Introduction: On Setting Concepts
This book aids the creation of a generic Western
European medieval world consistent with third
edition gaming. This is not a campaign setting, nor is
it a history book with a list of rulers, powerful people,
and events. This book allows you to add a medieval
feel to your world without forcing you to play in a
truly medieval world. This volume provides a wealth
of resources concerning medieval Western Europe:
the spatial systems, the social groups and distinctions,
the trade and economics, the law and justice, and the
typical medieval mindset. Modeled after Germanic high
medieval societies, this book simulates, but does not
replicate actual medieval Europe.
However, this book does not discuss costumes,
customs, mythology, games, tournaments, linguistics,
or any of the other particulars of a distinctive campaign
setting. It does not provide all the necessary information
to create a comprehensive magical medieval society.
Such is the prerogative of the GM’s unique campaign
world. This supplement provides GMs information and
tools for increasing the depth of their existing world.
Some basic core assumptions of third edition gaming
integrate poorly with medieval society. Ultimately, GMs
must make decisions on how their magical medieval
society works.
Gender
The medieval period, though romantically remembered
for chivalry and knights, is not known for its gender
equality. However, medieval society is not as
discriminatory as most moderns believe. Women find
places in medieval society as guild members, powerful
landowners, and abbesses. Some societies assign gender
to certain roles but allow women to assume those roles
though assuming a different gender. Complex gender
issues aside, third edition assumes ability is not based
upon sex or gender. This means a female fighter swings
and hits as hard as a male fighter.
The religious views of women that
colored feminine perceptions in the
medieval times are another gender
consideration. There is no inherent
Eve or Madonna in third edition.
This does not remove all historically
sex-defined roles, but it does allow a
GM more equality in game play.
What kind of place in society
would women have in third edition
parameters? Making women
statistically equal to men challenges
every historical concept of women.
Female rulers would be more
common, or even the norm in some
kingdoms. Women would bear arms and be a part of
military endeavors. A female society and fighting force
could exist and kill anyone that has problems with
sword-carrying chicks. Religious institutions would
incorporate women in their hierarchy, and female
apprentices would be accepted as readily as male ones.
Because of third edition’s gender assumptions, GMs
determine societal roles rather than assuming historical
gender roles. That being said, if GMs prefer busty
serving wenches and damsels in distress (so that PCs
can kill dragons and steal their treasures), keep in step
with the historical view towards women in a magical
medieval society.
Communication
The ease of third edition communication, both written
and spoken, leads a magical medieval society away from
its historical roots. Firstly, by virtue of being classed, a
large percent of society is literate. Even thorps, not
including barbarians and commoners, have on average
fifteen literate people. Secondly, everyone speaks
common, including nonhuman races, such as elves,
dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and many of the goblinoids.
This does not exclude variations in regional accent and
local slang, but everyone can effectively communicate
with each other. This removes interesting encounters
such as kings and queens speaking different languages,
muddling through marriage with a smattering of each
other’s native tongue. Everyone possessing a common
language is analogous to everyone in the medieval
period speaking fluent Latin, even the commoners.
These two factors change the way a magical
medieval society progresses. Increased literacy leads
to a more educated society, while a common language
allows for more communication between races,
cities and nations. One expects trade and the rise of
cities to occur faster and be more pervasive in such
an environment when compared with the historical
examples. Better dissemination of ideas leads to gains in
technology, religion, and innovations, altering the social
makeup of a magical medieval Western Europe.
Race
This book mostly considers humans and human
interactions. This is because humans were the only
existing creatures in the historical Middle Ages and
because there are vastly differing interpretations of the
other races (elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, half-orc, halfelf).
Our basic assumption is a society in which race is
a non-determining factor for social interactions. This is,
of course, far from what probably would occur in a real
magical medieval society, but allows GMs flexibility so
they can implement their own ideas about race in their
campaign. It also lets GMs easily change race relations
to fit different areas of their world without forcing them
to change anything in this book. If a particular race is
hated in one area and favored in another, A Magical
Medieval Society: Western Europe can be equally
applied in both cases.
Alignment
Alignment is perhaps the most difficult of all third
edition concepts. Every GM and player has differing
ideas about what constitutes LG or LE. This book
purposefully does not address alignment issues because
of this fact. We believe the base alignment (and what
we are here describing) of magical medieval societies
is LN. Law and order keep these societies functioning;
therefore most magical medieval societies view moral
implications based upon maintaining structure. This
mindset explains their reluctance to change. Good
maintains order, and change always upsets order.
Pervasiveness of Magic
Magic is the most difficult factor to resolve with a
medieval society. Cure spells, lyres of building, talking
to gods through commune, and every small town
having a person who can cure disease are very difficult
to resolve with a medieval mindset. Most supplements
simply lay a magic patina over historic medieval times,
but magic really changes everything.
In resolving the issue of magic, our first assumption
is that society evolved and developed alongside magic.
Relying on the cleverness, ingenuity, and survival of
humanity, this supplement is based upon extrapolation
of historical information and trends.
Our second assumption is that most magic in
a magical medieval society is mundane magic, not
adventuring magic. Most people stay rooted in their
community and do not take to wandering; therefore, a
real society uses their magic and creates items to help
everyday life. Wealthy individuals have more mundane
magic than adventuring magic, because, on a day-today
basis, they use the mundane magic more. Magic
focuses on crops, medicine, craftsmanship, labor, and
entertainment more than on dungeon delving.
Our third assumption resolves a historical medieval
mindset with a magical world by viewing magic as a
form of technology. Though some feel treating magic
as technology lessens the mystical feel of magic, a real
society developing with the magic prevalence dictated
by the core rules would not view magic only as a
mystical thing. Powerful magics remain a great mystical
affair in the society, but low-level magic is familiar to all
but the most isolated.
Setting Table A — Spellcasting Demographics*
Community
Size
Average
Number of
Spellcasters
Average % of
Spellcasters in
Population
Thorp 3 3.75-15
Hamlet 6 1.5-7.4
Village 12 1.3-3
Small Town 18 0.9-2
Large Town 68 1.35-3.4
Small City 403 3.36-8
Large City 1,787 7.1-14.9
Metropolis 6,393 6.4-25.6
See Appendix I — Demographics for additional information.
Any society that evolves alongside magic views
magic in a similar manner as they view other forms
of technology. It is no different than three-field system
for farming, a water mill to grind grain, a lever and
pulley for constructing tall structures, the “magic” of
forging metal, or a trebuchet for busting curtain walls.
Magic becomes a useful tool, but this does not lessen
the mysticism associated with medieval technology.
For example, smiths are often viewed as magicians
because people do not understand the science behind
metallurgy. Smiths carefully guard their secrets and
perform ritualistic actions that have no effect upon
the forging of the metal. Magical medieval people
incorporate magic in their everyday existence, but this
does not mean magical medieval societies have the
modern mindset for welcoming change.
Our final assumption is magic brings social change
to medieval societies. Traditionally, medieval society is
broken down into three categories: those who toil, those
who pray, and those who fight. In a medieval society,
those who fight are implicitly understood to be those who
rule. Magic disrupts this triumvirate by inserting itself
into all layers of society and establishing another source
of power in a magical medieval society. This supplement
chooses to insert magic throughout society, rather than
put all the changes into one condensed chapter.
Welcome and Thank You
Welcome to a Magical Medieval Society: Western
Europe! We hope the information here provides you
with hundreds of campaign and adventuring ideas.
We hope the generation systems for manors, towns
and cities, kingdoms and aristocrats, buildings, and the
short economic simulator in the appendices provide you
with a board upon which to bounce your own campaign
specific needs against. We’ve tried to make all systems
as historically accurate as possible, while considering
our setting assumptions, and hope you find them as
useful as we do. Thanks, and enjoy!
Chapter One:On Those Who Toil
Though the main focus of third edition is adventurers,
the importance of those who toil is implicit in every
campaign setting. Those who toil are the people in
society who produce and reproduce. They are the bulk
of the population, typically 90-94%, and they work the
land for food, fodder, drink, and clothing. They not
only work for their own survival and betterment, they
make the food and raw goods that support those whose
livelihood is not growing food. Urban communities,
traveling military forces and small standing armies rely
upon those who toil. Urban dwellers, living in small
towns or larger, usually grow food outside of the urban
center, but not enough to support the dense population
found in the city. Armies are completely dependant
upon the work of those who toil. A generic magical
medieval setting is based in an agrarian society, unless
climate and terrain dictate otherwise.
Note: Though presented here in a clear-cut and
ideal form, actual magical medieval manors vary in
almost every imaginable way: size, productivity, living
conditions, buildings, and staff. As in all things magical
medieval, there are generalizations, but societies are
defined by their exceptions. See Chapter Two: Generating
Manors for a closer look at manorial diversity.
The Manorial System
The basis of a medieval agrarian society is the manorial
system. Manors are rural estates under a lord, often an
absentee lord, who has certain rights over the land and
its tenants. This land is usually apart of a benefice, a
package of land, buildings, or rights given by another
lord in exchange for military service or coin. This
land may include defensive structures, farms, mines,
quarries, meadows, forests, marshes, rivers, mills, or
villages. If it includes a village, all the occupants of
the village become the lord’s tenants and are indebt
to the lord due the protection he provides them. Some
peasants own their own land, but are still required to
provide labor on the lord’s land at harvest. In cases
where there are no villages in the lord’s benefice, the
lord may build a manor or castle. A community usually
develops around him for protection and unoccupied
land. Most agrarian-based communities only develop
to the size of a village. Some communities may grow to
the size of small towns or larger, evolving into an urban
center. Lords can have more than one manor, and one
manor can encompass more than one village.
Most manors are small, usually less than 640 acres,
or one square mile. Rural communities are usually
within 1-2 miles of each other. Larger villages or towns,
where markets and fairs for selling and buying surplus
occur, are usually within five miles of most small rural
communities.
Manorial Complex
On every manor, the lord sets apart land for his various
manorial interests. This includes a manorial house,
storage buildings, vineyards, orchards, gardens,
beehives, dovecotes, livestock, and all other things
belonging to the lord. Even an absentee lord has a
manorial complex. The quality and number of buildings
within the complex depend on the lord’s assets and
personal industry.
Manorial Home: Every manor has a manorial
home, even if it is no more than a simple great house.
Made of stone and usually two stories tall, the manorial
home houses the bailiff
and other important
staff. On large manors,
body servants’ quarters
are nearby the manorial
house while body servants
on small manors usually
sleep in the great hall.
Common servants are
employed from the village
manorial populace. Every
manorial house has a
large meeting room on the ground floor called the great
hall, home of the manorial court and feasts of harvest
and holidays. If the lord resides in the manorial home,
his quarters are on the second floor to provide privacy
for the lord and lady’s family. The kitchen is a separate
building attached to the manor by a walkway, while the
pantry, storing bread, and the buttery, storing wine, are
next to the great hall. Garderobes are also off of the
great hall, as well as upstairs.
Unlike most of the other structures on the manor,
the manorial home is not solely focused on agriculture
and growing food. Its importance is also social. It is
where important people preside, where visitors stay,
and where peasants only go by the lord’s grace. If
the manorial home is the lord’s main residence, the
level of luxury and food attest to his wealth and social
standing.
Chapel: All manorial
complexes have a small
private chapel for the lord,
his family and their guests.
The chapel is usually a
single room in the manorial
home, set apart as a place
of worship. In some
magical medieval societies,
particularly pious lords
have more than one chapel
to appease many gods.
This private chapel provides the lord social distinction
from his peasants who attend village churches. For the
implications of rural religion, see Chapter Six: On Those
Who Pray.
Garden: Within the manorial complex is the lord’s
garden. The lord’s garden is larger than the small gardens
peasants have behind their homes. As large as a few acres,
the manorial garden grows all manners of vegetables,
fruits, and herbs. Though the staff and peasants tend the
manorial garden, it is considered property of the lord to
consume, sell, or give away. In luxurious manors, lords
may keep decorative gardens to display their wealth and
luxury. Using good soil for aesthetics over practicalities
is definitely a sign of luxury.
Dovecote: The dove is the lord’s bird on the manor.
Peasants hunt other birds of the air for dinner, but only
the lord feasts on doves. The dovecote is eighteen feet
tall, cylindrical, and ten feet in diameter. Usually build of
stone, the dovecote holds up to 1,000 doves at a time. The
thatch roof and open vent allows birds to fly in and out
of the dovecote. Besides a tasty meal, dovecotes provide
fertilizer for manorial gardens. Some manors use the
bottom of dovecotes for extra grain storage space.
Storage: Tools, plows, winnowing fans, flails, and
other items the manor uses throughout the year also
require storage. When barns and other structures run
out of room, manors build storage buildings. They come
in all sizes, are built of all types of material, and are the
medieval counterpart to the modern garage.
Barn: Tended by the granger, the barn stores grain
and winter fodder. It is the winter living quarters for
the lord’s livestock and can also act as stables for the
lord’s horses. The manorial barn is quite large, as much
as 5,000 square feet. Built of stone, the lord’s barn is
usually one story with
a partial second story
made of good wood.
Bakehouse and
Brewery: Some manors
have private breweries
and bakehouses within
the manor complex.
They are usually near the
kitchen and accompany
facilities to make and
barrel wine, if the manor
grows grapes.
The Village:
Outside of the manorial
complex are rural communities that vary in size.
According to core rulebook II, thorps are the least
populated rural communities, villages are the most
populated rural communities, and hamlets lie between
them. Some manors may have small towns and large
towns, the least populated urban communities, within
their demesne. The village peasants live and work
outside of the lord’s complex. The peasants only enter
the manorial complex for labor, manorial court, and
special occasions, like harvest feast and holidays. The
manor complex is physically and socially separate from
their daily existence.
Manorial Bureaucracy
Running a manor requires permanent staff for different
functions. Lords have administrative officials who
help run the manors. Each manor has managers who
perform year-round duties, and the manorial house
has domestic servants of its own. A lord’s main manor,
in which he and his family reside, has extra servants,
as well as specialized staff to tend to their daily needs.
Castles acting as manors have military staff as well. The
size and holdings of a manor dictate what kind and how
much staff it requires.
Administration
Steward: The day-to-day concerns of a manor are
rarely managed by the lord directly, but by his staff
and pool of manorial labor. The steward is the first
and most important part of a lord’s staff. The steward
oversees all of a lord’s manors, does the accounting of
all the manors, runs the lord’s main manor, appears in
manorial courts to represent the lord on a village level
of justice, greets visiting officials and gentry when the
lord is unavailable, and selects a bailiff and reeve for
each manor. The steward knows how much money
and kind is spent entertaining a visiting knight and his
entourage, what amount each manor should produce
at harvest, how much wine to buy for the lord’s main
manor, how much the lord and lady spend on clothing
every year, and which bailiffs tend to skim off the top at
collection time. The steward is the lifeline between the
lord and his manors.
The steward travels from manor to manor
throughout the year checking on each manor’s progress
and attending the manorial court, also known as the
hallmote. The steward has attendants and clerks that
travel with him. They keep records of incursion income
from the hallmote. Stewards and their clerks usually
visit a single manor a few times a year, each stay
lasting only a day or two. Lords with vast holdings may
employ multiple stewards, while lords who hold and
reside on one manor may not need a steward at all. In
general even lords with one manor employ stewards for
the times he must leave the manor. A lord must leave
to serve military service or counsel for his lord, to fight
wars, or to visit other manors and lords for political
or social reasons. Lords mostly employ stewards to
avoid troubling themselves with the trifles of daily
subsistence.
Chamberlain: Lords usually employ chamberlains
on their main manor and on other important manors.
The chamberlain takes care of the great chamber and
aids the steward in caring for the household. He makes
sure no one takes the silver, the tablecloths are cleaned
and stored, and sacks the unproductive or stickyfingered
servants.
Almoner: This servant takes care of the lord’s alms,
his gifts to the poor. Old livestock, scraps of food, old
clothing, and other tidbits are usually given to the poor
in measure. Though most manors give to the poor, not all
manors have almoners. A lord’s main manor certainly
employs an almoner and larger manors usually employ
almoners. Alms to the poor account for roughly 1-5% of
the manor’s annual income. Such trifles endear the lord
to the peasants, reduce the risk of peasant revolts, and
provide a cleaner conscience.
Managers
On every manor, the steward selects a bailiff to act as
manager. The bailiff then chooses more managers from
the peasants, creating part of the manorial bureaucracy.
Bailiff: Every manor has a bailiff, who acts as the
lord’s representative on the manor year round. The
bailiff is either from a rich peasant family or a younger
son of the gentry, appointed by the lord at the steward’s
recommendation. The bailiff resides in the manorial
house, a stone giant among the peasants’ wattle-anddaub
homes. He and his family receive meals in the
great hall at the lord’s expense, as well as receiving furs,
clothing, feed for his horse, salary in coin, and gifts at
the holidays.
The bailiff is to the steward as the steward is to
the lord. He watches over the lord’s fiscally rewarding
rights and property. He secures the food, fodder,
and supplies of the manor from theft, keeps record
of the manor’s expenses, sells the lord’s surplus and
livestock at market, and buys supplies for the manor. A
bailiff’s shopping list might look like this: 200 candles,
200 sheets of parchment, eight axles, three carts, 50
pounds of iron, three large millstones, two barrels of
tar, kitchen utensils, a new stool for the buttery, metal
brackets for the tool shed, thatch and slate for the roof,
and 30 chickens. Among his list of expenses is the cost
of entertaining visitors, which not only includes the
guest’s room and board, but the room and board for
the guest’s entire entourage, fodder and stable for their
horses, and food and lodging for any hunting dogs and
falcons. The bailiff also protects the village and peasants
from outside threats. Bailiffs have been known to bribe
traveling armies to move along to other villages for their
grain. Like the steward, the bailiff has lesser officials on
the manor, including serjeants and macebearers that
oversee work and harvest, foresters that protect the
forest from poachers and tend to forest matters, and
grangers who protect the grain and stores in the barn
from theft and ruin. Though some manors do without
all these village officials, every manor has a reeve.
Reeve: The reeve is the next link in the chain of
manorial bureaucracy. Chosen annually, the reeve
serves for a year, beginning and ending his term in
late September after harvest. The reeve is a villager,
closer to the peasants economically and socially than
the bailiff. The reeve is typically relieved of all his labor
obligations, receives some meals at the manor, and
some reeves are paid a salary in coin or in grain. Some
peasants serve multiple terms as reeve, while other
peasants chosen for the position pay to get out of the
duty because they’d rather avoid the social conflicts that
arise while performing the office.
The reeve’s principal task is making sure the
peasants who owe labor services perform work on
the lord’s demesne. He also determines what labor is
required and when it is needed. He manages plow
teams, hedges, moving and penning the livestock,
manure collection, mending the lord’s structures, and
all the other tasks on the manor (see Table I.3-Labor
Calendar). In cases of absentee bailiffs, the reeve sells
the surplus of the manor. He also performs the majority
of the manor’s accounting. At the end of harvest, he
delivers the accounting to the bailiff, who ultimately
reports to the steward or the steward’s clerk. This
accounting includes rent collection, lists of those who
are overdue on rent, and receipts from selling grain,
livestock, and other products. The accounting also
includes the food and goods delivered to the lord
from the manor, payments to individual workmen, a
listing of the grain and livestock on the manor, and all
purchases. The reeve accounts for the grain and stock in
every conceivable manner: how much the manor holds,
how much the lord receives, how much the harvest
boon consumes, how much surplus to the market, how
many new animals this year, what age they are, and
how many hides from the animals killed. To keep reeves
honest, some lords set quotas on the amount of grains
and livestock the reeve is to deliver to the lord, making
the reeve pay the difference if he fails to milk the manor
for all a lord thinks it is worth.
Beadle and Hayward: The beadle and the hayward,
assistants to the reeve, are economically and socially
below the reeve. Although the reeve, beadle, and
hayward are all exempt from labor obligations to the
lord, the holdings of the beadle and hayward are usually
less than the reeve’s. Beadles and haywards receive less
salary in coin or kind, and they typically receive partial
board in the manor. The beadle saves the seed from the
previous year’s crop for planting, and serves the reeve
in the field, overseeing the peasant labor at mowing,
reaping, harrowing, plowing, and sowing. The beadle
also collects rent and the fines determined through the
hallmote. The hayward impounds stray cattle and sheep
that nibble on the lord’s crop, fine the owners, and tends
to the hedges and fences that pen the livestock. On
smaller manors, the beadle and hayward are sometimes
combined into one position.
Laborers
Each manor has a permanent work force that the lord
pays either in coin or in kind. The laborers are peasants
that live within the lord’s demesne and probably own
land in the fields. These laborers are the work force
entrusted with the tasks that might cause the average
serf to nip at the lord’s coffers. They serve the lord’s
land, protect the lord’s interests, and increase the lord’s
industries and profits. The lord pays these permanent
laborers with grain, coin, labor obligation relief, giving
a portion of peasant labor obligation to work their
lands, or any combination of these. These laborers are
plowmen, carters, shepherds, dairymaids, cowmen,
pigmen, and overseers.
Plowmen: Plowmen plow up to 90% of the lord’s
holdings in the fields. Villeins with plows work the
remainder of the fields, and other serfs with labor
obligations do tasks like harrowing, breaking clods,
and weeding. A manor requires a plowman for every 30
acres of arable land.
Carters: Carters are the deliverymen of the manor.
They carry grain and goods to and from market, make
deliveries from the manor to the lord, and execute other
various deliveries. Carters are well paid to keep them
honest, since they are in a position to take advantage
of the lord’s bounty on a continual basis. Carters are
especially important to lords with multiple manors.
These lords require more carriage between their manors.
Shepherds: Shepherds have many duties. They tend
to the lord’s sheep, fold and pen the sheep, collect the
manure from the pens to fertilize the arable land, take
care of sick sheep, and sheer the sheep in spring. A
manor with sheep needs a shepherd to every 100 sheep.
Dairymaids: Dairymaids milk the lord’s cows and
sheep. They make butter and cheese for the manor,
with a portion going to the lord and the surplus to the
market. They tend to the poultry and collect eggs, as
well as making a mid-day meal for the other permanent
manorial laborers, usually pottage. Depending on the
number of livestock, a manor employs 1-5 dairymaids.
Cowmen and Pigmen: Cowmen and pigmen do
odd jobs around the manor that need special attention
or trusted laborers. They are the least specialized of the
permanent labor on the manor and receive the least
amount of pay. Though some manors have individual
men for each position, most have a collective laborer
who deals with animal husbandry. On manors with few
sheep and no shepherd, cowmen and pigmen also tend
to sheep. Besides moving the livestock from pasture to
pen, they also mend fences and hedges.
Overseers: Most manors only have a few fruit
trees, a garden growing produce, flax, and herbs, and
a few hives for honey and wax. But if a manor has such
production on a large scale, overseers manage peasant
labor and prevent theft. Overseers for olive groves,
orchards, vineyards, or land growing cash crops are
typical for the manor with such industry.
Household Servants: Household servants are
peasants without farmland who perform paid labor.
Some manors give them room and board as partial pay,
while other manors pay in grain and coin exclusively.
Staff includes chambermaids and cleaners to take care
of the rooms and toilets, marshals and grooms for the
stables and horses, messengers and pages for delivering
messages and completing petty tasks, and washwomen
to do the laundry. In the kitchen, slaughterers, poulters,
cooks, sauce cooks, butlers, pantlers, brewers, bakers,
cupbearers, dispensers, fruiters, and their helpers kill,
prepare, and serve food to all who dine at the manor.
Smaller manorial homes may not require so much
personal, while larger ones have even more servants.
Peasants on the Manor
Without peasants to work the land and pay rent, fees,
fines, tolls and taxes, being lord of a manor loses much
of its appeal. Every peasant that lives within the lord’s
demesne becomes the lord’s tenant due the protection
he provides. The legal status of individual peasants
determines how much labor he owes the lord, as well as
how much of the lord’s justice applies to him.
Legal Status
Free tenants, known as yeomen, own their land
independent of the lord. Though the free tenant is
obligated to work the lord’s land at harvest, he does not
have to perform any other labor on the lord’s land. The
fees and fines enacted by the lord do not hold sway over
a free tenant, though they do pay taxes and can be sued
for infringement of the lord’s property. More often than
not, free tenants swear loyalty to the lord for protection.
This insures the land stays in the peasant’s possession,
and the peasant remains in good standing with the lord.
When free tenants swear loyalty to the lord, they often
assume many of the taxes and regulations levied by the
lord in exchange for the protection provided. When free
tenants purchase land from serfs or villeins, all the labor
obligations of the previous owner fall to the free tenant,
but only for that plot of land. Labor is tied to the land,
not the man.
Unfree tenants, known as serfs or villeins, are under
the jurisdiction of the lord and his manorial court. They
are subject to the fines and fees the lord enacts on his
manor, and they owe substantial labor obligations to
the lord, roughly five days of labor a year per acre of
arable land. Being a villein does not mean that peasants
are slaves. Unfree peasants can buy, sell and inherit land
and livestock. Typically, they can also marry and give
dowries without first requiring the lord’s permission.
Though not all unfree peasants can marry freely, most
can and they usually pay tax on it. Serfs and villeins
enjoy many of the same benefits as those who are free.
However, their unfree status is a social stigma against
serfs trying to move up in society, and unfree peasants
under a tyrant lord are at his mercy.
Labor Obligations
All the lord’s tenants are under obligation to work the
lord’s land. The obligation varies on the legal status of
tenant and the size of the peasant’s holding; the larger
the holding, the greater the obligation. The peasant’s
obligations to the lord includes farming, harvesting, and
transporting the fruits of the lord’s fields, haying the
meadow, tending to the lord’s livestock, and working
the lord’s vineyards, orchards, dovecotes, and beehives.
Repairs or construction on the lord’s demesne is
another way for the serf to pay his labor obligation. This
includes mending the lord’s plows, harnesses and tools,
as well as tearing down and rebuilding ditches, fences,
hurdles, and hedges to keep the livestock away from the
fields. When the lord requires construction, he provides
the material for the villeins and craftsmen. Hiring
outside labor is reserved for complicated construction
or a shortage of manorial labor. Some peasants pay their
obligation with coin. This coin buys wanderers, hired
labor from within the village, or day laborers from the
city. Unfree tenants have more obligations in the form of
taxes and fees, a sample of which can be found on Table
I.1-Taxes and the Lord’s Rights. Many of these fees are
waved for the poorest peasants who have only their
house and garden with no holding in the fields.
Manor Monopolies
Regardless of legal status, all a lord’s tenants are subject
to the lord’s monopolies on the manor. A common
mill and a common oven are part of most manors and
villages. Most manors also practice sheepfold, keeping
all the village’s sheep in the lord’s demesne, so the
lord’s land benefits from the manure. Lords can also
ban home fulling and tanning, making all villagers use
his facilities, as with common ovens and mills. Free
men who run the common mills, ovens, tanneries, and
fulleries on the manor pay the lord for the privilege of
running the lord’s industry.
Justice is another monopoly on the manor. The
lord’s court system decides the fate of petty crimes
and trespasses, while greater crimes of treason,
murder, and such are usually dealt with in the king’s
court. Fines from incursions and fees from settling
civil disputes fill the lord’s coffers at the expense of
the peasants. This does not mean lords have absolute
control over their peasants, but they have socially
supported preferential rights.
The Village
Villages come in different shapes. Some are radial, with
the houses and common green on the inside and the
fields on the outside, while others are strings of houses
along a road or river, known as street or row villages.
Polyfocal villages have more than one hub, while
crossroad villages form an X around a central green.
Some villages combine multiple patterns, making a
hodge-podge of wattle-and-daub houses, winding
narrow dirt streets, and ridge-and-furrow fields.
Despite the different layouts, the houses are always
close together, facing inward, with the fields farther
out. Houses cluster together for protection and social
reasons. A small vegetable and herb garden is usually
directly behind the house.
Self-Governing
Though the lord exercises taxes and monopolies in the
manor, he often allows villagers to govern themselves
on certain matters. Villagers make up the jury that
presides over the lord’s court, the hallmote. Once the
jurors, the assembled villagers, and the steward reach
a consensus, the court delivers a ruling while the clerk
notes the fines.
The court is a place where peasants address the
wrongs done to each other as well as their grievances
with the lord for not fulfilling his duties. Peasants pay
a court fee, even if the case is settled outside of the
hallmote, and few suits against the lord fall in favor for
the peasants. This is not always from blatant oppression,
but from the social structure of the manorial system. The
lord’s socially accepted privileges make proving legal
infringement by the lord very difficult for any peasants
seeking restitution.
The most prevalent issue the peasants decide upon
is farming. Regardless of individual legal status, the
community comes together to create farming bylaws
by consensus. The communal body of peasants decide
what kind of crops to plant and in what ratio, the
restrictions on plowing, planting, harvesting, gleaning,
and carrying the harvest, when work is to be done
(never in the dark to discourage stealing), and when
the animals graze on the field stubble. They also decide
fines for wasting seed, theft, and chicanery (edging the
plow into another’s strip).
Farming
Open Field System: The community farms on three open
noncontiguous fields, each divided into rectangular
plots called furlongs, which follow the natural drainage
of the field. Furlongs do not line up side-by-side, but
are scattered over a field wherever the greatest natural
advantage can be claimed. Each furlong is then divided
into long narrow sets of furrows known as strips. Strips
run parallel to each other within the same furlong and
are generally thought of as a day’s plow.
Three-Field Rotation: Manors employ the threefield
rotation system in which one field lies fallow all
year, one is sown with winter wheat in autumn, and
one is sown with spring crops after the last freeze. The
villagers rotate the planting and fallow cycle, so a field
lays fallow every three years. The furlong is the basic
sowing unit because all the strips in the furlong grow the
same crop. Each peasant holding land has strips in each
field to ensure a winter and spring crop every year.
Working the field requires many runs with a plow
on the same strip. The first run is to turn the soil and
allow decomposition of the residue crop, grass, and
weeds. The second plowing runs along the center of a
strip on both sides, aerating the soil for sowing. Spring
seeds are planted after the last frost, with peas, beans,
and vetch (legumes) in the furrow and grain on the
ridge. Winter grains, wheat and sometimes rye, require
three runs of the plow, the first in April, the second in
June, the third in midsummer, after which the seed is
sown in fall. The peasants sometimes harvest the winter
wheat in shifts, tiding everyone over until the abundant
harvest in September.
Average Peasant Holding: Around half the peasants
hold ten or fewer acres of arable land in the field. This
is very close to subsistence for one family in the magical
medieval period. A third of the peasants own a halfvirgate,
ranging from 12-16 acres. The poorest of labors
have little to no land in the fields, only a house and the
immediate soil around the house for a modest garden.
Wealthier peasants, who have more land than they can
work, hire those without land. Strips owned by the
same peasant are not in single blocks, but are usually
intermingled with other peasant’s strips. The same is
true of the lord’s holdings, usually a third of the acreage,
in the fields.
Harvest
Though strips of plowed land, draft animals, and tools
are individually held, harvest is considered a communal
event in the village. Most serfs own a spade, a hoe, a
fork, a sickle, a scythe, a flail, a knife, and a whetstone.
Those with more land have more tools, a plow, and
draft animals (cows, oxen, or horses). Those that do not
have a plow work the land by hand or with hand tools.
Able-bodied villagers perform the more difficult tasks,
while the very young, old, and the infirm glean the
fields after harvest.
Harvest season begins the first of August, with the
busiest time between September 8th and 29th. Though
harvest is a season with many tasks, the main goal is
to cut, gather, bind, and haul the sheaves of the lord’s
grain into the barn for threshing and winnowing. Every
tenant works the harvest, even those who could afford
to pay off their service, and the lord may hire laborers
to work the manor during harvest. In general, each acre
requires four able-bodied workers per acre to harvest
the fields, yielding roughly eight bushels of wheat. The
range of 15% more in a good year and 15% less in a
bad (not disastrous) year is a reasonable estimation of
field yield. For other crops, see Table I.2-Seed and Yield
per Acre. In exchange for the peasants’ harvest boon,
literally “gift” to the lord, the lord gives a boon as well.
The lord feeds the peasants working his strips for each
day they harvest his fields. The lord’s fields are always
harvested first, and harvest usually takes one day, but
may take up to three days for large, wealthy manors.
The feast is lavish the first day, with many cheeses,
breads, grains, beef, doves, fowl, and ale. Subsequent
days generally require less labor, and the food thins out
as supplies run low and the lord wishes to speed his
harvest. The amount of the lord’s boon is often spelled
out before the peasants start work on the lord’s fields:
how much grain and ale the lord provides (a gallon of
ale per man per day is a conservative amount), what
part wheat the bread is composed of, how large the
loaves of bread are, and how much each person should
be able to eat. Hired labor had the choice of 1 sp with
food or 2 sp without food per day of work. Regardless
of one’s station on the manor, harvest is a time of plenty
flowing with a bounty of food.
Labor Calendar
Accounting: Accounting is done on the manor from
September 29th to September 29th of the following
year, right after harvest. Rent, taxes, and outstanding
fines are also collected right after harvest, usually by
the reeve or bailiff. The bulk of a lord’s income from
taxes, rent, and selling the surplus from his fields comes
at harvest time. Income from forest, mines, fees, fines,
justice (after autumn/winter), and industry are spread
throughout the year.
Barrel wine: After the grape juice ferments, it stands
for a month before being barreled. Most wine does not
ferment very long, yielding a sweeter less alcoholic wine
than modern wine, though some manors specialize in
making more alcoholic, higher quality wine.
Collect firewood: Wood is only for the lord and
those living on the manor. The lord may sell firewood,
but peasants often make do with dried peat, dead wood,
or stolen wood.
Collect honey and
wax: One swarm can
make up to three gallons
of honey, with 10% of
the honey in the comb.
Some beekeepers are
very destructive in
collecting honey and wax,
destroying the hive and
killing the swarm in the collection process. Larger manors
have beekeepers that manage to preserve the hive after
harvesting the honey and wax. These manors usually
have buildings to keep the hive through the winter.
Find wild swarms: In May, peasants hunt for wild
bee swarms and transplant them to the manor.
Harrow: Peasants break up the soil and cover the
seedlings. Mallets are used on some of the bigger clods.
Harvest: Harvest occurs at different times of the
year, depending on the crop. The earliest harvest is
flax and hemp, along with the garden vegetables in
late July. Cotton and some fruit trees are harvested in
August. Though the bulk of winter wheat is harvested
in August, some of it is cut early in June to tide hungry
peasants. Spring crops are harvested in September
along with grapes, and the remaining fruit trees. Olive
harvest is in October.
Haying: Any meadow or plains area is designated
for haying in June. Often mixed with the wheat stubble
and straw, hay makes up the bulk of winter feed for the
livestock. Most, if not all, of the hay goes to the lord, but
some villages have common greens, where the hay is
divided among the villagers. Haying involves cutting,
binding and drying of the grass.
Gather reeds and bracken: Reeds are gathered,
dried and bound to make thatch, while bracken is dried
for winter bedding for livestock in the barn.
Livestock birthing: March is the month for baby
sheep, cows, goats, oxen, and horses, as well as hatching
eggs for geese and chickens.
Meadow livestock: The livestock graze on the
stubble of the meadow one month after haying. Fences
or hedges keep the livestock in the meadow and out of
the fields.
Milk cows: Cows are not milked all year. Milking
begins in May and ends in late September after harvest.
The milk usually goes to making cheese and butter by
the dairymaid.
Milk sheep: Although they do not generate as much
milk as their bovine counterparts, sheep’s milk also turns
into cheese. Sheep are not milked as long as cows.
Pannage: Pigs are driven into the forest to forage
and fatten for
sale or slaughter.
The lord’s swine
forage for free,
but peasants
must pay 2 sp to
1 gp, depending
on the size of the
pig.
Pasture livestock: The lord’s livestock, and
sometimes the peasants’, are taken to the fallow field for
grazing, as well as fertilizing the fields. The animals are
fenced in so they do not wander into the other fields.
Plow: The fallow field gets plowed 2-3 times a year.
The lord’s strips are fertilized with manure. Plowing
also prepares the fields for the seed on the winter wheat
field and the spring crop field. A heavy plow is used.
Press and jar olive oil: The peasants press the olives,
either by hand or by a mill. The olives produce 60% of
their mass in oil. Olives may be preserved in vinegar or
eaten fresh from the harvest.
Prune and stake vines: Pruning produces larger
better quality grapes, while staking keeps them off the
ground, reducing the chance of rotten grapes.
Repair and rebuild: In the winter, villagers mend
tools, hedges, and fences, clear ditches, and repair their
houses and the lord’s buildings.
Sell livestock: Most livestock that cannot be
supported through the winter are sold at market in
October and November.
Sheering sheep: Depending on the climate and
when it warms up, sheep are sheered in May or June.
The castrated males are reputed to have the softer, finer
fleece.
Slaughter: Some livestock, particularly old or
unproductive animals, are slaughtered for a harvest
feast. Salting, smoking, and drying also preserve
slaughtered animals for the long winter. A large
percentage of slaughtered animals are pigs.
Sow garden: Most peasants’ gardens are behind their
houses, while the lord may have a larger garden worked
by the peasants or his permanent staff. Crops like flax or
hemp are grown for spinning, weaving, or making rope.
Vegetables and herbs also grow in the garden.
Thresh, winnow, dry, and store: Threshing and
winnowing separate the individual grains from the
ear, making chaff and straw to mix with the fodder.
This involves a leather thong, a flail, a hand staff and
beater, but it’s not as kinky as it sounds. However, it
does require an immense amount of pure physical labor.
The grain is thrown on a winnowing sheet, allowing the
wind or a winnowing fan to blow chaff and straw off the
grain. Sieved and stored, grain lasts much longer than
flour and is the preferred method of keeping grain. Peas
and beans are thoroughly dried and stored.
Vat grapes: After the grapes are harvested, they
are crushed by stomping or by a mill. Yeast and other
ingredients are added to the grape juice, while the solid
bits are used for fertilizer in the lord’s garden.
Weed and fertilize: Because of the timing, the
spring crop is especially vulnerable to weeds. The lord’s
land is weeded and fertilized regularly. The peasants do
the weeding, while the trusted manorial staff handles
the manure to prevent theft.
Other Workers on the Manor
Besides farm labor and household staff, craftsmen and
freemen work on the manor. Freemen pay the lord for
running his monopolies. Freemen run all wind and
water-powered tanning, fulling, and grain mills as well
as ovens. Watermills over rivers often act as bridges,
with millers collecting toll. Smiths and carpenters
repair the mills and work on the lord’s plows and carts.
With an anvil, hammer, tongs, and bellows, the smith
equips his shop with horseshoes, ox shoes, blades,
cauldrons, kettles, cups, sickles, billhooks, saws, nails,
and fasteners. Carpenters repair and build dovecotes,
churches, granaries, barns, porches, machine parts,
and sometimes boats. Cotters, the poorest of all serfs,
are jack-of-all-trades who perform odd jobs for richer
peasants and the lord. Traveling tradesmen passing
through villages take care of other concerns. Thatchers
and slaters repair or re-roof houses, tinkers fix brass and
other metal accoutrements around the home, and tilers
lay tile for manors, churches, and rich tenants. Villagers
go to nearby towns and cities for other services, though
necessity often mandates that peasants do their own
spinning of cloth, mending, brewing, sewing, tanning,
and fulling as opposed to using cotters or other
craftsmen.
Castles as Manors
Castles are daunting structures and expensive
endeavors. Nonetheless, members of the peerage and
the high-ranking gentry build castles as soon as they
are allowed or can afford. Magical medieval castles are
functional, not decorative. Strategic lines of defensive
structures strengthen the line of supply to armies, keep
the peace within a kingdom, and create safeguards from
hit-and-run raiders.
Lords first determine where a castle is needed, and
then choose the best land in the vicinity for the building
site. Castles are usually built in stages over many years.
If an immediate defensive need occurs, the first thing a
lord builds is a keep and the outer curtain wall. Lords
then build interior structures like the great hall, storage
buildings, kitchens and stables. Once the wall is up, a
lord can expand the castle outward, extending the curtain
wall and making new sections, called barbicans. If there
is no immediate defensive need, the keep, great hall,
curtain wall, and other buildings are built concurrently
or serially, depending on the lord’s finances. If rural
communities exist within the lord’s demesne, the lord
has a source of income to offset the great building
expenditure. If no communities exist near his building
site, laborers often become his first tenants, with more
tenants drawn by land and protection arriving later.
Castles and other defensive structures are beacons
for peasants due the greater security and protection
a lord and his demesne provide. Lords, their retinue,
and the castle staff create a sector within rural life that
consumes the goods the peasants create, providing a
market for craft items and surplus food. Peasant homes
and fields lie outside of the castle wall, and peasants
bring their goods within the castle for market. In
general, larger populations form quickly around castles.
It is not uncommon for villages and towns near castles
to evolve into cities.
The castle acts as a manorial home, but of a greater
distinction. Lords prefer a castle to a manorial home as
their living quarters because of the increase in safety,
social prestige, and projection of power.
Magic on the Manor
According to third edition, magic users live in the
smallest rural communities, the most common being
adepts, bards, clerics, and druids. Sorcerers and
wizards are usually in villages, half of the hamlets, and
25% of the thorps in a kingdom. Most spell casters in
rural communities are low-level casters (see Appendix
I-Demographics). The highest-level casters in a village
are 5th level adepts, bards, clerics, and druids, 4th level
in hamlets, 3rd level in thorps. There is a small chance
of having higher-level druids and greater numbers of
druids in rural environments, but more than likely, they
are found in the same ratio as other divine casters.
Rural peasants are quite familiar with the lesser
magics. Watching someone sow seeds twice as fast
with the aid of mage hand, mending tools, clothes,
and dishes with one’s mind, or cleaning dishes and
flavoring food with prestidigitation is a special, but
no longer extraordinary, thing. Though rural peasants
are familiar with the some of the effects of magic, they
do not understand how it works or all its limitations.
The basic understanding peasants have formed about
magic is “spellcasters do tricky things.” If something
weird happens, it is probably a spellcaster’s doing. They
move things without using their hands, close and heal
wounds instantaneously, and create sounds and lights
out of thin air. They make things appear that are not
there at all. They make things that are there seem not
to be. They change a person’s mind and have them do
things they normally would not do.
Though magic is present in rural communities,
peasants often have unrealistic expectations of magic
and hold superstitions that magic works in ways it does
not. Low-level casters are accused of cursing and hexing
villagers’ property, regardless of the level and class of
the spellcasters. A peasant whose son falls and breaks
his leg is taken to a 2nd level sorcerer with expectations
of healing him for harvest on the morrow. A neighbor
watching a spellcaster using mending on socks asks him
to patch up his thatch roof.
Peasants in rural communities view magic as a
source of power, and often revere or fear spellcasters
depending upon the circumstances and society. Since
each person casts spells uniquely, basic understanding
of magic in the country is only available to those who
cast spells, retired adventurers, and rich people who
employ spellcasters.
Peasants
Spellcasting relies on statistics, not on money or social
standing. This is especially true in classes that cast
spontaneously and divine spellcasters. Due to the nature
of divine magic, clerics and adepts do not have to belong
to a religious hierarchy to have magical powers, though
a GM may create a campaign setting where social and
legal laws prevent such casting. Druids have a special
importance in rural communities because of their close
kinship with nature and their ability to augment nature’s
gifts (see Chapter Six: On Those Who Pray for social
implications of divine casters). Wizards, with the costly
upfront expense of a spellbook, are the only spellcasting
class whose spellcasting abilities are dependent on
factors other than statistics. Like other professions in
the medieval world, apprenticeships or patronage helps
offset the starting expenditure of wizards.
In a society with magic, spellcasters have a source
of power and de facto social prestige. If a peasant family
has a bard or adept it has a higher social standing and an
alternate income source. Within a rural society, payment
for magic is usually in the form of bartering in kind. Two
chickens and a pig for a cure light wounds or a peasant
working strips with the plow at sowing time for his
neighbor who cast neutralize poison on one of his plow
team are not unusual barters. In a social environment
that is not rich in minted coin, such formal arrangements
with informal methods of payment occur often.
The kinds of spells local spellcasters know and use
are very different from PC spellcasters. The classes,
spells, feats, and skills NPCs possess are the results of
their activities, unlike PCs, whose players choose with
foresight and planning. NPCs do not choose, rather
they receive levels in classes, skill points, feats, and
spells from their experiences in living. A local smith
commissioned to make a weapon, when he usually
makes pots and horseshoes, may receive a point or two
in craft (weapon smith) next time he levels. An NPC
spellcaster that never uses magic should not level any
further in a spell-using class. A NPC bard knows the
spells she discovers through practicing, performance, or
possibly from more dire need. This is why most NPC
bards know a cure spell.
Practical Magic
O-level spells are great spells for peasants. Every
spellcaster can cast them, they require no material
components, and even though they are limited, they
make the lives of peasants much easier and more
entertaining. Mage hand, with duration of concentration,
is quite useful for peasants. Lifting and moving one
object up to five pounds seems marginally helpful to
PCs, but this spell allows peasants to plant seeds in two
rows near each other, one by hand and one with mage
hand. It also makes for good practical jokes. Cure minor
wounds may not heal much of a PC’s numerous hp, but
one hp is a large percent of a commoner’s life. It also
stops bleeding and closes wounds, which reduces the
risk of infection. Though cure spells cannot regenerate
limbs and digits, they do heal broken bones, taking away
the risk of an improperly set bone. Mending becomes a
housewife’s best friend for darning socks and clothes,
fixing dishes, and anything else around the house that
is less than one pound. Prestidigitation is a great spell for
flavoring food, warming bath water, cleaning the house,
and entertaining the villagers with small tricks. Purify
food and drink makes every piece of food and ale viable
for consumption, and create water makes clean water
(not always a standard among the local water supply)
that a peasant does not have to fetch. People traveling
with druids do not have to worry about getting lost with
know direction, and spellcasters put on a great show with
dancing lights, ghost sound, and light.
Many 1st level spells require common material
components or none at all. Goodberry is a way for druids
to store and distribute healing and nourishment without
expending experience or taking a feat. Endure elements
takes the chill out of cold winter days. Invisibility
to animals and detect animals or plants make hunting
easier. Using a bit of horsehair, mount provides a light
workhorse that does not need provisions, and charm
person leads to much wooing and trouble. Expeditious
retreat and jump wins races and contests, while unseen
servants are the slaves of peasants.
Magic may not be used every day. Most peasants
cannot afford magical solutions to their problems. Even
spellcasters may not use all their magic every day.
Those that can heal never know when their services are
required, especially if they are compensated for healing.
Peasants do not stop using poultices just because
someone can cast cure light wounds in the community.
Candles are not replaced with light in homes of peasant
spellcasters. People do not stop sweeping up, because
they have prestidigitation. But according to the core
rules, the magic is there whenever and however they
want to use it.
Lords and Manors
Magic provides a new method for the lord to exploit his
land and peasantry for financial benefit. The lord can
now hire a druid to cast plant growth on the fields and
charge a magic tax on the peasants. As the overall yield
increases, so does the rent. Peasants that cast magic can
do service for the lord instead of paying fines or laboring,
especially those that can brew potions. The lord provides
the materials and laboratory, while the serf expends
experience to pay his obligation. If a peasant family with
a promising child wants to send her away for training to
become a wizard, she must serve three years of magical
service at the end of her apprenticeship instead of
paying chevage. Spellcasters also fulfill their obligation
in military service. A manorial defense force with
spellcasters stands a better chance against rebellions,
uncivilized humanoid raids, and banditry.
Magic also generates more money from the lord’s
monopolies. Determining justice brings in more money
if the lord has a cleric on hand to cast zone of truth for
an extra fee. Having detect thoughts in the hallmote also
generates more money in peasant infringement cases
and serf fines. Such spells also come in handy when
collecting grain and coin from the miller, or making sure
the smith used his own iron on the horseshoes. Through
magic, the lord of a manor in a magical medieval society
has another way of exploiting his peasantry.
Plot Hooks (see Appendix V for more manorial plot hooks)
PCs start as lesser sons and daughters of neighboring
friendly gentry. Double starting gp and start with one
level in aristocrat as well as PC class. Divergent Hook
One: One PCs father as been captured in war and
his ransom must be raised. PCs mother demands her
youngest to go into old ruins and come back with gold
or he can forget about any inheritance. Divergent Hook
Two: One PCs father has been paying extortion for years
to local thieves guild to keep his shady past as a rogue
a secret. He’s tired of paying and sends the party to the
city to “clear up” the matter.
A local lord asks the PCs to investigate who’s casting
diminish plants. His crops are failing and he’s already
spent 900 gp for several plant growths. Divergent Hook
One: Caster of diminish plants is the druid the lord has
hired to cast plant growth. Divergent Hook Two: Caster
of diminish plants is lord himself, seeking to plead to his
lord that he cannot pay taxes this year.
PCs stumble upon a young woman running in front
of a small group of lightly armed men. She asks for
their protection. Upon investigation, the men claim
the woman has refused to pay her Legerwite fine. She
says the lord’s youngest son is her lover and the lord
doesn’t approve. He claims she seduced him, a ‘moment
of weakness,’ he calls it, and is trying to interfere with
his upcoming wedding. Divergent Hook One: The lord
actually wishes to capture the girl and keep her quiet
until his son’s wedding is over and the subsequent land
transfer is finished. Divergent Hook Two: If PCs are
foolish enough to attack the men (they don’t appear too
threatening), PCs are in serious trouble with the lord as
the young woman decides to return to the manor (afraid
the PCs will hurt her) and reports them to the lord.