Does anyone know of a site or resource to work out what percentage of a population needs to cover services?

[Senko]

I'm trying to put together a kingdom (150 square kilometers, 5000 people, 2 main settlements) and I'm not sure how to work out what percentage of that population should be in government services. I've ones to work out goods for sale, class division, race division and the like but I've just realized I'm lacking what percentage are governemnet employee's covering basic services. Maintaining buildings, parks and roads, fire and police services, cleaning up garbage and the like. So does anyone know how to do this or a resource that will include it in kingdom population division please?

[Hugo Rune]

Not off the top of my head but the Magical Medieval Society book is a very good resource generally and their may be info in there. I'm currently on holiday and not able to check

I would be interested in the information sources you have found so far. Would you mind posting links to them?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

1, That's not a kingdom, that's a couple of towns. I don't think you could even call this a principality with a straight face. Or are you using 'kingdom' in the sense of the domain rules?

2. It really depends. For most of history there weren't public services that did that sort of thing. Roads developed on their own because people walked them down. Paved roads were a military invention, and this place is too small to have anything like enough people to create or maintain such things.
Fires were fought with locals forming bucket chains, parks are things rich private citizens have for themselves, and policing is at best a couple of watchmen who keep a lookout for fires at night - crime catching is the old hue and cry while justice is the purview of the local lord (just hope they are more interested in justice than getting through cases quickly).

Private people did just about all such work for themselves or for the good of the community. At best you'd probably get a proper dugnad in the community for such things.

Magic will of course change the game.

[Senko]

@Hugo
Magical Medieval societies is nice and I have that one. Anyone some other sources I use () are . . .

City Generator
https://strategerygames.com/citygen/index.php
The thing I like about this is that once you've entered the information it generates a whole range of information you can use e.g. the professions breaks things down into even such rarely considered things like how many nannies you'll have in the city.

Magical Meieval Society
You know about this series.

Medieval Demographics Made Easy
https://gamingballistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Medieval-Demographic s-Made-Easy-1.pdf
Short but its got a bunch of basic information for working out kingdom. There's also an automated generator based on this at https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

The Marketplace
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241058/The-Marketplace
This is more focused on making a "realistic" as in real world currencies and values system than kingdom building but it does contain some interesting information scattered through it that can flesh out a world e.g.

Glass, Clear. While Alchemists prefer greenish tinged glass for storage purposes, as it tends to be more protective of the contents and because it is cheaper, they also use clear glass from time to time – especially where visual observation of ongoing processes is important.

Fantasy World Building Tips for RPG's
https://www.scabard.com/pbs/page/main/Fantasy_World_Building_Tips_for_RPGs

Useful site with general information on building a world in general terms.

I've adapted bits and pieces from elsewhere over time and some are just my personal notes and records from past games I've made. Is there something in particular your interested in?

@Bjorn
Hmmm, so that's why I can't find one maybe I'll take a browse through the internet and see if I can find guidelines on setting up town services or something thanks.

I'm using kingdom in the old city state sense here where a kingdom can literally be one town and some surrounding lands especially if they're sitting on a natural resource e.g. trade routes, valuable mines or the like. Even today we have countries that are smaller than this size such as San Marino that is only 60km square though admitedly it does have more population at 30,000 but not a lot more given that's an old established nation rather than a new growing one which is what I'm dealing with.

[Entymal]

This might be what you're looking for: Link

or more directly: Link

In short, divide your population by the number listed for the profession. That's the number of people in that profession or the percent chance that one person is. Everyone else is a farmer.

It's easy to put that data into an excel sheet so you can just type in the population and copy the data out.

It does need modified for fantasy professions.

[Senko]

Just to clarify an earlier post (2am staying up for nightshifts in a few ay's) the market place is part of the Orbis Mundi 2 system. All 3 books are useful for me.

@Entymal
Thanks that's useful, I've seen quite a few references to that original article but the main link is down sadly.

[Cavall]

5000 people in a kingdom?

4999 in services.

[Senko]

hmmmmm.

Serioulsy even today places like singapore (bigger and more people) are recognized as city states a type of small independent country, that usually consists of a single city and its dependent territories. In the time period we're talking of they'd be a lot more common. Heck I think the disney movies are almost entire city states set in this rough era (not real but as reliable as anything else for a fictional island nation) Arendelle, the beasts castle, Agrabah, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Maleficient movies had two.

[Mysterious Stranger]

What form of government is the kingdom? In a feudal society nearly all of the people are technically government workers. Nobles are sworn to the service of the monarch, and their soldiers can be called up when needed. Serfs likewise are the responsibility of the nobles. When something needs to be done the nobles can simply order their people to do it. The monarch is also considered a noble and has his own workers.

[Senko]

Monarchy, possibly constitutional in nature.

[J. A.]

Just here to add Corona to the list of Disney city-states. : )

Also, feudal serfs are not "government workers," since they're tenants (at best) of landowners and thus laboring for private estates, regardless of whether the owners of those estates may have titles or functions at court.

And there are plenty of townsfolk and villagers throughout most of the medieval period. For a fictional but historically accurate glimpse, see the Cadfael novels. For a classic nonfiction overview, see "Life in A Medieval City" by Frances and Joseph Gies.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Whether serfs are considered government workers depends on how you define the government. To me a person who has a standing army and can tax a person is not a private individual. When that person has the right to judge someone and execute them if they want that person is the government. He may not be the highest person in the government, but he is still part of the government.

Having multiple layers of government is pretty standard. Today in the United States we have the federal government, state government, and local government. That is not much different than a king having vassals. In fact a feudal government is more unified than our own system. In a feudal system all authority ultimately derives from the king.

[Senko]

In my Empire (personal out of game lore) in terms of authority it's . . .

Emperor/Emperess
King's/Queens (I had several monarchs under me for political reasons).
Imperial Inquisitors (Appointed investigators and magistrates who could sit in judgement of anyone below the rank of king/queen though they had to justify it to me later).
Nobility (handle administration of various decreasing areas at lowest level were barons and lord mayors who ruled villages).

So there was emmpire wide laws that applied anywhere, kingdom specific ones for the various kingdoms under me and had to be in line with the empire ones and local laws that again had to be in line with empire. For example if an empire law is you can't be imprisoned without trial a kingdom or local one can't say you can. On the other hand a local one might say you can be put on trial for hunting because there's a large amount of intelligent, talking animals in the area (we . . . didn't quite fix the curse on that village).

[avr]

The local landowner probably didn't have the right of high justice in medieval times. He probably didn't even have the right of low justice. More likely further east, and of course he would have a bunch more rights than the peasantry, but try not to be confused by later propaganda.

[Senko]

A noble handled administration, defence, judgement of things like a merchant accused of false weight on coins and the like he couldn't dispense high justice. A king or Queen could in certain circumstances order it as they retained that right in regards to their kingdom though they could be checked by the emperor/ess though that was tricky due to internal politics. Inquisitors are the check on nobles power and served as roving judges for cases as the emperor/esses hand or voice. Most were a hand and could even unseat a Duke if they found evidence of a severe enough crime but couldn't dispense high justice. The most senior, loyal and experienced may in certain circumstances (such as a time of war) be named a voice and were the only ones aside from the emperor/ess who were allowed to dispense high justice ordering executions for treason or other capital crimes on an empire wide scale. It's complicated and made worse by the fact my own understanding is probably not that good on the differences.

[Meirril]

A rule of thumb, unless your society is particularly magical or technological (like 1800s technology) you need 1 farmer to feed themselves plus 1 non-farmer. In other words half your population needs to be farmers or you need to import food. The more farmers you have above 50% the more excess food you should generate. Circumstances can change that a bit. Like if you are in an extremely fertile land, or there is a severe drought.

There is a large distinction between Serfs and Peasants. Peasants don't own land and generally work as contract laborers and farmers, but they are free. They can leave if the conditions are bad.

Serfs are one step removed from slaves. They actually don't have the right to leave no matter what the conditions are, and in a lot of societies that had serfs they are considered the Lord's property. Also serfs tended to be taxed heavier than Peasants.

The most likely set up for a 'kingdom' of 5,000 people would be a central city with slightly less than half of the population, and a bunch of surrounding villages to support the 'city'. Each village would be about 100 people, so for a city of 2000 figure 25-50 villages of 50-100 people each, and probably 3 towns of around 300-500 townsfolk. There also might be a few keeps/castles in the area depending on the importance of travel in the area. The more land based trade the more reason there is to control travel, and castles are used to do that.

Any major castle with a lot of trade traveling through its sphere of control should have a town associated with it. On the other hand something like a fort placed to watch the border in case of invasion probably won't be based in a town and will probably not even have a village directly connected to it.

[Agénor]

avr wrote:

The local landowner probably didn't have the right of high justice in medieval times. He probably didn't even have the right of low justice. More likely further east, and of course he would have a bunch more rights than the peasantry, but try not to be confused by later propaganda.

I think this is incorrect. Landowners had the right and the might. One had to be part of nobility to own land and being part of nobility meant owning land.

I know at some point in a Western European monarchy, the power of a noble could be displayed with pillars, for between pillars a plank could be stretched and from such a plank a rope with a noose, it represented how many persons the local could have hung at once. Two pillars for those of little power, three for the category above, so on, so forth.

[Senko]

Thanks for the breakdown of kingdom population, i think i can use this.

[avr]

Agénor wrote:

avr wrote:

The local landowner probably didn't have the right of high justice in medieval times. He probably didn't even have the right of low justice. More likely further east, and of course he would have a bunch more rights than the peasantry, but try not to be confused by later propaganda.

I think this is incorrect. Landowners had the right and the might. One had to be part of nobility to own land and being part of nobility meant owning land.

I know at some point in a Western European monarchy, the power of a noble could be displayed with pillars, for between pillars a plank could be stretched and from such a plank a rope with a noose, it represented how many persons the local could have hung at once. Two pillars for those of little power, three for the category above, so on, so forth.

I can't find exactly what you're referring to but it screams of being propaganda (possibly in the American Revolution era?) Owning land was often a requirement to be of the nobility but not vice versa. And a limit on how many people the noble could hang 'at once' is both pointless and doesn't sound like anything from Roman law or Germanic tribal laws, or anything obviously descended from them.

[Agénor]

These pillars were in France, many of them still standing, visible to the passer-by, they are called « fourches patibulaires ».

About owning the land in the same country, I am not immediately finding documentation in English - I haven't read much about French nobility in a language other than French given that I can read the language - so I'll simply provide the Wikipedia link to the page for the French medieval commoner that talks about land ownership. Commoners didn't own the land as much as they were sharecroppers - or the equivalent when the relevant piece of land wasn't a field.