlord), Hosting Grand events (tourneys etc.).

Don't let me distract you from working on the forthcoming tomes :D