Economics & Small Urban Settings

[taliesin15]

gizmo writes:

in particular the "all gruel" diet that you suppose was the norm. But the best part IMO are the morbidly humorous anecdotes from court records.

Not "all gruel" but mostly gruel seemed to be the norm. In England, the norm seems to be a lot of beer soup. One of several books I have read that talks about gruel to illustrate how poor most Commoners were is an economic study of the Arsenal in Venice, focussed not just on their shipbuilding efforts, but that entire neighborhood.

but the 1 sp/day for labor costs, and the other commodity costs in the 3E PHB don't appear to be boomtown.

That's a really good point. Simply more evidence of the system being skewed both ways.


Quote:
Originally Posted by taliesin15
But for the most part, even in prosperous city states like Venice, most of the Commoners were so poor that they had to subsist on *gruel*.

Perhaps, but are you sure about this?

Considering that what I've read backs this guy's assertions up pretty well, and I consider him more of an expert (considering citations, footnotes, other well-documented research) than I am, I'm pretty certain. "Shipbuilders of the Venetian arsenal : workers and workplace in the preindustrial city,"1991, Davis, Robert C. (Robert Charles), 1948-
Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1991.

I have seen several scholars openly mock as "quaintly romantic" the notion that you seem to believe, that most common people, especially those in larger urban areas, didn't live in abject poverty and squalor. As far as I'm concerned, the onus is more on you to prove that most Commoners lived on better than fare such as gruel and beer soup. I notice, for example, you don't dispute the assertion that most Commoners only had meat on a few particular religious feast days.

BTW, its not like this is only generally true of the "Middle Ages." I'm reading a book on Hellenistic Greece right now, James Davidson's brilliant Courtesans and Fishcakes, which supports these assertions. Most Commoners at best could only afford, if they wanted meat, the smallest sprats and suchlike, and even these they purchased at a dear price considering their poverty. Also, like the medieval peasants, they did get to indulge in meat on a handful of religious feast days.

If the campaign setting that you're suggesting is really a series of isolated thorps,

Wait a minute, where on earth did you come up with that? What I'm talking about is a reflection of Medieval Western Europe, where most of the population lives in small urban settings such as thorps, hamlets, villages and so on. Not just thorps. Not sure where you get that idea. This website is a handy one for designing such a kingdom: http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

then I would think hunting would supplement the diet with a lot more meat than would even be historical. Or perhaps the villagers just abstain from poaching based on the honor system, because a band of sworn foresters that would enforce such laws would also be adversaries for the PC bandits.

NPC bandits. Certainly, many people in rural settings would hunt, that's natural enough, and even more common than that is fishing and trapping. So funny to me people never mention trapping for game and furs.

However, if these are 1st lvl Commoners without very much gear, what would they hunt with? Maybe they could make their own rickety bows, but could they afford 75 gp for a Long Bow? If they could, wouldn't it be easier to just raise chickens?

I think part of the problem is you are overly focussed on the more well-to-do type of Commoner, the one with the relative luxury of a 20-acre farm, many kinds of animals and produce they sell and eat from, for whom a Long Bow is not an unthinkable luxury.

There would be many, many such places within a single day's slow oxcart ride of a central fortified location.

As I said earlier, many (probably about half) of these small settlements would indeed be close to fortified locations, and not primarily for defensive reasons (save in the one dangerous part of the Kingdom), but mainly for economic reasons. So, we're not really talking about those.

I never meant to suggest the "absurd" notion that a school of magic be supported by a single thorp of people, but I'm not sure why that would have be relevant to the discussion anyway. I suggested that if you looked at the population needed to support a knight's fee, and the resources that it represented, that you could determine the equivalent values for a company of rangers.

The problem is there's thousands of small settlements scattered over a vast area. Most of it is relatively peaceful. The closest known Orc/Goblin, etc. tribe, is hundreds of miles away past the mountains to the north, the known passes of which are guarded. FWIW, the Kingdom does have a few things already like what you describe, such as a Wizard's School, a Cleric School, and suchlike, but what I'm talking about is there's so many small settlements so spread out you can't have patrols, etc. close enough to guard them all. The best defense is the weapon in the hands of a strong man or woman.

Or look at it this way - say you've got 95% of the population able support the other 5%. That means 100 commoners could feed 5 rangers. Now maybe a ranger wants to live at 10 times the standard of living of a peasant. That means 200 commoners support a ranger. Could a band of rangers be 10 of them? That's 2000 commoners. In a 10-mile radius area (maybe a three-hour forced march/jog for the rangers) I think you can pretty easily fit 2000 commoners.

So you're saying that a) the King isn't going to mind that all the taxes he would get should be kept by the Commoners to defend themselves how they would and b) there's no system in place of a local constabulary?

The DMG already covers this scheme as I'm suggesting--taxes for the Monarch (or whatever government is in place) and money to fund the local gov't which probably is mainly for the sheriff, local guards, defense, upkeep of local roads, and the like.

I was assuming the Commoners would already be paying something along these lines. Not all that much surplus from 91% of the populace making 1 sp/day.

I guess you could. I thought the goal was to figure out what kind of loot you'd get from a peasant.

No, actually, my goal was to point out how wrong-headedthe "NPC Gear Value" table is, especially in tandem with the GP limit/urban setting. Some kind of thought as to the stratification of the Economic Classes I think would be helpful to the game, and is one reason I refer to the 1st edition of the DMG, as limited as it is to this topic (still better than other versions on this).

First of all, side-stepping suggests something deliberate on my part. I don't really know why you said that, it strikes me as being rude and presumptuous but maybe I've misunderstood what you wrote. I've tried to address your points the best I can.

Forgive me if I seem rude; likewise, I doubt you meant to come across as rude when you suggested that I read books on the topic. Anyhow, I raise the topic of spread out small communities being side-stepped because you continue to come up with defensive arrangements for them that don't make any sense. Do you dispute the notion that in any Medieval-esque setting you're going to have numerous small settlements too far away from patrols etc. to be thus protected? Maybe I've read too many recently published works on the Viking raids and the like...this is partially why I find it fitting. Even more irksome and tiresome is that there's all too little famine, diseases like the plague, slavery, press gangs, prostitution, torture, and other kinds of ugliness in D&D settings, yet were so endemic to the Age it is supposedly based on.

What's "relatively isolated" mean.

I find it troubling we have to define terms considering how prevalent such settlements were in the world, but, hey, let's say more than an hour's horseback ride at top speed.

My general notion is that agricultural settlements will mostly be within a few hours ride of the local market town, for the obvious reasons. If it's a few hours for a farmer and his rickity cart full of produce, then it's a much quicker journey for a motivated patrol of rangers or wizards.

A few hours ride, sure, I would say most of the "relatively isolated" settlements would be something like that. Even though there were garrisons in towns like Ipswich and Colchester didn't stop the Vikings from suddenly showing up in their swift longships on England's eastern coast, take what they wanted, burn the rest, then leave. Or, according to Francis Pryor, in many cases, simply take and arm the small settlements, later on sending for their women and relatives.

The presence of something like a Kirin may have nothing to do with a imminent attack. The amount of such monsters depends on your campaign, but angels, friendly fey, a wise Kirin don't confine themselves to war-torn areas in real world mythology, FWIW.

There certainly are some high level benevolent monsters in the general area, but I should say most of these have their eyes elsewhere, say, on high level intelligent monsters and NPCs in the area as well. They aren't being cruel by neglecting the myriad tiny settlements, as much as doing a greater good by looking out for the greater evil. FWIW, when the PCs (who are of Good alignment) come to this area, one of these high lvl Good monsters is going to suggest the PCs look into these mysterious Thorp raids. The King thinks its the Slavers doing this, and in fact, the Evil party of NPCs is using that as their cover.

 

[gizmo33]

But for the most part, even in prosperous city states like Venice, most of the Commoners were so poor that they had to subsist on *gruel*.

Yea, a prosperous city I suppose doesn't rule out a poor under-class. What this says about the average country peasant I'm not too sure though. The books I've mentioned already break down the living standards and describe, at least in a general way, what the archaeological and documentary evidence is for these notions. As I said, spot checking a few lists of peasant possessions, average number of livestock of each kind owned, etc. might help one to come up with average values for commoners wealth.

I have seen several scholars openly mock as "quaintly romantic" the notion that you seem to believe, that most common people, especially those in larger urban areas, didn't live in abject poverty and squalor.

Well, "believe" is strong language. In any case, there are two sides to this argument, and at least one of those sides thinks it has the archaeology and documents to back up it's picture of life. IMO, all I need to do, for purposes of DnD, is to suggest that a model of economic life, the one described as "quaintly romantic" is at least plausible. I have no reason to take a side in this, or convince myself that the other is wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, the onus is more on you to prove that most Commoners lived on better than fare such as gruel and beer soup. I notice, for example, you don't dispute the assertion that most Commoners only had meat on a few particular religious feast days.

I don't always comment on issues that I think wouldn't be enlightening. The onus is on the OP to make sense out of what I said if he wishes, it's his question, not mine. In this case, I'm not sure what "gruel" means other than a grain-based meal. You're not considering the role that cheese and legumes would play in the diet. I believe one would only have to consult documents that record agreements between lords and hired labor to find the allowances of meat at harvest time. In fact, I recall anecdotes of lords complaining, after the Black Death tilted things in favor of laborers, that laborers would insist that their payment be in the form of cash rather than meat. In any case, we're not talking about eating meat during religious feast days only.

BTW, its not like this is only generally true of the "Middle Ages." I'm reading a book on Hellenistic Greece right now, James Davidson's brilliant Courtesans and Fishcakes, which supports these assertions. Most Commoners at best could only afford, if they wanted meat, the smallest sprats and suchlike, and even these they purchased at a dear price considering their poverty. Also, like the medieval peasants, they did get to indulge in meat on a handful of religious feast days.

Ok, I suppose we can agree to disagree - and I also have nothing to suggest beyond what's plausible, so if you want to argue with other experts on the subject that's cool. There are several reasons I have to be skeptical of the nearly all-grain diet - one is that I don't think it's biologically plausible. The other is that it doesn't really seem to be supported by the rates of livestock ownership that I've seen. Call that data "romantic" if you want, but something tells me that those numbers came from something other than people's imaginations. And the consider the Domesday book (a little early for the period) and other documents provide a substantial amount of demographic information, as far as what typical land-ownership was, and so on. Of course it doesn't answer all questions, but I have to wonder why accusations of "romanticism" would be levelled when the evidence would pretty plainly support one side or the other.

Wait a minute, where on earth did you come up with that?

I think I was responding to your claim that I was suggesting that a single thorpe would support a school of wizardry.

So funny to me people never mention trapping for game and furs.

Those are technical issues - I don't really think much about the difference of pegging a rabbit with a slingstone and catching him in a snare. I call it "hunting" for the purposes of what I was saying.

However, if these are 1st lvl Commoners without very much gear, what would they hunt with? Maybe they could make their own rickety bows, but could they afford 75 gp for a Long Bow? If they could, wouldn't it be easier to just raise chickens?

Well, a longbow was not a noble's weapon IIRC. But true, if you assume the hugely inflated costs for a longbow in the DnD rules then it's not going to be a weapon of commoners IMO either.

I think part of the problem is you are overly focussed on the more well-to-do type of Commoner, the one with the relative luxury of a 20-acre farm, many kinds of animals and produce they sell and eat from, for whom a Long Bow is not an unthinkable luxury.

Well, the basic question that would answer whether or not I'm "overly focused" on a 20-acre owning commoner is how many of them there were relative to the population. The simple demographic statistics would relieve us of having to go back and forth about generalities.

The problem is there's thousands of small settlements scattered over a vast area. Most of it is relatively peaceful. The closest known Orc/Goblin, etc. tribe, is hundreds of miles away past the mountains to the north, the known passes of which are guarded. FWIW, the Kingdom does have a few things already like what you describe, such as a Wizard's School, a Cleric School, and suchlike, but what I'm talking about is there's so many small settlements so spread out you can't have patrols, etc. close enough to guard them all. The best defense is the weapon in the hands of a strong man or woman.

Well, as best as I can follow what you're saying here, we don't have an issue. It seems a little paradoxical that a sparsely settled area would be relatively peaceful, especially in a DnD type world where the wilderness areas tend to be the abode of monsters. It seems equally paradoxical that poverty as a result of overpopulation would exist in a sparsely settled place. Otherwise, I would agree that the natural surplus of the area you describe would not support something like a wizard's school.

So you're saying that a) the King isn't going to mind that all the taxes he would get should be kept by the Commoners to defend themselves how they would and b) there's no system in place of a local constabulary?

I'm not saying anything for or against "taxes". That depends on the governing structure you're imagining. The band of rangers may owe the king military service for 40 days a year in return for being granted the manor-holdings represented by the 2000 peasants. The king has his own demense for income, and whether or not a poll-tax, market taxes, or some other thing gives the king extra revenue I guess depends on the campaign. IMO, crunching the numbers on how many people a 10-mile radius area supports speaks for itself - the numbers I used were extremely conservative.

I was assuming the Commoners would already be paying something along these lines. Not all that much surplus from 91% of the populace making 1 sp/day.

I would assert that only the poorest of the peasants makes 1 sp/day, and that those peasants make up no more than 20% of the rural population. Granted, I have not proven that assertion but that's the context in which I am operating. Again, statistics on the actual demographics would settle the issue.

Forgive me if I seem rude; likewise, I doubt you meant to come across as rude when you suggested that I read books on the topic.

Your statement following the "likewise" part of the sentence does not match the premise AFAICT. In any case, I think your doubts are well-founded.

Anyhow, I raise the topic of spread out small communities being side-stepped because you continue to come up with defensive arrangements for them that don't make any sense.

Not making sense out of something is subtly different from a statement not making sense. I'll try to describe the ideas more completely.

Do you dispute the notion that in any Medieval-esque setting you're going to have numerous small settlements too far away from patrols etc. to be thus protected? Maybe I've read too many recently published works on the Viking raids and the like...this is partially why I find it fitting. Even more irksome and tiresome is that there's all too little famine, diseases like the plague, slavery, press gangs, prostitution, torture, and other kinds of ugliness in D&D settings, yet were so endemic to the Age it is supposedly based on.

First - no I don't dispute that centralized patrols would not form the basis of protection for an area. I refer you to earlier posts where I said that (I think). But I've already described that given sufficient population densities, protective fortifications would exist within close reach. The viking example that you give IMO is a very specialized case of probably the most lop-sided technological advantage that "bandits" had in the period. If, for example, evil PCs have invisibility and teleport and none of the defenders had counter-measures, then things could go badly. The effectiveness with which local forces will be able to respond to PC depredations will depend on factors that I don't know. The various other things that we've discussed, like whether or not a thorpe's worth of people can dig a ditch around their homes, doesn't really speak to whether that ditch will be an effective defense against the particular technologies of their enemies.

I find it troubling we have to define terms considering how prevalent such settlements were in the world, but, hey, let's say more than an hour's horseback ride at top speed.

I don't think it would be troubling to define the core parameters that would take this out of the realm of vague generalization and into that of some hard and fast statistics.

They aren't being cruel by neglecting the myriad tiny settlements, as much as doing a greater good by looking out for the greater evil.

I'm not suggesting anyone is being cruel. Many of the monsters may have a personality, like brownies or other chaotic fey, where they would not necessarily journey to the hot-spots of the good vs. evil conflict, but instead be content to watch over the locals in return for food offerings or whatever. (Yes, something besides gruel. ) If, as the DM, you want to make this a problem for PCs, then I think it's understandable that you keep this sort of NPC help to a minimum, but this is gamist, and not simulationist, thinking.

 

[taliesin15]

gizmo writes

Yea, a prosperous city I suppose doesn't rule out a poor under-class. What this says about the average country peasant I'm not too sure though. As I said, spot checking a few lists of peasant possessions, average number of livestock of each kind owned, etc. might help one to come up with average values for commoners wealth.

One thing I will give you on this is most books I've read have suggested that the lower classes do tend to eat better if they are farmers in a rural setting. However, some point out that after the Norman Conquest (most of the books I've read are on England), the feudal system was set up so that the Lord of the Manor took much of the surplus, even having the right to deflower virgin young women before their wedding night (to me that's monstrous no matter how you cut it, tantamount to rape). And, as we've both alluded to, after the Black Plague, things did get a bit better for the peasants.

But my impression is the gruel diet was not because the Commoners were living in prosperous cities, but because they were in cities, period. I have the distinct impression the author's point in the Venice Arsenal book (supported by some other books on Venice I've read) is that there were still very poor Commoners there *despite the fact* they were living in one of the most prosperous cities in Europe at the time.

Well, "believe" is strong language. In any case, there are two sides to this argument, and at least one of those sides thinks it has the archaeology and documents to back up it's picture of life. IMO, all I need to do, for purposes of DnD, is to suggest that a model of economic life, the one described as "quaintly romantic" is at least plausible. I have no reason to take a side in this, or convince myself that the other is wrong.

I think the "quaintly romantic" comment was more directed to people with extremely wrong-headed ideas, you are much more reasonable and informed than these kinds of people. Here's a quick example on another sort of forum altogether: a group of people were trying to assert that within 50 years of Gutenberg, peasants all over Europe were buying books (octavo sized, as popularized by Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius). I'm sure I need say no more.

In this case, I'm not sure what "gruel" means other than a grain-based meal. You're not considering the role that cheese and legumes would play in the diet.

From what I recall, the gruel was indeed grain-based, though sometimes enhanced with suet and even lesser desired offal cuts. But these were very meager, according to sources I read. So, the diet was not entirely without protein. Legumes too were used, and cheese & other dairy, though to a much lesser extent.

FWIW, I seem to recall that many books on medieval England (one in particular mainly about the context behind Piers Plowman) assert that the main alcoholic beverage of the lower classes was Cider--but Ale was widely consumed too. I'm sure you already know that it was common that a large pint of cider or ale was imbibed at lunch. And of course that many monks drank throughout the day.

I believe one would only have to consult documents that record agreements between lords and hired labor to find the allowances of meat at harvest time. In fact, I recall anecdotes of lords complaining, after the Black Death tilted things in favor of laborers, that laborers would insist that their payment be in the form of cash rather than meat. In any case, we're not talking about eating meat during religious feast days only.

Well, I've seen that asserted so many times that I am left to wonder if you're not describing more well-to-do Commoners, and I'm describing the lowest of the low, the sort of people so desperate that they easily flocked to the banner of Wat Tyler. Or easily joined in on Viking raids because the harvests were so poor in Scandanavia.

In any case, I think we're still in some general agreement on the main point, right, that 1st lvl Commoners would not generally have 900 gp in Gear Value?

There are several reasons I have to be skeptical of the nearly all-grain diet - one is that I don't think it's biologically plausible.

I think that's at the heart of the issue here--I myself was never under the impression that is was an all-grain diet, more that it was a rather sickening-sounding, nasty-tasting, not very appetizing one. The book on Venice I cited before makes it clear that the meats Commoners ate on religious feast days were things like roast joints of pork, mutton and beef--not a thin pasty soup with a lot of fat. As a professional chef, one of my interests is historical cuisine, and one of the trends I see right now is a resurgence in interest in slow food, and in many parts of Western Europe, this traditionally means offal and "lesser cuts" that take longer to do right. In other words, people had to really learn to cook. However, I get the distinct impression that this kind of cooking really starts among the Commoners in the 17th Century. Anthony Bourdain has some interesting comments on this in his episode on Paris.

The other is that it doesn't really seem to be supported by the rates of livestock ownership that I've seen. Call that data "romantic" if you want, but something tells me that those numbers came from something other than people's imaginations. And the consider the Domesday book (a little early for the period) and other documents provide a substantial amount of demographic information, as far as what typical land-ownership was, and so on. Of course it doesn't answer all questions, but I have to wonder why accusations of "romanticism" would be levelled when the evidence would pretty plainly support one side or the other.

That's a fair point, though I've always understood that all those people with a bit of land and livestock were more of the well-to-do sort of Commoner. Those with milk cows and chickens could afford to feed their growing family, not to mention grow peas and other legumes in their kitchen garden. See, I really don't think we're that far apart here. Maybe by comparison would be to look at the Indian caste system, look at the "untouchables" and the classes right above them?

Those are technical issues - I don't really think much about the difference of pegging a rabbit with a slingstone and catching him in a snare. I call it "hunting" for the purposes of what I was saying.

Fair enough. I'm suggesting though that trapping and fishing might be easier for those at the lowest end of the economic scale, these folks don't have to spring 75 gp for a Long Bow.

Well, a longbow was not a noble's weapon IIRC. But true, if you assume the hugely inflated costs for a longbow in the DnD rules then it's not going to be a weapon of commoners IMO either.

Don't you think it a bit funny that the payscale for Commoners doesn't reflect a "boomtown" economy, but the price for LongBows does? That's exactly the sort of thing that made me question "NPC Gear Value" vis a vis the "GP limit" in the first place--inconsistencies in the suggested economics in the game in the first place. And, did you see my earlier remark about Scythes? A Scythe costs more than a Long Sword?!

Well, the basic question that would answer whether or not I'm "overly focused" on a 20-acre owning commoner is how many of them there were relative to the population. The simple demographic statistics would relieve us of having to go back and forth about generalities.

You know, that's a very salient point. Anytime there's some kind of intelligent guidance in the DMG (whether TSR or WoTC) on developing urban settings and societies more generally in one's campaign milieu, I greatly appreciate it. That said, I am more often dissapointed. As always, its up to the DM. But, hey, at least we do have this forum, where we can break this down and be of some service, even if its just the two of us helping each other.

Well, as best as I can follow what you're saying here, we don't have an issue.

Especially that we've sorted out the "gruel issue"!

It seems a little paradoxical that a sparsely settled area would be relatively peaceful, especially in a DnD type world where the wilderness areas tend to be the abode of monsters.

The way I tend to handle these kinds of areas is that the main threats would come from wolves and wildcats (apparently there was something akin to the mountain lion or cougar in Western European forests, now all but extinct). On occasion, you do have the odd small band of marauding hobgoblins, pair of ogres, or abomination like an Ankheg or Owlbear. My assumption is that Kingdoms such as I have described have generally been scoured of "monsters," but naturally some might "move into the cleared hex square" (Ist edition DMG paraphrase), and as a side note, most of the Kings have verbal agreements with the very powerful Druids not to perpetrate genocide on natural predators (though killing a wolf who is directly posing a threat to a village's livestock is another matter altogether). Do you still think this is paradoxical?

It seems equally paradoxical that poverty as a result of overpopulation would exist in a sparsely settled place.

I'm suggesting that the sparsely settled areas would be outlying farm and ranch areas (some mining & timber) that have been settled in recent generations, a reflection of a growing Kingdom, that initially started along several major river valleys and in a naturally protected bay on the coast, and has slowly started to expand outwards into was once wilderness, now "safer" because the King's Men cleared those areas of "monsters" (again magical beasts, aberrations and the like). This expansion is itself the result of overpopulation (or surplus population) in already settled areas, or as some may put it, ambition, gumption and determination to make one's own way in some kind of pioneer spirit.

I'm not saying anything for or against "taxes". That depends on the governing structure you're imagining. The band of rangers may owe the king military service for 40 days a year in return for being granted the manor-holdings represented by the 2000 peasants.

FWIW, the system I have provides some of the taxes, polls, etc. for the King, and some for local sheriffs/soldiers. The King employs two kind of Rangers, one group more of a low to mid level routine patrolling force (which also employs a mobile force of low lvl Warriors), and high lvl Elite, almost "Special Forces," group of Rangers that she jointly funds and shares with the Queen of the Elves to the north. They do things like investigate reports that there's a Red Dragon hanging out in the mountains.

I would assert that only the poorest of the peasants makes 1 sp/day, and that those peasants make up no more than 20% of the rural population. Granted, I have not proven that assertion but that's the context in which I am operating. Again, statistics on the actual demographics would settle the issue.

I think we're entirely in agreement on this.

The viking example that you give IMO is a very specialized case of probably the most lop-sided technological advantage that "bandits" had in the period.

Good point there. Perhaps second to this would be the mobile force of Genghis Khan's horsemen? Or maybe that would be first...

If, for example, evil PCs have invisibility and teleport and none of the defenders had counter-measures, then things could go badly. The effectiveness with which local forces will be able to respond to PC depredations will depend on factors that I don't know. The various other things that we've discussed, like whether or not a thorpe's worth of people can dig a ditch around their homes, doesn't really speak to whether that ditch will be an effective defense against the particular technologies of their enemies.

Certainly reasonable concerns. I do think even given our consensus that most Commoners would not have 900 gp worth of gear (I'm thinking 50 to 200 gp at most would be more realistic; that, entirely aside from land and livestock), thorps still have a fair amount of wealth and not that much defense. And its interesting to compare and contrast with Humanoid lairs, given especially that every adult humanoid is armed to the teeth.

I don't think it would be troubling to define the core parameters that would take this out of the realm of vague generalization and into that of some hard and fast statistics.

Well, let's discuss the specific. An hour's ride on a horse at top speed. That's what I'm considering relatively isolated. An organized hit and run would have to take such facts into consideration, and they want to hit fast and with surprise on their side, and get out. Fast.

Many of the monsters may have a personality, like brownies or other chaotic fey, where they would not necessarily journey to the hot-spots of the good vs. evil conflict, but instead be content to watch over the locals in return for food offerings or whatever. (Yes, something besides gruel. )

LOL!!! Grumgarr want fairy cakes!

If, as the DM, you want to make this a problem for PCs, then I think it's understandable that you keep this sort of NPC help to a minimum, but this is gamist, and not simulationist, thinking.

On the one hand, I'm trying to come up with an original challenge for the PCs--who is knocking off Thorps in the Kingdom, is it the Slavers? Etc. But my primary goal here was to point out what I saw as inconsistencies, and try to see what other people thought beyond the obvious "its up to the DM to figure out."

 

[gizmo33]

Ok, now that I'm home I can actually skim through the library - I'm looking at "Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages" by Christopher Dyer. The first thing that I notice in the chapter on Peasant Living Standards is that all three of his sample peasants own animals - even the poor cottar in his third example has a pet cow that the family uses for cheese. The size of tenant holdings for a sample court roll is given on page 119 - 23% of free and 26% of serfs have 30 acres or more of land - those are at the top of the scale. About half of free and 30% of serfs have under 8 acres. However, later pages go on to describe one historian's speculation (for which he outlines the evidence, but I haven't read the details) that the poorest peasants were working (leasing?) land in other manors and villages.

So for ease of calculation I would say that 1/3 of peasants have 5 acres, 1/3 peasants have 15 acres, and 1/3 peasants have 30 acres.

Later on there is a chart showing the number of animals per tax-payer/tenant. 4 categories: horses/oxen, cattle, sheep, and pigs. There are four different regions given, I don't know if these are all roughly near each other or not. The average for horses in oxen is lowest at 1.0 for one of the regions, and sheep are the most numerous animal with 6.2 being the minimum for one of the regions, where the average is 2.35 for oxen/horses.

As I've hinted at, I've ingested more of the conclusion from these things rather than having the figures in my head. The mirror image argument of the "romantic" accusations (which I've also seen) is that some historians from an earlier time had a political agenda in wanting to present the middle ages as backwards and barbaric as possible, in order to discredit the aristocracy and the Catholic church due to more contemporary political issues. So either side can describe less-than-honorable motives for the other, that's why I choose to look to the data and reasoning and try to avoid the generalizations where possible.

On that subject, the two best known "urban legends" (or are they?) regarding the Middle Ages are the "jus prima nocte" (sp?) thing and the "spices used to disguise the taste of rotting meat" story. Both legends can be possibly attributed to the sort of "bias" described in the earlier paragraph. Wiki describes the objections to the first - and what I've read there matches what I've read in other places. So what you understandably describe as repulsive may in fact just be a slur invented by opponents of the aristocracy in later periods - but there are some interesting lines of reasoning on that subject.

In any case, I hope this helps flesh out some ideas of a plausible demographic for a campaign - granted I just spent a few minutes flipping through on of my books so that's hardly scientific. There's a section in the book on the "urban economy", when I get a chance I'll read it and see if it matches what you're describing for Venice. Who knows, Venice could have been very hard on it's lower class - the idea that a peasant escaped from serfdom in the countryside to find himself a wage-slave in the city has a certain familiar ring to it.

 

[gizmo33]

Here's a quick example on another sort of forum altogether: a group of people were trying to assert that within 50 years of Gutenberg, peasants all over Europe were buying books (octavo sized, as popularized by Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius). I'm sure I need say no more.

I would think a generalization like "peasants all over Europe" would require a more rigorous definition before one could have an opinion for or against. "Peasant" is usually meant as a social class, and peasants were sometimes rich beyond their station. There is an account somewhere recently that a peasant bragged that he lent his lord money in one instance, so I would think that at least *some* peasants did buy books, especially after they were printed.

Legumes too were used, and cheese & other dairy, though to a much lesser extent.

FWIW I recall that cheese was looked down on by the aristocracy as peasant food. (Obviously it's reputation has improved in modern times.)

FWIW, I seem to recall that many books on medieval England (one in particular mainly about the context behind Piers Plowman) assert that the main alcoholic beverage of the lower classes was Cider--but Ale was widely consumed too. I'm sure you already know that it was common that a large pint of cider or ale was imbibed at lunch. And of course that many monks drank throughout the day.

Piers Plowman, IIRC is a particularly grim portrait of the period and those on the "romantic" side of things will insinuate that the author had a particular political axe to grind and an interest in showing things in a harsh light. "Glass half empty" doesn't mean that it isn't though.

Well, I've seen that asserted so many times that I am left to wonder if you're not describing more well-to-do Commoners, and I'm describing the lowest of the low, the sort of people so desperate that they easily flocked to the banner of Wat Tyler. Or easily joined in on Viking raids because the harvests were so poor in Scandanavia.

Hopefully my demographics in the above post might help to clarify all of this. At the risk of biting off more than I can chew, my impression was that those from Scandanavia who went viking were actually rich.

In any case, I think we're still in some general agreement on the main point, right, that 1st lvl Commoners would not generally have 900 gp in Gear Value?

Yes, on gamist grounds alone - and if commoners did have 900 gp on the average, then the monsters and humanoids that preyed upon them would be correspondingly richer. As I said, the best technique I think is to have the total value of portable goods be set equal to the commoner's EL-appropriate treasure value - and then supply the details (proportion of livestock to tools, types of tools, etc.) from historical sources - although I try to incorporate and element of fantasy as well.

Maybe by comparison would be to look at the Indian caste system, look at the "untouchables" and the classes right above them?

I'm not sure how the untouchables work or compare to cottars.

Don't you think it a bit funny that the payscale for Commoners doesn't reflect a "boomtown" economy, but the price for LongBows does? That's exactly the sort of thing that made me question "NPC Gear Value" vis a vis the "GP limit" in the first place--inconsistencies in the suggested economics in the game in the first place. And, did you see my earlier remark about Scythes? A Scythe costs more than a Long Sword?!

IMO nobody has really done any work in this area because the core DnD experience doesn't really care about these factors. Exhibit A is the fact that you and I are the only ones discussing this. I just don't think TSR/WoTC gave much thought to it, and examing the rules it appears that prices were migrated forward through editions, with a small proportion made up from scratch with every edition of DnD until you get the mis-mash that is the current system.

Yea, if by "scythe" you mean the farming tool, then it's completely weird. My reasoning for 3E was to create a set of iron non-military scythes and axes sold for more reasonable prices. Then I described the Scythe in the PHB as a superior steel one used for war by the druids, not by peasants for their fields - at least IMC. There's a D20 book (something like "Stone to Steel") that discusses various weapon materials (like iron, copper, etc.) for different historical time periods with various DnD stats given.

Do you still think this is paradoxical?

No, not in itself. I was referring to the poverty/population density issue. I will advocate here on behalf of fantasy and propose that you could consider that many "monsters" within the game could fill the same ecological niche as a wolf or wild-cat, but that's entirely dependant on the magic-level of the campaign. I personally try to force myself to add more fantasy just because I have a tendency to be too mundane in my first designs. IMO it helps me to read folktales and such as well as history to really put myself in the mind of the more imaginative inhabitants of the period.

Good point there. Perhaps second to this would be the mobile force of Genghis Khan's horsemen? Or maybe that would be first...

I would equate the Mongols with the Roman legions and not really class them as a "bandit threat". Then again I might be being unfair to the vikings - obvious examples of their settlement (Danelaw, Normandy, Dublin etc.) noted.

Well, let's discuss the specific. An hour's ride on a horse at top speed. That's what I'm considering relatively isolated. An organized hit and run would have to take such facts into consideration, and they want to hit fast and with surprise on their side, and get out. Fast.

IMC a mid level party would pretty easily destroy a thorpe. Then again, they'd get an uninspiring amount of treasure for their efforts. What I'd really concentrate on is the follow-up. A region on hightened alert would be extremely wary of strangers (and would be normally wary historically) and bands of armed persons spotted wandering through the fields would raise an alarm. It may take several days of tracking but I would expect the real confrontation with the evil PCs would occur several days after the burning of their first thorpe.

On the one hand, I'm trying to come up with an original challenge for the PCs--who is knocking off Thorps in the Kingdom, is it the Slavers? Etc. But my primary goal here was to point out what I saw as inconsistencies, and try to see what other people thought beyond the obvious "its up to the DM to figure out."

I really think it is up to the DM to figure it out though - I think WotC has focused on other areas of adventure. For a long time, actual history has really not been of interest to the designers of DnD the way that you see glimpses of it in the 1E DMG. A much more gamist, and less simulationist philosophy has been the norm, so I wouldn't expect much from that quarter.

Final thoughts - there are the 3E demographics that if you take a certain perspective on will give you a high level person every once-in-a-while living within thorpe - maybe a high level cleric that has retreated to the solitude of a small church in the countryside. (There's an old Dragon article that goes into detail on this). Also, since you appear to have been a 1E gamer at some point, then I would also point out Village of Hommlet (which you probably own and have already thought of). The occasional odd-balls that appear in that roster of "peasants" is inspirational for me to throw in such characters in my villages as well. All-in-all, I find as a general rule (not just with village-dungeons) that all it takes is a little bit of strangeness to keep the players on their toes and anxious about what they're doing. I really can't recommend brownies enough

 

[Treebore]

You know why chickens were kept as pets in so much of Europe, including Russia?

They ate bugs from almost invisible to the naked eye up to huge beetles. They eat young mice. They laid eggs. Eggs.

Personally I prefer Ducks. They are fly/bug/beetle eating machines and eat even adult mice and young rats. Plus their eggs are very, very protein rich. Of course I am talking truly "free ranged" birds. Not the farm fed corn and seed eating varieties you get from Tyson and egg producers.

I am talking like I raise, and what was raised in the old days. Live stock that primarily feeds itself and is only provided grains when the insects are in short supply, IE the winter months.


Give a poor family about 6 good egg laying hens and they will eat very well in terms of meat and protein.

BTW, in the old days people in the cities kept chickens too. IT wasn't just a farm thing.

However, it was certainly much easier to keep and feed chickens/ducks out in the country side.

So when I read the great experts on history I see great gaping holes in many of their assumptions because of their lack of knowledge about farming and the keeping of livestock, especially within the confines of a city.

I do agree that the poor were very poor. I do agree a big percentage survived on "gruel". Now as to what the gruel was, that I think is largely open to a wide range of things. Since it certainly wasn't the top grade of foods that the rich would have eaten, the rich likely called it gruel, no mater what the actual contents were. Whatever it was the rich thought it was disgusting, and just used the word gruel to describe it instead of "That disgusting trash the poor peasants eat."

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

IMO nobody has really done any work in this area because the core DnD experience doesn't really care about these factors. Exhibit A is the fact that you and I are the only ones discussing this.

Doesn't mean there aren't people keeping an eye on the thread.

And gizmo is closer to the right track on demographics and the condition of rural peasantry. Urban commoners were generally worse of in living conditions and diet than their rural counterparts during the time period in question. Take a good long look at the domesday book if you want to get some better ideas of exact figures. Far as it goes Plowman has a major political axe to grind and it skews his writings on the period, same reason there are subjects I don't write about. You can't really keep it from leaking out into the paper even if you're attempting to be impartial. I don't generally recommend his books.

Most rural peasants held a bit less than a half-virgate of land on average. With fewer in the ends of the spectrum. The cotters then made up partially for their lack of land via a combination of working the lands of other peasants and working for the lord. They were still the poorest of village populations but not so bad as if relying solely on their land.

Personally as much press as the middle ages get I tend to model most campaign settings on the Bronze Age instead. Most of my campaign settings are very harsh PoL situations. Kind of like crunching a deathmetal album, a Frazetta painting, and a Space Marine novel together with the Illiad.

 

[gizmo33]

So when I read the great experts on history I see great gaping holes in many of their assumptions because of their lack of knowledge about farming and the keeping of livestock, especially within the confines of a city.

The evidence of chickens is there in the books I have - I recall a comment made about how eggs were a staple for the recipes in the cookbooks of the upper classes, eggs and chickens were the form of many customary rent agreements with lords. In fact, in the section dealing with the average livestock ownership, I believe a comment was made that stats on chickens were impossible to keep because it wasn't as nearly as well documented. Livestock is pretty common in urban areas AFAIK because there isn't such a distinction between urban and rural - most of the anecdotes involves pigs that I recall.

So I hope you aren't too hard on the "great experts on history" - especially since space doesn't really permit me to give you a full accounting of every possible bit of useful information for the subject. I'd be curious, if your basing your "great gaping holes statement" on stuff you've read, which books you suspect present a less-than-complete picture. The books I have have been pretty good about spelling out their sources of information, and outlining some of the possible shortcomings as a result (ex. - they would point out why the proportion of illegal venison that was consumed was difficult/impossible to acertain from the archaeology because of the likelihood that deer were stripped of their meat out in the woods and so the bones would not be found in village trash-heaps)

The best historians IMO are pretty good about knowing what it is that they don't know. I've been selecting out snippets based on what I thought would help.

Also - an effort has been made to gather statistics about the details of farming in some cases - using the technology of the period where possible. This is gone into in a little detail in my "Daily Life on the English Manor" book - but the details involve studies and historians and things that I'm not familiar with. One would hope that a percentage of historians grew up on farms and could lend their experiences to the peer-reviewed conclusions in the field.

 

[gizmo33]

Doesn't mean there aren't people keeping an eye on the thread.

Ok, thanks for the warning.

Most rural peasants held a bit less than a half-virgate of land on average. With fewer in the ends of the spectrum. The cotters then made up partially for their lack of land via a combination of working the lands of other peasants and working for the lord. They were still the poorest of village populations but not so bad as if relying solely on their land.

A challenge that my quoted source pointed out was that the acres owned by cottars were difficult to pin down because of the suspicion that some of them were keeping land in other locations. You would think this would cause major problems if a serf were sharing his fealty between more than one lord - but perhaps the cottar was renting the land from a wealthy freeman and so still only owed the customary feudal duties to one lord. Still, if your "half-virgate" estimate, reasonably consistent with what I have AFAICT, is based on a source that discusses these caveats I'd be curious to see how it handled them.

Most of my campaign settings are very harsh PoL situations. Kind of like crunching a deathmetal album, a Frazetta painting, and a Space Marine novel together with the Illiad.

Sounds like a great product review on the back of a module. I mix enough magic and Conan-esque anachronisms in my campaign so the result is not so dreary as straight 1300 AD history would be.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

A challenge that my quoted source pointed out was that the acres owned by cottars were difficult to pin down because of the suspicion that some of them were keeping land in other locations. You would think this would cause major problems if a serf were sharing his fealty between more than one lord - but perhaps the cottar was renting the land from a wealthy freeman and so still only owed the customary feudal duties to one lord. Still, if your "half-virgate" estimate, reasonably consistent with what I have AFAICT, is based on a source that discusses these caveats I'd be curious to see how it handled them.

The cotter land issue is one of those difficult to pin down concerns. Contemporary sources such as the domesday book were largely concerned with the manor as a tax source. And the nobles themselves were mostly concerned with making up the taxes they were going to have to send out from those who held land from them. So lands being rented between commoners never really show up in the contemporary record. Because the ones keeping written records were only concerned that the commoner who was directly beholden to the noble paid out. They definitely would have kept track of such things, but it only mattered to them that they got the money from the end of the chain not the individual links.

EDIT: You can get some bits and pieces from contemporary court records but those are kind of sparse and concentrated around a few sources.