A question of numbers

[alhoon]

Census in France in the middle of the 100 years war? How was that even possible with literacy probably less than 25% ?
I see it in wikipedia that a census of shorts was made for fiscal reasons in France 14th century but "original" census is listed as 19th century thing.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

It's a cute conceit, but I really don't think the populations listed a meant to be official in-character census counts. It's out of character info for the DM to know how big a place it's meant to be.

[Cromstar]

Census in France in the middle of the 100 years war? How was that even possible with literacy probably less than 25% ?
I see it in wikipedia that a census of shorts was made for fiscal reasons in France 14th century but "original" census is listed as 19th century thing.

I don't know, but they were able to peg the population in the range of a million or two apparently. Presumably, it occurred during one of the many, many lull periods in the 100 Years War (which was, remember, more a serious of smaller wars than one continuous conflict). Looking into it, they counted families/houses (literally, fire hearths) for tax purposes and then estimated a total population from that. The French census of 1328 was only of crown lands and smaller duchies, the larger de facto independent nobles (such as Guyenne and Flanders) were left out. In the large cities, they apparently started by counting smoke plumes, while in the rural areas, they had large numbers of knights and civil servants out traversing the land to perform physical counts. The nobles had a vested interest in ensuring the count was accurate as well, because it determined how much in taxes came to their regions from the crown for public projects (like roads). It does show that its reasonably possible for a census to be conducted in these times (they are, ofc, going to be less accurate).

[Rock of the Fraternity]

In that age, it was probably also important to have a reasonable guesstimate as to how many able bodies you could draft.

[Mistmaster]

Those times had a somewhat reliable source, parishes archives (Baptisms and funerals). However I think that any tax imposing nation need a census sometime. Feudal nations will have local lord making local census.

[alhoon]

For Ravenloft (and historical) purposes, I think the local lord didn't give a dancing dead rat about how many people were there but cared more about "manors" and "acres" and "herds" etc.
I.e. what I mean is that Lord_22 in Hazlan, doesn't care if his 5 vassal lords had a combined population of 1976 peasants or 2113. What he would care about about IMO would be "How many acres and herds does sir Vassal_11 has?" whether they are worked by 182 peasants or 214.
I.e. for tax purposes, it is much more important to know how much you can get as tax than how many people are there to pay it .

If you tax "families" then you don't care if they have 4 children and 2 adults or 11 children and 5 adults. If you tax 1 silver piece per arable arc, you don't care how many work it.
At least, that's my understanding of it. What you cared more was to have enough people to work your land and not have so many people that they would starve and die.

[Mistmaster]

Not exactly; ypu need to know how much working arms and possible foot soldier you can effectively employ.

[alhoon]

Yes, you do. But that's at village, local town level and you don't need a census for that. In the end, I don't think the local lord cared whether Sir BraveDude conscripted 3% of his peasants or 6%, as long as he showed up with his warhorse, his two brothers in their shiny armor and 7 guys with spears. Furthermore, the population was fluctuating.
Ravenloft: Wizard Macfire gets angry and throws a fireball in the village market: you lose 20-25 people.
Real world: Bad harvest and cold winter: You lose 20-25 people in malnutrition.

Now, for sir BraveDude and his 300 peasants: Sir BraveDude didn't have to do a census to know how many workers he had or how many he could conscript. He lived there.

Last but not least: People-I-can-conscript is correlated with people-in-my-lands but not 100% correlated. You could have 5000 people in your barony but whether that meant 2400 males or 2200 males, and how many of those you could afford to pull out of the workforce and how many of those you could trust (let's not forget that Sir BraveDude or his ambitious brother may change sides before battle) is debatable.

Furthermore, Ravenloft (and D&D) complication: Levels.
If sir BraveDude shows up with his 2 well armed brothers and 7 peasants ... but he's an 8th lvl cleric or wizard that's a veeeery different thing than sir BraveDude being your default knight.
In D&D numbers of warm (or well, cold) bodies is nothing to levels and equipment.
A necklace of fireballs in the hands of a plate-armored warrior with 60 hp can win you the battle against an x4 force.

Now, you may say "But in Ravenloft those are rare" and I would tell you: See Falkovnia based material and adventures.
Each Talon (in whatever edition) is better than 10 peasants in leather armor and carrying pointy things. And when I say better, I mean that if you put 10 Talons against 100 peasants on a battlefield, the Talons would win.

Hazlan 3e, after Hazlik put up his academy, has wizard nobles. Local Lord_33 can cast fireball.
Suddenly, it becomes MUCH more important to know "how many lords I have" than "how many serfs under each lord".
I.e. Whether Hazlan has 30,000 peasants or 60,000 peasants, what you should care about is whether it has 30 fireball lords or 60 fireball lords when planning an invasion.

Or Barovia and Gundarak:
What, exactly, could the Gundarakite lords do against Strahd?! He could show up and conquer the whole thing alone within a few weeks.

[Mistmaster]

Hem, it was important to know how much arms sir Bravedud could recruit, because if he shows up with half those forces or less it means he was holding off for some reasons; Strahd is one person; very powerfull, but (at least in my Mistworld) he rules a big land deceptivly unpopulated; He can't rule it alone, so he needs lords, troopeers and taxes. Ditto for Hazalik, with the plus that his nobles are Wizards too. To massproduct fireball's necklaces you need money, hence taxes, hence, census.

[Cromstar]

For Ravenloft (and historical) purposes, I think the local lord didn't give a dancing dead rat about how many people were there but cared more about "manors" and "acres" and "herds" etc.
I.e. what I mean is that Lord_22 in Hazlan, doesn't care if his 5 vassal lords had a combined population of 1976 peasants or 2113. What he would care about about IMO would be "How many acres and herds does sir Vassal_11 has?" whether they are worked by 182 peasants or 214.
I.e. for tax purposes, it is much more important to know how much you can get as tax than how many people are there to pay it .

If you tax "families" then you don't care if they have 4 children and 2 adults or 11 children and 5 adults. If you tax 1 silver piece per arable arc, you don't care how many work it.
At least, that's my understanding of it. What you cared more was to have enough people to work your land and not have so many people that they would starve and die.

Oh yeah, definitely, as I said it varies from domain to domain if there would be one. I see Falkovnia have at least a rough census because Vlad *wants to count heads* because that's the kind of person he is. Organized and orderly. Strahd doesn't care; Paridon (or...the other one?) is a city but probably doesn't have a census because its better for the dopplegangers that there isn't a firm body count.

[alhoon]

Hem, it was important to know how much arms sir Bravedud could recruit, because if he shows up with half those forces or less it means he was holding off for some reasons; Strahd is one person; very powerfull, but (at least in my Mistworld) he rules a big land deceptivly unpopulated; He can't rule it alone, so he needs lords, troopeers and taxes. Ditto for Hazalik, with the plus that his nobles are Wizards too. To massproduct fireball's necklaces you need money, hence taxes, hence, census.

But how many people sir Bravedude could recruit is not 100% correlated with the number of heads in his land. Same with taxes; you need to know how much you can produce, not how many people are required for you to make that.
What I mean is that whether your lands are worked by 152 workers or 178, doesn't change how much you earn from said land and you were (in the cases I am aware of) taxed for that land - including soldiers. For example, in England lords would be taxed according to land they held, including manpower they should provide.

[Mistmaster]

To raise soldiers you still need to know how many body you can potentially train.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

You can probably get a reasonable Fermi estimate of potential able bodied recruits without going door to door. You don't need a census to estimate how many piano tuners are in Chicago.

[Mistmaster]

Yes, but census are more precise.