Dragon Warriors

Hi guys,

Just a thought but recently one of the player characters in my campaign has recently been Knighted and received an area of land that encompasses 5 villages and roughly 5000 acres as is fitting with the Knights Fee but having sat down and poured over the books for the economy I have found a massive surplus which no doubt the good Knight would love to have in her coffers after each taxation. The Knights Fee was enough land to support a Knight, his horse, arms and armour but surely the surplus was allowed to be kept after tax?

The question I have is how much Florins or Crowns would a Knights Fee generate and how much would the Knight have to pay out? I know the answer revolves around "how much quality arable land" is in the Fee so take it as about 1000 acres being farmed.

I have done so much research on this but it all pertains to post Anglo-Saxon England circa 900AD and have read many conflicting reports on penniless Knights to rich overlords so I am a bit stumped as to what the Knight in question would actually have lying around in the old coin-purse.

Can anyone be so kind as to shed some light on how much gold crowns or silver florins the land would generate after the surplus is sold off at market? I realise tax and tithe are removed early on in the process at a rate of 30% for tax and 10% for tithe from the proceeds. I also wonder if coin was rare in Albion and more a barter system was in place or did Knights have a fair old stash of coinage?

I know the simple fact is "the GM says so" but I would rather have a believable and fair system in place so the player feels valued and doesn't just get me stating figures out of thin air.

Can anyone give any insight or help?

Much appreciated.

Marn.

Just note that 'support a knight' might not necessarily refer to the singular individual, but rather to the whole retinue and staff that is required to 'support' the warrior and his household. Steward, cook, squire, valet, clerk (if the knight is without his letters) labourers, etc.

After taking this into account any surplus might not seem so great.

Depends on the times. I suppose war has more benefits. In times of peace they'd squeeze. Thinking about 16th century samurai movies, some samurai made do with a small plot of land, but after so many wars, they had 250 years of peace and warriors were not in demand.

Reminds me of the shipbuilding in scotland, coal and steel in England in the 80's....

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So would the retainers actually get paid? I thought they would work for bed and board. Sorry to sound so ignorant but despite much research it seems that varying economic models were used from place to place and often at the same time period. I just wish to nail down something a bit solid that represents Ellesland.

Thanks for the input.

In the campaign I am currently running Aldred has been fighting off a Mercanian incursion into the area north of Clyster and whilst doing this Grissaile has been eyeing up the lands to the south of Aldreds Fief so war is not very far away....

This means to me that the Knights are sought after resources and would be reasonably maintained in return for active war service in the not too distant future. I think peace is a distant hope...

I am guessing that this would influence the cash reserve as the Knight would be "in demand"?

Unless a slave, payment is made for work, whether in kind, barter or cold coin. Even then, bed and board costs someone - where are these beds? Who pays for the food? The only class that might not receive an actual payment might be children under the 'protection' or apprenticeship of the master, and he would be expected in this case to provide more than just food and board, but also clothing and education.

It's a bit of a dry subject, but a google search for 'historical medieval wages' or a similar term will bring up some research material.

I shall dig a bit deeper into this subject. Thank you for the insights.

This is something i've looked at as part of my own attempt to make the DW knight feel a bit more knighty and the conclusion to which I came was that unless you want to create something akin to Pendragon's depth, I'd significantly simplify this - otherwise, you'll end up creating a metagame within DW that will distract from dragon warriorsing. And if you want/like that style of metagame, then I'd recommend you play Pendragon and not DW.

In my campaign, I have a currency system based on 16 pennies in a Florin and the subsistence rate is 4 pennies per person per day. A family of 4 therefore need to earn 30F per month to survive - that can be 30F in coin, or 30F worth of crops, or whatever. That's subsistence level, so you can then go up from there - the greater the skill required to perform a job, the greater the wage should be. Also, the kinder the lord, the higher the wage. A mean lord would probably pay on 4p per day to his servants - 120p (or 7.5F per month), but a kinder liege might pay the same worker as much as 9F per month.

The size of the knight's household would depend on how lavish a lifestyle he had, how many family members, etc., but a few tables of servant types would help, then some multipliers for quality, etc., and you can quickly calculate the cost of the household. But then there's also upkeep of his castle, stables/horses, falcons, armour and equipment, etc.

The next stage would be to calculate how much income each village provided - if each peasant is earning 30F per month, and the tax is 10% (keep it simple...), then the Lord earns 3F from each peasant. If each village has about 200 residents, then each village might yield 600F, give or take (10% of which the knight would have to give to his liege, of course).

It's relatively straight-forward to do and I'm sure the community here will help you to come up with the various roles you may want to fund in a 'typical' knight's household, but costs for upkeep of a castle/stables might be harder to quantify. Plus there's the knight's own standard of living to consider - he'll be spending far more than 4p per day per person on himself and his family - maybe as much as 10 times as much - wife, children, and other family, may all require this level of upkeep. Seems like a life of adventure might be the only way to make enough cash to keep the estate running!

Let me know how you get on, 'cos this is something that interests me too.

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