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View Full Version : Medieval Demographics - Knights, Nobility, Soldiers



Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-17, 03:46 PM
While this popular link (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm) is handy enough (although the formula for businesses looks identical to the one in the venerable RuneQuest Cities...), it's no use for my attempts to figure out how many nobles and knights my fantasy kingdom should have.

I'm fleshing out Stahl for my The Riddle of Steel game, and making it out as a fusion of Pendragon Britain (a mix of 6th century and 14th century or later, basically) and medieval "Germany" / Holy Roman Empire (mostly 14th and 15th century, I guess, but the level of civilization varies by area, all the way "down" to Gothic tribes).

What I need to figure out is the relative numbers of nobles and knights. Stahl is basically a minor "empire" - multiple kingdoms and other lands ruled over by a single High King, to whom the lesser kings, pennaths, dukes, and the like owe fealty. These kings, in turn, hold the fealty of dukes (herzogs), barons (freiherrs), counts (grafs), and so on, who hold the fealty of lesser nobles and knights (bannerets and manor knights).

Mostly, a lord (graf, herzog, freiherr, jarl, or whatever they call themselves) will hold the fealty of some bannerets - knights who hold land and have, themselves, knights as vassals. The bannerets essentially act as captains in time of war, gathering the knights who owe them fealty, all bringing what men they can raise with them. Professional armies aren't the order of the day - each knight is usually required to bring one man-at-arms and some archers and footmen (maybe up to a dozen people), and more wealthy and important knights and lords will bring more troops, as they can afford. Powerful lords also keep household/bachelor knights - landless knights, often originally of common blood, who live in their lord's house (I think the Germanic nations rarely knighted commoners for valor in the field, but that's dull, and I'm going with the British / Arthurian style instead). The difference between a bachelor knight and a mounted man-at-arms is essentially a technicality; an arbitrary distinction and a title that allows them to hold land, which can be conferred by any knight or lord who can make a vassal. This probably means there's no serjeantry (landled non-knight/non-noble fighting men).

The question is: what sort of numbers / percentages would I be looking at? How many dukes, barons, and counts would there be for each 100,000 people in the kingdoms? How many knights for each 100,000 people? (Seems like making approximate divisions once I've got those numbers figured out would be easy. A typical duke would have X knights available, banneret Y, etc.)

I also haven't really figured out the urban middle classes - merchants, scholars, and the like. What percentage of the urban population falls within this, and how would they really relate to the nobility in terms of privileges, rights, wealth, and power. I do envision most larger merchant houses as being nobles (if for no other reason, then because ennobling a powerful merchant to gain their fealty and support seems like a good idea, and they no doubt benefit from the martial protection a nobleman can grant).

A bit further off, but still related: how common were mercenaries in different periods? What portion of armies were professional but (technically) independent mercenaries - free companies? What portion of nobles' armies were mercenaries? How commonly were they employed as standing armies or garrisons, if at all?

Matthew
2009-03-17, 04:27 PM
The standard answer is that...

90%+ of the population will be rural.
About 1% to 5% of the adult male population will be knights.

So, England in the late 11th century had a population of around 1 million, and supported around 5,000 knight's fees. With a male population of 500,000 that gives you a knightly population of about 1%. Knights without fees (household knights, money fiefs, mercenaries, disinherited) might raise that total somewhat.

The number of earls, barons, etcetera, depends on their relative wealth. You might be looking at something like 5-20% of the total population of knights. The later the period, the less knights there are, as the poorest become serjeants and even the wealthy choose to remain squires.

Ratios of knights to non-knightly combatants can run anywhere from 1:1 to 1:10 or more, depending on the period and estimates involved.

Mercenaries come in many shapes and forms. No hard data really exists to reconstruct the period 1000-1500 with regards to numbers, but wars and paid armies tend to create "professional" mercenaries. The hundred years war seems to have done just that, but the boundaries between soldier, mercenary, and bandit are pretty fluid.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-19, 11:27 AM
Thanks - that's definitely helpful, and a good starting point! I think I'll be leaning toward the higher ends on all counts, for MGF.

One more question springs to mind immediately: Would you say that landed knights and nobles were more common than landless/"household" knights? You write that these landless knights "might raise that total somewhat", which seems to suggest this.

Now I just need to calculate the size of Stahl and draw up maps based on the absolutely uselessly large-scale map provided...

bosssmiley
2009-03-19, 11:43 AM
One more question springs to mind immediately: Would you say that landed knights and nobles were more common than landless/"household" knights? You write that these landless knights "might raise that total somewhat", which seems to suggest this.

That all depends on how thoroughly feudal in nature the country is. Are we talking a society like Tokugawa Japan or medieval France where - by definition - a commoner carrying knightly weapons is a criminal? Or are we talking something nearer to the dynamic of 14-16th century Italy, where roving mercenary units parley their weapons and combat ability into wealth and political position?

MickJay
2009-03-19, 12:09 PM
Everything depends on the place and time, really; Polish Commonwealth, for example, had the highest nobility to non-nobility ratio in Europe, about 10% people claimed they were nobility (in theory, all the nobles were equal, the most influential got honorary court titles or administrative functions, but these was not hereditary). Some had no land and the only difference between them and peasants was the status itself, a sabre and a pair of good boots. Once the nobles got priviledges from the elected monarchs, they didn't even have to bother with going to war, unless they voted that through. During the XIV-XVII centuries mercenaries were used to a significant degree, mostly as crossbowmen and shooters (since they were cheaper than "proper" soldiers and could be trained quickly; many served only for a season or two). Then you had private armies of the richest nobles, in some cases as many as five thousand fully trained and equipped men at arms (many of whom would be poor nobles themselves). Regular soldiers, that received their pay from the state, appeared late and were recruited from peasantry. I'm talking about the late mediaeval and Renaissance period, prior to that the system looked a little different.

Townsfolk had little to say, large-scale trade was done either by foreigners, or by representatives of nobles; large merchant houses appeared late, and were mostly "imported" (Fugger, Montelupi); no real political influence.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-19, 12:16 PM
As I said, it's a synthesis of Germany from many eras - from immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire to probably the 15th century - and Arthurian Britain in the style of Pendragon (basically England from the same periods). Most commoners have no right to own arms for themselves or travel, although the whole middle class thing comes in here, too; burghers would probably be expected to provide military service like lords are, and either pay for a soldier, send a son, or keep weapons at home and train with them.

If I had to settle for any one period, I guess it'd be the Hundred Years' War (although, obviously, there's a ton of differences), but being that my campaign will probably be almost entirely limited to this one "empire," I want to keep it diverse and open to accommodate all sorts of different ideas and fantasy tropes. So one earldom will be essentially 5th-century Goths with Norse and Celtic influences, that duchy there will be very 15th-century Holy Roman Empire, and so on...

I guess at its core, this is an uncertainty about the number of manors you'd find in the realm vs. the number of knights; although I guess the first is easy enough to approximate by dividing the non-urban population (here's where the link in my original post is very useful!) by, say, 400, which seems like a fair average population per manor fief.

I'm imagining the greater kings (maybe half a dozen of them throughout the entire realm) fielding armies of some few thousand knights and the same or more in footmen (not really counting levies which would be raised to defend against an invasion), but I'm not really sure what the household-knight-to-manor-knight ratio would be.

The way I see it, household knights would really differ from armsmen only in that they have the knightly title and can own land even though they have been granted none (by, say, conquest; although they'd need their lord's support to have any hope of holding ); financially, they'd both be entirely reliant on their lord, although the knights would probably have been gifted their arms, armor, and mounts, at least.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-19, 09:03 PM
Edit: Great, I entirely forgot to freaking halve the population and calculate knights and nobles from the male population. Reworking everything... /Edit

Working with the Medieval Demographics, I'm getting a population of 20,000,000 (very rough estimated area of 500,000 square miles, an average population density of 40/sq mi), which means approximately between 200,000 and 1,000,000 knights. (I figure if I place the number high, it can be said to include landless knights.)

Working with Pendragon, I'm getting something like this for the noble:knight ratios...

Dukes 1:100 to 1:200
Count 1:75 (landgraves and margraves would have more knights, viscounts would have fewer)
Baron 1:25 (freelords sworn directly to a king; thus, this may vary widely)
Banneret 1:8

That does seem to work out a bit high, admittedly. At least 1,000 dukes? Whoah.

The Pendragon numbers are, obviously, for a kinda-6th-century-Britain with a tiny population, where even a king commands perhaps a thousand, definitely no more than two thousand men directly (the High King, of course, commands kings). What sort of numbers would look better for my setting?

I'm thinking very few dukes (and duke-level independent lords; dukes, princes, pennaths, "petty kings"...): maybe a total of 50-100 in all of Stahl?

Way more counts (including all the various graves; landgraves, margraves, burgraves, etc.), maybe up to 1,000?

Should there be more barons than counts? I guess 1,000-2,000.

Bannerets... this should probably be worked out from the number of knights, at about 1:10. So that's 20,000 to 100,000 bannerets, each commanding an average of 10 knights. Divided between 2,000-3,000 "mid-level" nobles, that'd work out to about 10-30 bannerets per count or baron. But I figure dukes and the like would have 50-100 bannerets each (totalling 2,500 to 10,000). That reduces the "available" bannerets to 17,500 to 90,000, still averaging out to 8.75-30 per "mid-level" noble. The dukes and such, of course, command the loyalty of counts and graves...

Following this, the average herzog (duke) would have maybe 10 grafs (counts/graves) under him, and direcly command maybe 75 bannerets (and thus 750 knights). The vassal counts would command 20 bannerets each, totalling 2,000 knights. An average herzog would therefore command an army of some 2,750 knights. That doesn't sound unreasonable, does it? There'd be probably fewer than 10 dukes under any one of the greater kings (except, of course, the High King), but each king would equal a duke or two in personal holdings and power. Then there's the freiherrs (barons), probably adding as many knights as the herzogs... so each king would probably command a total of 40,000-60,000 knights. With some six kings, that'd come out to 240,000-360,000 knights. Independents could total about the same numbers, putting it at 480,000-720,000 knights total, well within the original range. This would include household knights and knighted commoners (men-at-arms and commoner squires who have earned knighthood on the battlefield), so non-knightly nobility could pad out the numbers to 1,000,000, putting the combined noble class at 5% of the total population (with only about 50,000-75,000 "lords" on the level of banneret or higher; that's 5-7.5 %).

Edit:
Okay, working the numbers again, I get...

Total population in Stahl 18,000,000
Male population 9,000,000
High King 1
Kings 6
Dukes, pennaths, princes, petty kings 100
Counts, graves 1,000
Barons 1,000
Bannerets 48,000
Knights 480,000
Total knights and lords 530,000 (5.89% of male population, 2.94% of total population)

This seems like a decent enough number, and would include mercenary knights and household (bachelor) knights. Assorted wives, ladies, and non-knightly nobility would round the total number of nobles and knights up to around 5% of the total population.

The average duke commands (directly and through vassals) 3,000 knights (and probably close to 15,000 in men-at-arms, footmen, and levies), and is therefore able to mount a respectable medieval army.

The average king probably directly commands twice what an average duke does, and holds the fealty of multiple dukes to boot, and is probably able to mass around 36,000 knights total.

/Edit

So... how insane are these numbers? I'm concerned with game fun over authenticity, but I am curious and interested in working out something plausible. (And I am a numbers freak who has to know this stuff. It is bound to come up in a free/sandbox campaign intended to focus on the higher levels of nobility and on warfare.)

Matthew
2009-03-20, 06:37 AM
Thanks - that's definitely helpful, and a good starting point! I think I'll be leaning toward the higher ends on all counts, for MGF.

One more question springs to mind immediately: Would you say that landed knights and nobles were more common than landless/"household" knights? You write that these landless knights "might raise that total somewhat", which seems to suggest this.

Hard to say; depending on the period, you have to deal with "part time" knights and various other problems related to the social significance of knighthood . To put things in context, Henry I is reputed to have hired "1,000 Flemish knights from Count Robert of Flanders at the price of £500 per annum." In a pseudo Holy Roman empire [i.e. Germany] you have to address the question of the ministralies (or indentured knights). Bottom line is that things were so varied that ballpark figures are usually fine.

The game resource I most commonly use for this is [i]A Magical Medieval Society by Expeditious Retreat Press.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-20, 08:38 AM
Working my numbers from the other direction, I think that's too many bannerets. 20,000,000 people with an average of 200 per village will support 100,000, and the average banneret would rule over 10... well, maybe I can put that down to 8. That means 12,500 bannerets. If there are 1,000 counts ruling over 10 bannerets (80 knights) each, and 1,000 barons ruling over an average of 2.5 bannerets (25 knights) each, the numbers work out there. That'd give me 105,000 knights under the bannerets under the counts and barons, and drastically fewer bannerets. (If I had 50,000, each would rule 400 people, which is just an average village.)

If there's knight's fees equal to 1% of the male population, that'd be 100,000. I'm close enough so far. If I add another 100,000 household knights (mostly directly in service to the higher lords) and freelances, I'm at 2% male population. That seems like a decent total percentage of knights. I can fit in a whole lot more nobles and knights, and can assume most armies will include as many mounted men-at-arms as knights without getting crazy numbers.

These look like good numbers to me.

MickJay
2009-03-20, 11:41 AM
Does your society use the primogeniture rule (oldest son takes whole estate, others need to seek their own fortunes)? If so, then there is a high likelyhood that many of the young nobles would join ranks of the clergy, become scholars or go abroad. If not, the land will be divided into lots of tiny estates and the powerful nobles will be few (if any) and far between.

Are you planning any serious conflicts in your setting? Population is one thing, but if it would come to war, you'd need to reduce the total fighting force to perhaps 15-20% of knights and retainers. Some will be too old, others too young, or ill, or crippled, etc. Then there's the matter of supplies and transport network which would complicate matters even further.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-20, 05:01 PM
Primogeniture is in effect, generally (although heirs can be appointed instead, and certainly sons could fall to quarrelling and claim parts of the estate by force; Stahl's legal traditions aren't very strong). However, many fiefs - especially the manors below banneret - aren't allodial (granted in perpetuity), but conditional on the approval of the lord. They, in effect, pass from father to son if the son swears allegiance, but some knights could find themselves replaced by their lord. (Ousting them may, of course, require military force.)

The basic number of knights I'm calculating is manor knights. Every manor will be required to provide at least one knight (and is assumed to do so), whether that's the owner of the manor, his son, his brother, or whoever - it can even be a man-at-arms knighted by the knight (all you need is a horse and arms and armor, and if you're not using them...). The bannerets will be under similar obligation, although they also bring their own vassal knights, and probably men-at-arms.

So the 200,000 approximate total I'm arriving at would more or less be the "fighting fifth" of a total noble population of 1,000,000+ (one-twentieth the full population; and that includes the freelances and upjumped men-at-arms). Obviously no king is ever likely to field more than a few thousand knights, especially on a military expedition; supply, defense, and the simple difficulty of actually getting all your vassals to show up makes sure of this.

There's also no clergy - the Imperial Church was kicked out 150 years ago, and most kingdoms and lords outlaw preaching and missionary work (this has led to a general change in traditions; I figure it's largely responsible for the loosely applied inheritance laws and the casual way knights can be made). The nobility is far more strongly atheistic than the commoners, too. Stahl is very warlike, and I figure sons of knights are most likely to serve as squires and become household knights (rather like Pendragon again). Because of the changeable nature of vassalage and fiefs, they have a decent enough chance of actually being granted a fief of their own if they serve their lord well.

bosssmiley
2009-03-21, 07:34 PM
I think you may be overthinking this Tsotha'. Maybe you could just go with Pendragon's rough figures (1 knight value per manor of ~300 people) and back calculate from there.

That gives you about 57,100 'Sirs' (or equivalent urban petty potentates, bandit chiefs, 'lords of the greenwood', mercenary leaders, etc.) and above from an empire of 20 million. If each of these titled bruisers brings (on average) 3-4 other armed chaps with him to a limited warfare scrap then that's your benchmark figure of 200,000 men at arms (about 1% of the population). Times that by 10 for calling out the fyrd if you need extra warm bodies in the event of either local raiding or total war.

As for the nobility:

57,100 / 8 = 7,137 Baronets (or equivalent UPP/BC/LotG/MLs)
57,100 / 25 = 2,284 Barons (or equivalent UP/BC/LotG/MLs)
57,100 / 75 = 761 Counts (or equivalent UP/BC/MLs)
57,100 / ~150 = 380 Dukes (or equivalent UP)

Scatter with Princes, Electors, Kings, and Emperor to taste.

That's not so crazy over an area about 2-and-a-quarter times the size of modern France. It's about the size of the Carolingian Empire IIRC.

Matthew
2009-03-23, 08:19 AM
Quick postscript to this; Robert Bartlett in England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings (a very useful book) estimates the total numbers in the twelfth century at no more than:

5,000 Knights
200 Barons
20 Earls

However, there were perhaps 7,500 knights fees in 1166, many fragmented and held by non knights.