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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 533299" data-attributes="member: 5724">Re: beggers?I should preface that im talking about the late middle ages. I always forget to say that....On the resources issue, 8-10 acres of land supports a family of 5 at a subsistance level.  Of that 8-10 acres 40-60% of their product would be taken as taxes/fee/justice by their lord. The lord also usually has 1/4-1/2 of the arable land in the villiage so he's producing, from the labor of he peasants, a surplus.  The lord sells the grain he makes and the grain he taxes for cash to the cities.for a city of 20,000 around 35,000 acres is needed. To generate 35, 000 acres of grain you need around 70,000 acres under cultivation. Roughly 70,000 acres would be cultivated by a population (not just workers here, but kids, old ladies etc.) of 140,000 people. When you're unemployed you beg to eat, when you're erratically employed and not currantly lifting heavy objects you beg to eat. Those are beggers. Concepts of unemployment, and erractic employment are modern ones. In the medieval period there isn't a separation. They are called the "poor" the "wretched" or "beggers". So these numbers do include those groups as you mention.  Also most of the people in cities lived at a subsistance level, so when any economic downturn occured the numbers of poor increased.  Medieval people were used to drastic fluctuations of poverty.[from Cipolla's "Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700" (excellent book, i don't know how many books i read that referenced him so i finally broke down and got it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )Louvain, late 1400's 18% beggersAntwerp, late 1400's 12% beggersHamburg, late 1400's 20% beggers]Some cities were so full of beggers they worried about the beggers rioting. Venice took measure against their beggers and against the boatmen who carried them.In times of famine the number of poor (begger, wretched) soared dramtically in the cities because charity was more available in the cities and hopfully the wealthy had food in storage and they might give it out as charity. 1-5% of household consumption of the "wealthy" was charity.[from cipolla again...Pavia, italy 1555: grain reserves % breakdownmore than 20 bags grain reserve, 2% of families had 45% of reserve grain.  more than 2 less than 20 bags grain reserve, 18% of families had 45% of the reserve grain.Up to two bags grain reserve, 20% of families had 10% of the reserve grain.no bags at all grain reserve, 60% of the families]joe b.</blockquote>

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