What does a peasant need to live?
DDiceRC
themselves (although the former owners will be making waves about that), and
they would like to encourage some of the poor, oppressed peasants from the
surrounding towns to come settle nearby and start a little village. (This plan
is being endorsed by TPTB behind the scenes for their own purposes, which the
PCs will find out about later. I like conspiracies.) Anyway, what we need to
know is how many acres of land would it take for a peasant to be
self-supporting, perhaps making a small profit so they can buy products from
the merchants that will be settling in the area as well, and maybe even from
the PCs as they bring items back from their adventures? We're trying to figure
out how much land this will actually require.
Polycarp
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
Well this has been worked on some before. There is no clear answer
because in part the answer depends on land quality and the seasons.
Looking at medieval history a virgate was a holding of a well-off
peasant and his family (50 to 60 acres of land) farmed in the 3 field
system.
It appears in the best case for european farming an acre could support
one peasant (eating mostly rye, and better yield crop) with a poor
diet. A poor family holding 10 to 15 acres (remember at least 1/3 if
not 1/2 lies fallow) could in a good year make due, but normally would
hire out their labour to the larger landholders in order to have all
they needed to stand reasonable chance to survive and grow.
Based on what research I have done, I would estimate for a
nuclear family and draft animal and milk producer 30 acres. I
did some rather detailed estimations, but that is what it came
down to was informed guesses .
> Polycarp
--
news:alt.pagan FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/altpag.txt
news:alt.religion.wicca FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/arwfaq2.txt
Scott Baxter
If you've got a vaguely medieval setup, a good guide to how much food
and land is necessary to support a population is "Medieval Demographics
Made Easy" (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm). You'll need to do some
reverse-engineering and number crunching to get all the numbers you're
looking for, but it should get you started.
--
Scott Baxter
"listen:there's a hell
of a good universe next door;let's go"
- e. e. cummings
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
>
> If you've got a vaguely medieval setup, a good guide to how much food
> and land is necessary to support a population is "Medieval Demographics
> Made Easy" (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm). You'll need to do some
> reverse-engineering and number crunching to get all the numbers you're
> looking for, but it should get you started.
Well I have looked at this and even provided some feed back on a
generator based on this work. This does not even come close to
calculating a prosperous farmer, it does not even come close to
calculating size of farm or food consumption. Food production is simple
inferred to be enough.
Peter Knutsen
First of all, "Bless Da Crops" and similar supernatural effects
will change the economics drastically. There was an article in
an old issue of Dragon about Druids using lots of heavy agrimagic
to reduce the percentage of the population that has to be farmers
to a ridiculously low one like 90% or even 80%.
Despite the title, this essay deals almost exclusively with real
medieval farming http://members.aol.com/JefWilson/rpg/agricult.htm
The stats for farm animals are GURPS-specifics, but conversion is
certainly possible. Also the stats for actual farming are not
system-specific.
That's the best and most thorough article I've found. There is
another article, though, by S.John Ross, about Medieval Demographics.
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
Note that both articles assume that magic is not, or can not, be
used to boost grain production.
Finally, it might be helpful to know that the average medieval
farmer needed something like 12 to 15 million joules of food
per day. That piece of info might be useful if you find a site
listing the energy content per kilogram of the various medieval
grain types.
> Polycarp
--
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor
news:3B54D2D2...@knutsen.dk...
>
> That's the best and most thorough article I've found. There is
> another article, though, by S.John Ross, about Medieval Demographics.
> http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
I used S. John's article as the basis for this, which makes S. John's
calculations a bit easier to swallow:
http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/
bblac...@blackgate.net
2001-07-17
Peter Knutsen
The other article, by Jeff Wilson, states that wheat yields 900 kg
of grain per hectare, one fourth of which is saved to be sown in
the next season. That's assuming that three-crop rotation is used.
Yields should be much lower if a two-crop rotation system is used
(which is the case in my campaign world).
And by the way, if any of you people stumble over the Quest FRP v2.1
(or older) rules for Economics (Farming), disregard them. They have
been found to be badly flawed and should never be used. Hopefully the
next version of Quest FRP will come with better Economics rules.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
> I used S. John's article as the basis for this, which makes S. John's
> calculations a bit easier to swallow:
>
> http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/
The layout is tricky, and it's also not all that flexible (you
can only choose population density in jumps of 10 heads/km2).
S.John links to a spreadsheet on his site, one that can be
downloaded, and it's a bit more customizable than your
implementation. The only downside is that it needs to be
converted to Metric before it's useful.
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/dgraphic.zip
When I get the time, I'll probably dump every single nation on
Aerth through that spreadsheet, just to see what happens :-)
> bblac...@blackgate.net
> 2001-07-17
--
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor
>
>> I used S. John's article as the basis for this, which makes S. John's
>> calculations a bit easier to swallow:
>> http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/
>
> The layout is tricky, and it's also not all that flexible (you
> can only choose population density in jumps of 10 heads/km2).
I'll take your faint criticism as a compliment. :)
> S.John links to a spreadsheet on his site, one that can be
> downloaded, and it's a bit more customizable than your
> implementation.
Naturally: it's a spreadsheet. But I bet mine is prettier and loads faster.
;)
bblac...@blackgate.net
2001-07-17
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
>
> ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
> >
> > Scott Baxter wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > If you've got a vaguely medieval setup, a good guide to how much food
> > > and land is necessary to support a population is "Medieval Demographics
> > > Made Easy" (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm). You'll need to do some
> > > reverse-engineering and number crunching to get all the numbers you're
> > > looking for, but it should get you started.
> >
> > Well I have looked at this and even provided some feed back on a
> > generator based on this work. This does not even come close to
> > calculating a prosperous farmer, it does not even come close to
> > calculating size of farm or food consumption. Food production is simple
> > inferred to be enough.
>
> The other article, by Jeff Wilson, states that wheat yields 900 kg
> of grain per hectare, one fourth of which is saved to be sown in
> the next season. That's assuming that three-crop rotation is used.
> Yields should be much lower if a two-crop rotation system is used
> (which is the case in my campaign world).
<nods> Saw that site before as well, there though is the larger problem
of what time period one works in for historical base. Even 3 field
rotation is debated on when it started, the yields of different grains
changed over time, increasing sometime at great rates (at least
according to records that survive).
>
> And by the way, if any of you people stumble over the Quest FRP v2.1
> (or older) rules for Economics (Farming), disregard them. They have
> been found to be badly flawed and should never be used. Hopefully the
> next version of Quest FRP will come with better Economics rules.
Missed Quest rules, saw some Harm rules that also had some problems.
>
> --
> Peter Knutsen
<nods> I know the best attack is if the rules are flawed, post your
own. Well did some work on this and between covering 1,000 years of
history and blending into the D&D economy nothing put together,
unless tabled to death (i.e. time period, land quality, seed
planted, growing season, market prices), would not reflect a valid
model (might as well use magic).
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> news:3B54D6AE...@knutsen.dk...
> >
> >> I used S. John's article as the basis for this, which makes S. John's
> >> calculations a bit easier to swallow:
> >> http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/
> >
> > The layout is tricky, and it's also not all that flexible (you
> > can only choose population density in jumps of 10 heads/km2).
>
> I'll take your faint criticism as a compliment. :)
Silly of you :-)
> > S.John links to a spreadsheet on his site, one that can be
> > downloaded, and it's a bit more customizable than your
> > implementation.
>
> Naturally: it's a spreadsheet. But I bet mine is prettier and loads faster.
> ;)
I value flexibility higher than speed. Also your version looks
butt-ugly in Netscape Navigator.
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> news:3B54D6AE...@knutsen.dk...
> > S.John links to a spreadsheet on his site, one that can be
> > downloaded, and it's a bit more customizable than your
> > implementation.
>
> Naturally: it's a spreadsheet. But I bet mine is prettier and loads faster.
> ;)
It seems as if the spreadsheet has some problems. It's a lot
dumber than I like spreadsheets to be. The problem I've found
so far is that it blindly assigns the population to the 2nd
largest city to be a percentage (25% to 75%) of the size of the
1st city, even if the sum of the populations of the 1st and 2nd
city then exceeds the total city-dwelling population of the
nation.
Is your "page" doing the same?
Second problem: The spreadsheet defines a city as
population>12'000. S.John Ross defines it as pop>8000.
Annoying...
Brandon Blackmoor
>
> I value flexibility higher than speed.
On a web site, speed nearly always trumps flexibility, and will for the
forseeable future. Which is why web applets won't replace conventional
software (e.g., spreadsheets) any time soon.
> Also your version looks butt-ugly in Netscape Navigator.
That's because Netscape's CSS support is hopelessly bungled, dear Peter. :)
(I'd be interested to hear what it looks like in Konquerer, though.)
bblac...@blackgate.net
2001-07-17
Brandon Blackmoor
>
> so far is that it blindly assigns the population to the 2nd
> largest city to be a percentage (25% to 75%) of the size of the
> 1st city, even if the sum of the populations of the 1st and 2nd
> city then exceeds the total city-dwelling population of the
> nation.
>
> Is your "page" doing the same?
There is some rudimentary floor-checking to eliminate the most obvious
erroneous results, but it's not rocket science, after all.
bblac...@blackgate.net
2001-07-17
Douglas E. Lampert
>The PCs in my campaign recently acquired a nice little stronghold for
>themselves (although the former owners will be making waves about that), and
>they would like to encourage some of the poor, oppressed peasants from the
>surrounding towns to come settle nearby and start a little village. (This
plan
>is being endorsed by TPTB behind the scenes for their own purposes, which the
>PCs will find out about later. I like conspiracies.) Anyway, what we need to
>know is how many acres of land would it take for a peasant to be
>self-supporting, perhaps making a small profit so they can buy products from
>the merchants that will be settling in the area as well, and maybe even from
>the PCs as they bring items back from their adventures? We're trying to
figure
>out how much land this will actually require.
What are they growing, what is the climate, how is the soil, is there water
for
irrigation, do they have spells available to enhance agriculture?
Plant growth and weather control are obvious, but even the odd wall of stone
for
help with terracing could be an enormous help.
Historically Rice could support populations of over 500/sq mile without any
magic and with methods more primative than a DnD world. IIRC Europe rarely
managed much more than 100/sq mile or so prior to the introduction of new
world crops. Egypt probably did better than any of these numbers.
The odd spell could increase densities by 50% or more.
Broadly speaking you can set almost ANY population density from 50 up to
1,000
or so per square mile, and justify it with the correct choice of
crops/magic/
weather/soil. Since the PCs are unlikely to be very knowledgable about this
figure out what your EXISTING population density in the surrounding areas is
(based on the existing background, town populations, army sizes ext...) and
guess how much land is populated and how much is waste, then figure that
your
PC
ruled peasants will have about the same productivity (and remember that if
waste
is common they probably need it for firewood, forage for animals ext...).
DougL
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kda...@mich.com
>The PCs in my campaign recently acquired a nice little stronghold for
>themselves (although the former owners will be making waves about that), and
>they would like to encourage some of the poor, oppressed peasants from the
>surrounding towns to come settle nearby and start a little village. (
Well the PHB says that your average joe makes about 1 gold piece a
day. Since most high level characters are swimming in coin, offer
them some sort of starting bonus for living there.
Why does this make me think of the Scorpio episode of the Simpsons?
--------------------------------
Beyond the Illusory Night
Giant Robo: The Roleplaying Game
http://www.mich.com/~kdavis
---------------------------------
Dirk Collins
what we came up with, based on historical research. For magic, adjust your
figuring upward accordingly... a basic family of 2-12 would farm 20 acres, leaving
20-40 acres fallow, and this is a good rule of thumb for game play... Thank Bard,
he came up with that after we kicked around quite a few numbers and spent quite a
bit of time digging up records. As for historical records to give you a frame of
reference to start from ...
-- Going back to the historical neolithic stats we used to estimate
yields of up to 12-14 Bushels per acre (of wheat), the little village of
Goljamo Delcevo had 39 acres under cultivation. 20 families lived
in the village. The archaelogists and researchers calculated that
the workload divided among the families, would have left sufficient
labor free for the building & maintenance of houses, lumbering, cattle
breeding, hunting, fishing, gathering, trading, and home and temple
crafts. The village produced both ceramics, and high quality tools as
well. So you are looking at about 2 acres per family under
cultivation. A family size of 2-12 individuals (My guess), sometimes
more, and work was from sunrise to sunset in the growing season.
for gaming purposes 1-4 persons per acre, with their animals during
the growing season would be required to care for the crop, and everyone pitched in
at harvest time.
Now how about calculating grain yields based on population?
Medeival Grain Yields... Or Chinese or Egyptian Yields for that
matter... Different grains produced quite a range of yields from as low as
5 bushels an acre (near a big city where one only had to worry about feeding ones
own family), or less, to around 50 bushels an acre in the better times
of the dark ages.
Many thanks to USDA for the human consumption statistics and also to
www.horsepage.com and their links to the livestock library for the
following info...
Average daily intake for an adult human, approximately 3 lbs of
foodstuffs, broken down as follows: Grain 40%, Meat, Fish, Poultry
16%, and the remainder in various other categories. I picked the
oldest stats available for this from 1909. Rough estimate:
a little over a pound of grain a day... Humans were smaller in the
past, the average late egyptian/early roman being just 5'0" so
adjust your intake estimates accordingly... according to Bard your
average medeival peasant had a diet composed of 90% grain so
adjust your estimates accordingly for this as well.
For Animals, The National Research Center recommended the following
nutrient requirements (Grain & various forage mixes) be met for
healthy livestock... these are modern figures, so I would tend to
believe they are a bit on the high side of what was actually available
in ancient times, but the numbers at least give us a reference, or
starting point...
Horses - 8-10 lbs of grain + additional grasslands forage time.
Cattle - average 15 lbs of distilled grain. (pure seed grain)
Lambs/Sheep 15% of body weight (70 lbs (adult) or about 10-11 lbs
a day.
Swine - 2-7 lbs of grain/day average 3.6 lbs
Wintertime consumption numbers are higher of course...
In ancient times, the bulk of animal feed came from pastures, except
when a standing army was in the field, the army would live off the
land and forage, taking grain reserves, and such to supply the army.
Pigs and hogs eat more than sheep on a pound for pound because they cannot
metabolize husks, stalks, or fibrous leaves.. So with of all the
different yields in agriculture, pigs are "expensive" in terms of what they
consume (processed grains).
More notes from the Bard...
>It appears that an Ox could plow 20 acres per year (including the 3
>times plowing of fallow land). It is reported that a horse could do
>better, but not by how much, just that they required better quality of
>feed.
>It looks like any model I use for averaged MA farm should be 3 field
>system. 1 field fall planting harvested in summer, early fall. Spring
>planting, harvested in fall. Fallow, plowed 3 times a year. I have not
>found if there was a set pattern of what was first planted in the
>field that had laid fallow..
>It should be noted (reminded?) there there was Rye bread as well, it
>was less liked. To follow this the nobles would increase the price of
>wheat. Peasants still had Rye bread and some wheat bread. Gruel still
>most likely was a meal for both, Nobles though flavored it better.
>As to barley, one of the main uses besides porridge was it's use in
>making something safe to drink. A lot of barley was made into ale, as
>water most often was not fit to drink, from one of the many pages I
>looked at today an adult peasant drank about a gallon of ale per day,
>children drank less then a gallon, Milk was rarely drunken made into
>butter or cheese instead for storage purposes.
And some historical links to get you started on your own path, should you choose
to learn more for yourself.
The History of Gardening: A Timeline from Ancient Times
http://www.gardendigest.com/timegl.htm
Washington State University: World Civilizations I
Agricultural Revolution
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_agrev/agrev-index.html
UC Davis: The Evolution of Crop Plants
http://agronomy.ucdavis.edu/gepts/pb143/pb143.htm
The Development of Western Civilization: Prehistory Links Page
http://history.evansville.net/prehist.html#History
National Academy Press: Lost Crops of the Incas
http://books.nap.edu/books/030904264X/html/1.html#pagetop
University of Michigan: Classic Civ 452 - Food in the Ancient World
http://www.umich.edu/~classics/ca/452/
Minoterie Le Brume (A French Bakery/Mill?): Grain - Historical Notes
http://www.lesbrumes.com/histe.html
With Regards,
Dirk Collins
http://tamerthya.freeservers.com/
Zimri
> Second problem: The spreadsheet defines a city as
> population>12'000. S.John Ross defines it as pop>8000.
> Annoying...
Depends. The term "city" tends to be defined by the people in its
vicinity. In the Bible, every piss pot little town with a wall around
it was a "city". No matter that as a rule they barely exceeded 1000.
(Quick - find Ataroth, Beth Shean, and Nebo on a map.) I went to
school in a town that easily exceeded 15,000 - and a county seat
too! - but kept getting rebuffed every time they petitioned
Westminster for city status.
I think a "city" just had to be self-sufficient, autonomous, and
defensible to get the name.
--
-- Zimri
***********
"No adult human really knows anyplace. You have to crawl everywhere
you can crawl, lick anything interesting, trace all the smells to
their sources, listen to ants trooping across walls, and eat a few
spiders before you really know a place."
-- Corey the Cat ("All Too Familiar", J Robert King, Dragon #259)
Ben Buckner
I think the old rule of thumb is about 10 acres _in
cultivation_ per adult for Medieval/Classical Europe.
See http://www.ukans.edu/ftp/pub/history/articles/famine_1044.txt
among other articles mentioned in the thread.
The trick isn't so much "how much can you get by on"
but "how much excess capacity do you need to prevent
periodic famines." I suppose the major effect of
magic in the D&D world would be to prevent serious
agricultural failures, to level out the variation
in agricultural productivity. The 15th level druid
won't be called in every other week to make it rain
so that the land is always overflowing with bounty,
but they can probably prevail upon him to break
a bad drought every couple years (or dry up an
excessively wet spring a bit or stop a late killer
frost).
Don't forget too that it takes disgusting amounts
of back-breaking labor to put a new field into
cultivation, during which the laborers have to be
fed because they don't have a field to grow stuff
in. Then they have to have houses, tools, barns,
livestock, wells, seed, roads, etc.
Ben B.
Mark K Styles
"DDiceRC" wrote...
> the PCs as they bring items back from their adventures? We're trying to
figure
> out how much land this will actually require.
Here's another link that has some good information. Of course, they've
drastically changed the layout since I was last there and it's now a lot
harder to make use of the site.
http://24.108.116.20/GC/scrolls/2000/may/landtosubsistance.html
The Food portion starts here:
http://24.108.116.20/GC/scrolls/2000/may/landtosubsistance.html#food
Peter Newman
Forty acres and a mule.
no name
24 Bushels of wheat provide enough calories for a very active adult male
for 1 year.
12 bushesl should be adequate for young children or the elderly.
These numbers come from this page:
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/link.useful/worlds/citysize.html
This number matches up pretty well with the wheat rations provided to
each Roman
soldier.
A bushel weighs 60 lbs.
The average return on wheat cultivation in most of Europe from
1100 - 1500 was 3.5:1 where 2 bushels of seed-corn were planted per
acre. The
average yield per acre was 7 bushels, so it takes 3.4 acres of decent
land to
keep 1 man alive. Actually more, since the wheat 'burns' the land and
cannot
be grown on the same acreage for more than 2 years in a row.
It would be safe to assume 6 acres/adult and 3 acres/child for a
subsistence
level living. One third of the acreage would be left fallow and used as
pasturage. One man probably couldn't handle more than 10 acres under
cultivation
at a medieval tech level.
Giving the peasants 8 acres for each adult and 4 acres for each young
child
would be pretty generous if the quality of the land and environment are
good.
As some of the other replies have noted agricultural production is
highly
variable, especially Western Medieval agriculture. A little magic,
metal plows,
good quality draft horses and some improved farming techniques could
make an
average sized manor into an economic powerhouse.
Karl Knechtel
<snip>
> If you've got a vaguely medieval setup, a good guide to how much food
> and land is necessary to support a population is "Medieval Demographics
> Made Easy" (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm). You'll need to do some
> reverse-engineering and number crunching to get all the numbers you're
> looking for, but it should get you started.
>
version of it (lumped some stuff together, made some other comments, produced
actual mechanics for doing some of the generation of things), and am planning
to put together a Perl script for the number-crunching. Any interest out
there?
Karl Knechtel {:>
da728 at torfree dot net
Karl Knechtel
<snip>
> Finally, it might be helpful to know that the average medieval
> farmer needed something like 12 to 15 million joules of food
> per day. That piece of info might be useful if you find a site
> listing the energy content per kilogram of the various medieval
> grain types.
>
Damon Agretto
Are you taking into account grain fermented and turned into alcohol?
Alcohol, after processing, has the second highest usable energy content
next to fat.
Damon.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Damon Agretto
d...@early.com
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: Dragon's StuG IV Late
------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Knechtel
>
>
> Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
> >
> > "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> > news:3B54D6AE...@knutsen.dk...
>
> > > S.John links to a spreadsheet on his site, one that can be
> > > downloaded, and it's a bit more customizable than your
> > > implementation.
> >
> > Naturally: it's a spreadsheet. But I bet mine is prettier and loads faster.
> > ;)
>
> It seems as if the spreadsheet has some problems. It's a lot
> dumber than I like spreadsheets to be. The problem I've found
> so far is that it blindly assigns the population to the 2nd
> largest city to be a percentage (25% to 75%) of the size of the
> 1st city, even if the sum of the populations of the 1st and 2nd
> city then exceeds the total city-dwelling population of the
> nation.
>
I've tried the methods, though, and it's only in extreme cases that this
becomes a problem.
I don't remember what distribution was originally suggested, but I typically
use
2nd largest city: 4d4/20 * largest
3rd largest: (4d4+10)/30 * largest
Subsequent: 75+3d6 % of previous, until a size of 12k is reached.
FWIW, population models that I've seen for modern-day civilizations suggest
that the common pattern is that (city size)*(city rank in terms of size) is
roughly constant. Taking the average rolls, that's consistent for the first
three cities with the above.
Peter Newman
>
> On 17 Jul 2001 22:43:38 GMT, ddi...@aol.com (DDiceRC) wrote:
>
> >The PCs in my campaign recently acquired a nice little stronghold for
> >themselves (although the former owners will be making waves about that), and
> >they would like to encourage some of the poor, oppressed peasants from the
> >surrounding towns to come settle nearby and start a little village. (
>
> Well the PHB says that your average joe makes about 1 gold piece a
> day. Since most high level characters are swimming in coin, offer
> them some sort of starting bonus for living there.
1 silver piece per day in 3rd ed.
Peter Newman
> Don't forget too that it takes disgusting amounts
> of back-breaking labor to put a new field into
> cultivation, during which the laborers have to be
> fed because they don't have a field to grow stuff
> in. Then they have to have houses, tools, barns,
> livestock, wells, seed, roads, etc.
How much is disgusting?
'Move Earth' can move dirt (but not rock formations) in
an area up to 750' square (about 12.9 acres) up to 10'
deep. It can't get rid of trees so it won't convert a
forest into a field but it should be able to convert some
types of terrain into fields. Since it can raise the land
up to 10' and since the rules don't say you can't cast this
spell repeatedly in the same area you should be able to get
rid of all the swamps you want with it. This will cost at
least 450 Gp's though so it is probably cheaper to have
it all done by manual laborers.
Peter Knutsen
Karl Knechtel wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
> > It seems as if the spreadsheet has some problems. It's a lot
> > dumber than I like spreadsheets to be. The problem I've found
> > so far is that it blindly assigns the population to the 2nd
> > largest city to be a percentage (25% to 75%) of the size of the
> > 1st city, even if the sum of the populations of the 1st and 2nd
> > city then exceeds the total city-dwelling population of the
> > nation.
> >
> I've tried the methods, though, and it's only in extreme cases that this
> becomes a problem.
It invariably becomes a problem when working with small countries,
such as ones the size of Denmark. So the spreadsheet is IMO useless
as it is now, because not all fantasy worlds are covered in huge
sprawling empires.
It can probably be fixed, though.
> Karl Knechtel {:>
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Damon Agretto wrote:
>
> > That's about 2900-3600 kCal. Doubtful.
>
> Are you taking into account grain fermented and turned into alcohol?
> Alcohol, after processing, has the second highest usable energy content
> next to fat.
Yup, 30'000'000 joules per kilogram. But of course fermenting grain
doesn't "create" extra energy. It doesn't even concentrate it,
because there's a very hard limit to how high an alcohol concentration
the microbes (or yeasts?) can survive. IIRC 10% or 14% or so. If you
want to make the stuff stronger, distillation is the way to go, and
that was invented somewhere around the middle of the medieval age.
So in short, one kilogram of beer contains much less energy than
one kilogram of grain.
> Damon.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Karl Knechtel wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
> <snip>
> > Finally, it might be helpful to know that the average medieval
> > farmer needed something like 12 to 15 million joules of food
> > per day. That piece of info might be useful if you find a site
> > listing the energy content per kilogram of the various medieval
> > grain types.
> >
> That's about 2900-3600 kCal. Doubtful.
Why is that doubtful?
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
>
> DDiceRC wrote:
> >
> > The PCs in my campaign recently acquired a nice little stronghold for
> > themselves (although the former owners will be making waves about that), and
> > they would like to encourage some of the poor, oppressed peasants from the
> > surrounding towns to come settle nearby and start a little village. (This plan
> > is being endorsed by TPTB behind the scenes for their own purposes, which the
> > PCs will find out about later. I like conspiracies.) Anyway, what we need to
> > know is how many acres of land would it take for a peasant to be
> > self-supporting, perhaps making a small profit so they can buy products from
> > the merchants that will be settling in the area as well, and maybe even from
> > the PCs as they bring items back from their adventures? We're trying to figure
> > out how much land this will actually require.
> >
> > Polycarp
>
> 24 Bushels of wheat provide enough calories for a very active adult male
> for 1 year.
> 12 bushesl should be adequate for young children or the elderly.
Well some of the research I did cuts the wheat needs in half.
An active man requires 18 cal per pound to maintain weight, as a default
I used 150 pounds which equals 2,700 cal per day to maintain weight
(it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
one pound of weight).
One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
pounds thus one bu a month will feed each troop member. BTW this number
agrees with some historical records of food rations allocated to Roman
troops, the calvary of course had a greater grain allocation to feed the
mounts.
<snips>
Drew Id
news:3B5505FB...@gte.net...
> A few months ago a group of us here discussed this topic. Here is a
portion of
> what we came up with, based on historical research.
I just have to say, great post. We're delving into the city-building
business in my current campaign right now, and this was very helpful to me.
It makes me wonder:
Other than the Castle Guide, are there any other good sources for something
along the lines of a "Netbook of Construction and Village Economics"? I
figure the chances are pretty slim, but thought I would ask. If not, this
post would definitely be a good place to start.
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
Well I have not seen any good Netbook listed. I have looked into this
and as Mr. Collins indicates, discussed this in the group before. I
have assorted notes including saved posts, URLs and some spread
sheets. Perhaps I could post the raw data to the web (no, will not post
binariry to this group, would place data collected to a website).
However the basic problem remains, a time span of at least 1000 years
(600 C.E. to 1600 C.E.) being a common D&D setting to (0 C.E. to 1700
C.E. ) which includes Rome as the major power and early guns. The type
of crops, the growing seasons, draft animals, the farming tech (the
heavy plow being an example that made a big difference in the
Northwest), All of these add to the problem. When you talk about a
book, to be done well the pages most likely would exceed
100. The Roman villia much differennt than the England manor.
Karl Knechtel
<snip>
> Average daily intake for an adult human, approximately 3 lbs of
> foodstuffs, broken down as follows: Grain 40%, Meat, Fish, Poultry
> 16%, and the remainder in various other categories. I picked the
> oldest stats available for this from 1909. Rough estimate:
> a little over a pound of grain a day... Humans were smaller in the
That's a whole loaf of bread per person per day... doubtful.
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
Well there are a few factors to consider.
1) Not all grain eaten was bread, (e.g.. Romans ate pasta, bread and
oil, with occasional meat and other vegetables).
2) When there is little meat to eat, bread can fill the stomach.
3) There is historical references of Rome providing a bread dole of a
pound (or more) of bread to the poor of the city. The poor almost
certainly would eat it as bread was so available there would be few to
buy it.
You might also want to look at the starches that you eat in today's
world, potatoes count, pancakes count, breakfast cereals count,
pasta counts. Then subtract the availability of meat/fish and
limited dairy. Calculate how much grain you would eat today. You
might be surprised to find you do eat a pound of grain today, however
even if not you most likely will find with limitations on other foods
sources that you would need to eat over a pound of grain a day.
Peter Knutsen
ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
>
> no name wrote:
> > 24 Bushels of wheat provide enough calories for a very active adult male
> > for 1 year.
> > 12 bushesl should be adequate for young children or the elderly.
>
> Well some of the research I did cuts the wheat needs in half.
>
> An active man requires 18 cal per pound to maintain weight, as a default
kilocalories, not calories.
> I used 150 pounds which equals 2,700 cal per day to maintain weight
kilocalories, not calories.
> (it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
kilocalories, not calories.
> one pound of weight).
Also define "active man". Are we talking a low-tech lumberjack,
or a 2001 AD construction worker?
> One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
> is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
Huh? Where did you get that figure from?
It seems a bit high, since 450 grams of pure starch (or pure
sugar, or a mixture of the two) would provice around 1800 kcal.
But wheat contains lots of non-energy stuff, like fibers and
water. Still, you might be correct.
--
Peter Knutsen
Arcady
> Anyway, what we need to
> know is how many acres of land would it take for a peasant to be
> self-supporting
"CITIES, POPULATION, SUBSISTANCE AND LAND AREA"
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/link.useful/worlds/citysize.html
(the caps are really how they titled it... but the rest of it is a good read.)
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
>
> ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
>
> > (it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
>
> kilocalories, not calories.
<shrugs> you forgot to mention I did not add a "." at end of
abbreviation.
>
> > one pound of weight).
>
> Also define "active man". Are we talking a low-tech lumberjack,
> or a 2001 AD construction worker?
I take it you do not work manual construction, a lumberjack and
active hands on construction worker do about the same amount of
work. The definition was pulled as to caloric needs from one of
the more credible websites on current consumption and active life
needs. If you can provide a better source I would welcome it.
>
> > One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
> > is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
>
> Huh? Where did you get that figure from?
USDA or Wheat growers website, IIRC. Again if you can provide a better
source it would be welcomed.
>
> It seems a bit high, since 450 grams of pure starch (or pure
> sugar, or a mixture of the two) would provice around 1800 kcal.
> But wheat contains lots of non-energy stuff, like fibers and
> water. Still, you might be correct.
Well if you in trying to provide better info, please come up with the
better sites I would welcome them. Grain farming methods focused on
the seed which provided useable energy, I do suppose that one can argue
that current seed does not provide the same cals., that medieval did. It
does becomes harder to work on how active a fighter or a farmer was as
to caloric needs.
>
> --
> Peter Knutsen
Karl Knechtel
>
>
> Karl Knechtel wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > Finally, it might be helpful to know that the average medieval
> > > farmer needed something like 12 to 15 million joules of food
> > > per day. That piece of info might be useful if you find a site
> > > listing the energy content per kilogram of the various medieval
> > > grain types.
> > >
> > That's about 2900-3600 kCal. Doubtful.
>
> Why is that doubtful?
>
Seems like an *awful* lot - even most junk-laden fast food meals these days
are hard-pressed to top out over 1000 kCal, and most people don't eat more
than 3 full meals a day. If you had to get that kind of energy from
low-density carbohydrates, you'd explode. I often wonder how anyone even
consumes the 2000 kCal used for 'reference' on the nutrition labels these
days. (Then again, I'm a skinny geek...)
Of course, medieval farmers were almost certainly a *lot* more active than the
typical modern-day American...
Karl Knechtel
Hmm... If anyone can send/point me to a list of medieval kingdoms with their
total populations and the populations of the three or so largest cities in
each, I could take a shot at doing some numerical analysis and curve-fitting
and devise more accurate (and hopefully more useful in the extreme cases)
generation rules...
Karl Knechtel
> Damon Agretto wrote:
> >
> > > That's about 2900-3600 kCal. Doubtful.
> >
> > Are you taking into account grain fermented and turned into alcohol?
> > Alcohol, after processing, has the second highest usable energy content
> > next to fat.
>
> Yup, 30'000'000 joules per kilogram. But of course fermenting grain
> doesn't "create" extra energy. It doesn't even concentrate it,
> because there's a very hard limit to how high an alcohol concentration
> the microbes (or yeasts?) can survive. IIRC 10% or 14% or so. If you
There exists a German beer called '28', named after the percentage
concentration of alcohol in the mash. The final product is only 11% or so
alc/vol, however, and I suspect that not much can be done about this limit.
> want to make the stuff stronger, distillation is the way to go, and
> that was invented somewhere around the middle of the medieval age.
>
Yes. And at any rate, everything I've read suggests that the ales etc. of
medieval times (and the similar alcoholic beverages produced by primitive
cultures today) are much weaker than proper beers and wines today, and in some
cases even weaker than American beer. ;)
> So in short, one kilogram of beer contains much less energy than
> one kilogram of grain.
>
Karl Knechtel
<snip>
> troops, the calvary of course had a greater grain allocation to feed the
CAVALRY, dammit. I'm fresh out of witty ways to state that, unfortunately.
Robert Brantley
ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
> <snip>
> > 24 Bushels of wheat provide enough calories for a very active adult male
> > for 1 year.
> > 12 bushesl should be adequate for young children or the elderly.
>
> Well some of the research I did cuts the wheat needs in half.
>
> An active man requires 18 cal per pound to maintain weight, as a default
> I used 150 pounds which equals 2,700 cal per day to maintain weight
> (it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
> one pound of weight).
>
> One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
> is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
> pounds thus one bu a month will feed each troop member. BTW this number
> agrees with some historical records of food rations allocated to Roman
> troops, the calvary of course had a greater grain allocation to feed the
> mounts.
>
> <snips>
I was skeptical of the 24 bushel figure when I first came across it, but the more
I looked into it the more accurate it appears to be.
It depends heavily on how 'active' a person. The BMR of a 150lb, 5'6, 20 year
old male is 1700 calories. This is how many calories he will burn if he has no
exercise, i.e. the number of calories he has to intake to maintain his weight. If
he is active and plays basketball 2 hours a day or runs 9 miles, the amount of
calories he has to take in to maintain his weight goes up to 2700.
Now say he works on a farm, he spends:
4 hours baling/stacking hay 4 x 560 = 2240
1 hour milking = 211
3 hours shoveling grain/weeding 3 x 387 = 1161
+ BMR 1700
(Even adding in several hours for breaks, 10 hours isn't a very long day on ye
ole farm, the days will be longer in the summer and around harvest time.)
that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
on average each work day and one day out seven is a rest day where he
only expends 2000 calories you get a total calorie consumption ( at 1500
calories per lb) equal to 19.5 bushels/ year. Two more bushels of the grain
go into fattening up the goats, sheep, whatever so he can have a little meat
now and then. At ~90% efficiency he only loses 2.5 bushels to rats, rot or the
cooking process after it has been harvested.
The figure I have seen for a Roman soldier's daily grain ration is 3.5 lbs. Two
lbs. might be adequate for garrison duty, but a 150lb man marching 7 hours and
carrying 50lbs of equipment will easily burn 5000 cal. Rationing soldiers in the
field
less than 3.5 lbs/day of grain would greatly reduce their fighting ability within
several weeks.
Damon Agretto
> total populations and the populations of the three or so largest cities in
> each, I could take a shot at doing some numerical analysis and curve-fitting
> and devise more accurate (and hopefully more useful in the extreme cases)
> generation rules...
Data can be found here...: http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/~tekpages/
Karl Knechtel
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Dirk Collins wrote:
<snip>
> Average daily intake for an adult human, approximately 3 lbs of
> foodstuffs, broken down as follows: Grain 40%, Meat, Fish, Poultry
> 16%, and the remainder in various other categories. I picked the
> oldest stats available for this from 1909. Rough estimate:
> a little over a pound of grain a day... Humans were smaller in the
</snip>
That's a whole loaf of bread per person per day... doubtful.
Karl Knechtel {:>
da728 at torfree dot net
--
-- The Gamer's Guild BBS
--
-- telnet://tgg.2y.net
-- http://tgg.2y.net
Unknown
Karl Knechtel wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Dirk Collins wrote:
> <snip>
> > Average daily intake for an adult human, approximately 3 lbs of
> > foodstuffs, broken down as follows: Grain 40%, Meat, Fish, Poultry
> > 16%, and the remainder in various other categories. I picked the
> > oldest stats available for this from 1909. Rough estimate:
> > a little over a pound of grain a day... Humans were smaller in the
> </snip>
> That's a whole loaf of bread per person per day... doubtful.
Well there are a few factors to consider.
1) Not all grain eaten was bread, (e.g.. Romans ate pasta, bread and
oil, with occasional meat and other vegetables).
2) When there is little meat to eat, bread can fill the stomach.
3) There is historical references of Rome providing a bread dole of a
pound (or more) of bread to the poor of the city. The poor almost
certainly would eat it as bread was so available there would be few to
buy it.
You might also want to look at the starches that you eat in today's
world, potatoes count, pancakes count, breakfast cereals count,
pasta counts. Then subtract the availability of meat/fish and
limited dairy. Calculate how much grain you would eat today. You
might be surprised to find you do eat a pound of grain today, however
even if not you most likely will find with limitations on other foods
sources that you would need to eat over a pound of grain a day.
Peter Knutsen
ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
>
> no name wrote:
> > 24 Bushels of wheat provide enough calories for a very active adult male
> > for 1 year.
> > 12 bushesl should be adequate for young children or the elderly.
>
> Well some of the research I did cuts the wheat needs in half.
>
> An active man requires 18 cal per pound to maintain weight, as a default
kilocalories, not calories.
> I used 150 pounds which equals 2,700 cal per day to maintain weight
kilocalories, not calories.
> (it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
kilocalories, not calories.
> one pound of weight).
Also define "active man". Are we talking a low-tech lumberjack,
or a 2001 AD construction worker?
> One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
> is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
Huh? Where did you get that figure from?
It seems a bit high, since 450 grams of pure starch (or pure
sugar, or a mixture of the two) would provice around 1800 kcal.
But wheat contains lots of non-energy stuff, like fibers and
water. Still, you might be correct.
--
Peter Knutsen
Unknown
Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
> ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
>
> > (it should be noted for ever extra 3,500 cal consumed a person will add
>
> kilocalories, not calories.
<shrugs> you forgot to mention I did not add a "." at end of
abbreviation.
>
> > one pound of weight).
>
> Also define "active man". Are we talking a low-tech lumberjack,
> or a 2001 AD construction worker?
I take it you do not work manual construction, a lumberjack and
active hands on construction worker do about the same amount of
work. The definition was pulled as to caloric needs from one of
the more credible websites on current consumption and active life
needs. If you can provide a better source I would welcome it.
>
> > One pound of wheat provides 1,500 cal, thus a ration of 2 pounds per day
> > is enough food for average active male. As noted a bu of wheat is 60
>
> Huh? Where did you get that figure from?
USDA or Wheat growers website, IIRC. Again if you can provide a better
source it would be welcomed.
>
> It seems a bit high, since 450 grams of pure starch (or pure
> sugar, or a mixture of the two) would provice around 1800 kcal.
> But wheat contains lots of non-energy stuff, like fibers and
> water. Still, you might be correct.
Well if you in trying to provide better info, please come up with the
better sites I would welcome them. Grain farming methods focused on
the seed which provided useable energy, I do suppose that one can argue
that current seed does not provide the same cals., that medieval did. It
does becomes harder to work on how active a fighter or a farmer was as
to caloric needs.
>
Arcady
Karl Knechtel
Karl Knechtel
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
<snip>
> troops, the calvary of course had a greater grain allocation to feed the
^^^^^^^
CAVALRY, dammit. I'm fresh out of witty ways to state that, unfortunately.
Karl Knechtel {:>
Karl Knechtel
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
>
> Karl Knechtel wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
> > > It seems as if the spreadsheet has some problems. It's a lot
> > > dumber than I like spreadsheets to be. The problem I've found
> > > so far is that it blindly assigns the population to the 2nd
> > > largest city to be a percentage (25% to 75%) of the size of the
> > > 1st city, even if the sum of the populations of the 1st and 2nd
> > > city then exceeds the total city-dwelling population of the
> > > nation.
> > >
> > I've tried the methods, though, and it's only in extreme cases that this
> > becomes a problem.
>
> It invariably becomes a problem when working with small countries,
> such as ones the size of Denmark. So the spreadsheet is IMO useless
> as it is now, because not all fantasy worlds are covered in huge
> sprawling empires.
>
> It can probably be fixed, though.
>
Hmm... If anyone can send/point me to a list of medieval kingdoms with their
total populations and the populations of the three or so largest cities in
each, I could take a shot at doing some numerical analysis and curve-fitting
and devise more accurate (and hopefully more useful in the extreme cases)
generation rules...
Karl Knechtel {:>
Karl Knechtel
On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
>
> Karl Knechtel wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Peter Knutsen wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > Finally, it might be helpful to know that the average medieval
> > > farmer needed something like 12 to 15 million joules of food
> > > per day. That piece of info might be useful if you find a site
> > > listing the energy content per kilogram of the various medieval
> > > grain types.
> > >
> > That's about 2900-3600 kCal. Doubtful.
>
> Why is that doubtful?
>
Seems like an *awful* lot - even most junk-laden fast food meals these days
are hard-pressed to top out over 1000 kCal, and most people don't eat more
than 3 full meals a day. If you had to get that kind of energy from
low-density carbohydrates, you'd explode. I often wonder how anyone even
consumes the 2000 kCal used for 'reference' on the nutrition labels these
days. (Then again, I'm a skinny geek...)
Of course, medieval farmers were almost certainly a *lot* more active than the
typical modern-day American...
Karl Knechtel {:>
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
Happens within a two week period per year (if at all) so eats a little
more then.
> 1 hour milking
= 211
The ladies did the milking and cheese making.
> 3 hours shoveling grain/weeding 3 x 387 = 1161
> + BMR 1700
<LOL> the children did weeding and bird chasing, yes some effort was
needed by all for plowing and weeding. What you are presenting is
the a man doing it all.
>
> (Even adding in several hours for breaks, 10 hours isn't a very long day on ye
> ole farm, the days will be longer in the summer and around harvest time.)
Yes, you also missed the "hook and crook" the gather of fire wood (from
standing trees), the guiding of plows, the feeding said beasts of
burdens.
>
> that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
> on average each work day and one day out seven is a rest day where he
> only expends 2000 calories you get a total calorie consumption ( at 1500
> calories per lb) equal to 19.5 bushels/ year. Two more bushels of the grain
> go into fattening up the goats, sheep, whatever so he can have a little meat
> now and then. At ~90% efficiency he only loses 2.5 bushels to rats, rot or the
> cooking process after it has been harvested.
If all the above you offered occurred ever day certainly the numbers
say the peasant needs the Cals indicated, however the numbers also say
that no peasant after paying taxes would have enough to live on and as
such would have died.
>
> The figure I have seen for a Roman soldier's daily grain ration is 3.5 lbs. Two
> lbs. might be adequate for garrison duty, but a 150lb man marching 7 hours and
> carrying 50lbs of equipment will easily burn 5000 cal. Rationing soldiers in the
> field
> less than 3.5 lbs/day of grain would greatly reduce their fighting ability within
> several weeks.
Sources for information does vary and even I in the past conceded that
some raiding might have been added to standard on march rations.
Allen Wessels
Karl Knechtel <kne...@ecf.utoronto.ca> wrote:
> Seems like an *awful* lot - even most junk-laden fast food meals these
> days
> are hard-pressed to top out over 1000 kCal, and most people don't eat
> more
> than 3 full meals a day. If you had to get that kind of energy from
> low-density carbohydrates, you'd explode. I often wonder how anyone even
> consumes the 2000 kCal used for 'reference' on the nutrition labels these
> days. (Then again, I'm a skinny geek...)
A double Whopper with cheese is 1020 cals. Add a large fries and
medium choco shake and you're at 2k. Easy. You can do the same meal at
Jack in the Box or McDonalds.
http://www.burgerking.com/nutrition/burgers.htm
- Allen
Mark K Styles
"Drew Id" wrote...
> Other than the Castle Guide, are there any other good sources for
something
> along the lines of a "Netbook of Construction and Village Economics"? I
> figure the chances are pretty slim, but thought I would ask. If not, this
> post would definitely be a good place to start.
For the contruction side, try:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/2574/archt.html
It's GURPS: Architecture but don't worry it's pretty system-independent if
you don't happen to play GURPS (for some reason ;-) ). _Lots_ of great
information.
Gordon Mulcaster
Karl Knechtel <kne...@ecf.utoronto.ca> wrote:
> Yes. And at any rate, everything I've read suggests that the ales
> etc. of medieval times (and the similar alcoholic beverages produced
> by primitive cultures today) are much weaker than proper beers and
> wines today, and in some cases even weaker than American beer. ;)
Is that possible? I though water was stronger than American Beer!
@vurt.net Sara
>
>too! - but kept getting rebuffed every time they petitioned
>Westminster for city status.
>
I believe you'll find the English (British) definition of a city is a population
centre with a Catherdral...
Sara @ Labyrinth.net.au
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl, Lost Cause
====================================
"Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to
set a bad example." --Duc de La Rochefoucald
Brandon Blackmoor
>
> Yes. And at any rate, everything I've read suggests that the ales
> etc. of medieval times (and the similar alcoholic beverages produced
> by primitive cultures today) are much weaker than proper beers and
> wines today, and in some cases even weaker than American beer. ;)
Well, port was invented/discovered in the late 1600's, and that's basically
just wine "fortified" with brandy. As such, it has always been a rather high
alcohol content wine (16%-20%, give or take). But perhaps you are thinking
of an earlier era than that. Let's see, large-scale commercial breweries
began appearing in Germany around the 12th century, and these produced ales
and lagers not that unlike what you can buy in Bavaria now, typically 4% to
6% or even higher (bocks, especially, are almost never under 6%). Before
that, there were still brewing guilds in the cities, and before that it was
a household activity, much like baking bread. There are detailed recipies
for beer going back to the 23rd century BCE in China, and Babylonian clay
tablets 6,000 years old give detailed brewing instructions and recipies.
Beer and wine as we know them have been around a long, long time.
But that's not surprising. As anyone who has ever tried it can tell you,
fermenting fruits and grains is remarkably easy, and the basic principles
have not altered very much in the last thousand years, nor have the alcohol
levels at which yeasts will die out. The most significant adavnces in
brewing technology have mostly concerned sanitation: at one time, a sour
batch of beer might be attributed to "beer witches" (I don't know how
seriously they took that, it may have just been a saying). Nowadays we know
about pasteurization and sterilization and so forth, but these things don't
make the beer or wine more potent, they just make it more reliable.
IMO, the urban legend that the wine and beer of olden days was not as
alcoholic as it is now (and that's basically what it is, folks, an urban
legend) is a result of teatotalling Baptists who want to pretend that Jesus
never used his mojo to supply the wine for a wedding party (I kid you not --
I have in-laws who believe this exact thing).
bblac...@blackgate.net
2001-07-18
Ben Buckner
>
> From: Karl Knechtel <kne...@ecf.utoronto.ca>
>
> Hmm... If anyone can send/point me to a list of medieval kingdoms with their
> total populations and the populations of the three or so largest cities in
> each, I could take a shot at doing some numerical analysis and curve-fitting
> and devise more accurate (and hopefully more useful in the extreme cases)
> generation rules...
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html
And from an old post of mine:
Cities of the Crusader States, ca. 1200
Antioch 40625
Edessa 24000
Jerusalem 10000
Tripoli 8000
Damascus 15000
Aleppo 14000
Homs 7000
Hamah 6750
Gaza 6125
Acre 5625
(Russell, Josiah C. The population of the Crusader states. In: A history
of the Crusades, Volume V: the impact of the Crusades on the Near East,
edited by Norman P. Zacour and Harry W. Hazard. ISBN 0-299-09140-6.
1985. 295-314 pp. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, Wisconsin.)
Josiah Russel is a major ancient population guru, in case
it's not obvious yet.
Ben B.
Peter Knutsen
Robert Brantley wrote:
> that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
That's very little! Of course of you make that 5312 kilocalories per
day, it ceases being absurd, but it's still a lot for such a small man.
The data point I have is that a lumberjack burns 17'500'000 joules
a day. That's presumably a larger man engaged in hard physical
labour for the entire day, unlike a farmer who has some less
grueling duties for part of the day.
[...]
> The figure I have seen for a Roman soldier's daily grain ration is 3.5 lbs. Two
> lbs. might be adequate for garrison duty, but a 150lb man marching 7 hours and
> carrying 50lbs of equipment will easily burn 5000 cal. Rationing soldiers in the
> field
> less than 3.5 lbs/day of grain would greatly reduce their fighting ability within
> several weeks.
That sounds about right, though. A Roman Legionaire probably burns
as much as a lumberjack. Maybe even more.
--
Peter Knutsen
Jim Davies
>On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
><snip>
>> troops, the calvary of course had a greater grain allocation to feed the
> ^^^^^^^
>
>CAVALRY, dammit. I'm fresh out of witty ways to state that, unfortunately.
Loaves, fishes...? Probably the wrong hill, but it's close enough for
government work.
-
Jim Davies
----------
Mind your manners, son! I've got a tall pointy hat!
Karl Knechtel
> Robert Brantley wrote:
<snip>
> > that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
> > on average each work day and one day out seven is a rest day where he
> > only expends 2000 calories you get a total calorie consumption ( at 1500
> > calories per lb) equal to 19.5 bushels/ year. Two more bushels of the grain
> > go into fattening up the goats, sheep, whatever so he can have a little meat
> > now and then. At ~90% efficiency he only loses 2.5 bushels to rats, rot or the
> > cooking process after it has been harvested.
>
> If all the above you offered occurred ever day certainly the numbers
> say the peasant needs the Cals indicated, however the numbers also say
> that no peasant after paying taxes would have enough to live on and as
> such would have died.
>
It wouldn't be the first time in gaming history that such a situation arose.
Looking through the text of _Men and Magic_, high-level clerics are to receive
a 'tithe' of 20 gp/year/peasant they oversaw. Since a tithe is traditionally
10% of earnings (hence the name), this implies that the GDP is about 200 gp
per capita, so that 180 gp worth of goods is left for each peasant after
taxes. However, a later table gives the cost of a week's worth of 'standard
rations' as 5 gp, so that the value of food required for subsistence over a
year is 260 gp. Thus all the peasants starve. :)
Karl Knechtel
Thanks for actual numbers. :) I just can't *eat* that much. :)
Mark K Styles
"Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
news:3B56A77B...@knutsen.dk...
>
>
> Robert Brantley wrote:
>
> > that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of
effort
> That's very little! Of course of you make that 5312 kilocalories per
> day, it ceases being absurd, but it's still a lot for such a small man.
A lot of people don't realize the difference between calories and Calories
(also, kilocalories or food calories) or forget to capitalize it. It
happens so often it's easier just to ignore mistakes and read it as the
right unit, even when dealing with some professionals. Or at the least,
explain to people what "mistake" they are making.
> The data point I have is that a lumberjack burns 17'500'000 joules
> a day. That's presumably a larger man engaged in hard physical
> labour for the entire day, unlike a farmer who has some less
> grueling duties for part of the day.
Depends on a lot of things. Take Inuit, even "small" people might need
5-10kCals per day just to keep warm and not do much else.
I don't see a problem with using a nice round number like 5000 Calories
(24MJ) per day to estimate the _average_ food intake of a society. It should
average out.
That's what, at a guesstimate: A gallon of beer for 800, two pounds of
bread for 3200, a turnip for 600, and piece of bacon for 400. A pretty
reasonable looking day's food.
Peter Knutsen
Zimri wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote :
> > Second problem: The spreadsheet defines a city as
> > population>12'000. S.John Ross defines it as pop>8000.
> > Annoying...
>
> Depends. The term "city" tends to be defined by the people in its
No it doesn't. The spreadsheet is specifically based on an article
written by S.John Ross, and in that article the author gives a very
strict definition of what a city is. So it's stupid that the spread-
sheet ignores the definition from the article that it's based on.
> --
> -- Zimri
--
Peter Knutsen
Robert Brantley
ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
> > > <snips>
>
> > 4 hours baling/stacking hay 4 x 560 = 2240
>
> Happens within a two week period per year (if at all) so eats a little
> more then
No, 4 to 6 weeks, all of June and well into July.
Plus there are plenty of other labors that require a comparable level
of effort: cleaning out the barn, shoveling shit out of latrines, spreading
the manure after it has all been collected together, repairing stone walls,
repairing the cottage, chopping wood, clearing new fields, clearing ditches,
etc. Not only do these things have to be done for his own (rented) lands,
but 3 days a week he has to do them for the Abbot or Lord.
He may be able to take a leisurely pass when doing his own work, but not
under the watchful eye of the Master's men.
There is never a shortage of hard, tiring, energy consuming work to be
done on a farm. That's the reason most people leave the farm just a soon
as they can.
>
> > 1 hour milking
>
> = 211
>
> The ladies did the milking and cheese making.
>
> > 3 hours shoveling grain/weeding 3 x 387 = 1161
> > + BMR 1700
>
> <LOL> the children did weeding and bird chasing, yes some effort was
> needed by all for plowing and weeding. What you are presenting is
> the a man doing it all.
>
Sure, leaves more time for the heavy labors that have to be done. Make no mistake,
the women worked in the fields also. Each vigrate rented required 3 men/days of
work per week for the Lord of the manor 44 weeks out of the year. 6 men/day per week
were required in the Autumn. Women were only counted as 1/2 a man in these tallies.
>
> >
> > (Even adding in several hours for breaks, 10 hours isn't a very long day on ye
> > ole farm, the days will be longer in the summer and around harvest time.)
>
> Yes, you also missed the "hook and crook" the gather of fire wood (from
> standing trees), the guiding of plows, the feeding said beasts of
> burdens.
>
I don't have any number to apply to plowing, but the winter plowings must have
been like torture.
>
> >
> > that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
> > on average each work day and one day out seven is a rest day where he
> > only expends 2000 calories you get a total calorie consumption ( at 1500
> > calories per lb) equal to 19.5 bushels/ year. Two more bushels of the grain
> > go into fattening up the goats, sheep, whatever so he can have a little meat
> > now and then. At ~90% efficiency he only loses 2.5 bushels to rats, rot or the
> > cooking process after it has been harvested.
>
> If all the above you offered occurred ever day certainly the numbers
> say the peasant needs the Cals indicated, however the numbers also say
> that no peasant after paying taxes would have enough to live on and as
> such would have died.
>
They did.
>
> <snip>
Oops, I wrote 24 bushels of wheat in the first post. 24 bushels of grain or just food
would be more accurate.
The ratio for wheat of seedcorn : yield averaged 3.85 from 1209-1270.
The ratio for barley was 4.32, these ratios are almost constant in pre-plague
Europe. But the total harvested could vary widely because the amount of seedcorn
planted varied.
Very high wheat yields were possible, farmers in Norfolk acheived yields of
18-20 bu./acre by sowing very heavily.
(See "Tracking the Agricultural Revolution" by Robert C. Allen)
Example: A peasant household with 4 adults and 4 children.
A peasant works a vigrate of 24 acres that is partitioned into a 3-field rotation.
He plants it thus:
8 acres of wheat, at 2 bu./acre, yields 7.7 bu./acre.
8 acres of barley, at 4 bu./acre, yields 17.28 bu./acre.
8 acres are fallowed.
(The planting and yield numbers above are from Winchester estate, they are the
averages from 1209-1270 after tithes and threshing. See Christopher Dyer's
'Standards of living in the later Middle Ages')
This would result in a total of 61.6 bu. of wheat and 138.24 bu. of barley, a total
grain harvest of 200.04. He sells or renders up 50 bu. of the grain (40 bu. of wheat
and 10 bu.
of barley) with a total value of 420d(35 shillings), based on a price of 9d for wheat
and 6d for barley. This is enough to cover his rent for land, cottage, grinding fee
and his poll tax. A little coin might be left over to buys a few things at the market.
I can't get to the Sourcebooks pages to get the exact figures for rent at the Alwalton
manor
in 1279, but I believe it was 14s 7d for a vigrate and 7s for the cottage and croft.
The remaining grain available to the household is 150 bu., most of it barley. With four
adults consuming 24 bu. each and 4 children consuming 12 bu. each, this is just enough.
22 bu. of barley and 2 bu. of wheat provides 4398 Kcal/day for a year from grain.
Another 6 to 8 eight bushels worth of food could probably be extracted from their
garden and the fallow/pasture land. One estimate of the average amount of energy
required for a peasant in the middle-ages I have seen is 4500 Kcal/day. This seems
reasonable to me.
Once you figure in 10-20% losses due to waste, rats, etc. there must have been
plenty of days were they went hungry.
The pre-plague manorial system was not stable. It was slowing spiralling down to
a crash all through the 12th and 13th centuries.
Robert Brantley
ba...@digital-marketplace.net
>
> Warning - kinda long with lots of numbers.
>
> ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
>
> > > > <snips>
> >
> > > 4 hours baling/stacking hay 4 x 560 = 2240
> >
> > Happens within a two week period per year (if at all) so eats a little
> > more then
>
> No, 4 to 6 weeks, all of June and well into July.
In today's world haying lasts longer, some of the source books claim
little haying was done at all, 3 acres water meadows in one manor is
reported. The straw certainly could have been saved for fodder as
well.
>
> Plus there are plenty of other labors that require a comparable level
> of effort: cleaning out the barn, shoveling shit out of latrines, spreading
> the manure after it has all been collected together, repairing stone walls,
> repairing the cottage, chopping wood, clearing new fields, clearing ditches,
> etc. Not only do these things have to be done for his own (rented) lands,
> but 3 days a week he has to do them for the Abbot or Lord.
Well the duty to the Lord certainly existed to as much as 3 days per
week, this fails to prove the energy needs of the average peasant.
>
> He may be able to take a leisurely pass when doing his own work, but not
> under the watchful eye of the Master's men.
Actually there where certain expectations of amount of work to be
completed in each day, short of oppressive (more oppressive) Lord
the expectation was for the normal (after famine/plauge pat scales
appeared to be based on amount of units provided).
>
> There is never a shortage of hard, tiring, energy consuming work to be
> done on a farm. That's the reason most people leave the farm just a soon
> as they can.
I well understand farming of today I still live on a farm. Yes there is
work to be done every day to keep a farm up.
>
> >
> > > 1 hour milking
> >
> > = 211
> >
> > The ladies did the milking and cheese making.
> >
> > > 3 hours shoveling grain/weeding 3 x 387 = 1161
> > > + BMR 1700
> >
> > <LOL> the children did weeding and bird chasing, yes some effort was
> > needed by all for plowing and weeding. What you are presenting is
> > the a man doing it all.
> >
>
> Sure, leaves more time for the heavy labors that have to be done. Make no mistake,
> the women worked in the fields also. Each vigrate rented required 3 men/days of
> work per week for the Lord of the manor 44 weeks out of the year. 6 men/day per week
> were required in the Autumn. Women were only counted as 1/2 a man in these tallies.
Checking some notes, the YEARLY ACCOUNT OF MANOR OF CUXHAM, A. D.
1316-17
There is the clear indication that women received have pay (if any pay
at all).
"Cost of the Buildings. For one man and his helper hired for 22 days to
put a roof on 2 barns, a hay-mow, and the kitchen
11s., being 6d. a day; for 2 women helping them for lo days 3s., being
2d. a day. For 1000 lath-nails bought 11d.; for poles
bought for prys 6d. For one man hired for 4 days to roof 2 cottages of
the vill 16d., at 4d. a day; for poles bought for prys 2d.;
for one woman helping him 4d. For 2 quarters of lime bought 8d. Total
17s. 11d."
The copy and paste is messy, but in the above quote a man was
paid three times what a woman was paid, but then later a man and
women was paid the same. It certainly depends on the tallies of
the manors, I have access to only a few.
>
> >
> > >
> > > (Even adding in several hours for breaks, 10 hours isn't a very long day on ye
> > > ole farm, the days will be longer in the summer and around harvest time.)
> >
> > Yes, you also missed the "hook and crook" the gather of fire wood (from
> > standing trees), the guiding of plows, the feeding said beasts of
> > burdens.
> >
>
> I don't have any number to apply to plowing, but the winter plowings must have
> been like torture.
Well what I have seen reported first plowing each season was after frost
was out of the ground, that there was no winter plowings. Plowing in
UK in February also planting did surprise me, considering the
location and latitude.
>
> >
> > >
> > > that comes to 5312 calories/day. If you figure he exerts this kind of effort
> > > on average each work day and one day out seven is a rest day where he
> > > only expends 2000 calories you get a total calorie consumption ( at 1500
> > > calories per lb) equal to 19.5 bushels/ year. Two more bushels of the grain
> > > go into fattening up the goats, sheep, whatever so he can have a little meat
> > > now and then. At ~90% efficiency he only loses 2.5 bushels to rats, rot or the
> > > cooking process after it has been harvested.
> >
> > If all the above you offered occurred ever day certainly the numbers
> > say the peasant needs the Cals indicated, however the numbers also say
> > that no peasant after paying taxes would have enough to live on and as
> > such would have died.
> >
>
> They did.
Well all of them did not die which is what the numbers indicate. That
becomes a problem with number crunching (more on this later).
>
> >
> > <snip>
>
> Oops, I wrote 24 bushels of wheat in the first post. 24 bushels of grain or just food
> would be more accurate.
>
> The ratio for wheat of seedcorn : yield averaged 3.85 from 1209-1270.
> The ratio for barley was 4.32, these ratios are almost constant in pre-plague
> Europe. But the total harvested could vary widely because the amount of seedcorn
> planted varied.
<nods> also mixed fields, rye and oat seeded together (one example)
could effect yields. What makes things more interesting and includes
that barley was planted at a greater density (bu/arce ) then wheat was,
4 bu per acre for barley provided about 20 bu harvest, 2 bu wheat
provided about 8 bu harvest. The caloric value of wheat reported to be
1500/lb (60 lbs/bu) and barley 1350/lb (45 lbs/bu) just adds numbers to
consider.
>
> Very high wheat yields were possible, farmers in Norfolk acheived yields of
> 18-20 bu./acre by sowing very heavily.
> (See "Tracking the Agricultural Revolution" by Robert C. Allen)
>
> Example: A peasant household with 4 adults and 4 children.
>
> A peasant works a vigrate of 24 acres that is partitioned into a 3-field rotation.
Virgate. The family size reasonable, one grandparent, mother, father
and one adult child (over 16) .
> He plants it thus:
>
> 8 acres of wheat, at 2 bu./acre, yields 7.7 bu./acre.
> 8 acres of barley, at 4 bu./acre, yields 17.28 bu./acre.
> 8 acres are fallowed.
> (The planting and yield numbers above are from Winchester estate, they are the
> averages from 1209-1270 after tithes and threshing. See Christopher Dyer's
> 'Standards of living in the later Middle Ages')
The book certainly sounds interesting.
>
> This would result in a total of 61.6 bu. of wheat and 138.24 bu. of barley, a total
> grain harvest of 200.04. He sells or renders up 50 bu. of the grain (40 bu. of wheat
> and 10 bu.
> of barley) with a total value of 420d(35 shillings), based on a price of 9d for wheat
> and 6d for barley. This is enough to cover his rent for land, cottage, grinding fee
> and his poll tax. A little coin might be left over to buys a few things at the market.
The tax rate sounds low as to barley, not surprised at 2/3 rate on
wheat. That the price per bu (if so that does match my own notes)?
The price per pound should be different due to density.
>
> I can't get to the Sourcebooks pages to get the exact figures for rent at the Alwalton
> manor
> in 1279, but I believe it was 14s 7d for a vigrate and 7s for the cottage and croft.
Rents at Alwalton:
"Free tenants holds Thomas le Boteler I rood, and 3 acres 14s
church of Alwalton rector of the holds I virgate
a tenant of which holds I rood 12d.
Villeins Hugh Miller,et. el (18) 1 virgate 3s. Id 1 bu wheat, 18
sheaves oats, 3 hens, 1 cock, 5 eggs, also carting
sell mare for 10s or more pays 4d
Simon Mariot, etc (5) .5 virgate 1s, 7.5d paying 1/2 of what Hugh
Miller does in all things
Cotters Henry, son of the Miller 1 rood 2s 3 days work (per week as
needed per week?)
1 1 rood 2s ditto
1 .5 rood 2d ditto
2 1 rood 8d ditto
6 .5 rood 4d ditto
1 1 rood 12d. ditto
3 .5 rood 8d ditto
1 1 acre, .5 rood 2s, 8d ditto
1 .5 acre, 1 rood 8d ditto
7 .5 rood 6d ditto
6 .5 rood 8d ditto
1 1 rood 12d. ditto
Hugh Miller 1 3 acres 42d rent only excepting proir duties
1 3 acres, .5 rood 4s 3 days work (per week as needed per week?)
1 1 acre, 1 rood 2s ditto
"
>
> The remaining grain available to the household is 150 bu., most of it barley. With four
>
> adults consuming 24 bu. each and 4 children consuming 12 bu. each, this is just enough.
You do not appear to include ale, nor feed of ox/cow. I can see used
malt feeding cattle and there certainly some caloric value of ale
consumed.
>
> 22 bu. of barley and 2 bu. of wheat provides 4398 Kcal/day for a year from grain.
<nods> Numbers match here.
> Another 6 to 8 eight bushels worth of food could probably be extracted from their
> garden and the fallow/pasture land. One estimate of the average amount of energy
> required for a peasant in the middle-ages I have seen is 4500 Kcal/day. This seems
> reasonable to me.
I continue to suspect that draft animals got a lot of this food.
Based on current information the number crunching becomes hard to
prove. I have come across several web sites that offer how many
calories are burned doing such or such, which tend to indicate an very
active person will burn 5000+ Kcals/day. However I find at some
of the above same sites the guide line of an active person needing 18
Kcal/lbs (one site did say 20 ) which would indicate that a 150 lb
person very active (would gain about 3 lbs per week <shrugs>
data is not good) . Oh a finally little tidbit I came across
the average American (I infer USA, due to references) in recent years
eats 2,200 Kcals (as reported by a few sites, this of course includes
children [or I would hope so]) very few are farmers but I can not
see a claim the all on the USA are sedentary to that extent of what
appears to be weight management only.
All in all there is not enough data. The tax rates could
reach 50 % , the rate od food lost only guessed at, even
family size a guess, some data exists of child and
childbirth deaths but for the most part even these are guessed at.
>
> Once you figure in 10-20% losses due to waste, rats, etc. there must have been
> plenty of days were they went hungry.
>
> The pre-plague manorial system was not stable. It was slowing spiralling down to
> a crash all through the 12th and 13th centuries.
Well certainly there were problems, the plague according to some
accounts empowered the peasants. The nobles needed food growers and
the peasants got access to larger fields.
>
> Robert Brantley
no name
ba...@digital-marketplace.net wrote:
<snip>
> I well understand farming of today I still live on a farm. Yes there is
> work to be done every day to keep a farm up.
I developed an 'allergy' to cotton and had to go to move to the city ).
> Well what I have seen reported first plowing each season was after frost
> was out of the ground, that there was no winter plowings. Plowing in
> UK in February also planting did surprise me, considering the
> location and latitude.
Yeah, that one surprised me also. In cold years it seems this just
wouldn't be possible in Northern Europe.
<snip>
>
> I continue to suspect that draft animals got a lot of this food.
> Based on current information the number crunching becomes hard to
> prove. I have come across several web sites that offer how many
> calories are burned doing such or such, which tend to indicate an very
> active person will burn 5000+ Kcals/day. However I find at some
> of the above same sites the guide line of an active person needing 18
> Kcal/lbs (one site did say 20 ) which would indicate that a 150 lb
> person very active (would gain about 3 lbs per week <shrugs>
> data is not good) . Oh a finally little tidbit I came across
> the average American (I infer USA, due to references) in recent years
> eats 2,200 Kcals (as reported by a few sites, this of course includes
> children [or I would hope so]) very few are farmers but I can not
> see a claim the all on the USA are sedentary to that extent of what
> appears to be weight management only.
>
I am inclined to agree that a substantial amount would have to go to the
draft animals for the 24 bu. figure to be workable. Especially
considering the smaller size of people during this time. It does seem
to be pretty much universally accepted that the average male was
about 60 inches tall.
> All in all there is not enough data. The tax rates could
> reach 50 % , the rate od food lost only guessed at, even
> family size a guess, some data exists of child and
> childbirth deaths but for the most part even these are guessed at.
Yes, a lot of crucial variables just have to be guessed at when it comes
to crunching the numbers.
After making several other spread-sheets, I am thinking 24 bu for adults
and
12 bu for young/elderly, the figures in 'From Land to Subsistance', are
just
to high.
If I drop the values to 18bu, 8bu I can get it to balance out. A lot of
guess-work still involved though.
<snip>
DDiceRC
suggested web pages, and between this thread and the fishing thread I think I
can come up with what I need. Thanks again.
Polycarp