DM Help Please - Population Demographics (Citizen Levy)

[SanguisAevum]

Hi playground.

Does anyone have any knowledge of Medevil dempgraphics please? (specifically the number of "fighting fit" men amongst a given population?

My Campaign land political structure is based on the Crusader Kings 2Leige / lord system. (especially the GOT mod version)

I am using a handy medevil demographics tool to work out populations of various counties / duchies, but... i need some help figuring out how many fighting men a given lord could call on during a citizen levie.

Ill give you an example county...

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SOUTHREACH
The County of Southreach covers an area of 5000 square miles. Of this, 42% (2107 sq. miles) is arable land, and 57% (2892 sq. miles) is wilderness.

Southreach has a total population of 300 thousand people.

The largest city has a population of 8215 people, there are no other cities of note in the kingdom, and 22 towns. The remaining population lives in numerous small villages, isolated dwellings, etc.

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So... from a total population of 300,000

How many fighting men could Our Count expect to command when he calls on the levies?

My inital figurings worked something like this...

Roughly half the popluation will be Male = 150,000
Roughly half the Males will be fighting age or fit enough = 75,000
roughly half the eligables will "dodge" the draft = 37,000 (Ish)

I have no idea if these numbers are representative of any realistic estimates.

Anyone care to help? Is there an easier way to do it? maybe just say... 10% of the population can be draughted? (30,000 in this case)

Halp!

[Beleriphon]

SOUTHREACH
The County of Southreach covers an area of 5000 square miles. Of this, 42% (2107 sq. miles) is arable land, and 57% (2892 sq. miles) is wilderness.

Southreach has a total population of 300 thousand people.

The largest city has a population of 8215 people, there are no other cities of note in the kingdom, and 22 towns. The remaining population lives in numerous small villages, isolated dwellings, etc.

--------------------

So... from a total population of 300,000

How many fighting men could Our Count expect to command when he calls on the levies?

My inital figurings worked something like this...

Roughly half the popluation will be Male = 150,000
Roughly half the Males will be fighting age or fit enough = 75,000
roughly half the eligables will "dodge" the draft = 37,000 (Ish)

I have no idea if these numbers are representative of any realistic estimates.

Anyone care to help? Is there an easier way to do it? maybe just say... 10% of the population can be draughted? (30,000 in this case)

Halp!

30,000 available fighting capable men is probably reasonable, but you're realistically only ever need a few thousand except in an outright emergecy. So at any given time 1% would work nicely. As a comparison a Roman legion had around 5400 men and there were historically around 30 legions, or 150000 total full time professional soldiers at the height of the Roman Empire. In a fuedal society you're going to be looking at something much, much lower.

At best estimates you'd be looking at maybe a dozen men from a smallish village. If the population of a village is really just a big extended family (say thirty to forty people) then at most you'd have a half dozen leave, if that. Most medieval armies weren't very big by modern comparisons. Around 10000 men is probably a good number of maximum available men for campaigns. In an emergency you can forcibly collect everybody that can carry a spear when needed.

[SanguisAevum]

Thanks for the input, that makes sense and helps a lot.

Current thought is now, that a levie will call into service about 5% of the population. (In this case... 15k men)

Though in dire emergency the count could call on up to about 10% (30k) but this would be unsustainable and lead to economic consequences...

Thoughts? I would like it to be fairly simple to manage.. (Over 40 counties) but still somewhat representative of realistic numbers.

[Kol Korran]

I'm no historical wiz, but I've been in an army (though a modern one) And you need to consider some things:
- Armies are usually quite expensive to maintain, since the soldiers don't really produce anything, and mainly consume. Their maintenance is often quite high. This is a main reason that pillaging was so popular in olden days if I get it right. Partly for the destruction and effect on the enemy, but also to gain resources (and moral) for the troops.
- Most of the fighting force, at least in modern armies, isn't really fighting, but is supporting. People to take care of equipment (Blacksmiths, aids, woodcutters, livestock handlers), groomers of the horses, people who treat ailments, maybe spiritual or religious support, maintain roads, command centers, communication centers and that sort. In a modern army only about 20-30% of the forces (In a very rough estimate, I may be corrected) are actually fighters. The rest are support troops. I don't know how that is handled in similar fantasy or more primitive armies though, but it's something to consider.

Note: The smaller the unit, the less support it needs, the bigger the organization, the more complex and costly it becomes, compared to the same amount of people just in smaller units. But then again- a massively coordinated fighting force is a serious power on it's own.

- Part of a country's resources is it's people. It's productive people, those who can make... well... more people. You don't want too many of your young strong men to die cause then you'll probably have less population growth. Or so I understand, not fully sure about that.

Good luck to you!

[Jeff the Green]

A little science to back this up. Here's a medieval population pyramid. In the same article, there's a table with a breakdown for various age classes. Assume that you need to be between 14 and 40 years old to serve in the militia. That totals 43% of the population. Nowadays you'd halve that to get the number of men, but male mortality is much higher in the teens than female mortality is, so I'm going to make a guess that it's a better idea to go with 45:55. So that's 300,000 * 0.43 * 0.45 = 58,000 people eligible for service.

Then there's the people who would be exempt from service. Disabled people would get a pass, but they're probably a small proportion of youngish adult men. There are some people who would be exempt because their jobs are essential, though. So we turn to Medieval Demographics Made Easy and, particularly, this calculator based on it. We plug in your 5000 sq miles of land, 60 people per sq mile, and 14 people per sq mile arable land. This gives you a city with almost exactly the same number of people as your city, so good job. Now start excluding people based on profession. For example, clergy make up 573 + ~2% of villagers (i.e. 0.02*187,000) = 4313. Do the same for others that'd be excluded. If it's in a climate where farms need constant attention or the war's going on during harvest/planting, shave off a number of villagers as well so you don't have famine. Maybe 25-50%.

I'm going to estimate you've got around 40,000-50,000 people eligible for the draft. If you think 50% will manage to evade the conscriptors, you're looking at a possible fighting force of 25,000. Not far from what you estimated, but still lower.

[SanguisAevum]

Great Stuff.

Thanks guys, I knew someone here would be able to help!