Legends of Belariath

Miscellaneous Information on the Empire

A Typical Village

OOC Note: The reason for describing a typical village within the empire is that there are so many of them. While I don't expect anyone to take a village farmer as a player character, some may well be from that background. Further, farmers have daughters who may be the target of seduction, rape or enslavement. This type of village may help with a character's back story. However, this is not the main reason for describing them. Anyone who travels within the empire will come across villages. Role play may occur in a village. Knight characters may aspire to rule over one. Even if the village, and villagers, are just part of the set, everyone should have some idea of what the set looks like and who the 'extras' are.
Freya

This village is located in the souther part of the Duchy of Kalssen. It does not have a name, most don't. They don't need them, as few people ever go looking for one in particular. If someone wanted to differentiate it from any other village they may call it the village near the Shrine of Caleb. One of the villagers is a priest of Caleb and he tends the shrine, in addition he is a farmer as well. This is a common theme among villagers. They are virtually all farmers, whether on their own land or on he lands of their betters. Any that do have a craft or trade practice it in their spare time. Our village has a brewer, any number of weavers, a furniture maker, a witch, the priest, two cobblers, a bee keeper, his wife the candle maker, and half a dozen part time soldiers. We have no miller, the villagers take their grain to the next village to be ground. Occasionally a bard or a preacher will come to town, providing some entertainment. A village 10 miles to the south, near the east road, has a market field. Markets, which last 3 or 4 days, are held four times a year. That same town (actually no larger than our village) is where you would find a smithy, healer, or inn.

All told there are a little more than 200 adults and a little less than 300 children in the village. There are somewhere around 100 households. Extended families are not the norm; although, an aging parent may move in with one of their children at some point. Typically, each adult male will build himself a house, find a wife, and start making babies as a separate family unit. His status will be the same as his parent's, be that free, or serf. There are actually a whole range of distinctions in status from bordars, who have no land of their own, live in a cottage provided by the lord, and labor on his lands as little more than slaves, to villeins who may have some land of their own but who still owe considerable labor to their lord, to cotters who are similar to villeins but typically have more land and owe less labor to the lord, right up to free men who have their own land and owe only nominal labor on the lord's demense.

The fields cover about 10 square miles. About a third of this land, say 2,100 acres, is under cultivation at any one time. Another third is used as pasture, while the remainder is left fallow to grow fodder for the winter. The village farms these three fields in rotation, in addition there is outlying pasture, mostly for sheep, a stretch of woodland where pigs forage and berries are picked in season, and each villager has a small plot of land where they have their personal gardens for vegetables herbs and spices. Our village does not, but other villages have orchards of fruit trees or nuts. Instead our village specializes in wool and rough homespun cloth is its major cash crop. The edge of the furthest field is about 3 miles from the village; the next village is about five miles beyond that.

Ranulf the Balled, often called Billy-Goat, and more recently, the Old Goat, is the headman of the village. He has a full head of hair and an eye for the ladies, hence the nick names. He is more a leader than a lord and more often gives advice than hands down decisions. Tobias the Butler is the representative of the Duke in the village. It is his responsibility to see that the serfs perform their services, that the rents get paid, and that the manor is ready and stocked with food for when His Lordship the Duke comes to stay. Toby, as he is called, was the Duke's butler for many years and was made the Duke's overseer in this village as a reward for his long service. The Duke holds about half of the village's land and more than half of the villagers are his serfs. Toby keeps a house in the village. The manor house is not really very comfortable. It is more like a barn with a fire pit down the middle and a set of rooms for The Duke at the rear. Its main advantage is that it is big enough for the Duke and his entourage. The manor also has a separate kitchen and a few granaries.

The remaining feature of the village is the fort. The fort is a low hilltop with a wooden palisade around it and two gates. Within the walls are a well, a couple of granaries and a number of open sheds where livestock and people can shelter. In an attack the villagers would flee to the fort where they could hold out for several days awaiting aid, a decision by the army or bandits to move on.