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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6512562" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I think your answer is as good as mine frankly. It is surprisingly difficult to come up with any sort of solid information on this kind of thing for the classical period, that's for sure.I don't think it would be literally impossible to purchase any sort of goods. As you pointed out there is almost surely some sort of ale house, probably some level of provision for paying coin for a place to sleep, perhaps an Inn depending on the exact place and time, certainly a modest town will presumably sport some sort of inn unless its in a terribly remote area.Towns had a number of functions, of course including commerce. They served as administrative centers for one thing. You are being a bit obtuse though with this "are you talking about electricity" sort of silliness. What medieval commerce generally lacked was the notion of retail merchandising such as what we have today, or anything close to it. First of all people acquired a lot of things in the form of materials, which they used themselves, or only purchased a very little of specific things (you might buy buttons, but you probably wove and sewed your own clothing, and if you bought cloth it was cloth, not clothing unless you were quite wealthy). Remember how materially poor people were in these times. The King of France had his bed transported in his baggage train from place to place in this time period because there was only one such bed that he could afford to own! If you wanted things in a town you went to the fair (which was in 1100 probably twice a year and maybe not even in your town) or market (for ordinary goods you didn't make yourself) or you went to the guy that produced something and ordered it. If you were lucky he had some on hand. Otherwise if you were out in the boonies then some peddler came buy now and then. I think I'm failing to convey my point well because that's not what I'm talking about. Commonly in D&D you will see GM's inventing towns full of shops where people sell things for coin. That concept is as much out of place in a medieval town, certainly in 1100 AD, as a Roman bath house would be out of place in 21st Century New York City. That doesn't mean there was no commerce or trade. Of course barter works, though truthfully there were fairly sophisticated credit arrangements available even in the year 1000. That's what the Hanse was all about really. Well, I said 'peasant'. Presumably the term 'serf' as it is normally understood describes people in bondage to the land. They might have had some meager wealth, but yes there were Cottars and Villeins and etc. They certainly were not dealing with much cash though, in general. Of course there are always people who are exceptional. Again, its just a common misconception amongst modern people that there would be any kind of cash economy. There was a very elaborate system of tenancy, work obligations, etc which took care of the vast majority of obligations between people in communities. The point being that certainly in smaller communities, it would be hard to come in with cash and buy things. Most things were accounted for, and while you might sell a bit of something and hand some cash over to who you owed the thing to it wasn't the normal way things were handled. I'm not disagreeing with you here. The point I made was that the average return on your work in agriculture in 1100 was about 103% of sustenance. For every 100 serfs you could feed about 3 people beyond them. In good times it could easily be 150%, and in bad times it could easily be 20%, which is when people starved. What did they capture? A couple of very small territories on the coast of Palestine and inland 40 miles to Jerusalem, plus some other small coastal enclaves, all of which were reduced by Saladin etc within a generation. The entire military might of Europe made only that much dent, and then only on a very disunited Islamic world that barely bothered to resist. Yes, significant manpower was raised at first and some gains were made. Nobody is disputing the historical significance either, though it was far more significant in Europe as a wake-up call to how backwards they were than anything else. I think you may be projecting 200 years ahead, which is why I haven't talked about 1300, a rather different time period overall, though some of the same observations might apply to a much lesser extent.Of course trade occurs everywhere. Again, I seem to have conveyed my point poorly. What you don't see in 1100 AD in Europe is the kind of retail merchantile activity that we take for granted today. It was pretty much ENTIRELY absent. The idea of a 'shop' as a retailer of goods simply did not exist in that time and place. Its a very common misconception that is certainly built into the assumptions of D&D generally. If you were to go to hire people or buy the types of goods that PCs regularly try to buy in a medieval European setting you'd find out very quickly that you can't buy labor for coin without all sorts of hoops and obstacles, that you can't just go in and buy ropes and food and other similar goods with coin, etc. You could get those things, but it would take time and require requisitioning them ahead. Arms and armor, good luck. Owning a sword anywhere in those days was highly unusual and trying to buy such things would get you in trouble as fast as trying to buy a machine gun and some hand grenades would here in the US today.</blockquote>

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