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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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.

 

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....

[LordGhee]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

Try medieval Demographic made easy.

 

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

 

Or the Doomsday book

http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

[arcady]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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

[arcady]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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

[Vanguard00]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

I would think a hamlet as being no more than 100 or so people' date=' give or take. A village would be larger, perhaps up to 500 or so. [/quote']

 

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

[comitatus]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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.