Medieval Demographics Made Easy Numbers for Fantasy Worlds
By S. John Ross, copyright ? 1993, 1999, 2005
Of form, doing the research necessary to find out how common a big city should be, or how common castles are, or how many shoemakers can exist plant in a boondocks, can accept up time not all GMs take available. To the end of more plausible and satisfying world design, I've prepared this article.
The information her is distilled from a multifariousness of historical sources, focusing on results, rather than on the thousands of details that create them. The rules here are meant to serve every bit a baseline, to exist deviated from at demand, not to bandage numbers into iron - halve things, double things, or otherwise fiddle with them to suit the feel you're going for. The figures employ documented data from fourth dimension periods ranging from the 12th-14th centuries, and from locales as varied equally Russia, England, France, Germany and Italy. When a "default" was needed, rather than an average, I opted for late-medieval France by and large, and the latest, virtually developed periods in full general.
Population Density: How Many In That Kingdom? Unless the kingdom is quite immature, it is probable riddled with villages, a mile or so apart, covering every inch of the countryside. Agrarian communities on the calibration of the village or hamlet are not self-supporting in any real sense; they exist in vast networks. The only notable exception to this rule is frontier country, where isolated towns accept no choice but to exist. But these towns volition tend to be large and walled-a people huddled together for condom. On the borderland, nutrient and goods are normally delivered by merchant caravans rather than produced past local agronomics. The presence of monsters would almost certainly magnify these furnishings.
The average population density for a fully-developed medieval country is from 30 per square mile (for countries with lots of rocks, lots of rain, and lots of ice-or a slave-driving Mad Rex) to a limit of virtually 120 per square mile, for a state with rich soil and favorable seasons. No land is wasted if information technology tin can be settled and farmed. There are many factors that determine the population density of a land, only none as important as arability and climate. If food volition grow, so will peasants. If desired, verbal density can be rolled randomly, and land arability reverse-engineered from the result. A coil of 6d4, multiplied by five, will practise the play a trick on nicely. Reduce the multiple by any amount down to one to correspond a much less developed land, or to represent countries depopulated by invasions, plagues or other calamities. Nations hit by such troubles can stay depopulated for centuries, besides, barring an influx of immigrants: natural population growth is usually glacial in pre-industrial worlds.
Some Historical Comparisons: Medieval French republic tops the list, with a 14th-century density in the neighborhood of 105 people/sq. mile. The French were blessed with an abundance of arable countryside, waiting to be farmed. Modern France has more than twice this many people. Germany, with a slightly less perfect climate and a lower percentage of arable state, averaged 87 people per square mile. Italia was similar (lots of hills and rocky areas) with 86. The British Isles were the to the lowest degree populous, with only 42 people per square mile, most of them clustered in the southern half of the isles.
Hexes: Information technology may be important for some GMs using this article to know how much country is in a hexagonal surface area! To determine the area of a hex, multiply its width by 0.9306049, and square the consequence. Thus, if your game-map has hexes 30 miles across, each hex represents virtually 780 square miles. Put a hex like that in the middle of 14th century Germany, and it supports an average of 67,800 people (and it'southward a convenient size for travel-times, since 30 miles is a good rule of thumb for a mean solar day'southward road travel on foot or horseback).
Town and Urban center Population: How Many In Those Walls? For purposes of this article, settlements volition be divided into Villages, Towns, Cities and Large Cities (known as "supercities" in the parlance of urban historians).
Villages range from twenty to ane,000 people. Near kingdoms will take thousands of them. Villages are agrarian communities within the safe folds of culture. They provide the basic source of food and land-stability in a feudal system. Usually, a village that supports orchards (instead of grainfields) is called a "hamlet." Occasionally, game writers apply the term to apply to a very pocket-size village, regardless of what nutrient it produces.
Towns range in population from i,000-8,000 people. Culturally, these are the equivalent to the smaller American cities that line the interstates. Cities and towns tend to have walls only if they are frequently threatened.
Cities tend to exist from 8,000-12,000 people, with an average in the middle of that range. A typical large kingdom will have just a few cities in this population range. Centers of scholarly pursuits (the Universities) tend to be in cities of this size, with only the rare exception thriving in a Large City.
Big Cities range from 12,000-100,000 people, with some infrequent cities exceeding this scale. Some historical examples include London (25,000-40,000), Paris (50,000-80,000), Genoa (75,000-100,000), and Venice (100,000+). Moscow in the 15th century had a population in excess of 200,000!
Large population centers of whatsoever scale are the result of traffic. Coastlines, navigable rivers and overland trade-routes form a criss-crossing blueprint of trade-arteries, and the towns and cities grow along those lines. The larger the avenue, the larger the boondocks. And where several large arteries converge, you have a metropolis. Villages are scattered densely through the country between the larger settlements.
Population Spread Okay, so you know how large your kingdom is, and how many people alive there. How many people live in the cities, and how many cities are there? How many live in villages?
- First, determine the population of the largest city in the kingdom. This is equal to (P times Thou), where P is equal to the square root of the country'southward population, and 1000 is equal to a random roll of 2d4+10 (the average scroll is xv).
- The second-ranking metropolis volition be from twenty-80% the size of the largest city. To randomly determine this, roll 2d4 times 10% (the average result is 50%)
- Each remaining city or town will exist from ten% to 40% smaller than the previous one (2d4 times 5% - the average outcome is 25%); continue list them until you hitting a town with a population below 1,700. Once you do, you'll have a complete list of every urban center in your kingdom, ranging from the largest metropolis to the smallest of the notable towns.
The remainder of the population volition be rural, living in villages and hamlets and huts and and so on. Private village populations should exist determined randomly or by fiat (the average will be from 100 to 600 or so depending on cultural and climate factors). From two-v% of the country's populus will live in settlements too pocket-size to be called villages-isolated dwellings, or collections of huts with a total population of under 20-or will exist itinerant workers and wanderers.
Using similarly average rolls for metropolis sizes, we tin make up one's mind the following about Chamlek: It'southward largest city, Restagg, has a population of 34,000. The adjacent-ranking major cities and towns are Volthyrm (17,000), McClannach (13,000), Cormidigar (ten,000), and Oberthrush (7,000). There are 4 cities and half dozen towns all told, with a full population of around 98,000 (most two% of the kingdom). The rest is rural. Keeping all rolls average simply varying the starting population density, Chamlek could have from 4-v towns and from 1-5 cities.
Merchants and Services In a village of 400 people, just how many inns and taverns are realistic? Non very many. Peradventure non even 1. When traveling across the countryside, characters should not encounter a user-friendly sign proverb "Motel: Free Cable and Swimming Pool" every iii leagues. For the near part, they will have to camp on their ain or seek shelter in people's homes.
Provided they are friendly, the latter option should be no problem. A farmer can alive in a single identify all his life, and he volition welcome news and stories of adventures, not to mention any money the heroes might offer!
Each type of business organization is given a Support Value (SV). This is the number of people information technology takes to support a single business organization of that sort. For example, the SV for shoemakers (by far the well-nigh common trade in towns) is 150. This means that there will be 1 shoemaker for every 150 people in an surface area. These numbers can vary by upward to 60% in either direction, but provide a useful baseline for GMs. Think most the nature of the town or metropolis to decide if the numbers demand to be changed. A port, for case, will take more fishmongers than the table indicates.
To detect the number of, say, inns in a city, divide the population of the metropolis past the SV value for inns (two,000). For a village of 400 people, this reveals only twenty% of an inn! This means that there is a 20% risk of in that location existence i at all. And even if there is one, it volition be smaller and less impressive than an urban inn. The SV for taverns is 400, and so there will be a single tavern.
| Business | SV | Business | SV |
| Shoemakers | 150 | Butchers | i,200 |
| Furriers | 250 | Fishmongers | one,200 |
| Maidservants | 250 | Beer-Sellers | 1,400 |
| Tailors | 250 | Buckle Makers | one,400 |
| Barbers | 350 | Plasterers | ane,400 |
| Jewelers | 400 | Spice Merchants | one,400 |
| Taverns/Restaurants | 400 | Blacksmiths | one,500 |
| Old-Apparel | 400 | Painters | 1,500 |
| Pastrycooks | 500 | Doctors | 1,700* |
| Masons | 500 | Roofers | 1,800 |
| Carpenters | 550 | Locksmiths | 1,900 |
| Weavers | 600 | Bathers | i,900 |
| Chandlers | 700 | Ropemakers | 1,900 |
| Mercers | 700 | Inns | two,000 |
| Coopers | 700 | Tanners | 2,000 |
| Bakers | 800 | Copyists | 2,000 |
| Watercarriers | 850 | Sculptors | 2,000 |
| Scabbardmakers | 850 | Rugmakers | 2,000 |
| Wine-Sellers | 900 | Harness-Makers | 2,000 |
| Hatmakers | 950 | Bleachers | 2,100 |
| Saddlers | 1,000 | Hay Merchants | ii,300 |
| Chicken Butchers | ane,000 | Cutlers | 2,300 |
| Pursemakers | 1,100 | Glovemakers | two,400 |
| Woodsellers | two,400 | Woodcarvers | ii,400 |
| Magic-Shops | 2,800 | Booksellers | 6,300 |
| Bookbinders | 3,000 | Illuminators | 3,900 |
| *These are licensed doctors. Full doctor SV is 350. | |||
Some other figures: There will be one noble household per 200 population, one lawyer ("advocate") per 650, one clergyman per 40 and one priest per 25-xxx clergy.
Businesses not listed here will well-nigh likely have an SV from 5,000 to 25,000! The "Magic Shop" means a shop where wizards tin can purchase spell ingredients, whorl newspaper and the like, not a place to buy magic swords off the shelf.
Agriculture At the medieval level of technology, a square mile of settled country (including requisite roads, villages and towns, as well every bit crops and pastureland) will support 180 people. This takes into account normal blights, rats, drought, and theft, all of which are common in most worlds. If magic is common, the GM may decide a square mile of country can support many more than people. Note that the number of people a foursquare mile of agricultural land will back up is non the same as the maximum population density for a kingdom.
Once you have decided the ability of the state to support people, you lot can determine the corporeality of wilderness/unfarmable land in the kingdom by working backwards. Have the example kingdom of Chamlek again, the island kingdom with 70,000 square miles and 5.25 million citizens. With one foursquare mile supporting 180 people, that ways there is approximately 29,200 square miles of developed agrestal land - virtually 42% of the full expanse of the isle. This offers a graphic example of just how thin the population really is. The remaining 58% of the country is wilderness, rivers and lakes.
Even if Chamlek had the maximum population density (120 people per square mile), the farmland would exist a whopping 2/3rds of the total land, leaving i-3rd of the country to wilderness (mostly forested hills between the farms) and waterways. That's somewhere nearly the absolute maximum, given Earthly weather, though higher is theoretically possible if the GM determines that the entire country is arable.
While the average distance between population centers tin can exist derived from the full land area, the average walking altitude from one hamlet to the side by side is more than realistically adamant by considering just the settled land. Villages and towns tend to cluster tightly forth the arteries of travel divers by the lines between the cities - leaving gaps of wilderness in the middle.
Castles Okay, we at present completely understand the lay of the land as regards civilization, the cities and farms. Nearer to the heart of the adventurer, notwithstanding, is the castle, or better still, the ruined castle. One time again, how many should there be?
Ruins, commencement of all, depend on the age of the region. The following formula is only a guide. The frequency of ruins in Europe varied greatly depending on military machine history and remoteness of the surface area. To determine the approximate number of ruined fortifications, carve up the kingdom's population by five 1000000. Multiply the result by the square root of the kingdom'south historic period. If the kingdom has changed hands a lot, use the total age-the number of years that castle-edifice people have lived there, regardless of the Royal Lineage.
Chamlek, our island kingdom, has five-and-quarter 1000000 people today. Chamlek has been populated by castle-building folk for 300 years. She has eighteen.nineteen ruined forts or castles, which means 18 for certain, and a 19% chance of ane more.
Active castles are much more common; ruins are rare because the solid ones are constantly put back into service! Assume one performance castle for every fifty,000 people. The age of the kingdom is not really a factor. Chamlek would accept 105 agile castles of various stripes, approximately.
75% of all castles will be in the civilized (settled) areas of a kingdom. The other 25% will be in the "wilderness," along borders, etc.
The role of these castles is something also world-oriented to be reduced to formula. Virtually will marker the landholdings of Barons and Dukes, but some may be bandit strongholds, or the outposts of Goblin warlords. It is all upward to the GM.
MiscellanyCity Size: Cities and towns of the Heart Ages cover one square mile of land per 38,850 people, on average. This is a density of about 61 per acre or 150 per hectare, so the land within the walls of a typical urban center of 10,000 would be 165 acres-inappreciably a city by modern standards, in terms of population OR size. Some very large cities may have had up to twice this density.
Police Enforcement: A well-kept medieval city will have 1 law officer (guardsman, watchman, etc.) for every 150 citizens. Slack cities will have half this number. A few rare cities will have more.
Institutions of Higher Learning: There will be one University for every 27.3 one thousand thousand people. This should exist computed by continent, not by town! This effigy assumes entirely scholarly universities, not those dedicated to the arcane arts. Whether or not magical universities are split institutions, and how mutual they are, is a matter for GM determination.
Livestock: The livestock population, on the whole, will equal 2.2 times the human population, but 68% pct of this will be fowl (chickens, geese and ducks). The rest will be dairy cows and "meat animals:" Pigs are superior as food animals, since they eat less individually, and are non picky eaters. Sheep will be extremely mutual if the region has a wool market (like medieval England, which was built on wool). Cattle for labor and milk will be found occasionally, simply cattle raised specifically for meat are but plant in very prosperous areas.
BibliographyThe SV list was taken (mostly) from the tax list of Paris in 1292, and checked against other sources for accuracy. This list can be found in Life in a Medieval Metropolis past Joseph and Francis Geis (Harper and Row, 1981). This is a fine book past amateur historians, which includes some fascinating descriptions of medieval city life and layout. Other books consulted include:
Medieval Cities, past Henri Pirenne. Doubleday.
The Castle Story, by Sheila Sancha. Harper Colophon.
The Medieval Town, by John H. Mundy and Peter Riesenberg. Robert E. Krieger Publishing Visitor.
The Medieval Town, by Fritz R?rig. University of California Printing.
Medieval Regions and Their Cities, by Josiah Cox Russel. David & Charles press.
Want more than info on how things worked in the Center Ages? Give our eBook, Fief, a look!
Questions virtually the article? Visit the Blue Room FAQ; I have an entire section devoted to this article. Delight read the FAQ before emailing.
This piece has really made the rounds . . . The primeval version was rejected by Dragon mag back in 1993. I dusted it off, expanded it, and submitted it to Pyramid later on that (no response at all). I improved it farther for my own use, then pitched it to The Familiar: they accustomed it, just in time for them to vanish, then once again it went unsold. Later on the obligatory touches of improvement, I "sold" it once again, to Shadis, just in fourth dimension for them to vanish! So, its never made me a penny but it's been quite a ride! Now, I've given it a domicile where information technology can residuum, and hopefully be discovered by people that won't pass up it, ignore information technology, or go out of concern afterwards touching information technology (and, just recently, some other popular gaming magazine approached me wanting to publish it, so I approximate at that place's no rest for the wicked)!
Calculators and Spreadsheets: Derek Bryan created this piece of cake-to-utilize estimator based on the well-nigh recent version of the article; it's a lot of fun to play with, and includes a great implementation of the random values (which I highly recommend). Several folks have created calculators based on before versions of the article besides, including Brandon Blackmoor, Bronwyn Evans, and Douglas Schulz. At that place are also a couple of spreadsheets I know of based on before versions, i by Marcus Hulings (26k Aught file, Excel and Quattro Pro), and Anthony M. Plum (29k Nothing file, Excel).
Demographics in French: French gamer Antoine Dinimant has placed la Démographie médiévale facile on the Web for those who dig French to enjoy. Information technology's a translation of this commodity, with additional notes added from our correspondence
Source: https://lacrypte.fr/accueil/articles-divers-sur-le-medieval/84-medieval-demographics
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