Yeah, I'm up for some light reading.

Obviously there's Harn Manor and ACKS, and maybe Pendragon's Estates, but does anyone know of some good resources whether focused on gaming or otherwise that give decently good rules of thumb for laying out land into Duchies, Counties, Baronies, Manors etc?

I'm looking for something less than a PhD thesis and more than what Estar would snort derisively at.

Quote from: CRKrueger;973105I'm looking for something less than a PhD thesis and more than what Estar would snort derisively at.

Boy you are in for it now

Quote from: CRKrueger;973105Obviously there's Harn Manor and ACKS, and maybe Pendragon's Estates, but does anyone know of some good resources whether focused on gaming or otherwise that give decently good rules of thumb for laying out land into Duchies, Counties, Baronies, Manors etc?

First off I wrote several blog posts on the topic. Rather than coming up with hard and fast rules, I tried to be more rule of thumb. The main issue is geography is all and it hard to come up with a set procedure that works every time.

Mapping Manors vs. Farms
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/02/mapping-manors-vs-farms.html

Region Sizes in Setting
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/03/regions-sizes-in-setting.html

Sample Feudal Map
http://batintheattic.com/downloads/Sample_Feudal_Map.jpg

Some recent work I did fleshing out one of densest populated areas (Viridstan)
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2017/06/new-maps-of-majestic-wilderlands.html

Here some rules of thumb

Life is overwhelming rural
That most won't like to travel more than a half day to a full day to the market to buy and trade once a month.
There is a heirarchy of trade farm/manor/villa to market village/keep -> town/castle -> City -> Metropolis. It will be a form of a web.
Despite my tidy feudal map, real feudalism is not tidy. The lord will have a concentration of main lands in a singel region with the rest scattered about the kingdom. This is to forestall regionalism (doesn't always work).
There are three major economic forms of organizaition for gaming purposes. Manorial, Farm, March

Farm
There will be a number of 500 acre farms worked by an extended family (about 2 to 5 per 2.5 mile hex) clustered around a market village within a half day walk (10 miles).

Manor
Farming each family owns the lands and operates separate. A manor has all land worked in common. There is "ownership" but it is in strip with the lord or holder of the manor owning the lion's share. Most of the big tools are held in common as well like the plough and the oxens.

March
A poster pointed out that in Spain and Italy people tend to cluster in a larger settlement like a Spanish Castle Village or an Itallian City-State and then head out in the morning to work various plots of land. Sort of like farming but everybody heads into town at the end of the day.

All of this is hstory highly glossed over but it works for players in a RPG campaign. There are obious and easily grasped differences between Farm/Manor/March.

Anyway I will be happy to answer any detailed questions about how to work this stuff out for yourself.

I had to look up subinfeudination. Proof that RPGs are educational!

Check out Lisa Steele's Fief and Town from Cumberland Games. Great stuff!

At OBS you can download for free the complete core rules to Chivalry and Sorcery: The Rebirth. Specifically, look in Vol 3 Gamemaster's Companion, chapter 2 The Campaign World. The publisher also has some other books available for free too that you might be of interest like the Knights Companion and the Armorer's Companion books.

As the author of some of the Amourer's and Knights books I can enthusiastically endorse the above.

I don't have any particularly good gaming sources to add, but I do have a few thoughts.

First, what are you trying to do? It might be easier to discuss your question if I knew your goals.  That said, I'll go ahead and blather anyway because it's a topic I enjoy

Starting off, feudal society is divisible from top to bottom in many levels so it helps if you pick a scale to work with or you can easily get bogged down in minutia.  If you want to get into the density and distribution of manors, or even the divisions of land use within manors then you don't want to try to detail an entire kingdom. Limit your scope to a barony, bishopric or shire.  If what you really want is the complexity of feudal political divisions then you might start by breaking a single kingdom down into its assorted lordships.  You could take it down to a second level of vassalage depending on how detailed you want to get, but you probably don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of manorialism except as a general overview of "rural life in the west-country looks like X" kind of thing.  If your scale is continent wide such as  Christiandom or the Seven Kingdoms then just detailing the several dozen major players is about all you need to do.

As a side note, feudalism and manorialism are two different things.  I think a lot of RPG suppliments such as HarnManor or the Pendragon Book of the Manor aren't very helpful in developing medieval politics because they are focused on the economic production and extraction of a single manor which doesn't translate very well into higher level politics.

Next, if you want to generate a "authentic" feel for feudalism, recognize that feudalism changes from place to place.  For example, in places of high population density common folk are likely serfs with few rights, whereas in places where labor is scarce, peasants likely have more freedoms.  In some regions, feudalism may be less developed perhaps more "clannish." Land may not be parceled out in complete detail and the people might be pastoral or semi-nomadic. In others, "bastard feudalism" where monied contracts are a common fief might prevail. One knight may own a keep and manors, another might own the right to collect a toll on a road or port as his fee, etc. One region may have a tradition of military service and duty for able bodied men (like the fyrd) while a neighboring region does not. In some regions it is permissible for a vassal to have two lords, in other regions only one. One of the reasons why feudalism is so hard to define is because it changes from region to region and from time to time.  My point is that it if you include some variation and a little contradiction it will feel a little more authentic.

Third, feudal jurisdictions overlap. The baron, the bishop, and the king or his officers may all have competing interests in the same plot of land. The boundaries of noble lands will not neatly fit into a map of ecclesiastical or royal jurisdictions.  Even within the same manor, the lord my have right to half the crop, the abbot to the firewood of the forest, and the king to the salmon of the stream.  If a peasant commits a crime, its not always clear who has the right or duty to try him.  For some random examples: England was divided into shires that administered the king's justice and collected royal taxes, on top of those owed to the local lord, wherever they could. In Germany bishops were both ecclesiastic and secular authorities.  Elsewhere, a priest could convict a person of witchcraft or other religious crime, but would have to turn the prisoner over to secular authorities to meet out the punishment.  When you are drawing a map, you could either leave borders off, or have them overlap a great deal.

Fourth, noble titles such as baron, duke, and count, despite fantasy conventions, have little to do with hierarchy or power. A duke is not necessarily more powerful or prestigious than an earl or count, or a bishop for that matter.  These titles (and I'm sure you know this) are cultural.  Charlemagne divided Europe into Counties, William divided England into Baronies,  Duke or dux is an old Roman title, Earldoms were derived from Norse conquests, etc. etc. Actual prestige and power and therefore feudal rank depended on actual prestige and power - like wealth, military resources, legal authority, family ties, nearness to the king - not some arbitrary notion that Dukes are higher than Barons.  This idea of title hierarchy came about in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the middle ages, a baron with 1,000 men at arms was more prestigious than a Grand Duke with 50.

Fifth, I had one professor who said that feudalism is basically government from horseback, which is something to hold in the back of your skull.  For the most part, it's a society where might makes right.  Authority was fragmented into groups that could exercise real power at the local level.  Few lordships were larger than a day's ride from the power center (such as a castle) to the territory's edge. Medieval taxes and law varied tremendously from region to region but was nearly universally dependent on the guy with a sword and a horse who was able to enforce it.  Attempts like the Doomsday Book to codify economics and authority had little real impact to curb or control the changing landscape of local power.  The major constant in medieval law, economics and politics was the importance of the local physical power to enforce it.

I can't think of many great RPG supplements for feudalism other than those mentioned. The BRP Monograph, Val du Loup, has a pretty good local feudal society already drawn up. The Marklands for Greyhawk has a military focus, but is surprisingly detailed and believable structures for war-torn Furyondy and Nyrond.  If your looking for something lighter and all the above is just blather, the Test of Warlords module was fun. I know you didn't want a dissertation but Marc Bloc's "Feudal Society" is a pretty short read and the seminal work on the subject.  Barbra Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" is longer, less accurate, and a lot juicier.

Quote from: estar;973180Sample Feudal Map
http://batintheattic.com/downloads/Sample_Feudal_Map.jpg

Could you expand a bit on this? There's no key.

If I'm reading it correctly, the rectangles are manors and the circles are villages and towns, yeah? So the orange dashed line-delineated areas are based on number of manors within the fief/sub-fief?

Quote from: Madprofessor;973314Starting off, feudal society is divisible from top to bottom in many levels so it helps if you pick a scale to work with or you can easily get bogged down in minutia. . . .

Next, if you want to generate a "authentic" feel for feudalism, recognize that feudalism changes from place to place. . . .

Third, feudal jurisdictions overlap. . . .

Fourth, noble titles such as baron, duke, and count, despite fantasy conventions, have little to do with hierarchy or power. . . .

I'm Black Vulmea, and I approve of this product or service.

Quote from: Madprofessor;973314Fifth, I had one professor who said that feudalism is basically government from horseback . . .

I've always liked comparisons with the Mob, myself.

Well said, Crazy Prof.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;973353I've always liked comparisons with the Mob, myself.

Well said, Crazy Prof.

I went with biker gangs especially for the early Middle Ages

Quote from: Black Vulmea;973352Could you expand a bit on this? There's no key.

If I'm reading it correctly, the rectangles are manors and the circles are villages and towns, yeah? So the orange dashed line-delineated areas are based on number of manors within the fief/sub-fief?

Still wondering, Rob.

@Estar - cool posts, I like how you designed your hex scale to be practical with regards to laying out the manors, very simple.  Also the information on the Spanish system is perfect, that fits my immediate need more anyway.

@Clash - thanks for the links have to check them out.

@Madprofessor - I'm looking to layout the different factions, strongholds, etc in a Feudal country ravaged by Civil War.  It's not the English system, more Spanish, but definitely are different types of power structures.  It's Zingara, so you have the Church of Mitra, various nobles, as well as merchant guilds, town councils, etc. where the population is more centralized in keeps and towns rather than Farms or Manors.  Right now I 'm definitely worried more about a tally of the various political factions rather than the economic output. forgot about the Marklands, thanks for the tip.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;973352Could you expand a bit on this? There's no key.

If I'm reading it correctly, the rectangles are manors and the circles are villages and towns, yeah? So the orange dashed line-delineated areas are based on number of manors within the fief/sub-fief?

For this map I going with the idea that the rural economy was farming not manorial. The diamonds are villages which in this setting is a settlement with a market where a hamlet doesn't. The open circles are keeps/minor fortifications, The black circles are castles and the rest are on the attached legends. The orange lines are the boundaries of the major fiefs and the purple line is the kingdom border. It is a simplification as a good sovereign would make sure that a vassal's lands were scattered throughout the realm.


Here is the Legend

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1120[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Black Vulmea;973427Still wondering, Rob.

Was on the road and now back home.

Quote from: estar;973430Was on the road and now back home.

No worries - 'preciate you following up.

Quote from: estar;973429The orange lines are the boundaries of the major fiefs and the purple line is the kingdom border.

Okay, this map includes two of my pet peeves common to many gaming maps. First, the boundaries rarely conform to natural features, which is a big no-no for me, and second, because manors and other fief-holdings are often dispersed to avoid concentrating power, in my experience lines aren't as effective as color-coding features on the map based on suzerainty.