I am currently preparing for the Anarchy phase and am trying to get an idea of the political situation by making a coloured territorial map of Salisbury using BoW. I've attached my last ugly attempt to this post.

The lord of each Hundred is indicated in BoW, except for the hundreds of Beautyfields, Boarwood and Milkfield. I'm pretty sure that one of these belongs to the Bishop of Venta and is simply an erratum in the BoW (see p. 95), but the other two are not referenced anywhere. I probably am going to solve the problem by simply inventing two Bannerets to fill the space.

I wonder if anyone else had similar issues, and how others keep an overview over all the lords and their territories?

I am sure other people have had problems
I have actually mostly completed Book of Salisbury which goes so far as to assign every village and hamlet in Salisbury
It's a great example of how intricate and complicated it can get
It has subtractions from the hundreds that are held by other knights, etc.

The book is scheduled to be out after Book of Uther, which will be reelased after some very sercious cleaning up is done on Estate and Warlords to make the values of things correct and the same in both

In the meantime,
Beautyfields; held by the Abbot of Beautyfields (British)
Boarwood; Lord Boarwood (otherwise open, no details for it)
Milkfield; Baron Gentian



I am currently preparing for the Anarchy phase and am trying to get an idea of the political situation by making a coloured territorial map of Salisbury using BoW. I've attached my last ugly attempt to this post.

The lord of each Hundred is indicated in BoW, except for the hundreds of Beautyfields, Boarwood and Milkfield. I'm pretty sure that one of these belongs to the Bishop of Venta and is simply an erratum in the BoW (see p. 95), but the other two are not referenced anywhere. I probably am going to solve the problem by simply inventing two Bannerets to fill the space.

I wonder if anyone else had similar issues, and how others keep an overview over all the lords and their territories?

(while I was typing this, Greg posted. Therefore, please consider this entirely my personal interpretation for the purposes of the campaign that I am running with my group. PAN)

When I ran into these gaps, I referred to the Domesday Book to see if it would give me a hint. Please note that YPCMV (your Pendragon campaign may vary), and that I worked all of this out before the release of the BoW, using information available from Open Domesday http://opendomesday.org/ and the Victoria County History for Wiltshire http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/wiltshire/publications.

In BoW, Beautyfields surrounds Beautyfields Priory. In the Domesday Book, Cannings Hundred was the demesne of the Bishop of Salisbury. He was tenant-in-chief (although King Stephan had his hand in things for a while during the other Anarchy). In my campaign, there is a Bishop of Sarum Cathedral, and he (like the Abbot of Ambrius' Abbey) is one of the Barons of the Robe. However, I felt that Beautyfields was too small to be his demesne. I therefore followed the lead demonstrated for the Abbot of Ambrius, and assigned Beautyfields Hundred to the Abbey of St. Mary at Wilton (i.e. Wilton Abbey). The Abbess holds the hundred from the King, with a priory and shrine at Beautyfields.

Milkfield Hundred roughly equates to Melksham Hundred, a royal demense in the Domesday rolls. Larger and more prosperous than Beautyfields (and therefore more worthy of a Baron of the Robe), I allocated Milkfield to the Bishop of Salisbury. I was also unsuccessful in finding any reference to the tenantcy of Milkfield in the Pendragon literature.

In BoW, p. 12, Boarwood is identified as a Free Manor. AFAIK, it is not allocated to any lord referenced elsewhere in the literature. Boarwood equates approximately to Collingbourne (Ducis), a royal demesne in Kinwardstone. IMKAPC (In my King Arthur Pendragon campaign), Boarwood is one of the King's many hunting manors, located on the edge of Collingbourne Wood/the Forest of Havern (depending upon your reference).

One final point on your map (which is much clearer than anything I've tried to produce) - You have Kingsguard as part of the demesne of the Earl of Salisbury. My research on Kinwardstone Hundred (see the footnote on BoW p. 12) pointed to the hundred also being held directly by the King. Great Bedwyn was certainly so, and it appears that many small parcels of land in Kinwardstone were awarded to what I would call 'petty vassal knights', i.e. a small single manor holding. So in our campaign, Kingsguard is held by a Warden (as so much of the land is Royal Forest) for the King.

Greg,

if there are any areas not held, rather than make up a named banneret, how about putting in the idea that the person could be replaced by a PK who has somehow distinguished himself and become one? If no one does, then it is Sir anybody.

Good work Attila
Very clever and insightful
However, I will go on record here to say that the landholders in Domesday have next to nothing to do with landholders in KAP
It gets very, very complicated that way

-g



(while I was typing this, Greg posted. Therefore, please consider this entirely my personal interpretation for the purposes of the campaign that I am running with my group. PAN)

When I ran into these gaps, I referred to the Domesday Book to see if it would give me a hint. Please note that YPCMV (your Pendragon campaign may vary), and that I worked all of this out before the release of the BoW, using information available from Open Domesday http://opendomesday.org/ and the Victoria County History for Wiltshire http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/wiltshire/publications.

In BoW, Beautyfields surrounds Beautyfields Priory. In the Domesday Book, Cannings Hundred was the demesne of the Bishop of Salisbury. He was tenant-in-chief (although King Stephan had his hand in things for a while during the other Anarchy). In my campaign, there is a Bishop of Sarum Cathedral, and he (like the Abbot of Ambrius' Abbey) is one of the Barons of the Robe. However, I felt that Beautyfields was too small to be his demesne. I therefore followed the lead demonstrated for the Abbot of Ambrius, and assigned Beautyfields Hundred to the Abbey of St. Mary at Wilton (i.e. Wilton Abbey). The Abbess holds the hundred from the King, with a priory and shrine at Beautyfields.

Milkfield Hundred roughly equates to Melksham Hundred, a royal demense in the Domesday rolls. Larger and more prosperous than Beautyfields (and therefore more worthy of a Baron of the Robe), I allocated Milkfield to the Bishop of Salisbury. I was also unsuccessful in finding any reference to the tenantcy of Milkfield in the Pendragon literature.

In BoW, p. 12, Boarwood is identified as a Free Manor. AFAIK, it is not allocated to any lord referenced elsewhere in the literature. Boarwood equates approximately to Collingbourne (Ducis), a royal demesne in Kinwardstone. IMKAPC (In my King Arthur Pendragon campaign), Boarwood is one of the King's many hunting manors, located on the edge of Collingbourne Wood/the Forest of Havern (depending upon your reference).

One final point on your map (which is much clearer than anything I've tried to produce) - You have Kingsguard as part of the demesne of the Earl of Salisbury. My research on Kinwardstone Hundred (see the footnote on BoW p. 12) pointed to the hundred also being held directly by the King. Great Bedwyn was certainly so, and it appears that many small parcels of land in Kinwardstone were awarded to what I would call 'petty vassal knights', i.e. a small single manor holding. So in our campaign, Kingsguard is held by a Warden (as so much of the land is Royal Forest) for the King.

Thanks for the clarification, Greg! I really like the new naming scheme.

I kept my geographical descriptions very abstract so far, partly because I feel it was the Arthurian thing to do, but also because I was too lazy to do the research myself. The new maps in BoW were too beautiful to pass by, though, which is why I'm now trying to get as geographically precise as I can. The upcoming Anarchy in our campaign also seems like the right time to do so. I find the idea of small local conflicts very appealing, and a nice departure from the big politics of the later Uther phase. However, I need to be able to tell the PKs who they'll be facing, and who the rightful owner of which land is.

Attila, I'm impressed by the depth of your research. Personally, I find the Domesday Book too challenging to work with, but I'll give it a try.
Do you happen to have similar material for the hundreds adjascent to Salisbury and would you mind sharing it with the lazy? :)

I forgot that I still have a question: On the Salisbury county map in the back of BoW, there are small thorny tree symbols.

I suppose that these are player manors, and that the tree might represent the PK "family tree". Am I mistaken?

They are hundred moot points. Historically, it wasn't unusual for moots to be held in the open, under a big tree.

We will get around before too long to publishing a legend with all the map symbols on the new maps. We couldn't do it earlier because not all of the symbols had been developed yet. We have a pretty good inventory now...


T.