Contemplating a different way to do manors and economics.

STEP 4: CHECK ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES of YOUR OWN LAND!

A manor is a house or keep near or overlooking a village, town or city.
Manors are entrusted to knights, who hold them as Vassal’s to their liege lord.
Vassal’s are expected to provide their liege lord with a levy each year. For the
majority of manors, the levy is equivalent to £3 of treasure in food stuffs
and supplies. The need to pay tribute can increase levies dramatically!

Each manor has a Base Wealth, Glory and Defensive Value score. These
represent the financial and social-political value as well as the strategic
importance of the manor and its surroundings. These scores can be
increased by knights who dedicate their time to the improvement of the
lands under their care, while raids and war can diminish them.

Normal manors supports a single knight and his extended family, while
demesne manors support no knights and are therefore more profitable
during times of peace, but are more vulnerable during times of conflict!

Rationale

I needed, for my own purposes, a system that let me know what went where and how big it was. Moreover, I wanted more reasons to spend PC/NPC money, and needed it in a system that was relatively easy for me to grasp. So, I did some research, and hybridized elements of Lordly Domains and Noble's Book. While not mentioned, each ring of wall or major building also takes 1 Hyde, and adds to the space taken by the town/city and already factored into the manners.

The standard earldom has 100 manors, 75 knights and 100 footmen (assuming Salisbury equals a standard earldom for amount of footmen). According to the main book there is a lifestyle requirement for Barons, Earls and Dukes. Secondly, the main book gives a rough cost for the upkeep of the lord's family and retainers. For an Earl, the costs involved are £15 (for the lifestyle) and £84 (for family and retainers). That gives a total of £99.

In an earlier discussion on the forums Greg presented that the average income of an earldom is about £500 with expenses of about £480, resulting in £20 extra cash for our standard size Earl. It was suggested that two thirds of the £500 should be demesne income. That's £333 divided by £8 (demesne manor income as established previously), needing around 42 demesne manors to accomplish.

That seems like quite a lot of demesne manors for that standard earldom of 100 manors, but perhaps not an unfeasible amount. That would have to mean that 58 manors would provide 75 knights (minus the Household knights).

Considering that Bannerettes provide knights for the muster at an effectiveness of less than 1 manor = 1 knight, this does seem a bit problematic. Without counting any Bannerettes (perhaps their knights are not numbered in the 75 allotted to a standard earldom) and even assuming 1 manor = 1 knight on all the rest of the manors, the Earl would have to have 17 household knights.

So, our slightly problematic example Earldom would be composed of thusly:
42 demesne manors, providing £336 income to the Earl
58 enfeoffed manors, providing £174 income to the Earl
With 100 total manors from which £200 is owed to the King

58 vassal knights, costing effectively nothing (gifting costs and incomes embedded into manorial economy)
17 household knights, costing £68 annually
100 footmen, costing £100 annually

Superlative lifestyle
£84 costs for family and retainers

Total Income: £510
Total Costs: £467

What is missing? Well, at least the Earl's annual gift to the King. That'd have to be somewhere around £10, if not more. Any tournaments he'd sponsor as well, but presumably those would come out of extra cash anyway. This all brings the numbers perilously close to the approximates which Greg has presented previously.

Let's consider a Banneret's role in the hierarchy for a moment. Bannerets usually have at least some demesne manors, which give them the £8 in profit. They too send £2 onward to their liege for each such manor. That introduces a little irregularity in our calculations. The entire £2 would have to go to the King to fulfill the payments as described earlier, leaving nothing for the Banneret's Earl. Also note that any vassals the Banneret would have would pay the full £3 upward with the Banneret, the Earl and the King contending for the coin. I'm just raising this up as a concern and potential irregularity, which might need a specific addressal.


Key *includes all Developments possible for that given type; Also all items shown in pictures of the different type’s of castles and keep’s has already been factored into the cost of the building, maintaining, and income it produces.

F=Food (To Eat); G=Good (Item Made); C=Coin (To Spend pay Routine)
£=Libra (This equates to currency used at the time. 1£=100d. Think $1 Dollar)
d.=dannris (This equates to currency used at the time 100d.=1£ Think cents 100 Pennies).
DV=Defense Value Modifier for Castles vs. Siege Weapons.
N=No Glory Bonus
RH=Reduces Hate Lord Modifier (Look for this on Manorial Chart found on Greg"s website
found here http://www.gspendragon.com/manorimprovefinal.pdf).

TP=Total Pop
Pop=Population of people
NPC=Non Player Character
PK=Player Knight

Residents: Each town or city pop is roughly 120 people, or 24 families. Each village is roughly 100 people, or 20 families.

The Horse Market adds a City + Large Mote and Bailey Castle with Herding Village Together this =Horse Market a Lord must infest 225£ (Libra) to Have one and will cost 35£ Per Annum to maintain it each year.

Area: A Hyde is roughly 100 acres. There are 6 Hyde’s to the square mile. (An acre is 10 square chains, each chain being 22 yards long) Really it is 6.4 Hyde’s, but for our purposes, the extra forty acres are lost to furrows, etc. (40% D100 Dice Roll for furrowed land)

Work Limit: a lord can build no more than his Town Pop in £(Libra) of skilled labor projects per year. A lord may build without penalty no more than his town pop in £(Libra) of unskilled labor projects per year; each village which is used produces no income that year, but allows spending of an extra £(Libra) per pop, Villager’s ie (peasants) become crafts men instead of Farmer’s for purposes of construction as an example.

Thier are charts I have made which I am not willing to post here but can send the a copy of the doucument I have made to anyone who wnats a copy it is a works based document. I did send greg a copy of this work already if you like me to can send another!

PS. Measurement Standards I used.
Traditional English Mile 5000 feet. A square mile is 574 acres... but... this is not the only mile in use.Statute Mile 5280 Feet. A square mile is 640 acres. Old English MileAbout 6500 feet. A square mile is about 970 acres.Roman MileAbout 4850 modern feet (5000 Roman Feet). Squared, about 540 acresScots MileRoughly 5928 modern feet. Squared, about 807 Acres.<Hyderoughly 100 acres. If using Roman or Traditional English, 5 hydes per square mile; if using Old English Miles, 9 per square mile. Scots miles, 8 per square mile. Modern Statute Miles, 6 per square mile.Day's RideFor our purposes, 40 miles give or take a couple. It is important in defining the demense... A demense must be no further than a day's ride from the Lord's Manor... (Unless he is a high titled nobility... Which means quite a lot, potentially) In both lands and title.Detail ScaleUse ⅕ statute mile squares. Each square is 0.04 square miles, and so 4 squares per hyde works nicely.Up to half of the land may be left fallow in bad terrain...Close ScaleUse 1 mile squares. A village is a dot, except for Herding villages, which are a square; a town or city is 1 square per 6 hydes.

Actually £1 = 240d.
12d = 1 s.
20 s = £1.

Libra and solidi (pounds and shillings) are currencies of account not actual coins. I also marks.

STEP 4: CHECK ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES of YOUR OWN LAND!

A manor is a house or keep near or overlooking a village, town or city.
Manors are entrusted to knights, who hold them as Vassal’s to their liege lord.
Vassal’s are expected to provide their liege lord with a levy each year. For the
majority of manors, the levy is equivalent to £3 of treasure in food stuffs
and supplies. The need to pay tribute can increase levies dramatically!

This is very bad from an historical point of view. Knights had certain feudal dues/incidents they owed their lord and nothing else.

1. They had to serve castleward for 3 months (assuming they were not Household Knights), though usually they paid ward silver to get out of serving and their lord hired full time sergeants.

2. They had to do foreign service for 40 days once a year, but usually they just paid scutages to get out of this too or the Lord demanded service from only one knight out of nine (as one knight serving for a year was better than 9 serving for 40 days with the rest supporting that knight/AKA paying scutages. The normal scutage was 2 marks ( a mark equaled 160d or 13s 4d.

3. When they were invested with their fee/fief they had to pay a relief (also called a fine) equal to about a years income or 100s.

4. They had to pay the three feudal aids for these things (normally the size of a scutage): the knighting of his eldest son; the marriage of his eldest daughter and his ransom, as their own sons and heirs were normally knighted with their lord's son at least that aid would have been popular. Lords often demanded more aids as did kings, but those extra aids were looked on as arbitrary and abuses by their vassals.

What Greg says about earls in the fifth edition is a little confusing:

1. an earl controls 75 knights;
2. he has about 100 manors;
3. he has at least 50 knights under his command;
4. he annually must hold a feast, an hunt and a tourney;
5. his household costs £84;
6. his support costs £15.

My interpretation of the standard rules are:
1. an earl has 50 demesne manors generating £600 - £100 for stewards = £500 net income;
2. he has 50 manors that have either been granted as fees to vassals or are used to support household knights (each Household Knight costing £4 to support with another £2 being paid to stewards).
3. he's paying £200 to stewards who will serve him as riding sergeants and be part of his entourage when traveling;
4. as he has 3 castles (two of which have been granted to castellans;
5. that he has 25 more knights that he can call up from those castles = he controls 75 knights. Hopefully Greg will correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.


£=Libra (This equates to currency used at the time. 1£=100d. Think $1 Dollar)

A libra (plural librae) =200d, however Charlemagne changed the value to £1=240d and the Carolingian pound became the standard English pound divided into 20 shilling or 240 pence/pennies (Latin denarii [singular denarius]). In modern American money think around $60. [they also used groats worth 4d and groat pounds].


Area: A Hyde is roughly 100 acres. There are 6 Hyde’s to the square mile. (An acre is 10 square chains, each chain being 22 yards long) Really it is 6.4 Hyde’s, but for our purposes, the extra forty acres are lost to furrows, etc. (40% D100 Dice Roll for furrowed land)

An hide was 120 acres, but an acre was not a measure of area, instead it was a measure of labor ( = the amount of land that could be plowed in a day). In the more wild areas such as the north animal husbandry was more common than husbandry and usually the land was not divided into hides with acre strips. Even where the land was divided into hides only about a quarter of the land was under the plow, so using our acre (640 acres to the square mile) a hide would be about 480 actual acres.

In contrast to standard KAP rules these were the things seigneurs did to "squeeze" their tenants that should increase hatred:

1. building a mill and forcing his tenants to grind all their corn there;
2. building a bakehouse and forcing his tenants to bake all their bread there;
3. building an alehouse and forcing his tenants to buy all their ale or beer there;
4. demanding tallages (usually 1/6 of his tenants harvests);
5. aggressively collecting amercements (our fines) at his manorial court;
6. demanding irregular boons (additional forced labor);
7. enclosing the commons and forcing his tenants to buy their wool from him;
8. building large dovecots (the doves fed of the common fields, so the more of them there were the more of his tenants corn they ate);
9. keeping lots of hounds and chasing hares through the fields with them, thus damaging his tenants' crops.

This is what "squeezing" looked like and seigneurs who did these things were hated.

Note: the title of "earl" really comes from the Danish "jarl". King Cnut (a fellow Yngling) established the first earls in England there were 3 total. When our ancestors put the Saxon dogs in Frankish kennels their were 10 earls at the close of the middle ages and in the Tudor period there were 15 lords, so there never was one count per county.... runs and hides before the rotten fruit hits me ;)

Ok first thanks to the response's but i did due some research and these messurements were used for assing taxes and alike also it is not clear as with all money excatly what it would ecate too every govenment of the time would either deflate or infalte the doller as we know it plus i was trying to simplyfy ecconimics becuse i agree wth snagle the What Greg says about earls in the fifth edition is a little confusing but alos is the economic system i wa making it simplified for my players and also trying to streamline the effects of monral improvemnets.

Also the following chart of
Actually £1 = 240d.
12d = 1 s.
20 s = £1.

does not apper in my books
this is or was i have always been told £1=10s=100d and 1s=10d=1/10th/£1 and 1d=1/100th/£1 is what i always had written down in my note book!

Also the following chart of
Actually £1 = 240d.
12d = 1 s.
20 s = £1.

does not appear in my books
this is or was i have always been told £1=10s=100d and 1s=10d=1/10th/£1 and 1d=1/100th/£1 is what i always had written down in my note book!

The "librum (plural Libra) = 20 shillings = 240 pence is in the fifth edition page nine and I remember it being in the 4th (which I no longer have and also don't have a good enough memory to remember the page :-[) He may have changed it from the earlier versions of the game which I had no exposure to. Greg's seems nice and therefore not conceited and going to lie to the end when he's wrong.

Also the following chart of
Actually £1 = 240d.
12d = 1 s.
20 s = £1.

does not appear in my books
this is or was i have always been told £1=10s=100d and 1s=10d=1/10th/£1 and 1d=1/100th/£1 is what i always had written down in my note book!

The "librum (plural Libra) = 20 shillings = 240 pence is in the fifth edition page nine and I remember it being in the 4th (which I no longer have and also don't have a good enough memory to remember the page :-[) He may have changed it from the earlier versions of the game which I had no exposure to. Greg's seems nice and therefore not conceited and going to lie to the end when he's wrong.


4th edition: page 238
5.0 edition: page 156.

As for larger estate management like that of an Earl, I am still in anticipation of the Book of the Estate for that.;)

As for larger estate management like that of an Earl, I am still in anticipation of the Book of the Estate for that.;)


Book of the Estate is focused on the lower nobility (those with estates worth up to about £100/year) - you can get some insights, but Book of Warlords is what you want if you are concerned with how an Earl or one of the other magnates of Britain disposes of his assets.

I'm not sure what is being meant by 'think $1' or 'think $60' upthread, but my personal rule of thumb for thinking about Pendragon money in terms of purchasing power and social prestige is £1 = 20,000 modern dollars or pounds (since to a first approximation £=$ in terms of what they buy in their respective local economies) - thus a shilling is equivalent to a grand while a farthing is the same as a sawbuck.

This makes the median income for a peasant in Pendragonland twenty thou, skilled commoners in the towns (or gently born 'poor relations') can command the higher reaches of a five-figure income, whilst the established noble households start in at around a six figure income and go all the way to mutliple millions per annum.

Regards
Luke

Also the following chart of
Actually £1 = 240d.
12d = 1 s.
20 s = £1.

does not apper in my books
this is or was i have always been told £1=10s=100d and 1s=10d=1/10th/£1 and 1d=1/100th/£1 is what i always had written down in my note book!


I think that 1st edition of Pendragon did use the decimal system. Although I could be confusing it with one of the Steve Jackson Games. I do recall trying to figure out how I could fix it. I must confess that initially I assumed that all of the named coins were in production and not just the penny. So in my game there was a silver mark and a gold noble.

ok well I did some research and lay alot of games so I could have been mixed up yes after posting went home and found where in the books it said the same as what was said here about the currency as far as a messure and the rest got it off a webiste from the uk lol

any wase looks like a rewrite is comming lol

It was 1 Librum = 125 Denarii in the First Edition (Players Book p. 78). After that it changed to 1 Librum = 240 Denarii. (Book of Knights p. 47; KAP 3rd Edition p. 143).