Difference between revisions of "Hârn HârnWorld Rural Manors"

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Rural Manors

Manorialism

The power of the nobility is ultimately vested in its control of land. Agriculture accounts for 80% of all Hârnic economic activity and employs 90% of its population; feudal lords control most productive land.

The basic economic unit of rural Hârn is the manorial fief. These can range from 600 to 4,800 acres in size, although 1,200 to 1,800 acres is typical. Manors are not shown on the regional map. Each hex on the map is nearly 90,000 acres and 10–30 manors are clustered around every keep, castle, or town. However, since manors are so important and because they appear in local expansion modules, the following information on Hârnic manors is included here.

A manorial fief on Hârn is either held by a knight who owes fealty and military service to a baron or earl for the grant of land or is held directly by some greater noble who will appoint a loyal relative or retainer to manage the estate for him. Some manors are held by religious orders, most notably those associated with the Church of Larani. A few manors around chartered freetowns are held by wealthy commoners, who usually have such estates managed by appointed bailiffs.

Manorial Tenants

The notion of private property is somewhat alien in a feudal society. The vast majority of Hârnians are tenants of some feudal lord. The contracts between the lord of a manor and his tenants can have endless permutations of military service, agricultural service, scutage, rent, and crop share. The exact mix varies with the personalities involved, local custom, and the current situation.

Serfs

Sometimes called unfree tenants, serfs make up 70–90% of the rural population. They possess few legal rights but should not be thought of as slaves. Although they are bound to the land and the lord and may not marry without the lord’s permission, serfs cannot be deprived of their land without just cause and are entitled to the lord’s protection and justice. Serfdom is a contract between lord and tenant; each is honor-bound to the other. The amount of land held varies: Villeins hold 25–40 acres, Half-Villeins 10–25 acres, and Cottars 1–5 acres. In return for their land, serfs owe labor working the lord’s own fields, typically 3–5 days per year for each acre of land held.

Freeholders

Freeholders are simply individuals who hold land on which no serf-like obligations are due, a distinction that is often problematical. Freeholders rarely own the land they work, but instead pay rent or crop shares for its use, a process known as farming the land. Some freeholders are rural guildsmen, such as millers or metalsmiths, who may or may not also farm some acreage. Freeholders have the right to come and go as they wish, grow whatever crops they please, and appeal their lord’s justice to the king’s law. Naturally, ignoring the wishes of the lord may be unwise, for it might lead to expulsion (or worse). In many ways, a serf has greater security in land tenure than a freeholder.

Manorial Villages

A typical manorial fief contains a manorhouse for the lord, one village that is home to 10–30 rural families, and probably one mill. All of these are generally clustered together, ideally near the center of a fief.

The Manorhouse

The lord’s home is usually a fortified stronghold of wood or stone, essentially a miniature keep with a palisade enclosing several outbuildings such as barns and stables. When possible, the house is situated on a natural or artificial hill and may be surrounded by a ditch, moat, or earthworks.

Peasant Cottages

Each village family will have a cottage and small adjacent garden plot. The style and size of peasant cottages are fairly standard on Hârn. Most are 800–

1,200 square feet in size with thatched roofs and walls of daub and wattle. They look about the same regardless of the prosperity of the owner, for in a violent world it’s foolish to advertise prosperity. Wealth is defined in terms of livestock and acreage, not personal comfort.

Most peasant cottages consist of two rooms: a large living room and a smaller attached stable. Some cottages have a sleeping chamber separate from the living room. The living room has a straw-covered, dirt-packed floor, heated by a fire in a stone hearth. The attached stable may contain livestock and a variety of agricultural tools: spades, hoes, axes, and the like. Most stables also have a loft for storing a variety of grains in wicker baskets.

The Mill

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Nearly every manorial village has a mill. Some are owned by the lord but most are owned by freemasters of the powerful Millers’ Guild. The miller typically pays an annual license of 240d to the lord of the manor for the right to operate the mill. Most mills are waterpowered, some are ox-powered, and a few (especially in southwestern Hârn) are windmills.

Manorial Land Use

Manorial lords may cultivate their land themselves by hiring agricultural labor or may farm-out the land to freehold tenants in return for cash rents or crop shares. Most, however, choose a blend of these two extremes, dividing the fief into (roughly) one third demense (lord’s land) and two thirds tenancy, utilizing the custom of serfdom to provide the labor for their own land.

The respective areas of land use depend mainly on the size, location, and fertility of the fief. Long-established fiefs tend to be well populated and favor higher arable land use. New holdings in frontier regions are generally underpopulated and these will have higher pasture and woods acreages.

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Agriculture

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The manor’s arable land is typically divided into two large fields. The fields are usually open (no fences or hedges) but are divided into strips separated by footpaths. One field will be sown with various crops (rye, wheat, barley, oats, beans, and peas), the other will lie fallow for one year in an effort to keep the soil from exhausting itself. All of the land will be cultivated by freehold tenants or serfs and the holdings of any one family are typically scattered throughout the fief in narrow strips. The lord’s demense will consist of enclosed fruit orchards and lush meadowlands plus numerous small strips dispersed among the lands of his tenants.

The land held by each peasant family is divided between the two fields. So if a family has 30 acres, they can plant only 15 in a given year. Since the average crop yield is about ten bushels per acre and each person requires about 20 bushels of grain a year for the barest survival, an individual needs four acres to feed himself, half under cultivation and half fallow.

Although plowing, sowing, and weeding are generally tasks performed by each individual family on their own land, harvesting is a communal affair. All able-

bodied villagers work to clear the fields, then the produce is divided among them according to the amount of land held and labor provided. Harvesting usually begins early in the late-summer month of Agrazhar and takes two to four weeks to complete; three men can reap and bind one acre per day.

Weather is, of course, critical. The crops must be left to mature and this can be delayed if the summer is particularly wet or dry. When ready to harvest, speed is crucial. One heavy rain could batter the ripe crops to the ground and destroy the bulk of the harvest.

Husbandry

Open and common pasture is maintained for grazing sheep, oxen, horses, and goats, some owned by the lord and some by the tenants. The best pasture (10–30%) will be enclosed and reserved as meadowland where winter fodder (hay) is harvested. The fallow fields are also used for grazing animals, partly to keep the weeds down but mainly to manure the resting soil.

Animals are not raised to be eaten, mainly because it takes roughly eight pounds of feed to produce one pound of animal protein. Hogs, which thrive on food scraps and forage in woodland, are the exception. Sheep are raised for wool, cattle as beasts of burden and to give milk, and chickens for eggs. Of course, animals will be slaughtered for meat and hides when they become unproductive.

Most villagers keep chickens and all but the poorest are likely to have at least one cow and several pigs. Oxen are kept as plow animals by richer peasants and rented to others as needed. Horses are a luxury that are usually kept only by nobles; they are not as hardy as oxen and require two or three times the winter fodder.

Livestock populations tend to peak in the summer as a result of spring births. Because the villagers cannot afford to provide winter feed for all the animals born, surplus flocks and herds are driven to be sold or bartered at the nearest market soon after the harvest is completed. Wealthy peasants may slaughter an animal or two, then dry, smoke, or salt the meat for future consumption.

Woodland

The remainder of the fief will be woodland, which may be extensive in recently settled lands. Woodlands are prized and usually zealously protected, as game forms a major part of the noble diet and hunting is the sole prerogative of the lord. Poachers are likely to receive harsh treatment, especially trespassers from outside the estate. Tenants may collect dropwood and graze their pigs in woodland but must pay an annual fee to the lord for this right.

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