How big were the holdings of Barons? Lords?

[S'mon]

In medieval western europe, how large were the lands of the Barons? Lords?

I imagine Counts were several Barons, and Dukes were several counts, but what of the barons...

'Lord' = 'Baron', at least in UK. Although Lord can be used more generically for all titled nobility (eg the House of Lords).

As has been said, it varied a lot, but a baronial holding could be pretty small.

In medieval England:

Barons - a few hundred.
Counts - a few dozen.
Dukes - a few (less than 10 I believe).

Very roughly, in a late medieval population of 1 million you might get about 100 Barons, 10 Counts, and 2 Dukes, give or take. If you parcel land out directly in chunks of population (not really accurate for medieval England) each ranking could have roughly 1/3 of the total population amount.

Eg: population 1 million

333,000 among 100 barons, each gets avg 3,330 (eg several villages).

333,000 among 10 Counts, each gets avg 33,300.

333,000 among 2 Dukes, each gets 166,500.

Of course the lesser nobles may owe allegiance to the greater, or even (historically) vice-versa!

Edit- knights: if a lord has his villages parcelled out to his knights, you can work out how many knights he has based on population of holding. It took a thorpe of about 100 people to support the manor of a landed knight, so holding of 3300 might support 33 land knights. Each knight would be expected to field a banner of 4-6 men-at-arms (ie himself, his sons & brothers, and possibly trained yeomen) in war, enabling a baron to potentially field a force of about 5% the total population of his holding, more if he called up a peasant levy - not a good idea for offensive operations, since they provided the agricultural basis of the demesne.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

My suggestion would be that you simply take the title and decide how much land you want the title of baron to carry with it.

These titles only ever had very vague international definition and very often were observed more in the exception than the rule within a nation.

Thus it would be perfectly in character for you to create your own working definition for the title. Also very accurate to the period considering that places with new/strong monarchs would frequently undergo this sort of regularizing of the system.

The only hard principles I know of were the one already mentioned that baronies held power in their own right and that Duke being derived from the Latin term Dux generally implies a high degree of leadership in its own right. As a result dukes were often directly related to the royal family and nearly always had special administrative and martial duties.

King and Emperor, however, are titles with very specific definitions.

 

[S'mon]

From Latin:
Duke = Dux = Leader
Count = Comes = Companion, I believe.

Earl=Jarl, same as Count in English title system.

Graf = Lord = Count (according to 1e DMG)
Waldgraf= Forest Lord = similar to Baron (1e rates as Viscount)
Margraf (Marquis) = Mark Lord = Border Lord, similar to Duke, above Count

1e DMG rates Duke above Prince, which is wrong if Prince is used as a landholding title rather than just a courtesy title for a king's son. Eg 'Prince of Wales' is a higher title than 'Duke of Cornwall'.

AS has been said, the same title means different things in different countries. In England, holding any title from Baron up meant a good sized landholding and considerable power. In Scotland there were (and are) many more noble titles per area and head of population, so a Scottish Lord would rank below an English one. In Continental Europe many countries had a profligacy of titled nobility, often landless, so that anyone of aristocrat breeding could claim to be a Lord. Fairytales that have parties with dozens of 'lords and ladies' are from this continental paradigm. The equivalent social class in England havemostly not been titled.

 

[Agback]

I suppose if I baseline the sizes at 500 people under a "typical" barony, with total lands about 2500 acres including meadows and forest (widely variable), I'd be okay. Hrm.

No, that's only about one manor. A baron would have to own at least half a dozen of those. And they need not be contiguous, in fact rarely were.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

Re: Re: How big were the holdings of Barons? Lords?

In medieval England:

Barons - a few hundred.
Counts - a few dozen.
Dukes - a few (less than 10 I believe).

I am afraid that these figures are slight overestimates. In England there were no dukes at all until 1337, when the earldom of Cornwall was promoted to a duchy. For 85% of the mediaeval period, the only nobles titles in England were 'lord' and 'earl'. And until Tudor times (ie. the Renaissance) there were only about sixty barons (including both earls and lesser lords) in England.

Originally there were only four dukes in France (Normandy, Brittany, Gascony, and Aquitaine), and six in Germany (Saxony, Lorraine, Thuringia, Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria) and they were practically independent.

Don't get too wrapped up in the formalised hierarchies of titles. They are late, and do not reflect mediaeval realities. For example, in the French system 'marquis' is a higher title than 'comte'. But until 1228 the marquis of Gothia and the Marquis of Septimania were vassals of the Comte of Toulouse. And though 'prince' outranks 'duke' in the English and French systems, 'herzog' (supposedly the equivalent of 'duke') outranks both 'prinz' and 'furst' in the German system. Also, the formal title 'baron' or 'freiherr' was applied categorically, late, and often to people who had idiosyncratic local titles, for example the Captal de Bouch.

The feudal system was not very systematic.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Samnell]

To get an idea how confused it still is (long after this stuff corresponded exactly to political power in most of the effected areas): http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/titlefaq.htm

 

[S'mon]

Re: Re: Re: How big were the holdings of Barons? Lords?

I am afraid that these figures are slight overestimates. In England there were no dukes at all until 1337, when the earldom of Cornwall was promoted to a duchy. For 85% of the mediaeval period, the only nobles titles in England were 'lord' and 'earl'. And until Tudor times (ie. the Renaissance) there were only about sixty barons (including both earls and lesser lords) in England.

OK, I was thinking more 15th century bastard medieval/War of the Roses, since that's more the kind of era reflected in the D&D baseline technology level, Gygax's treatises on precedence in 1e, the prevalence of large cities in most worlds, etc. I thought there were more than 60 barons in this period, but I'm sure you know better than I do.
Of course I'm influenced by the situation in modern England & Wales, where there are about 600 real baronies, nearly 60 counties (although these now have little to do with earls/counts!), several Duchies (Cornwall, York, & Westminster are the ones I can think of), and 1 Principality (Wales).

I think my numbers worked well for the arithmetic on size of a nobles' estate employed later, though, which was more the point of the post - working out 'typical' populations for a notional barony, earldom & duchy.

 

[S'mon]

No, that's only about one manor. A baron would have to own at least half a dozen of those. And they need not be contiguous, in fact rarely were.

Regards,


Agback

A poor Scottish baron might conceivably have only had 500 people in his glen, though.
Of course his levy wouldn't be up to much...

Edit: especially as that would likely include slaves, until late medieval times slavery remained common in Scotland, especially in the Borders AIR.

Edit2: reminds me of how the protagonist in Braveheart more closely resembled Wat Tyler of the Peasant's Revolt than the historical (aristocratic) William Wallace, right down to his plot motivation.