What do people do with respect to the cost of care and upkeep of a second manor?

If through marriage or some other means a player knight acquires a second manor, what are the expenses of that manor? I can easily follow the rules at the back of the BoM as far as events and income for the year are concerned. However, it seems the manor shouldn't necessarily require the same 4L-6L upkeep of the player knight. Surely there is some cost to upkeep of the manor grounds. Might also the player knight's liege lord require some tax of some kind as well? What do others generally do here?

There are essentially three types of manor you get:

Typical manor: most manors you get come with an obligation to supply the landlord (typically, the baron, earl, duke or king) with knights - 1 per manor. So, you get £6 from the manor (assuming average harvest), and pay £4 to support a household knight. (That knight serves you, is part of your army, but when your lord summons you, you are epxected to bring your army along.) You might also need to spend £1 to hire a steward for each of these manors, or your GM might allow you to control them all with your own steward.
Demesne Manor: These are for your own upkeep, and have no further obligation. All the income you get from them, after you pay your own support cost, is profit.
Vassal Manors: If you have many manors, you might gift or grant one to a household knight (or more likely, family member). When you do this, you no longer receive any income from that manor, but you do have a vassal knight you don't need to pay the upkeep for. (Historically, a knight would recieve something extra from the vassal, but the Pendragon economy is simplified - you can tax him, of course, every now and then.)

That helps. Now I have to decide which one to use. :)

That helps. Now I have to decide which one to use. :)


Historically, lords tried to keep as much as possible and enfoef as little as possible.
To become landed was a very, very big deal.

Historically, lords tried to keep as much as possible and enfoef as little as possible.
To become landed was a very, very big deal.


Exactly. I expect the player knight's liege lord to have to approve any move here.

One complicating factor is that due to the narrative of the game the player knight's liege lord (Earl of Hertford) is losing a knight in his army. The player knight is likely to marry the sole surviving family member of one of Earl Hertford's vassal knights, a younger sister. The players deserve some kind of reward here so I don't want to simply have the Earl take ownership of the landholding. Moreover, the player knight has been successfully courting the damsel already and they were considering marriage. I'm thinking of doing something like having the acquired manor support a household knight for either Earl Hertford or the player knight. Profit from the manor would go to the player knight regardless of to which household the new knight was attached. I'll have to consult with the players to figures out whether to go with a player knight household knight or a household knight for the Earl.

Obviously, it's a household knight for the player.

The player has two manors, so he's obliged to provide 2 knights (counting himself). That's the rule. An obligation-free manor is extremely unlikely; the only one who gives that kind of thing out is Arthur.

While an obligation free manor is rare, it's not that rare. There is an example or two of such in the Book of the Manor. I believe those examples are up on Greg's website somewhere. Also, there are several in the Salisbury chapter of KAP - those heiresses have some demesne manors.

But yes, your point is sound. The standard case is that any manors given come with the requirement to support one household knight each. If you don't have a specific campaign reason to do something unusual (like, wanting to make an estate very rich or sought after), do that.

How large can one manor get before it must be subenfoefed? That's part of what I am wrestling with now. I just got BOM (thanks Greg :) ) and I have to read more before I get a handle on this.

I would like to build a website application that has every manor in Britian in it... and each Manor Lord ... and work out the chain of Fealty all the way up...

Unlike the real Doomsday book I won't have to travel all over Britain though.. I will just write a subroutine to autopopulate the Island for me lol

I just have to get a full handle on the variety and scope of each manor... so I know what the boundaries are... Then I can start writing some code :)

It doesn't usually work that way. The manor is an arbitrary unit, and for pendragon purposes, is not divisible. Individual manors in pendragon usually don't grow so big that they could be split up into two manors anyway.

Estates are comprisied of multiple manors, and some of those manors may be subinfeudinated.

Is subinfeudinated a word? ??? ;D

:)

I've seen it spellt (hehe) as subinfeudated and subinfeudinated. Plug both in google, you'll get some legal and scholarly articles that use the terms.

Ah ok... so I guess my question is how large can a manor get? Greg has rules for adding more peasants and expanding fields, but I am just wondering what the physical limits are on t his...

if you start wtih 500 peasants... and you can add 100 a year... what is the limit? There must be a limit... you can't cram 6000 peasants onto your manor like sardines can you? lol

The rule for growth of manors means that the upper limit for a manor is IIRC 2000.
In practice, you'll never reach that in the short lifetime (just under 100 years) of a campaign!

It would actually be interesting to see what a few manors look like by the end of the campaign, that were granted at the start of the campaign. The population could be high (maybe as high as 1000-1500), but more interesting will be the vast number of improvements and investments the manor has.

If a player holds multiple manors do you check for each manor for population expansion (I do in my campaign and ofcourse the knight with 3 manors succeeded in increasing size in all three)?

fg,
Thijs

Did you notice that a manor needs to have a minimum harvest for something like 5 years (can't remember the exact number), before the manor is eligible for an increase?

Yes I think that rule helps keep the manors in subsistence state.. otherwise they will grow like a walmart franchise... lol

Yep, havent had a bad harvest in my game yet.
[Reason: I hand out one meta-token per game that can turn a failure into a success, as a reward to players that perform some out-game extra's like logs and shield-design, the two bad harvest were 'saved' by such a (left-over) token]

fg,
Thijs

How large can one manor get before it must be subenfoefed? That's part of what I am wrestling with now. I just got BOM (thanks Greg :) ) and I have to read more before I get a handle on this.


There is no limit to how large a manor is, but there are some things you ought to know, below.



I would like to build a website application that has every manor in Britian in it... and each Manor Lord ... and work out the chain of Fealty all the way up...

Unlike the real Doomsday book I won't have to travel all over Britain though.. I will just write a subroutine to autopopulate the Island for me lol

I just have to get a full handle on the variety and scope of each manor... so I know what the boundaries are... Then I can start writing some code :)


There are really more than four layers of infeudation:
King
Tenant in Chief
(banneret, comparatively rare)
Knight

Whenever a tenant, a landholder that is, dies, his property is escheated.
A representative of the king steps in and takes over control of the property.
He assess its value, and he reviews the claimants to inherit the property.
Once the heir is established, then the property is revalued, and the liege lord (or king) gets a new tax from it.
The heir must put make a down payment on his relief, and then gets the property.

The key there is in the re-evaluation.
Your profit will likely diminish.

That's not a problem. I am right now reading up on Manorialism... I am trying to get a handle on this.

I want to write up the manors to show all the goods moving through the manor (all of the goods noted in the Book of the Manor appendix).

If I set it up right, I can see how much cash the king gets each winter! lol

I am just trying to figure out right now roughly how many manors would the island have.

There is some notes in the Nobles Book about each Kingdom having a set of shires... with an avg of 400 L income...

That would mean 66 - 6L manors roughly... per shire...

I like the Hydes and Hyrds units from the Nobles book too, i may keep those in ...

The noble's book economy is not superceded so it's not a great guide.

Also, the King and greater nobles have sources of income that aren't manors - mines, forests, cities and trade, etc. So you won't get a complete picture from just the manors. That 400L listed didn't come from all manors - it does have a breakdown to give you an idea of some different income sources.

But that said, don't be discouraged - I'm interested to see what you come up with. I also have a slightly broken version of my own manor/kingdom generator based on Lordly Domains, over here (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/PendragonLand/). I have been promising to fix that for some time - I hope I can find the time.

OK, this is one part of the BOM that has me at a loss.

In the appendix it says that a typical manor

Has 100 Peasant Households
each household produces 100 L in food of their own
There is a 6 L in food demesne that belongs to the knight

But it goes on to list Food that goes in levy to the liege lord, to the manor servants, to the church, and a gift to the knight as well

If the peasants produce 100 F and also eat that 100 F then where does the cash come from to pay the church, the liege lord, and the church?

Is there more Land Farmed to pay for that, or are the peasants just squeezed implicitly every year to cover this extra bit?

I also read in an article on the web yesterday tha England had apprx 5000 - 6000 manors... at least I have a number to build on now. :)

HI Darren. I like what you've done with the land generator.

It looks like a mix of all three books, much like what I was looking at.

The scale is a bit different than I had in mind. I was thinking of writing software that would generate the manors for the whole island, including the chain of command for all of the land holders.

Then the run harvest process would do the whole island... much like a computer game I suppose..

Lots of great details in there though.. Love to see that stuff. :)

Thanks for the positive comments - it does predate the book of the manor: that would have caused me to do it completely differently.

I have thought about a project exactly like that country-wide one, but - aside from the work - I think I'd lose touch with the personal side of it. Players like to manage their own estates, which that tool allows them to, and when I'm using it to manage npc estates, I can do each one in a minute or so, but still be involved and so know what is happening. The vast majority of estates on the island are simply irrelevant to me, until someone of importance - a player or an involved NPC - owns it.

If you do one though, I'd certainly like to see it and try it out - and i know i wouldn't be alone.

Well, I would seek you out for design input before the project got very far...

The BOM ONLY COVERS manors, nothing larger...

I am still looking to fit freemen into the estate somehow...

And the churge, I wanted to add freemen and church lands...

I could build the tool to allow players owning certain estates to manage them directly.. while the others would be automated... you would get a full annual report and could filter out the noise...

Its just a terribly large project... this tool you use alone must have taken a few months to sort out

OK, this is one part of the BOM that has me at a loss.

In the appendix it says that a typical manor

Has 100 Peasant Households
each household produces 100 L in food of their own
There is a 6 L in food demesne that belongs to the knight



You need to reread that bit. THe peaseants produce more than 100L. I think it is 120L, but I don7t have my copy of the BoM with me. So it is something along the lines of:

100L (feeds peasants)
6L (knight)

With the reaming 14L going to the liege, the church, the courts etc.



The underlying theroy with fedual ecominics is that it takes about 9 people working the fields to feed 10 people. So in order to support 1 craftsman, herald, pysician or other non-famrer, you need 8-9 peasants toiling in the fields.

THat is really why the feudal system works the way it does. In order to support a knight, his family, horses, squire, servants, and craftsmen, you end up needing hunbdreeds of pasants to provide a large enough food surplus.

Tehnically, as time goes by, and farming techniques improve, this ratio would go down, and the farming population could support more and more non-farmers.

One of the key advances was the horse collar, a device that allowed horses to be used to plow in place of oxes (horses are stronger and faster). Historcially, the horse collar, crop roation, and the Black Death all combined to allow for a larger segment of the population to do things other than farming.

The BOM ONLY COVERS manors, nothing larger...

I am still looking to fit freemen into the estate somehow...
Church...


I don't want to slow you down, but I am currently tinkering with information useful for such a project.
I cannot say when, but I'll be doing an expanded version of the lands, including manors, estates, private and royal hundreds, forests, renders and taxes, liberties and franchises, and fees of the court.

Here is all I have at the moment.
These are only for the land renders.
I am working on others.



Historic
England

KAP, %
#
% ea
annual income from land rents, largely in food renders


17%
King
25
1
15
£680,000


8%
Royal officers, lesser tenants
0
0
10
Inc. above


25%
Greater Baronage
25
5*
5
£100,000


25%
Baronage
30
100
0.3
£1,000


25%
R Church
10
1
10
£200,000



Brit. Chur
10
60
0.15
£500



All Logres


100%
£4,000,000

You need to reread that bit. THe peaseants produce more than 100L. I think it is 120L, but I don7t have my copy of the BoM with me. So it is something along the lines of:

100L (feeds peasants)
6L (knight)

With the reaming 14L going to the liege, the church, the courts etc.


Well spotted - I remember the £120 figure too.

Well, I would seek you out for design input before the project got very far...


Great! Please do.



Its just a terribly large project... this tool you use alone must have taken a few months to sort out


The vast majority of it was under a month of free time and frenzied obsession.

OK, i see at the end of the appendix it mentions the full income is 120L

At the beginning it said the peasants produce 100 L for themselves from their own lands that the knight will never see... I just wans't sure where the additional 20 comes in

I am just trying to nail down the source

100 Households farming their land (lets say 100 Hydes of farmland) produce 114L
6 Hydes of Demesne land

That makes the full 120.. I can understand this that way... sure

I hate to be so nitpicky about the breakdown, I realise the idea is to ignore this stuff to simplify the accounting, but I am just trying to make some sense of it anyways and it wasn't adding up...

If the 100 households are pulling in 114 L from their own lands that would account for the difference. :)

I don't want to slow you down, but I am currently tinkering with information useful for such a project.
I cannot say when, but I'll be doing an expanded version of the lands, including manors, estates, private and royal hundreds, forests, renders and taxes, liberties and franchises, and fees of the court.

Here is all I have at the moment.
These are only for the land renders.
I am working on others.


Thanks Greg, this helps quite a bit too... I realize this is an ambitious project. i am hoping the use of the computer will make it possible...

There are just so many variables involved here, i certainly understand why you needed to simplify... :)

I have some questions around multiple manors from a player perspective. Part rules question, part history question.

There are three brothers: William (knight vassal), Sir Rhodri (knight vassal), and Brion (squire). Through Fortune, a Duke gifts Sir Rhodri with a manor but if you'll excuse me, "He says he's already got one." He needs to settle a loyal knight there to provide service for the Duke.

I assume that they would choose someone in the family or else the family would never forgive them. Who would you expect to make this decision: Rhodri, as the one gifted the manor, or William as head of the family?

If neither William nor Rhodri had grown children would they pick a brother or an uncle? Would an uncle who already had a place in the household of the earl consider this a promotion, a demotion, or a lateral move?

Thanks!

This is a very interesting question. I'm not sure how historic the following is (some of it is, some of it is just guesswork), but here's what I do.

If Rhodri is given a manor, he doesn't necessarily have to settle a knight there. He can instead manage it directly (through a steward) and use the income to support a household knight. This is by far more likely than giving it to another knight.

There are many of noble blood who qualify for knighthood but for numerous reasons, aren't able to get knighted: usually, they are not heirs, and their family lacks the funds for another knight. By taking one of these men and knighting them, you are doing that family a favour, and this can be used for building alliances. If you have a character who needs a new knight, I'm sure there would be several families angling for your attention and giving you opportunities to get in their good graces (or bad graces in some cases, when you reject them!) This has the drawback that you need to pay for their knighting. (£20-30!)

If there is someone you have your eye on for marriage, and they have a family member in need of knighting - that's a good start towards building that alliance!

Also, there are nobles who qualify for knighthood, and can afford it, but there are only so many places for knights in the kingdom - there may be no-one who can afford to take them on and maintain their upkeep. There may be other factors - the family might have a bad reputation, and after taking on the knight you might find it is deserved! Or the would-be knight or his elder brother might have offended someone powerful and no-one wants to offend him by taking this knight on - great story idea. Either way, in this case, the knight can afford his own knighthood so it is free (apart from the story 'opportunities' that come with him).

There are also knights who had a liege but don't anymore - though knights who have been released from service probably have a big question mark over their character. It might be underserved, since lords in financial straits may dismiss knights (this costs them honour so they don't do it lightly, but also, they'll dismiss the knights they value least or cause them the most trouble). This is an opportunity to get a cheap knight (again, you don't have to pay for their knighting, they have their own gear) but it may come with baggage.

Your lord is beset by lesser nobles offering up their sons and brothers for prestigious posts. Some of them he will want to grant, and so he might encourage you to take on a particular knight or choose from a small selection - in which case, you win favour with your liege and this family, but if you choose someone other than those offered, you lose a little favour with both.

Finally you can knight someone from your own family - in my campaign, I generally discourage this and suggest the above. I do encourage players to send their own brothers to other player knights for knighting - it helps build in-game alliances between them and helps justify why the group stays together after generations, because they have all these family and political ties between them.

So my final suggestion would be: rather than knighting a member of your own family, pick a brother of another player-character and offer him a post as a knight instead.

Through Fortune, a Duke gifts Sir Rhodri with a manor but if you'll excuse me, "He says he's already got one."


You might clarify your question a bit. Why would he turn down the manor at all? Is it a question of divided loyalties between the Duke and his current lord? If so, he can work out a deal in some way that gives precidence to his current lord. That is he couldn't be required to fight for the Duke against is current lord, but he would still be required to provide a knight's service otherwise. This type of arrangement would be historically reasonable.

I suggest he'd take the manor and run it himself, or through a steward. He would then use the $$ to support an additional household knight (say a brother) or just pocket the money and hope he doesn't have to provide knight service to both lords at the same time. Depending on the time period, he could also pay scutage and not provide service.

Oh yes, good catch, Eothar.

If Rhodri is offered a manor (and it's not really an offer - you never refuse) - it has nothing to do with William what he does with it. William can try to bring pressure to bear, or sugegst options, but Rhodri as a landholding knight is his own man (loyalties excepted). In fact, it would be expected that he place his liege before his family, when such conflicts crop up (of course, that isn't always the case - that's what passions are for).

it would be expected that he place his liege before his family


That's generally the idea.

In terms of the household knight and Brion, I think he'd support some other PC's or NPC's brother as a household knight with the expectation that Brion would be given similar support by that knight's kin. As Darren noted, this would strengthen ties and enlarge the Knight's power base. When you need help, it's better your brother + five of his friends are better than just your brother.

This type of relationship is why children were frequently fostered.

Of course, if he criticalled his Love(Family) or Loyalty(Family)--I can't remember which it is--he'd probably settle his younger brother Brion on the manor...just a thought.

An additional thought, if the manor is distant to his current holdings, Rhodri might look to take on an unlanded relative of one of the local knights as his household knight. This would give him a local ally to look after the manor for him to some extent.

You might clarify your question a bit. Why would he turn down the manor at all?
Yes! Sorry to be imprecise.

Rhodri already holds Tisbury Manor through a grant from his liege lord the Earl of Salisbury for which he personally provides one knight's service. Recently the Duke of Lindsey, in gratitude and thanksgiving, gifted Kimber Manor in Lindsey to Rhodri for his lifetime in exchange for one knight's service.

So now Rhodri needs to find a knight to serve Lindsey for Kimber Manor. I didn't mean to suggest that he would refuse the gift, just that he couldn't provide the service to Lindsey personally. Would the knight he pays be considered Rhodri's household knight? Would it be expected that the knight live at Kimber Manor in order to protect it since it is so distant from Rhodri's home manor?

Having two lords sounds like a potential mess. Would it be clear to the Duke that the Earl was still Rhodri's liege lord?

I like your suggestions about building alliances with other knights.

An additional thought, if the manor is distant to his current holdings, Rhodri might look to take on an unlanded relative of one of the local knights as his household knight. This would give him a local ally to look after the manor for him to some extent.


Good idea. The hope would be that the local knight's family would turn out to protect the manor from attack in order to protect their kinsman's place.

So now Rhodri needs to find a knight to serve Lindsey for Kimber Manor. I didn't mean to suggest that he would refuse the gift, just that he couldn't provide the service to Lindsey personally. Would the knight he pays be considered Rhodri's household knight? Would it be expected that the knight live at Kimber Manor in order to protect it since it is so distant from Rhodri's home manor?

In actuality he doesn't pay the knight - he supports him, and the knight becomes his man. So yes, the knight devotes his loyalty to Rhodri, above all others.

Now, however, having suggested that the knight be a household knight, this situation is exactly the sort of case where it might be appropriate to make the land a vassalage. That is, hand the land over to another knight who becomes a landed knight. Because the land is remote, he can't supervise it directly. He can gift it to another knight, rather than grant it - so the knight gets the right to the lands income in return for his loyalty and service, but that gift reverts to Rhodri when the chosen knight dies. (Also, in this case, if the knight is failing to meet his obligations, he can be dismissed and replaced. But that is a big step - very rarely done especially in Pendragon's idealised version of feudalism.)



Having two lords sounds like a potential mess. Would it be clear to the Duke that the Earl was still Rhodri's liege lord?


Having two lords can be tricky, and in some cases, impossible. But it can also be fun (for the GM at least!).

The player knight would need a loyalty to both lords. He has obligations to each: providing counsel, and providing the appropriate number of knights (1 each at present) if called to arms.

If the two lieges get in conflict with each other, he'lll be in an impossible situation - each lord will usually expect him to bring all his knights, and he will probably lose one of the manors (though of course he may be able to win it back later - that's what adventuring is for).

That said, if you want to go easy on the player you could do this:
whenever crossborder marriages occur, it is done with the consent of the two lords in question. So, they may have arranged for that manor to be transferred to Rhodri's liege, along with the dowry (or because of the local customs, this may have been required). So the land is no longer belonging to the duke and so Rhodri holds it from the earl, just like his other manor.
Since this is a gift for lifetime, this does not pose any special problems - the duke knows he'll get it back when rhodri dies.
This way Rhodri does not need a second liege.