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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6409023" data-attributes="member: 4937">The big problem with that list is that the proportions are all wrong.  Public buildings probably constitute 1% or less of the buildings in a town or city.  Warehouses again probably constitute less than 1% of buildings - most town won't even have one.  You'll probably only see them in ports that receive goods in large quantities.  Taverns probably constitute less than 2% of all buildings, but when they exist they are someone's home.  Actual period inns and taverns look more like what we think of as bed and breakfasts or boarding houses than hotels and restaurants.  In fact, very commonly they'd be referred to as "public houses" or "pubs".   So real population here could be like 1-20+.   Shops are 90% of the time also households, so uninhabited shops are a small percentage of buildings and not 25% of the total number of shops, and the maximum occupation ought to be the same as standard domiciles.  In fact, if it is a shop keeper, then you are in the educated/skilled class and already in the upper 10% of income (particularly because of guild monopolization).  That is a wealthy residence!  So real numbers might look something like.1 Public Building - 0(?) inhabitants 1 Warehouse - 0(?) inhabitants1 Unoccupied Mill, Craft or Guild Hall - 0(?) inhabitants1 Inn (~6 inhabitants)1 Wealthy Residence (~16 inhabitants)10 Wealthier Merchant Homes/Shops (~8 inhabitants)90 Laborers Homes (~12 inhabitants, usually an extended family covering 3-4 generations, working as teamsters, day servants, crafters assistants, farmers, wood cutters, green sellers, spinsters, etc. generally with multiple incomes per household, including older children)105 buildings = 1182 persons > 9 inhabitants per building.To get that number down you have to note this is primarily an agrarian economy, so there are barns, dove coots, smoke houses, out houses, spring houses, summer kitchens, carriages houses, lumber rooms, and sheds of various sorts with average occupation below 1 and probably near enough to zero not to matter.  (Though can I imagine servants with less desirable jobs, goose girls and swine herds and so forth, are often using them as bed chambers particularly when they can sleep with the animals for warmth.)  Or you might have the numbers slightly lower per household.  Still, I can't imagine those numbers tripling or even doubling the number of buildings in a town, as ownership of those things indicates advancing wealth and status and the vast majority of those buildings are going to be outside the town proper in the more intensive farming areas.  Additional buildings were usually noted in the Doomsday book (because they were valuable for tax purposes).  Not even every rural farm had them, much less within the crowded area of a walled city.And to the extent that we could get those numbers down, we could also go the other way and get numbers up.  That public building could be a barracks, with 40+ inhabitants, or a temple housing a high status priest (a 'bishop' type) with his various servants (a cook and a groundskeeper, certainly), his dependents (an unmarried sister, his young nephew), a bell ringer, various lesser priests (deacons, lectors, cantors, acolytes, etc.), or a temple might house 24 vestal virgins, or a temple might house 40 temple prostitutes, 20 eunuchs, and various priests/priestess and their servants.  A public building might be the mayor's home.</blockquote>

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