Filthy Rich Burghers

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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.)

[MitchellS]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

What's going to determine how many filthy rich burghers are in an area is the industry which is making them filthy rich. Do they own the local mine? Do the have the timber rights to the forest in the area? Are they located on a main bridge and so can charge tolls to passing caravans? For them to be rich there needs to be an industry, and that industry is going to require workers, and those workers are probably going to make up most of the residents of the village/town. So once you determine how many viable industries your city will have then you can determine who controls them [and through that who is the richest of the rich].

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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

[Curufea]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

Medieval England and France (also parts of Spain and Germany and Southern Scandanavia) distinguished (at least) three types of land: palatinates' date=' fiefs and grants. [/quote']

 

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

[L. Marcus]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

Barbarian Law Codes

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

This is another really good post. See my reply to your "lockpicking" post' date=' and apply it here, as well.[/quote']

 

Apply the same answer

 

cheers, Mark

[LordGhee]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

How did he get so rich:think:

 

thanks in advance Marcus

[L. Marcus]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

so he was a banker

[L. Marcus]

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

 

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.