Medieval Demographics made easy - A resource for modders

[unity100]

resource below aims to put medieval demographics statistics in simple terms targeted for the fantasy/rpg game developer. i am sure modders can also make use of this resource :

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

 

[spijdie]

good info

 

[Damocles]

pletny of people could benefit from this...

 

[unity100]

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/fief.htm

this is an  ebook which someone wrote on fief life from the viewpoint of lower strata of society (peasants, townsmen, small landholders) in this page. i found it through the other i linked. i downloaded the free version and it was good info. however, the full version pdf is $20. rather expensive.

 

[Ebin]

Fantasy making sense? Oddly amusing, I hope to see this used often.

 

[unity100]

its not based on fantasy. it explains the demographics of medieval world, what you can expect and what you cant.

as the article mentions numerous times, when you bring fantasy and magic into the mix, you can change everything in any way.

 

[Kazzan]

Yeah but using that as a base is good, i will benefit from it, thanks.

 

[unity100]

i downloaded the free (demo) version of that fief ebook. it was crippled naturally, with chapters ending prematurely. however, what it had was rather useful, in regard to medieval life.

for example i happened to realize that the basis for medieval economy was manors, and contrary to the popular misconception these manors did not belong to any notable nobility. they belonged to subinterfeuded individuals, sometimes down to the rank of sergeant. and, the lifestyles, clothes and diet of those on the manor and the participating villagers didnt differ much, they wore rather plain clothes all, and ate the same diet, just the manor people eating a bit more.

as this thing is something copyrighted i cant just buy it and distribute it around. but i think anyone can find the links to acquire the free version or the paid version from the links provided above if need be.

 

[Damocles]

Basically...

Confucious he say: Need many peasant to support one knight...

 

[nijis]

It's a very good site, although they draw from a specific region at a specific time (13th century France, iirc) and their model is not necessarily applicable to other areas.

Two points in particular...

1) The frequency of fortified places in their model seems very, very low -- low even for France, in fact. In certain areas (ie, northern Italy) you might find a fortified town or location every 10 kilometers or so.

2) The distribution of the population in very small communities is accurate but rather extreme. Northwestern Europe had very small cities. Areas which produced a very high grain surplus, or were capable of importing grain, could support much larger urban populations.


I'd recommend this site, btw, for reconstructions of villages:
http://www.aedificium.org/Maps/LocalMaps.html

 

[Mr. Secret]

Wow, both are really useful resources. Thanks guys

 

[unity100]

It's a very good site, although they draw from a specific region at a specific time (13th century France, iirc) and their model is not necessarily applicable to other areas.

the catch is that, feudal system in europe evolved mainly from frankish kingdom, which then evolved into the feudal system we know in middle ages in france. most of the base practices of feudalism were set here, including the most important one, the one that created feudal system - heavy mounted cavalry. frankish kings had to resort to giving out land to support the mounted heavy armor cavalry they increasingly started to use.

in other areas feudal system differed much indeed, practically in eastern europe, where serfdom was little different from slavery. but, one cannot account for all such systems while developing for games, for even in england alone the system was insanely complicated with laws.

therefore most games tend to take french feudal system as a basis for feudal mechanics.

Two points in particular...

1) The frequency of fortified places in their model seems very, very low -- low even for France, in fact. In certain areas (ie, northern Italy) you might find a fortified town or location every 10 kilometers or so.

thats another point tied to above. northern italy, once the dust of the post-roman invasions (and afterwards lombards) settled, has been a place which mainly made its economy run with trade, therefore the power concentrated in towns, which relayed on armed citizenry than armored knights, therefore rather lessening the power of feudal systems.

2) The distribution of the population in very small communities is accurate but rather extreme. Northwestern Europe had very small cities. Areas which produced a very high grain surplus, or were capable of importing grain, could support much larger urban populations.

depends on trade, trade routes passing from areas, river trade routes and a lot of different factors. period is important too, are you taking early medieval period for city populations, or post viking era, or crusade eras or high middle ages. all differed. towards the high middle ages, commerce increased, therefore city populations and city powers increased.

 

[nijis]

northern italy, once the dust of the post-roman invasions (and afterwards lombards) settled, has been a place which mainly made its economy run with trade, therefore the power concentrated in towns, which relayed on armed citizenry than armored knights, therefore rather lessening the power of feudal systems.

There may also have been geographic factors. Northern Italy and Sicily were politically very different, but demographically quite similar. One thing that might make a difference was the plethora of limestone outcroppings that served as water traps (present in Tuscany and I think Sicily, as far as I can remember). This means that you can put a greater amount of people up on a hilltop than you might be able to do otherwise.

depends on trade, trade routes passing from areas, river trade routes and a lot of different factors. period is important too, are you taking early medieval period for city populations, or post viking era, or crusade eras or high middle ages. all differed. towards the high middle ages, commerce increased, therefore city populations and city powers increased.

True. But it took a long time for cities in northern Europe to grow as big as Baghdad (pre-Mongol), Venice, or Constantinople, each of which was a regional locus of trade that received a great deal of bulk grain imports. Even Moscow, according to my understanding, was much larger than most comparable northwestern European cities, although I'm not sure why that was the case.

 

[unity100]

Even Moscow, according to my understanding, was much larger than most comparable northwestern European cities, although I'm not sure why that was the case.

probably due to this :

http://www.analytictech.com/networks/pitts.htm

 

[unity100]

this below is quite an important bit of information, for it shows the level of subinterfeudation and how the feudal system worked down below the top lords :

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Feudalism:examples.htm

Feudalism is the exchange of land for military service, thus everything was based on what was called the knight's fee , which was the amount of money and/or military service a fief was required to pay to support one knight. Thus, either a fief could provide the service of a knight, or an equivalent amount of money to allow a lord to hire a knight.

The knight's fee value of a fief varied based on the size and resources of a particular fief. The lord of Stafford, Robert of Stafford, was responsible for 60 knight's fees for his Stafford fief. Robert sub-let 51 of those 60 knight's fees in the form of 26 sub-fiefs, the largest fief provided 6 fees, while the smallest 2/3 of a fee. Thus in all, the 26 fiefs paid 51 fees. Further, some of these sub-fiefs had sub-sub-fiefs with fees of their own, and sometimes went a layer below that. In all, 78 fiefs were part of the Stafford estate, 26 of them reporting directly to Robert and the rest layers below. It was a system of tenants and leases and sub-tenants and sub-leases and so on, each layer reporting vassalage to the next layer up. The knight's fee was the common base unit of denomination. Often lords were not so much lords presiding over great estates, but managers of a network of tenants and sub-leases.

Some of the Stafford tenants were themselves lords, and this illustrates how complex the relationships of lord and vassal could become. Henry d'Oilly, who held 3fees from Robert of Stafford, also held over 30 fees elsewhere that had been granted to him directly by the king. Thus while Henry was the vassal of his lord Robert, Henry was himself a lord and had many sub-fiefs that he also managed. It would have also been possible and not uncommon for a situation where Robert of Stafford was a vassal of Henry elsewhere, creating the condition of mutual lordship/vassalage between the two. These complex relationships invariably created loyalty problems through conflicts of interests; to resolve this the concept of a liege lord was created, which meant that the vassal was loyal to his liege lord above all others no matter what. However, even this sometimes broke down when a vassal would pledge himself to more than one liege lord.

From the perspective of the smallest land owner, multiple networks of lordship were layered on the same small plot of land. A chronicle of the time says "different lordships lay on the land in different respects". Each lord laid claim to a certain aspect ofthe service from the land.