Filthy Rich Burghers

[L. Marcus]

. . . I feel that I have asked a lot of questions lately . . .

And here's another one: In your opinion, how many individuals in a city of, say, fifteen to thirty thousand has the Perks Wealthy and Filty Rich? Assume a S&S campaign that tries to be a bit on the realistic side, a coastal city with good trade connections, and late bronze age or early iron age technology.

[arcady]

Probably three.

Also, I know DnD likes those small cities, but historically they're not really realistic. DnD seems to have based its numbers on the height of the black plague in only England as if it was some kind of norm.


15,000 is about half the size of my college campus, and that fit within a 2 block square radius with plenty of open space.

Classicial cities were often only a mile or two square, but they were also very concentrated (dense) and a lot more populous than in DnD. If you're working coastal trade cities, I'd look at population figures for Italy, Byzantine Empire, Greece, or Spain and not England.

[Duke Bushido]

Probably three.

Also, I know DnD likes those small cities, but historically they're not really realistic. DnD seems to have based its numbers on the height of the black plague in only England as if it was some kind of norm.


Well, they like fairies, elves, were-thingies, fire balls, change self, and lots of other things, too. Few, I think, are historically verifiable. :D

No, not being a jerk-- not in my nature.

I would just like to take a minute to suggest that D&D is based entirely on the fiction of the genre, and not on any particular time period, or for that matter-- any kind of reality at all.

And perhaps it's the American in me, with the American fond remembrance of the adventures of a wild and unsettled frontier (most of which, coincidentally enough, are also fictions ;) ), but I rather like the small city trend. It was probably the only part of D&D I really cared for: it let the adventures have a greater impact on the town, and the lives of the people in it.

In short, they kept the fun-factor up a bit, and provided a great reason to move on.

"They don't have that here. Let's try down the coast."
"Uhm, I think the city gaurd made us. Fetch the horses."
"Wow! The governor's in danger, and we're the only people here with the skill sets and power to help!"


etc.

Small towns:

Keeping life fresh, one street at a time.... :thumbup:

[LordGhee]

Try medieval Demographic made easy.

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

Or the Doomsday book
http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

[arcady]

Problem is two fold there:

1. The 'wild fronteir' of America had a population of about 15 million people before Americans moved into it (but only 200 thousand by the about 1900 among that same group). This is a different topic though.

2. The main issue. 'agrarian societies' require highly dense populations. England in the middle ages just around the black plague was about 40 or per square mile, where the rest of Europe averaged 80-120 per square mile, and this was lower than most of the civilizations of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. (there were multiple cities in the millions during that same time period, just not in Europe).

Outside of that time period, Europe had much higher population densities as well.

Agrarian civilizations tend to need a village every hours walk, a town every day's walk, and a city every maybe six to a dozen towns.

You need to be close together to handle the fact that you don't have refrigeration, trains, or trucking. Supplies need to be able to be moved from one point to another before they spoil, and you can only hold territory you can deploy troops to within a fairly short time span.

This is why you get so much wildlands. Perhaps between 40 to 60 percent of Europe in the middle ages was not occupied by anyone. It was the land between kingdoms, rather the land within them.

The city sizes you see in DnD, based on places like black plague England, are city sizes of civilizations in near collapse or early stages of recovery rather than stable or even surviving conflict. At those numbers, its a coin toss whether you will end up being the British Empire or the Mayan Ruins.


Fantasy is one thing, but it works best when the elements that are not fantastic and do not have declared and explained fantastis rationales are rooted in something sensible and not outright silly.

Compare New England to the rest of the USA. The 'west' had so few white people for so long because until they got the railroad they had no ability to support their kind of civilization out there. By contrast New England fit the model of Europe in its healthy periods - very close in dense communities of villages clustered in a web around towns that cluster in a web around cities that clustered together to form a colony / state.

The South by contrast went for plantations, built much like medieval manors, which clustered around towns which clustered around a smaller number of cities that would bring in / out resources to the colony / state. Southern plantations were a lot like medieval serf villages (and serfs were also a form of slave btw, albeit a lot better off than the Southern slave).

Both models stick to the same basic format of clustering civilization rather than spreading it out - the main difference is 'capitalist north' v 'fiefdom south' (if you read people like Jefferson and Madison, it is interesting to read how evil they found the ideas of capitalism and democracy - but that again is another topic).


Back to original question: In reality, there should only be zero to one really wealthy person, but for good story dynamics, three works best. Two makes the competition too obvious, three makes a triangle and intrigue is just like romance - it gives the best fiction in a triangle.

[Curufea]

It also depends on the type of city. If it is the capitol, you may have many urban residences of the King's knights - and possibly diplomats of wealthy empires.
If it is a big port city - you may have the heads of guilds or pirate kings.

[Markdoc]

It's entirely up to you, and what sort of city it is. It could be as few as one or two - it could be as many as a hundred (although in that case their wealth would presumably be located at least partially elsewhere, and they've come to the city for a reason).

In extreme cases, the number could be even higher - in medieval Swabia, the world's richest silver mines were found - enough to propel the Hapsburgs to the seats of thrones all over Europe (people surely didn't marry into their family for looks!). All that cash spilled out through the prince's family, making every one of them extravagantly wealthy, and all their major followers filthy rich. In a generation, the little town of Hasburg had more stone-built inns and fancy shops than cities ten times its size...

cheers, Mark

[Vanguard00]

I say you have as many as you need to make things realistic. For example, the perks themselves are subject to whatever constitutes wealth in your campaign.

Honestly, in a city of the size you describe in the environment given (good port city with lots of trade), I'd think half a dozen merchants are wealthy, with one or two of those being filthy rich.

Remember, too, that many merchants are 'well off' but have good connections. Nobles often sponsored merchants in their trade, outfitting overland caravans and merchant fleets for a (lion's share) of the profits. So, while a merchant may be highly successful, much of his gross income is going into overhead, and a large portion of the net income is going to his sponsors.

It's unlikely you'll have very many truly wealthy merchants of any type, but you should always have a few. Fortunes will reverse quickly, however, as some merchants suffer devastating losses (an entire merchant fleet wiped out by a hurricane, for example) and others find themselves blessed with "right place right time" luck (a merchant with WAY too many barrels of grain is suddenly in a position to sell said grain to a region experiencing blight/drought/etc).

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[L. Marcus]

Dunno if it came across, but I - in my mind, at least - meant to included nobles in the question.

So, most city folk would be at a normal Money lever, some merchants would be Well Off, and a handful - at best - would be Millionaires. So, one promille of the pop - thirty persons - would be really rich . . . ?

[Vanguard00]

Well, in medieval times the peasantry made up 90% of the population, and that's a highly conservative estimate (you could say 95% and not be contradicted). Assume clergy, artisans, craftsmen, military officers and merchants made up the vast majority of the so-called 'middle class'. A very low percentage, probably less than 1%, made up almost exclusively from the aristocracy, titular and hereditary nobles.

Breaking that down further, you'll have a couple of wealthy churchmen (of various levels of integrity, I'm sure), one or two well-to-do artisans and/or craftsmen (the best in their trade, with noble or even royal patronages), and a handful of wealthy merchants as I mentioned before. You might even have a high-ranking and highly-favored military officer in that list.

Among the aristocracy, you might have as many as 100 titled nobles, but some of them are going to be 'working nobles', those without hereditary wealth and thus necessitating the need to work. Many of these nobles were indeed merchants, or entrepreneurs at the least, but also landlords, military officers and the like.

A fraction of that number will hold obvious wealth. They have investments all over the city and sometimes abroad, and 'factors' working their money to parlay it into additional material wealth through investment, speculation, and banking. They live the life of leisure, but even in the Middle Ages many nobles maintained their lifestyle by going heavily into debt, leaving their descendents little or nothing but a title (the proverbial 'Baron of Nothing').

Of the thirty thousand folks in your city, it would not be too speculative to suppose that there were indeed only 30 or so truly 'filthy rich' people, including merchants, clergy and nobles (nobles would make up the majority of this number). As many as 300 people could be at least 'well off', if not actually 'wealthy'.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Outside of that time period, Europe had much higher population densities as well.

Agrarian civilizations tend to need a village every hours walk, a town every day's walk, and a city every maybe six to a dozen towns.


Can you have an agrarian civilization without cities and gtowns at all? In other words, one in which there is no level of social organization higher than the village, and nobody but "adventurers" ever goes anywhere for any reason?

Maybe there is a social taboo against going places. You are born, you work the farm until you can't anymore, then you die.

Some writers seem to consider this the ideal way of life.

[Curufea]

If it was ideal, we would all still be doing it :)

[arcady]

Can you have an agrarian civilization without cities and gtowns at all? In other words, one in which there is no level of social organization higher than the village, and nobody but "adventurers" ever goes anywhere for any reason?Historically, no.

Goods need to move from here to there.

Communities need to bond together for protection and the production of greater resources.

Without towns and cities you won't be able to support an agrarian civilization with technology advancement found above that of the people in the Amazon rainforest.

Without clustering of communities to be close together, you will be stuck at 'clan of the cave bear' if even that...

Without these adaptations, you will likely fall prey to nature, and if not that you will be overun by those who do make these adoptations.

To my knowledge, there are no examples in the record of agrarian people that lived widely spread out and isolated without some technology that allowed them to pull it off - giving them access to resources and safety despite their choice.

Nomadic people on the other hand can pull off dispersed societies, but even they tend to cluster at least once in a year in order to exchange goods, news, and prospective mates.

Consider the native people of the plains for example. During the warmer months we would move out onto the plains hunting and wandering - getting much better at it after the importation of the horse, and during the colder seasons we would cluster in camps in places like the foothills of the Rockies.

You'll see a similar pattern with Mongols, Gypsies, and other nomadic groups.

If you asked a learned individual in the first half of the 1800s how long it would take to settle whites all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the typical response was at least a thousand years, if ever, even if the original people could be fully exterminated. If you asked the same question in the decades after the railroad joined up, your answer would depend on estimates over how long it would take to 'pacify / exterminate' the original inahbitants. By the late 1800s, the question was settled, when the last militarily independant native group was pacified, and cities began springing up all over what we today call the 'heartland of America', and then we took the veterans of the 'Indian Wars' and sent them to war with Spain in Cuba and the Philipines with the dawn of the 20th century and the start of the 'pulp era' (there were many people who fought both the Lakota and the Philipine resistance at opposite ends of their military careers, with the 'greens' of the Spanish War being the old dogs and leaders in WWI - its all really that recent and close together).

Which is just to point out that even early industrial civilization lacked the technology to settle without clustering. The ability to have the spread out model we Americans think of as normal is very recent.


Civilizations without a railroad are limited by their ability to support water travel that can move perishable goods between places, as well as a supply train for military, move 'breeding stock' around enough to prevent genetic decay from inbreeding, and get raw materials to manufacture and then back into the system as finished goods.


You can answer all of this with magic, but if you do you should actually answer it. Make sure your magic system meets the above listed needs with enough strength and frequency to not need to settle the issue.

If you do this however, you need to ask why there is any tech at all.

If magic can supply perishable goods, military safety, safety from nature, supply, refine, and work raw materials into finished goods, and provide diversity in mating options, then why isn't everybody just running around naked and playing like 'happy-pill hippies' all day long?

I tried that once, I built a fantasy setting with magic that was potent and common and could support the people. Then I made the mistake of asking myself, what happens next? I ended up with a global 'garden of eden' that was completely useless to me as an adventuring locale.


You can also just say it's just fantasy, and I don't care about it making sense. But at that point, you shouldn't be bothering to ask how many wealthy people should be in the city, you should just be putting in however many your plotline desires.


This is one of the big issues I have with DnD. It starts out actually trying to answer a lot of these questions in how it sets out numbers for classes, leaders, and so on in settlements, but then the answers it gives are -ALL- horribly wrong.

If you don't intend to answer correctly to the best of your knowledge, then don't answer at all. Better yet, don't pose the question if the answer itself is not important to you.

If getting it right is not important, if it is 'a certain kind of story' you are after, then shoot for that story and stop answering the wrong question incorrectly.

Eberon was for me, the worst offender here, when it gave population demographics that were horribly wrong, and in reply to being called on it told us 'people who want to know population demographics have no place being gamers'. To which I say, 'people who don't care about population demographics shouldn't bait us by putting them in their books'. If you put it in there, you are trying to appeal to people who find it important. If you are trying to appeal to such people, you should appeal them right - by meeting their need correctly. Otherwise leave it out and let them add it correctly on their own.

Likewise, if correct demographics are not important to you, don't worry about how many of thise or that kind of people could be in this or that kind of settlement - the answer for you should only be 'whatever it takes to hand over the kind of game I -do- desire to impart.'

[Lumbering Ox]

Communities need to bond together for protection and the production of greater resources.

Without towns and cities you won't be able to support an agrarian civilization with technology advancement found above that of the people in the Amazon rainforest.


There would be those who would claim that Old Kingdom Egypt really didn't have much in the way of cities and towns. The administrative and religious centers did not resemble what we would think of as cities and towns at least. A gathering of a few scribes and temples does not a city make. IIRC it is a subject of debate.

As for technology advancement, that is just plain wrong. You had farming, in soceities without towns and cities, there is no reason why you need a city or a town in a pre industral situation, in the absence of a need for protection.

Trade is a luxury not a need, and can be done via fairs and merchants.
Pre industrial production was a craftman basis, pretty much independent. If a blacksmith, potter or leatherworker can work in a village, there isn't much you really need a town for.
A village is mostly self sufficent in agriculture and needs no direction to continue doing so, in the absense of river cultures that depend on irragration.
New methods and ways of doing things seem to be able to diffuse in even pre agricultural times, so obviously one dosen't need towns and cities.

Consider this. Someone can have a plot of land, grow his grains, legumes, veggies, fruit and root crops. Get his tools from the village blacksmith, have the women make clothing from flax or sheep, so on and so forth.
Other goods can be done by either part or full time craftmen in the village, or by semi regular visits from merchants to the village, or say a trip to a seasonal fair to gain things not made in the village, or supplies like Iron, Salt etc.

Of course it is utterly rare not to have some outside threat to guard against.

[comitatus]

There would be those who would claim that Old Kingdom Egypt really didn't have much in the way of cities and towns. The administrative and religious centers did not resemble what we would think of as cities and towns at least. A gathering of a few scribes and temples does not a city make. IIRC it is a subject of debate.

Huh? Egypt had towns before the advent of Pharaohs.

[Lumbering Ox]

Huh? Egypt had towns before the advent of Pharaohs.

Off the top of my head, the period before unification would be less secure then the OK period, resembling more the mesopotamian region in nature.

And I don't think the suggestion was that in Old Kingdom times people had their own isolated homesteads scattered along the Nile, actually I forget what was said about villages.

The claim again from memory is that any towns that there were, would be very small, and be more TLO's then actual towns [TLO, town like objects].
A few temples and some admin does not make for much of a town, let along a city.
Also IIRC there is some debate on the subject.

I suppose I could look it up some more. It was just something I noticed in passing during some recent reading.

[Lumbering Ox]

From http://www.antiquityofman.com/Egyptian_urbanism.pdf
an essay for an MA in archaeology, sure its not a standard source, I am more taking his sources, rather then going to the library and getting them myself.

Again I did say it is a disputed point. I am just showing that I didn't make this stuff up, that I am not insane ;), horridly wrong maybe, but not insane.
I recomend the paper, I just skimmed it myself as its late. It would seem the author of the paper disagrees with the idea of a cityless ancient egypt, based on the evidence. True or not, I don't know. Its almost impossible without going into Montreal or Ottawa for me to look into the more recent works on the issue, and I got better things to do when I am in either city.

Some quotes from the paper, I bolded some of the quotes myself to direct attention.

Although ancient Egypt was once described as a “civilization without cities”, contrary archaeological evidence has mounted as increasing numbers of settlement sites have been surveyed and excavated. Settlement archaeology began taking off in Egyptology in the 1970s and was manifested particularly in the innovative research projects at El-Amarna (Kemp 1977a), Elephantine (Seidlmayer 1996) and Hierakonpolis (Fairservis 1972, Hoffman 1982, 1984), amongst other sites [Figure 1]. These programmes were partly designed to answer the question of what do we know about ancient Egyptian cities, towns and villages apart from their architectural details.
...

These developmental differences in urbanisation, as expressed through evolving
nature and functions, are the underlying premise of Wilson’s (1960) claim that ancient Egypt did not possess cities until the New kingdom.
...
Helck hypotheses
that people remained in small villages throughout the Predynastic, Early Dynastic and
Old Kingdom periods. The Old Kingdom is held as consisting of state domains
comprised of villages, with the major settlements being provincial cult temples and royal mortuary temples for officials and priests. Even the New Kingdom, under this model, continues this pattern of non-urbanisation, with nome centres reserved for administrative purposes.
...
The counter claim
...
The excavations of predynastic Egyptian sites,
particularly in the last three decades, have given lie to the claim that, contrary to
Mesopotamia, Egypt developed as a nation without the preliminary step of city-states
(Kemp 1989, Midant-Reynes 2000, Shaw 2000).

[LordGhee]

all righty then.

what is

village

town

city


(hamlet, ect)

We need to get on the same page for the discussion to make since.

okay maybe to make since to me.

[Outsider]

Nm... LordGhee already asked.

I have to learn to hit "refresh" before coming back to a page I've left open all night.

[Lumbering Ox]

I can't define it, but I know what it is when I see it ;)

[Vanguard00]

I would think a hamlet as being no more than 100 or so people, give or take. A village would be larger, perhaps up to 500 or so. A town would be larger still, from 500-1000 people, maybe more. Anything larger than 1000 people is likely considered a city.

Please note that strictly speaking, population numbers are not always the only determining factor. Importance to region/realm and overall status might also change the definitions. For example, a small but vitally important trade center of only 1000 souls might be a city to some, whereas a collection of migrant farmers and rural residents number over 2000 might still be considered a town.

Just my thoughts on how you define it...though I should also note that this is straying mightily from the initial question.

[Mutant for Hire]

Well, from "Medieval Demographics Made Easy":


Villages range from 20 to 1,000 people. Most kingdoms will have thousands of them. Villages are agrarian communities within the safe folds of civilization. They provide the basic source of food and land-stability in a feudal system. Usually, a village that supports orchards (instead of grainfields) is called a "hamlet." Occasionally, game writers use the term to apply to a very small village, regardless of what food it produces.

Towns range in population from 1,000-8,000 people. Culturally, these are the equivalent to the smaller American cities that line the interstates. Cities and towns tend to have walls only if they are frequently threatened.

Cities tend to be from 8,000-12,000 people, with an average in the middle of that range. A typical large kingdom will have only a few cities in this population range. Centers of scholarly pursuits (the Universities) tend to be in cities of this size, with only the rare exception thriving in a Big City.

Big Cities range from 12,000-100,000 people, with some exceptional cities exceeding this scale. Some historical examples include London (25,000-40,000), Paris (50,000-80,000), Genoa (75,000-100,000), and Venice (100,000+). Moscow in the 15th century had a population in excess of 200,000!

[comitatus]

I would think a hamlet as being no more than 100 or so people, give or take. A village would be larger, perhaps up to 500 or so.

In Medieval-speak the difference between a hamlet and a village was a village had a church.

[comitatus]

all righty then.

what is

village

town


city


(hamlet, ect)

We need to get on the same page for the discussion to make since.

okay maybe to make since to me.

Mutant for Hire basically stated the definitions, except that an area which also had a cathedral was also classified as a city (up until and including the 19th century). I think there are still some places in the world where the cathedral definition still holds (but don't quote me on that.)

The very modern definition of a city has changed. I believe to be classified as a city now you need a minimum of 100,000 people. Not that long ago it was 30,000.

[Mutant for Hire]

Also something very important to bear in mind is that what constitutes "rich" or "filthy rich" varies over time. Extremes in wealth were a lot less extreme in previous eras. It wasn't until the development of modern capitalism that you had the real pooling of wealth.

You really need to sit down and define what "filthy rich" means in this context, and incidentally, that more or less presupposes that there's a lot of trade going on and a lot of money circulating.

[bblackmoor]

It wasn't until the development of modern capitalism that you had the real pooling of wealth.

I don't know about that. Upper nobility in wealthier nations, and the Catholic Church as an institution, have been able to satisfy the requirements of "filthy rich" for centuries (at least as far back as the Hundred Years War). What modern capitalism has done is permit people to get rich without having to be born with it, steal it, or swindle it from superstitious dupes.

Earn it, in other words.

(Being born with it, stealing it, and swindling it from superstitious dupes all still work, of course.)

[Mutant for Hire]

What I'm refering to are relative income levels between the rich and the poor. Right now we have CEOs being paid up to hundreds of times what their base workers are being paid. In medieval times and previous to that, the relative income levels were to the best of my knowledge not nearly as ridiculous (I used to have the numbers, but right now I can't track them down).

Other issues involve include how much money is actually flowing around. In older feudal periods, lords did not collect money from the people on the land, but goods and days of service instead, and for that matter feudal lords themselves often paid their masters in days of service as well on the battlefield. Peasants could and did barter among themselves.

It wasn't until the late feudal period that you started to see rent being taken in the form of money up and down the feudal ladder, with a whole list of consequences due to that.

[bblackmoor]

What I'm refering to are relative income levels between the rich and the poor. ... Other issues involve include how much money is actually flowing around.

As far back as Agincourt, it was not uncommon for ransoms of minor nobles to number into the tens of thousands of ducats. Major nobility would fetch ransoms in the hundreds of thousands. Conversely, the concept of "wealth" was pretty much irrelevant to your typical peasant, who'd be happy if their corvee (a burden which rested almost entirely on the backs of the peasantry) was merely manageable.

Going further back, the merchant banks of Lucca were some of the most wealthy secular institutions of the 11th through 14th centuries. Merchants, as you probably know, make their money from the exchange of goods (i.e., from it "flowing around").

You specifically referred to "modern capitalism" as a prerequisite for "real pooling of wealth". History does not support that assertion.

[LordGhee]

according to Herodatous spelling sorry, the persian King of Kings had an income of 2,500 talents of silver from tribute. that is 6000 silver pieces which was a daily wage.

or 15,000,000 million daily wages or about 75,000 avarge yearly wages.

Athens had an income of 400 talents.

this is from memory (India was in gold and 250 which was as much as the rest so it might be 5000 talents.)

[LordGhee]

In the modern period in 1900 80 percent of the population made $200 with 2500 being the general top 1 percent (which was doctors)

In 1932 about R. Hearst the newspaper tycoon like to brag that he was the highest paid person in the U.S. was asked by his accountants how much to pay himself and his answer was $300,000. Much to his irrration Mae West deal with RKO netted her 325,00 dollars and he was number 2, income and wealth can be two differnt things.

Ceaser got 400 talents to repensent EYGPT in a Roman court case that they knew they would lose. He Used this money to finance his army in Gaul where he sold 1 million slave and collect from them over 10,000 talents worth.

The later Empire had a standing army of 250,000 men so it income was over 10,000 talents.

[L. Marcus]

Nice thread, everyone! I like info . . . :)

But since we're into discussing economy, I'd like to take the opportunity to ask another question: How much is a basic medieval farm worth?

From the basic guidelines in Fantasy Hero, I put the base starting amount at 350 silver pieces. Say that this represent the basic free, tax-paying farmer who owns his own land. Then the Disad Money: Poor would represent a farmer who doesn't own land - a peasant, and the 280 sp difference in starting wealth between them would make up the cost of the land of the freeman.

Right?

Of course, it's hard to put a direct value on a piece of land that never was bought or sold, just given and received as gifts and inheritance. Land, at least in 13th century Sweden and in many ways up to the late 1800s, was not so much the property of an individual as the posession of a family . . .

[Lumbering Ox]

If you can fine out the return the farm makes, subtract the value of the labour the family puts into it, and the value of the rather minimal inputs, then apply some sort of expected return on investment, then add in some modifier for status [if being a land owning farmer gains you status over a dayworker who only owns a hut]

then you can figure out the value within a givin game system.

Although I am confortable with the math, I would be hard pressed to actually bother come up with an answer.

At one time I used real medieval price lists, unfortunatly prices also varied over the centuries. Sigh.

[Vanguard00]

I'll see what I can find out, if anything.

[Curufea]

Of course, it's hard to put a direct value on a piece of land that never was bought or sold, just given and received as gifts and inheritance. Land, at least in 13th century Sweden and in many ways up to the late 1800s, was not so much the property of an individual as the posession of a family . . .

In a strict feudal system - the King owns all the land.

[Lumbering Ox]

In a strict feudal system - the King owns all the land.

That is only true in theory.

As long as the vassil does all his obligations there isn't sfa the King can do to the land, either in use or to take it away, unless he dies without heir, in which case, there are still usually some law in place like the King choses the widow's next hubby.

Much like if you were a landlord, yet could not increase or decrease the rent, boot out the tenet and had minimal ability to tell him what to do with the property.

Hell I don't think a king could even pass the vassil relationship to another king.

[Markdoc]

In a strict feudal system - the King owns all the land.

Ox is right - only in theory and only under certain conditions. Medieval England and France (also parts of Spain and Germany and Southern Scandanavia) distinguished (at least) three types of land: palatinates, fiefs and grants. A palatinate was a formerly independant area that had entered the kingdom by treaty. The ruler of a palatinate might be the vassal of the king, but he held his land "in chief" meaning he owned it himself. The king could not give it away or otherwise mess with its inheritance.

A fief is a *hereditary* grant of land. The king owns the land itself - and he did have a say in its inheritance, but as long as it was held by the direct line of the fief-holder, exactly what he could do was limited by both law and custom. For example, if the fief was held by a woman, the king could choose her husband, but he could not (legally) take it away or carve it up into bits.

Last of all is land actually held by the king and distributed to his followers. He could take it away, give it to someone else, chnage the borders, etc. This was referrd to as land "in the gift of the king" or as "a living" as in "the king granted him the living of Oxford". Livings were not normally hereditary.

In early medieval England the king owned about 25% of the land - this is what made him powerful (this was up from 17% at the time of the Domesday book, as the king "acquired" the land that fell vacant through various troubles). In France at the same time it was more like 10% - and this is why French kings so often had trouble enforcing their laws.

This has specific social conditions. Owners of palatinates were great magnates second socially only to the king and his heir. They were generally addressed by rank (ie: the Count of Chester or the Duke of Burgundy) Owners of fiefs were noble - the next step down. They were addressed by name (ie Count Redvers of Plympton or Count Pellewe of Poitiers). Owners of gifts or livings were gentlemen (ie: knights) - the next step down again. They wee addressed by name only (Sir Plessy) or by name and location, (Sir Plessy of Ely). Fief holders could (and often did) give fiefs and gifts of their own and the holders of these were not necessarily socially inferior to those who held lands direct from the king - it was a question of which was worth most, at that point.

Just to confuse things different names were used for these things - in England palatinates were later called marches, but not all marches were palatinates. Livings were sometimes called fiefs - but it was understood they were actually "fiefs in gift", not real fiefs and so on. Not only that but certain livings also offered titles - so the warden of the Cinque ports might only be a knight, but he was still a magnate, because it was such a rich living, so he was politically powerful, but might be socially inferior (or might not be, if he also held a fief in his own right....)

cheers, Mark

[bblackmoor]

Medieval England and France (also parts of Spain and Germany and Southern Scandanavia) distinguished (at least) three types of land: palatinates, fiefs and grants.

This is another really good post. See my reply to your "lockpicking" post, and apply it here, as well.

[L. Marcus]

In a strict feudal system - the King owns all the land.
Sweden was never a pure feudal state - for example, there never were any peasants, just free taxed farmers and rent farmers, and fiefs granted by the king were never inheritable. A holder of a fief - a fogde (this translates loosely as reeve or perhaps governor) - couldn't himself create sub-fiefs.

I don't have any numbers on how much land the Crown owned, but there were at least one King's Farm (think manor) in every härad/hundare (about one hundred farmsteads), so the proto-state had some real assets compared to others . . .

By the way, the most wealthy private person ever in Swedish history was a man living in the 14th century called Bo Jonsson Grip, and he owned one third of the country - including all of Finland. I'd call that Filty Rich!

[Sword-dancer]

Eigengüter/Allode i don`t know how they`re translated weren`t given down from the king but owned by their lords, so the king or empereor didn`t get taxes etc from them.

[Cancer]

Barbarian Law Codes (http://historymedren.about.com/od/barbariancodes/)

The Salic Code, linked on that page, is one I read bits of in a class once. It doesn't seem to address the costs directly. Some things can be guessed at from the size of the fines. The various laws seem to be related to each other, which isn't a surprise.

[Markdoc]

This is another really good post. See my reply to your "lockpicking" post, and apply it here, as well.

Apply the same answer :D

cheers, Mark

[LordGhee]

How did he get so rich:think:

thanks in advance Marcus

[L. Marcus]

How did he get so rich:think:

thanks in advance Marcus
I think it was mainly through inheritance, but he also employed . . . Let's call it "underhanded" methods. Also, Bo Jonsson Grip (Bo, Jon's son Griffin) was your basic eminence grís, holding the most senior posts within the privy council for over twenty years . . .

His second wife, Margareta Dume, a German lady, was a great beauty and had several admirers. One of them, Karl Nilsson, a noble of Södermanland, was stabbed to death in front of the high altar in the Church of the grey brothers in Stockholm. Alledgedly, Bo Grip held the knife, but he had several witnesses who swore that he had been nowhere near the church at the time.

Nine days later, the estate of Karl Nilsson was in the hands of Bo . . .

Nearly quoted from the Wikipedia . . .

Edit: Apparently, most of the estates that Grip owned, he held as security for huge loans to the Crown . . . Pantlän, i. e. fiefs held as securities.

[LordGhee]

so he was a banker

[L. Marcus]

so he was a banker
. . . In a very informal way, perhaps . . . He was apparently the leader of a "patriotic" faction in court. The whole thing with the lending money and holding of pantlän was a sceme to check the very pro-German king of the day, Albrekt of Mecklenburg.