# Crowd to a castle



## Gurkhal (May 9, 2015)

For my very, very first novellette I have come to the point in my preperation where I need to roughly know how a medieval castle's household worked.

I'm not really interested in the nobility at this point but mainly in how the servants lived, how they were organized, what work they did, what they brought in outsiders to do and finally how many they would be. 

So if people have some good links or can give some pointers it would be appreciated.


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## X Equestris (May 9, 2015)

I don't have access to any good sources at the moment, but I can tell you that the size of a household will be dependent on what level of nobility is involved.  Landed knights are going to have less servants than a powerful Duke, for example.


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## Gurkhal (May 9, 2015)

For this situation we're talking about would in English terms be a wealthy baron.


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## IrelandBeaver (May 9, 2015)

I have a book called "Life in a Medieval Castle" by Joseph and Franes Gies. It's not a very long book and it is a good introduction to the subject you are looking for. It does discuss some of the people you would find in a castle and what their roles were. And If memory serves me right, the authors do focus on a castle in England.


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## skip.knox (May 10, 2015)

Why do you want to model it on anything historical? To me, as soon as someone does that, they run the risk of being nibbled to death by History Gnomes.

But if you make your social order original, or even just noticeably different, you not only bring me along for the ride, you don't have to do all that research!

So I gotta ask: why are you trying to model it on something historical?


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## Gurkhal (May 10, 2015)

IrelandBeaver said:


> I have a book called "Life in a Medieval Castle" by Joseph and Franes Gies. It's not a very long book and it is a good introduction to the subject you are looking for. It does discuss some of the people you would find in a castle and what their roles were. And If memory serves me right, the authors do focus on a castle in England.



I had hoped to find some free research that wouldn't cost me any money but I'll suppose that I'll have to get this book and work from there. Thanks for the book tips!



skip.knox said:


> Why do you want to model it on anything historical? To me, as soon as someone does that, they run the risk of being nibbled to death by History Gnomes.
> 
> But if you make your social order original, or even just noticeably different, you not only bring me along for the ride, you don't have to do all that research!
> 
> So I gotta ask: why are you trying to model it on something historical?



Well, its because I like history and I enjoy historical fiction and fantasy cleaving close to history the best, so I want to write what I like myself. I don't think there's any deeper issues than that.


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## Manalodia (May 10, 2015)

I've actually done a bit of research (still am) on things like this myself, so I see exactly where you are coming from and looking for. Fortunately I have a link that pertains to such:

Medieval History: Medieval Architecture, Knightly Life, and Medieval Society

It covers most aspects of Medieval society but the more specific link you are looking for is this one:

Medieval Castle Life

For myself, I use just enough so that it is coherent and makes sense and then apply my own word's mechanics if need be. Hope these are specific enough and help you out. If not, I can hunt more down and share them. Best to you~


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## skip.knox (May 10, 2015)

OK. So, if you are looking for accuracy, you need to narrow things down a bit. There were castles all through the Middle Ages (though stone ones only from 11thc) and they varied greatly in character. A castle is at heart a fortress not a domicile, and some of them weren't much more than a stone box. Some were in towns. A 12thc noble household was rather different from a 15thc one, and one in Sweden was rather different from one in Greece. 

The Gies' books are a good place to start, though not to stop. There has been much work done since then (1950s, 1960s). But honestly, your best bet is to do some bibliographic research at a university. The Net isn't going to have much, except for generalities and old tropes.


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## ThinkerX (May 10, 2015)

Ok...from my old 'Castle Guide,' an AD&D handbook.  A passable general summary:

Officials:

Lord High Chamberlain:  The Lords right hand man, controlling all access to the Lord in question.  Can act on the Lords behalf.

Lord High Chancellor: Basically, top bureaucrat.  A lot of his duties revolve around tax collection - and *everything* is taxed.

Lord High Justice: Chief Judge, oversees the courts and local law enforcement

Lord High Marshal: Military Commander, charged with seeing the troops trained and equipped.

Lord High Inquisitor: Spymaster - and spying was basically built into the feudal system.

Lord High Chaplin:  Top priest

Lesser Officials:

Squire: Apprentice knights - and each knight is expected to have one or more.

Stable Master: Runs the stables, expert on horses, has a dedicated team of groomers, stable hands, and whatnot.  Horses take a lot of upkeep.

Chief Porter:  aka top castle guard

Waiting Women: The direct personal servants of the lady of the castle, seeing to maekup, hairstyling, bathing, cleaning, sewing, all that stuff

Chief Steward:  Oversees the kitchens.  In a smaller castle, will often oversee cleaning staff as well.

Castellan: Oversees cleaning staff, petty domestic matters.  Possibly combined with Chief Steward.

Men at Arms, Gardner's, Artisans, menial servants:  Note that the more skilled sorts are often given a sort of 'offer they can't refuse' - they will work in the Lords castle, regardless of their own desires.  

To this you can add turnkey's (jailers), cellar-men, tutors, and more.


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## Caged Maiden (May 10, 2015)

A castle is a little different from say a manor house.  A castle would stand within walls and within those walls, there would be barracks possibly, stables, guardhouses with officer quarters, and a keep where a family (often extended) would dwell.  Servants would have meager accommodations, young men often sleeping in a hall while women had a separate room but certainly not private.  Of course, that depends on how much the family worried about you know, men and women mingling or the safety of young girls.  If it's a smaller deal they probably wouldn't worry, all being rather considered extended family.  If the establishment were larger, the young women might be locked in at night for their own safety (visiting nobles, soldiers, etc.  
The baron would be responsible for the welfare of his servants, so he would take security pretty seriously, hiring a steward to oversee many daily things and a woman would have all the keys to the keep's doors, to oversee the female servants.  She would also likely be the one who opened the pantry (food and drink and spices being one of the more commonly pilfered items from the kitchen).  The size of the household would be dependent on the money, but likely, the household staff would be as small as possible, remember, every lord had to pay for his people.  He had to supply them with food, clothing, wages, and ensure they went to church, received medical care, had midwives attend them, barbers, and other things.  

The extended persons in his employ would be greater in number.  In the other noble/ servant thread I talked about the wool industry, and the same thing applies here.  The castle would be surrounded by fields, a village or two or three, and it depends on how vast his territory, but that could sum to a decent number of working-class citizens.  Those people would probably be tenants on his land and pay rent to him and receive a portion of the crops they farmed, but they could also be people living on small parcels they owned, but still paying taxes to the lord and working his fields days, and their own on weekends or whatever.

Whatever industry the baron's lands produce goods in, he would hire workers seasonally, and they would likely return home to the outlying areas at the season's close.  In the wool industry, lambs are born in January, and the fields need shepherds in the spring to protect the animals grazing, then summer grazing is in another place when the sheep are fattening up and shearing.  Then you have the combing and cording of wool, then dying, then spinning and weaving.  That keeps workers busy clean through to slaughter.  After, the season's over and it's all waiting again until lambing.  

Whether your barony raises sheep for wool, cattle for leather and beef, horses for sale, or they grow wheat, barley, oats, or other grains, or maybe they make wine, beer, have a distillery that makes whiskey or perfumes, it's all dependent on how deep you want to get, how creative you feel like will help your story, or how advanced the area.  You could have a variety of smaller industries present at the village--soaping, candles, a tannery, etc.  which the baron owns, but those things wouldn't be done at a castle which is more for fortification than industry.  All the industry of the barony would happen outside the castle's immediate grounds and be reliant on villagers.  

He would have a few men he trusted to secure trade in another land or overseas, probably.  Those people would plan a year ahead or whatever.  After the lambing, they would sell the predicted year's products to a market and then it's up to them to deliver, even if there's a bad season.  The castle itself would keep a certain number of trained men, but most of the baron's soldiers would be his peasants, (oh man, I'm sorry I'm getting all confusing now...I have a lot to say and it's hard to stay organized).

Basically, there's a difference between household and workers.  Weavers and brewers would work for him, but not be in his household.  he might outfit his household men and women in livery, but didn't need to.  If he was a wealthy baron, with a castle and a moderate-sized family, say his wife and their five children and two nephews fostering with him, and his sister and her husband and their three children, I would expect these people to be in his household: two nurses/ nannies depending on the children's ages, two valets, a handful of lady's maids, a head cook and two assistants, a stable master and maybe a couple boys, the lady with the keys (she ran the household and told everyone what to do).  Maybe a couple more miscellaneous persons who do small tasks like cleaning and sewing (those might also be nieces sent to foster, or they might be neighbor's daughters.  Not in his household but maybe living within the castle, he might have a priest, tutors (for book learning or for the boys studying marshal arts, especially for the foster nephews who came there for training and for which he collects a fee), maybe a sheriff (shire reeve), whatever soldiers and officers you think appropriate for the current military and security threats.  A note: men at arms were sometimes liveried, but because of the generous legal benefits of being liveried (a liveried servant was only punishable for the crimes associated with their lord's ranking, so if a baron could only be arrested for felony and disturbing the peace, liveried servants enjoyed the same benefit, so at some points in history, men at arms were strictly NOT allowed to be liveried, to stop them brawling and receiving no penalty, so only civilians were allowed to be liveried).  

I guess it's hard to give a complete list because often people were employed by a noble, but they didn't live within the castle.  It depends what you incorporate into your castle, really.  Do you have barracks, small houses for stable master, a chapel for the priest (a lot of castles did have a chapel, but it wasn't a separate church building).  There are a lot of variables, depending on the time period.  Also, are we talking about a small Scottish keep from 1250 or Neuschwanstein Castle, you know?  Those are two different animals, there.  Many nobles owned expansive tracts and if it was near a border, they might have several fortified keeps that housed soldiers, but the lord and his family lived in a nicer house in relative safety.  Castles were often isolated and defensible, but they couldn't support big populations.  Walled cities were different, but then again, those weren't castles.  They might have a palace-type house in the middle, a church, and a town all around, but those would have more people because they relied on trade and deliveries and open markets because people brought goods from the countryside.

If I can clarify anything, let me know.  I'm kinda all over the board there.


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## Gurkhal (May 11, 2015)

Manalodia said:


> I've actually done a bit of research (still am) on things like this myself, so I see exactly where you are coming from and looking for. Fortunately I have a link that pertains to such:
> 
> Medieval History: Medieval Architecture, Knightly Life, and Medieval Society
> 
> ...




Thanks, this is kind of the thing that I was looking for!



skip.knox said:


> OK. So, if you are looking for accuracy, you need to narrow things down a bit. There were castles all through the Middle Ages (though stone ones only from 11thc) and they varied greatly in character. A castle is at heart a fortress not a domicile, and some of them weren't much more than a stone box. Some were in towns. A 12thc noble household was rather different from a 15thc one, and one in Sweden was rather different from one in Greece.
> 
> The Gies' books are a good place to start, though not to stop. There has been much work done since then (1950s, 1960s). But honestly, your best bet is to do some bibliographic research at a university. The Net isn't going to have much, except for generalities and old tropes.



To be honest I'm ready to adapt to what I can get. I've got the story in my head and it can be tweeked to work with the locations that I find. But I am mostly interested in a Northern Europe/Baltic type of enviroment.



ThinkerX said:


> Ok...from my old 'Castle Guide,' an AD&D handbook.  A passable general summary:
> 
> Officials:
> 
> ...



Thanks for the efforts! I may be a bit elitist though, but the title of Lord High Inquisitor left me a bit sceptical.


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## Gurkhal (May 11, 2015)

Caged Maiden said:


> A castle is a little different from say a manor house.  A castle would stand within walls and within those walls, there would be barracks possibly, stables, guardhouses with officer quarters, and a keep where a family (often extended) would dwell.  Servants would have meager accommodations, young men often sleeping in a hall while women had a separate room but certainly not private.  Of course, that depends on how much the family worried about you know, men and women mingling or the safety of young girls.  If it's a smaller deal they probably wouldn't worry, all being rather considered extended family.  If the establishment were larger, the young women might be locked in at night for their own safety (visiting nobles, soldiers, etc.
> The baron would be responsible for the welfare of his servants, so he would take security pretty seriously, hiring a steward to oversee many daily things and a woman would have all the keys to the keep's doors, to oversee the female servants.  She would also likely be the one who opened the pantry (food and drink and spices being one of the more commonly pilfered items from the kitchen).  The size of the household would be dependent on the money, but likely, the household staff would be as small as possible, remember, every lord had to pay for his people.  He had to supply them with food, clothing, wages, and ensure they went to church, received medical care, had midwives attend them, barbers, and other things.
> 
> The extended persons in his employ would be greater in number.  In the other noble/ servant thread I talked about the wool industry, and the same thing applies here.  The castle would be surrounded by fields, a village or two or three, and it depends on how vast his territory, but that could sum to a decent number of working-class citizens.  Those people would probably be tenants on his land and pay rent to him and receive a portion of the crops they farmed, but they could also be people living on small parcels they owned, but still paying taxes to the lord and working his fields days, and their own on weekends or whatever.
> ...



Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is just the sort of thing I was hoping for. Right now I don't have all the details of the castle fixed but I really want some sort of framework to start with instead of just hanging in the air with everything. The idea for the castle is to have it in a Northern Europe/Baltic type of enviroment. I've got the main story in my head and I'm ready to do adaptations to make it work with historical facts.

Double post but I couldn't fit it into a single post...


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## ThinkerX (May 12, 2015)

> Thanks for the efforts! I may be a bit elitist though, but the title of Lord High Inquisitor left me a bit sceptical.



Well, it is from and AD&D handbook.  Still, the spying was built into that type of society, hence any lord of standing would have to have a spymaster of some sort, regardless of the actual title.  (GRRM went with 'Master of Whispers')


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## Gurkhal (May 12, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Well, it is from and AD&D handbook.  Still, the spying was built into that type of society, hence any lord of standing would have to have a spymaster of some sort, regardless of the actual title.  (GRRM went with 'Master of Whispers')



True about that! I was not sceptical about a spymaster, just that there would be a formal title for this kind of thing in the household of a low to middle level noble.


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## Russ (May 12, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Well, it is from and AD&D handbook.  Still, the spying was built into that type of society, hence any lord of standing would have to have a spymaster of some sort, regardless of the actual title.  (GRRM went with 'Master of Whispers')



If you like using RP games for this sort of reference I would highly recommend the earlier versions of chivalry and sorcery.  Near unplayable but chock full of good historical/fantasy/magic reference material on a number of cultures.


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## ThinkerX (May 12, 2015)

> If you like using RP games for this sort of reference I would highly recommend the earlier versions of chivalry and sorcery. Near unplayable but chock full of good historical/fantasy/magic reference material on a number of cultures.



Oh, my gaming days are long behind me.


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## Russ (May 12, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Oh, my gaming days are long behind me.



So are mine, but the books are great references.


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## Gurkhal (May 13, 2015)

Russ said:


> If you like using RP games for this sort of reference I would highly recommend the earlier versions of chivalry and sorcery.  Near unplayable but chock full of good historical/fantasy/magic reference material on a number of cultures.



Thanks for the suggestion, even if it was not direct at me.


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## Russ (May 13, 2015)

Gurkhal said:


> Thanks for the suggestion, even if it was not direct at me.



There are all public my friend.  Happy to help where I can.


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## SeverinR (May 13, 2015)

I have posted this other places a while back, but no problem posting again:
Medieval Occupations (castles)

The smaller keeps would probably not have enough room to house all the servants, so I bet some lived outside the walls close by.
Larger keeps would need more servants to maintain also.

Medieval Castle Life


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## StannisTheMannis (May 18, 2015)

I've always found that combining two different histories/cultures confuses the history gnomes (of which I am one). That way, you can draw on history, and also make it unique. From there, you find that history plots blend and soon you will be spinning off your own.


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## Gurkhal (May 20, 2015)

StannisTheMannis said:


> I've always found that combining two different histories/cultures confuses the history gnomes (of which I am one). That way, you can draw on history, and also make it unique. From there, you find that history plots blend and soon you will be spinning off your own.



True, true. One of the dangers is of course that it could end up confusing me but I see your point. I'll take a look at Norse society as well and see if I can shake something from it.


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## StannisTheMannis (May 20, 2015)

Gurkhal said:


> True, true. One of the dangers is of course that it could end up confusing me but I see your point. I'll take a look at Norse society as well and see if I can shake something from it.



I'm currently working to combine Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome.


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## chrispenycate (May 21, 2015)

There's a lot of diversity in size, sophistication and even function among castles. The one I used to live in (I had one room, not an appreciable space) was on the small side, a king's hunting lodge (if you hunt dangerous animals), and southern European (Savoie), so doesn't really qualify for your inquiry - a king brought a mistress back from the crusades, and had a castle built to make her feel at home, no oubliettes, no torture chamber, fact nothing to laugh at at all. But the original construction involved no corridors, go through a room to a room; there was a well within the walls and the number of staircases left you wondering about transporting buckets to the upper chambers - before running water was installed (from the looks of the pipes, about a century ago). Outbuildings, presumably stables and byres, obviously had had habitation above the animals' quarters, as well as hay bales - it didn't do to have allergies back then. There was a forge, too, but whether it was for a farrier or weapons and tools is difficult to judge. But outside the main defence wall, like the animals.

A big castle is almost like a small town, or large military encampment. In fact, the difference between a small walled town and a large castle is difficult to define except that the castle's walls are generally higher in proportion, and there are fewer, larger buildings. When attacked the local peasants would take refuge, with their animals, within the walls (means there is fresh meat during a siege) so there's a space like a market square, or parade ground, within the defences. Kitchen facilities you can instantly increase - I've never seen the bread oven for a big castle, but in the small one it could have done perhaps six loaves at a time. At that, they'd have to do a couple of batches a day, and feast days bring in extra help from the village. The chapel in the little castle could hold the priest and four others, presumably the family. The equivalent larger might hold a hundred, and the great hall three times that.

Most villages with castles, it would be the centre of local festivities, having the space to congregate the entire local population.


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## Gurkhal (May 30, 2015)

StannisTheMannis said:


> I'm currently working to combine Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome.



Sounds like a cool thing. How is it coming about?



chrispenycate said:


> There's a lot of diversity in size, sophistication and even function among castles. The one I used to live in (I had one room, not an appreciable space) was on the small side, a king's hunting lodge (if you hunt dangerous animals), and southern European (Savoie), so doesn't really qualify for your inquiry - a king brought a mistress back from the crusades, and had a castle built to make her feel at home, no oubliettes, no torture chamber, fact nothing to laugh at at all. But the original construction involved no corridors, go through a room to a room; there was a well within the walls and the number of staircases left you wondering about transporting buckets to the upper chambers - before running water was installed (from the looks of the pipes, about a century ago). Outbuildings, presumably stables and byres, obviously had had habitation above the animals' quarters, as well as hay bales - it didn't do to have allergies back then. There was a forge, too, but whether it was for a farrier or weapons and tools is difficult to judge. But outside the main defence wall, like the animals.
> 
> A big castle is almost like a small town, or large military encampment. In fact, the difference between a small walled town and a large castle is difficult to define except that the castle's walls are generally higher in proportion, and there are fewer, larger buildings. When attacked the local peasants would take refuge, with their animals, within the walls (means there is fresh meat during a siege) so there's a space like a market square, or parade ground, within the defences. Kitchen facilities you can instantly increase - I've never seen the bread oven for a big castle, but in the small one it could have done perhaps six loaves at a time. At that, they'd have to do a couple of batches a day, and feast days bring in extra help from the village. The chapel in the little castle could hold the priest and four others, presumably the family. The equivalent larger might hold a hundred, and the great hall three times that.
> 
> Most villages with castles, it would be the centre of local festivities, having the space to congregate the entire local population.



Thank you very much for this! Love to hear inspirational stories about castles.


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