Hi all. I was pondering about the handmaidens as such, who are explicitly said to be the wives and older daughters of Household knights (presumably also daughters of vassal knights as well, on occasion).

So how does this really work? Lets say that a household knight wishes to marry. His normal upkeep is £4 / year. If he marries, does the wife cost extra £1 or £2 of upkeep? I am tempted to say that just a wife would be £1 while once they are a family, it jumps to £2 (nurses, extra maids and such). For vassal knights, the £2 for a wife already includes some servants and such, which the wife of a household knight might not have, at least while childless.

The liege lord's wife would gain the benefit of having a (/ an extra) handmaiden. I'd be tempted to count this towards conspicuous consumption, too, for an extra +1 Glory / year.

This may come up in our campaign soon, and I figured to pick the brains of the 'Internet Court'.

Any thoughts?

I expect in most cases household knights wouldn't marry.

As will be revealed in the Book of the Estate, "household" knights who are officers can indeed marry. But they get a cost of living adjustment based on the size of the household.


T.

Sure. I'm aware of Estates and KAP related rules. A couple of points,

I'm not clear that, historically, household knights really married all that frequently. Do you know of any RW historical references? One would want to keep one's options open for an heiress of some value, however small. I'm asking, not disputing. I'm mostly familiar with examples of household knights gaining lands from marriage--the most famous being William Marshall.

It it probably also worth distinguishing between the 'officers' and run of the mill mesnie knight. The £4 knight can't afford a wife. The officer could.

It might actually be considered a pretty big insult for the lord to arrange a marriage for one of his landless knights to a landless maiden. If the lord can't be bothered to get you at least a manor, he probably doesn't like you. However, this point might vary greatly with the size of the holding and the influence of the lord.

Finally, a lot of these questions are very phase dependent. In later phases when livery support becomes more common and lords stop subinfeuding land, marrying without land might be more common.

As to your original question, I think there are two approaches.

(1) The lord might just slot the knight's wife into his overall household. Her expenses would then be covered by the standard handmaiden costs and the wife's own production in the solar. She essentially has her own job. Probably unlikely.

(2) Alternatively the lord might allow the marriage but require the knight to pay her upkeep. I think that he'd have to pay the full £6 in order to maintain the appropriate standard of living. She still needs the same servants to maintain her status--especially if you are using the 'money you don't see' accounting. Her cost of £2 includes the wife and her direct servants not cooks etc. These servants are the equivalent of the knight's squire and not having them would lower her status.

Moreover, she does not have the same access to manorial output to use directly to produce the additional £2 normally seen from a manor. That is, a vassal's wife uses the manorial wool production to make clothes. The household knight's wife doesn't get this wool.

Finally, I'd stick with £2 for the wife for real world reasons. When I didn't have kids, I spent the extra money on myself. Now that I have kids, I spend the money on them. Either way, I spend the same amount of money, but society has different expectations about how I spend it.

NT

Let me expand on the background of the question a bit... Yes, I agree that the run-of-the-mill household knights (HHKs) would not normally marry, unless they could support their wives with some other income / savings. However, if they would marry, how much would that cost to them or the liege?

In our campaign, it is common for the PKs to hold more than one manor (usually one in Hampshire and one in Salisbury), due to the slow accumulation or manors over the generations. Rather than give them to vassal knights, they retain the ownership and simply use household knights to protect the manors and to do the normal vassal duty to the liege lord who granted them that manor. Attending the court themselves, of course, and all that good stuff.

Now if one of these PKs wanted to reward a household knight with the right to take a wife, or take on a family knight who is already married, what would be the cost? Would the PK gain anything by it?

I admit that I am inching towards the £2 myself. It keeps everything 'neater'. £1 would be possible, but then it would invoke the Poor Knight upkeep as far as family rolling is concerned, which is a pretty bad thing, IMHO.

As for the benefit to the PK? The HHK's wife could act as a handmaiden to the PK's wife, gaining extra 2 Glory for conspicuous consumption of having a Lady-in-Waiting and a larger entourage. Or the HHK's wife, if able, could instead fill in for a steward at the manor to which the HHK is assigned. No extra Glory, but avoid paying for a separate steward in the other County. Would the HHK's Wife be as skilled as a £2 steward (16+)? Probably not (selecting a bride who is good at Stewardship would be recommended!), but she'd get better with practice and of course, rewarding one's knights with a wife and family is a big reward for the HHKs. (Of course, an heiress would be even better, but the PKs are too small fry to be able to give heiresses to their HHKs, having enough trouble to locate one themselves!)

Finally, there is always the possibility of hunting for widows of the vassal knights, who would likely bring £2 / yr widow's portion to the marriage and hence offset the cost of a family upkeep. This would be easier than getting an heiress, but of course eligible widows might be outside a humble HHK's reach, as well.

Fair enough?

Seems good to me. For the PC lord, it might make a good side/court adventure for him to seek a useful marriage for his household knights.

NT

Historically it's not really possible to say whether or not they married, but most likely they did. Greg used a 12th century knight's income as the basis for his £6 income thing. How much income is £6 in the twelfth century. That £6 represents the income from at least 2 hides (240 acres) of farmland with around 4 times that total land. The Domesday survey showed that it took an average of 2 1/2 acres to feed a person. The poor knights with just a single fief/fee had 2-3 hides normally. So could a poor household knight support a wife and children - yes.

In terms of actual income both household and vassal knight were rich, but in terms of how rich they were compared to other knights they were dirt poor. An ordinary knight had 2-4 manors. Rich knights had 5-10 and we're not even up to the level of a knight banneret yet. The typical household knight if he stayed in service long enough and pleased his lord enough could expect to get one or more manors at least as precarious or perpetual benefices. The households we know the most about are the royal ones, in them the typical household knight was already a rich knight, who came to serve the knight for a short time (1-3 years) in hopes of snagging an heiress, getting a warship or having a court case go his way, those on the other hand who were poor mercenary knights often served long term and expected to get manors for their service. william Marshal is a perfect example of one of these mercenary>household knight types.

Hi all. I was pondering about the handmaidens as such, who are explicitly said to be the wives and older daughters of Household knights (presumably also daughters of vassal knights as well, on occasion).
So how does this really work? Lets say that a household knight wishes to marry. His normal upkeep is £4 / year. If he marries, does the wife cost extra £1 or £2 of upkeep?

Yes
£1 minimum
Details of household costs for a £10, £50 and £100 income households are in Book of the Estate


I am tempted to say that just a wife would be £1 while once they are a family, it jumps to £2 (nurses, extra maids and such). For vassal knights, the £2 for a wife already includes some servants and such, which the wife of a household knight might not have, at least while childless.

A knight may not marry without his lord's permission and approval of the bride-to-be (Exceptions exist)
Most knights do not marry--that's why they are called bachelor knights
Household knights who marry will usually have their wives integrated into the lord's court, alleviating the obligation of the knight to support his wife on his income