                      [Medieval Demographics Made Easy]
                   By S. John Ross, copyright  1993, 1999

Fantasy worlds come in many varieties, from the "hard core"
medieval-simulation school to the more fanciful realms of high fantasy, with
alabaster castles and jeweled gardens in the place of the more traditional
muddy squalor. Despite their differences, these share a vital common
element: ordinary people. Most realms of fantasy, no matter how baroque or
magical, can not get by without a supply of ordinary farmers, merchants,
quarreling princes and palace guards. Clustered into villages and crowding
the cities, they provide the human backdrop for adventure.

Many worlds, however, both "home-grown" and professionally designed, lack
consistency when it comes to the spread of normal people and their
businesses. Fantasy villages of 400 countryfolk can be seen supporting a
dozen taverns and a brothel without blinking an economic eye. And when
something like that appears in a respected game-supplement, it takes on the
mantle of Common Knowledge, and gets repeated.

Of course, doing the research necessary to find out how common a large city
should be, or how common castles are, or how many shoemakers can be found in
a town, can take up time not all GMs have available. To the end of more
plausible and satisfying world design, this article has been prepared.

The information in this article is drawn from a variety of historical
sources, focusing on results, rather than on the thousands of details that
create them. The rules here are meant to serve as a baseline, to be deviated
from at need, not to cast numbers into iron. The figures employ documented
data from 12th-14th century England, France, Germany and Italy. When a
"default" was needed, rather than an average, I opted for France more often
than not.

Population Density: How Many In That Kingdom?

Unless the kingdom is quite young, it is likely riddled with villages, a
mile or so apart, covering every inch of the countryside. This is a
different picture than that in most published fantasy settings, which
frequently feature villages isolated by many miles of monster-haunted
wilderness. It is important to remember that agrarian communities on the
scale 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 have no choice but to exist. But these towns will tend to be large and
walled-a people huddled together for safety. On the frontier, food and goods
are usually delivered by merchant caravans rather than produced by local
agriculture. This is especially true when the wilderness is inhabited by
monsters!

The average population density for a 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 King) to a limit of about 120 people per square mile, for
countries with rich soil and favorable seasons. No land is wasted if it can
be settled and farmed. There are many factors that determine the population
density of a land, but none as important as arable land and climate. If food
will grow, so will peasants. If desired, exact density can be rolled
randomly, and land arability reverse-engineered from the result. A roll of
6d4, multiplied by five, will do the trick nicely.

Some Historical Comparisons: Medieval France tops the list, with an
estimated 14th-century density 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 land, averaged 87
people per square mile. Italy was similar (lots of hills and rocky areas)
with 86. The British Isles were the least populous, with only 42 people per
square mile, most of them clustered in the southern half of the isles.

Hexes: It may be important for some GMs using this article to know how much
land is in a hexagonal area! To determine the area of a hex, multiply its
width by .9305347, and square the result. Thus, if your game-map has hexes
30 miles across, each hex represents about 780 square miles. Put a hex like
that in the middle of medieval Germany, and it supports an average of 67,800
people.

Town and City Population: How Many In Those Walls?

For purposes of this article, settlements will be divided into Villages,
Towns, Cities and Big Cities (known as "supercities" in the parlance of
urban historians).

Villages range from 20 to 1,000 people. Most kingdoms will have thousands of
them. Villages are agrarian communities within the safe folds of
civilization. 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 use the term
to apply to a very small village, regardless of what food it produces.

Towns range in population from 1,000-8,000 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 be from 8,000-12,000 people, with an average in the middle of
that range. A typical large kingdom will have only 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 Big
City.

Big Cities range from 12,000-100,000 people, with some exceptional 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 any scale are the result of traffic. Coastlines,
navigable rivers and overland trade-routes form a criss-crossing pattern of
trade-arteries, and the towns and cities grow along those lines. The larger
the artery, the larger the town. And where several large arteries converge,
you have a city. Villages are scattered densely through the country between
the larger settlements.

Population Spread

Okay, so you know how big your kingdom is, and how many people live there.
How many people live in the cities, and how many cities are there? How many
live in villages?

89% of the country's population live in villages. Divide the Village
population by 700 to determine the approximate number of villages.
Individual village populations should be determined randomly or by fiat.
About 2% of the country's populus will live in settlements too small to be
called villages-isolated dwellings, or collections of huts with a total
population of under 20-or will be itinerant workers and wanderers.

About 6% of the populace lives in Towns. Divide this figure by 5,000 to
determine the approximate number of towns.

The remaining 3% of the people live in either Cities or Big Cities. Make a
note of the total "City Population," but do not divide it by anything yet.

Determine the population of the largest city in the kingdom. This is equal
to (P times M), where P is equal to the square root of the country's
population, and M is approximately 15 (or a roll of 2d4+10).

Subtract the largest city's population from the total City Population. The
remainder should be divided up into other Cities and Big Cities, as the GM
sees fit. A realistic rule of thumb: the second-ranking city will be from
25-75% the size of the largest city; each remaining city will be 10-20%
smaller than the previous one, until the 10,000-12,000 range is hit. When
that happens, find the remaining city population and divide it by 10,000 for
the rest of the cities.

An Example Kingdom: Chamlek

Chamlek is a smallish island kingdom with an area of 70,000
square miles, with a good climate and only a few rocky hills
disturbing a well-watered countryside. Her population is 5
million, for an average density of about 71 people per square mile.

Using the formulae above (and average values), we can determine the
following about Chamlek: It has 4.45 million people living in approximately
6,400 villages and hamlets, and 300,000 people living in 60 significant
towns. 100,000 people live on the road or in isolated dwellings, and the
remaining 150,000 live in cities.

Chamlek's largest city, Restagg, has a population of 33,500. The
next-ranking major cities are Volthyrm (17,000), McClannach (15,000),
Cormidigar (14,000) and Oberthrush (12,000). These principal cities account
for 91,500 of the 150,000 city-dwellers. The remaining 58,500 are divided
into six cities with populations averaging 9,750. This amounts to an average
distance between cities of 80-90 miles (three or four days on foot).

Merchants and Services

In a village of 400 people, just how many inns and taverns are realistic?
Not very many. Maybe not even one. When traveling across the countryside,
characters should not run into a convenient sign saying "Motel: Free Cable
and Swimming Pool" every 3 leagues. For the most part, they will have to
camp on their own or seek shelter in people's homes.

Provided they are friendly, the latter option should be no trouble. A farmer
can live in a single place all his life, and he will welcome news and
stories of adventures, not to mention any money the heroes might offer!

Each type of business is given a Support Value (SV). This is the number of
people it takes to support a single business of that sort. For instance, the
SV for shoemakers (by far the most common trade in towns) is 150. This means
that there will be one shoemaker for every 150 people in an area. These
numbers can vary by up to 60% in either direction, but provide a useful
baseline for GMs. Think about the nature of the town or city to decide if
the numbers need to be changed. A port, for instance, will have more
fishmongers than the table indicates.

To find the number of, say, inns in a city, divide the population of the
city by the SV value for inns (2,000). For a village of 400 people, this
reveals only 20% of an inn! This means that there is a 20% chance of there
being one at all. And even if there is one, it will be smaller and less
impressive than an urban inn. The SV for taverns is 400, so there will be a
single tavern.

      Business                   SV     Business             SV
      Shoemakers                 150    Butchers             1,200
      Furriers                   250    Fishmongers          1,200
      Maidservants               250    Beer-Sellers         1,400
      Tailors                    250    Buckle Makers        1,400
      Barbers                    350    Plasterers           1,400
      Jewelers                   400    Spice Merchants      1,400
      Taverns/Restaurants        400    Blacksmiths          1,500
      Old-Clothes                400    Painters             1,500
      Pastrycooks                500    Doctors              1,700*
      Masons                     500    Roofers              1,800
      Carpenters                 550    Locksmiths           1,900
      Weavers                    600    Bathers              1,900
      Chandlers                  700    Ropemakers           1,900
      Mercers                    700    Inns                 2,000
      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        2,300
      Chicken Butchers           1,000  Cutlers              2,300
      Pursemakers                1,100  Glovemakers          2,400
      Woodsellers                2,400  Woodcarvers          2,400
      Magic-Shops                2,800  Booksellers          6,300
      Bookbinders                3,000  Illuminators         3,900
            *These are licensed doctors. Total 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
25-30 clergy.

Businesses not listed here will most likely have an SV from 5,000 to
25,0000! The "Magic Shop" means a shop where wizards can purchase spell
ingredients, scroll paper 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 land
(including requisite roads, villages and towns) 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 land can support many more people. Please note that the
number of people a square mile of agricultural land will support is not the
same as the maximum population density for a kingdom.

Once you have decided the ability of the land to support people, you can
determine the amount of wilderness/unfarmable country in the kingdom by
working backwards. Take the example kingdom of Chamlek again, the island
kingdom with 70,000 square miles and 5 million citizens. With one square
mile supporting 180 people, that means there is approximately 27,800 square
miles of farmland-about 40% of the total area of the isle. This offers a
graphic example of just how sparse the population really is. The remaining
60% of the country is wilderness, rivers and lakes.

Even if Chamlek had the maximum population density (120 people per square
mile), the farmland would be a whopping 66.66% of the total land, leaving
one-third of the country to wilderness (mostly forested hills between the
farms) and waterways. This is the maximum achieved on Earth, though higher
is theoretically possible if the GM determines that the entire country is
arable.

While the average distance between population centers can be derived from
the total land area, the average walking distance from one village to the
next is more realistically determined by considering only the settled land.
Thus, in Chamlek, the average distance between villages is not 3.6 miles, as
Chamlek's total land area might first suggest. The real average distance to
the next village is more like 2.2 miles (considering only settled land
area)-perhaps a 50 minute walk. This is because villages and towns tend to
cluster tightly along the arteries of travel defined by the lines between
the cities-leaving gaps of wilderness in the middle.

Castles

Okay, we now completely understand the lay of the land as regards
civilization, the cities and farms. Nearer to the heart of the adventurer,
however, is the castle, or better still, the ruined castle. Once again, how
many should there be?

Ruins, first 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 history and remoteness of the area. To determine the approximate
number of ruined fortifications, divide the kingdom's population by five
million. Multiply the result by the square root of the kingdom's age. If the
kingdom has changed hands a lot, use the total age-the number of years that
castle-building people have lived there, regardless of the Royal Lineage.

Chamlek, our island kingdom, has five million people today, which makes the
first part of the formula very simple. Chamlek has been populated by
castle-building folk for 300 years. She has 17.32 ruined forts or castles,
which means 17 for sure, and a 32% chance of an 18th.

Active castles are much more common; ruins are rare because the solid ones
are constantly put back into service! Assume one functioning castle for
every 50,000 people. The age of the kingdom is not really a factor. Chamlek
would have 100 active castles of various stripes, approximately.

75% of all castles will be in the civilized areas of a kingdom. The other
25% will be in the "wilderness."

The role of these castles is something too world-oriented to be reduced to
formula. Most will mark the landholdings of Barons and Dukes, but some may
be bandit strongholds, or the outposts of Goblin warlords. It is all up to
the GM.

Miscellany

City Size: Cities and towns of the Middle 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 city of 10,000 would
be 165 acres-hardly a city by modern standards, in terms of population OR
size. Some very large cities may have had up to twice this density.

Law 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
million people. This should be computed by continent, not by town! This
figure assumes entirely scholarly universities, not those dedicated to the
arcane arts. Whether or not magical universities are separate institutions,
and how common they are, is a matter for GM decision.

Livestock: The livestock population, on the whole, will equal 2.2 times the
human population, but 68% percent 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 not picky eaters.
Sheep will be extremely common if the region has a wool market (like
medieval England, which was built on wool). Cattle for labor and milk will
be found occasionally, but cattle raised specifically for meat are only
found in very prosperous areas.

Bibliography

The 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 City by Joseph and Francis Geis (Harper and Row, 1981). This
is a fine book by amateur historians, which includes some fascinating
descriptions of medieval city life and layout. Other books consulted
include:

Medieval Cities, by 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 Company.

The Medieval Town, by Fritz Rrig. University of California Press.

Medieval Regions and Their Cities, by Josiah Cox Russel. David & Charles
press.

                          [-----------------------]

   This article has really made the rounds . . . The earliest version was
 rejected by Dragon magazine back in 1993. I dusted it off, expanded it, and
   submitted it to Pyramid after that (no response at all). I improved it
 further for my own use, then sold it to The Familiar about two years ago -
      just in time for them to vanish. After the obligatory touches of
 improvement, I finally sold it to Shadis, just in time for them to vanish!
 Now, I've given it a home where it can rest, and hopefully be discovered by
people that won't reject it, ignore it, or go out of business after touching
                                     it.

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