Dungeon Fantasy Geology

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The normal range is 1 to 4 households per hyde or carucate of fields. The difficulty there is how big is a hyde (it varies but it's around 100 to 120 acres, since it's a tax unit generally the less productive the land the bigger the area), and how big is a household (presumably is averages at least 4, the current tenant and his wife and the on average two children who will live to eventually replace them). In areas where "households" were defined as extended families rather than by couples the assumption seems to have been 1 hyde would support one household, which is one of the possible original definitions - the other one being how much land a single ox team could plow in a planting season, which again given the expense of work animals you'd expect several families per team.

Modern aid agencies seem to assume 2.5 to 4 acres per person is the minimum for "subsistence" agriculture, but even the subsistence version of modern agriculture is probably more productive than a medieval farmer could reasonably hope for.

It's less variable than you might think, because a lot of the fuel isn't so much for heating as for cooking. Even in tropical areas a quarter of the land near villages is usually managed woodlands - perhaps unexpectedly from a modern perspective, it's often the land closest to the houses, villages and cities are often surrounded by a belt of trees before you get to the fields. In northern Europe it is not unusual for it to approach half.

Thanks. Very useful. So in a pleasant climate 3-4k inhabitants for the stated land area seems reasonable, given some reasonable amount of land reserved as a source of lumber? Or did your 5-6k already account for typical practices in that regard?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Even in tropical areas a quarter of the land near villages is usually managed woodlands - perhaps unexpectedly from a modern perspective, it's often the land closest to the houses, villages and cities are often surrounded by a belt of trees before you get to the fields.

Given how many modern people have hedges or trees near their houses, not really. Trees give a bit of privacy and regulate the climate near them, independent of the firewood they might also give.