Topic: Rolemaster Economics - Prices/costs of Houses/running an army etc

[C.Tozer]

Hi all

I was curious to see if anyone had any thoughts about the prices/costs of various things in the rolemaster world (based on the gold,silver,bronze,copper,tin economy).

Specifically;

1. The cost of an average house in a major city, town or village?
2. Annual wages of various professions? What might say a cobbler or a blacksmith make in a year and how much would this vary from a village to a large city? What would the distinction be between "poor", "middle class" and "wealthy"?
3. How much outfit/arm, feed and pay an army for a six month campaign? I have done some rough notes and a guess to outfit, feed and pay a small force of say 5,000 men for six months might be about 50,000gp. Sound about right?
4. What would a profitable company, say a bank with a number of different locations dotted around a kingdom, be worth?

Look forward to any thoughts people may have.

Chris

[Grinnen Baeritt]

I've spent some time pondering about the answer to question 3.

It's a very difficult answer to give, since a lot depends about the social structure of the campaign, resources, era etc.

I've dealt with it in a different manner, rather than a purely "it costs this much", and focused on the possible effects on the troops and their quality. For example, some social structures actually and actively support troops in the field (provide them food, shelter and help them in other ways). This reduces the overall cost of maintaining the forces and provides advantages in other ways... doing so in a hostile or neutral environment therefore "costs" more, leading to a possible reduction in ability of the troops to perform well. How well the individual units cope with the change in environment in which it serves is dependant upon its own skills or those of associated support units (e.g. supply & distribution).

[yammahoper]

Castle and Ruins provides an excellent write up on a middle ages RM economy.  The average daily wage for a serf/peasant is 8cp a day.

[Lord Garth]

Castle and Ruins provides an excellent write up on a middle ages RM economy.  The average daily wage for a serf/peasant is 8cp a day.

Exactly what I was going to suggest. As a matter of fact Castles and Ruins is one of the RM books I like the most adding something to almost any RM campaign. If you don't have a copy yet ... get it!

[Hurin]

The old supplement War Law has a section on weekly pay for soldiers.  Pay looks to be in the vicinity of a silver a day for infantry, 2 for cavalry, then you've got officers on top of that. Feeding costs per man looks to be about 6 copper pieces a day, and housing about 1 bronze per day.

[rdanhenry]

For the majority of medieval soldiers, the pay would have been "what you loot". The knightly class was there because that was their function - fighting was part of their basic class responsibility and sworn service to their lord. Peasants usually owned a certain period of military service as well as part of their obligations to their lord. They would be used in fighting when the land needed little attention. In many cases, the army would not even be supplied with food, being expected to "live off the land", having been sent in shortly after harvest-time, when they could be expected to find decent quantities of food... so long as they took them.

[intothatdarkness]

I know there's always the urge to have a simple or blanket answer for these questions, but the reality is that it just ain't that simple.

For question 3, what kind of army? A professional force? A mercenary force? One composed primarily of peasant levees with a stiffening of trained warriors? Is it at core an infantry army? Mounted? Some mix, and if so what mix? Most European Middle Ages forces tended to be small and have a larger noble contingent that was also mounted, but that's just one example.

Then you get into the actual field service. Is your force operating in hostile territory? Neutral? A levee force would get less support from any supply train (or even none), while a unit with more mounted elements would need more (unless they were living off the country), but you might also have a culture that demands the creature comforts for its officer or noble class, meaning many wagons with servants and so on. A mercenary force might be more interested in extorting payment from villages in its line of march than it would be actual fighting, while a tribal warband operating in the land of a cultural rival might be more interested in looting and pillaging than standard combat.

In short, your 50k GP figure might be very high for some forces, but low for others. I tended to work these things out in my world on a country by country basis (not always down to the cost in silver, but more in terms of what's a normal unit size and composition, is the force professional, and so on), since the answer is really "it depends."

[Hurin]

For the majority of medieval soldiers, the pay would have been "what you loot". The knightly class was there because that was their function - fighting was part of their basic class responsibility and sworn service to their lord. Peasants usually owned a certain period of military service as well as part of their obligations to their lord. They would be used in fighting when the land needed little attention. In many cases, the army would not even be supplied with food, being expected to "live off the land", having been sent in shortly after harvest-time, when they could be expected to find decent quantities of food... so long as they took them.

Not to nitpick, but being a professor of medieval history I do feel the need to set the record straight.

Peasants tended not to owe military service: that is a confusion of the feudal system with the manorial system. Medieval rulers tended not to like to give their peasants arms, especially not after the peasant rebellions; the thought of armed bands of peasants roving the countryside was not a pleasant one to most kings. Most medieval armies were composed of a core of household troops, which by the high middle ages (and in many cases in the early middle ages as well) expected to be paid. These would be the troops of the lord's household (huscarles, for example). In the early middle ages the pay was, as you note, often just food and a place to sleep and plunder. By the high middle ages, though, troops of all types were starting to expect to be paid. By the twelfth century even feudal levies were often being paid, even while on feudal service, and scutum (payment of money in return for service) was being used by commanders to hire mercenary armies rather than call up the feudal troops.

I don't mean to say that mercenaries couldn't be attracted by the thought of plunder, just that they also expected to be paid a daily wage (a silver penny in the 12th century, for example). Even kings like Henry II of England were using mostly paid troops, and this was in the 12th century. Towns sometimes supplied urban militia, but their terms of service were very short and even they were often paid by the kings or the towns themselves. Peasant militias were declining in importance even before the early middle ages were over.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

I know there's always the urge to have a simple or blanket answer for these questions, but the reality is that it just ain't that simple.

For question 3, what kind of army? A professional force? A mercenary force? One composed primarily of peasant levees with a stiffening of trained warriors? Is it at core an infantry army? Mounted? Some mix, and if so what mix? Most European Middle Ages forces tended to be small and have a larger noble contingent that was also mounted, but that's just one example.

Then you get into the actual field service. Is your force operating in hostile territory? Neutral? A levee force would get less support from any supply train (or even none), while a unit with more mounted elements would need more (unless they were living off the country), but you might also have a culture that demands the creature comforts for its officer or noble class, meaning many wagons with servants and so on. A mercenary force might be more interested in extorting payment from villages in its line of march than it would be actual fighting, while a tribal warband operating in the land of a cultural rival might be more interested in looting and pillaging than standard combat.

In short, your 50k GP figure might be very high for some forces, but low for others. I tended to work these things out in my world on a country by country basis (not always down to the cost in silver, but more in terms of what's a normal unit size and composition, is the force professional, and so on), since the answer is really "it depends."

Basically what I was getting at with my reply. It's not a question with a simple answer, even if you just restrict yourself to the middle ages. There are just too many variables.

Pillaging, Plundering and Foraging can help to support a military force... but that depends itself on the availability of resources.. and the skills at hand to best utilise them.

Example: A group of soldiers with access to skills in hunting, butchering etc could support themselves better in the field than those without the training, thus the *cost* would be proportionately less.

[intothatdarkness]

Basically what I was getting at with my reply. It's not a question with a simple answer, even if you just restrict yourself to the middle ages. There are just too many variables.

Pillaging, Plundering and Foraging can help to support a military force... but that depends itself on the availability of resources.. and the skills at hand to best utilise them.

Example: A group of soldiers with access to skills in hunting, butchering etc could support themselves better in the field than those without the training, thus the *cost* would be proportionately less.

Considering that armies during the American Civil War could sustain themselves reasonably well by living "off the country," I think it's fair to assume that any Middle Ages-type army could do the same (at least in terms of having the available skills). It would come down to resources, and the willingness of a commander to allow his troops to "make use" of those resources.

I've always been wary of lists of troop costs, simply because you don't always have access to the underlying reason for that cost and it may be flat-out wrong for your setting. Hurin makes good points regarding the hidden (or not commonly understood) costs of a Middle Ages force. Impressed laborers might be used to move supplies, improve trails, or tend to setting up and tearing down camp, depending on the society and its views regarding its troops doing common labor, which would in theory increase the size of the army without contributing to either its combat power or cost.

And if you're looking at mercenaries, it's a good assumption that most of the more reputable or reliable groups would bring their own equipment, so that's not part of the cost. They might expect a replacement fund or something similar, but the lead-in cost of training and equipping a unit (no small thing) wouldn't be part of it.

War Law's lists were pretty good, but they should be taken as a starting point, really.

[Hurin]

That is one difference between modern and medieval armies: medieval commanders expected most troops to show up already trained and with their own equipment. When the king hired mercenaries, he expected them to already know how to ride and fight and to come to his muster with their own weapons, armor and horses, if not supplies as well. You can even see this with conscripted troops, like the English fyrd: while they would expect to be paid, they were required to come with their own provisions and equipment, which was often very specifically detailed: eg., spear, shield, and bow for normal infantry; helmet, body armor, lance, sword (in addition to the spear and shield) for the cavalry; and 30 days worth of food, for example. Even the Roman legionairres had to buy their own armor (if they didn't have enough money to pay for it at the start, it was docked from their pay till they paid it off).

[C.Tozer]

Thanks all for the responses.

Agreed with the various comments RE costs RE an army and certainly take the point that often/most of the time an army both provided their own weapons and armor and pay was often either non existent or simply whatever you could loot/scourge.
The 50,000gp figure was assuming the lord/commander was both providing weapons/equipment and paying a wage for mercenary army army (unlikely I guess as mercenaries would provide their own weapons/armor as already mentioned by several of you).
I guess I was just trying to get a sense of how much to arm/armor 5,000 men (my extremely rough guess was about 30,000gp to outfit 5,000 men - mixture of light & heavy infantry & Calvary) and  get a idea of how much to feed/pay that number of people; again my guess was around 90gp per week for food and about 633 per week for pay.

As to my other questions thanks to both to yammahoper and Lord Garth for the suggestion of Castles & Ruins - i have managed to track down a copy and have a quick skim but I gotta admit I am still scratching my head a bit.
While on page 70 it talks about taxes (average income for common laborer approx 12 - 24 tp per day), a the castles staff members wages (page 68) and a wage chart for castle construction (page 40) it doesn't seem to flesh out a RM economy in quite the detail I was seeking with some of my questions. Have a missed a particular part of the book I am wondering as I have only flicked through it?

Also as to my other two questions - prices of a house and the value of a successful company - any more thoughts from any one?

Look forward to any more insights or suggestions/guesses (?) people may have ...

Chris

[intothatdarkness]

With housing an a company's value you're really getting into world-speciific questions that are hard to generically answer. In my world, the answer varies from realm to realm. There are only a handful (2-3) that have companies of the sort you're talking about, and many of those are royal monopolies (so it's hard to say just how much they're "worth" in that sense since they're backed by the treasury of the realm). Some of the overseas trade companies that have escaped royal control (for now, at least) would value in excess of 5 million silver (I run on a silver standard), but they only have a handful of locations and make their major coin when they resell what they import. The royal monopolies import at least double that value.

Value of a home is also subjective. In the major port cities that are home to the trade houses mentioned, houses are expensive (especially if they're in a "good" quarter...upwards of 100,000 silver with attached grounds and walls), with prices dropping off as you move further inland. More rural realms can see a similar cost, but that's for a small walled keep (needed in the less populated areas). There are also some places where a home couldn't be bought for any money (dwarven clanholds) and need to be inherited.

To get back to your army question, if you take a normal soldier's rations as trail rations (1 bp per person for a week at town cost, according to ChL), you'd be spending 500 silver (50 gold) a week to feed 5000 men. Switching to standard rations cuts that cost in half, but increases the weight. Keep in mind that's just for the fighting men, though. Most armies had an assortment of camp followers (tradespeople, merchants, gamblers, persons of ill repute, and so on) who would soak up supplies and cause problems for commanders. And with your cavalry, if you're looking at heavy horse (knights), you'd have more than one horse per knight (at least one for the squire, and a riding horse for the knight in addition to his warhorse), which increases the forage requirements and need for blacksmiths.

[C.Tozer]

With housing an a company's value you're really getting into world-speciific questions that are hard to generically answer. In my world, the answer varies from realm to realm. There are only a handful (2-3) that have companies of the sort you're talking about, and many of those are royal monopolies (so it's hard to say just how much they're "worth" in that sense since they're backed by the treasury of the realm). Some of the overseas trade companies that have escaped royal control (for now, at least) would value in excess of 5 million silver (I run on a silver standard), but they only have a handful of locations and make their major coin when they resell what they import. The royal monopolies import at least double that value.

Value of a home is also subjective. In the major port cities that are home to the trade houses mentioned, houses are expensive (especially if they're in a "good" quarter...upwards of 100,000 silver with attached grounds and walls), with prices dropping off as you move further inland. More rural realms can see a similar cost, but that's for a small walled keep (needed in the less populated areas). There are also some places where a home couldn't be bought for any money (dwarven clanholds) and need to be inherited.

To get back to your army question, if you take a normal soldier's rations as trail rations (1 bp per person for a week at town cost, according to ChL), you'd be spending 500 silver (50 gold) a week to feed 5000 men. Switching to standard rations cuts that cost in half, but increases the weight. Keep in mind that's just for the fighting men, though. Most armies had an assortment of camp followers (tradespeople, merchants, gamblers, persons of ill repute, and so on) who would soak up supplies and cause problems for commanders. And with your cavalry, if you're looking at heavy horse (knights), you'd have more than one horse per knight (at least one for the squire, and a riding horse for the knight in addition to his warhorse), which increases the forage requirements and need for blacksmiths.

(very belately) thanks for the response.

[Ginger McMurray]

(very belately) thanks for the response.

And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to...

[gog]

Not sure if it's worth adding now, but ...and a 10 foot pole might also be worth a look for costings and so forth.

[C.Tozer]

Not sure if it's worth adding now, but ...and a 10 foot pole might also be worth a look for costings and so forth.

Nice one thanks - yes there is some good ...and a 10 foot pole particuarly around wages etc.

Cheers

Chris