I'm starting to hash out some thoughts on houserules and GM guidelines for Hârnic Trade. My first swipe at sorting out regional supply and demand can be found here.

Your comments, observations, and suggestions are welcome!
.

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

Sophia

This is great! Pleased to see my esoteric interests might eventually end up being useful....

Isn't the miners' guild important in Chybisa tho?



J.

That's a great start, Sophia. As I've expressed elsewhere, I think it's a very important subject that lays the groundwork not only for mercantyle trade but for the Harnic economy in general (the consequences of which are profound). I agree that supply and demand is the natural place to start.

Obviously this is a huge subject, but for the sake of starting a discussion: what sort of factors do you think might influence the actual level of demand in each market (as opposed to the simple, equal per capita consumption-based numbers you've logically chosen as a starting point)? The first thing that sprung to my mind was that the refinement and processing of raw materials such as minerals may be more likely to take place close to their source than remotely; the finished goods will then be exported, rather than the raw materials. So, for example, Kanday, which lacks copper and tin, probably imports not ingots of copper and tin so much as bronze and bronze goods from, say, Melderyn, which has a surplus of the base metals.

I'm not sure if history supports my hypothesis, but it makes sense to me.

If I might suggest, it might be both helpful and interesting to document the various secondary and teritiary products that are created from each primary, raw material (or combinations thereof).

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

This is very good work, Sophia, and presented in a way even I can understand without breaking into a cold sweat (after suffering economics for three years at university, I've developed an allergy to it).

It makes me realise just why both Kaldor and Melderyn want to get their grubby little paws on Chybisa - not only does it have excellent land quality, it has a surplus of just about every mineral there is.

One factor that will make a big difference to the amount of trade carried out is transport costs, which will hamper Kaldor particularly, since overland transport will be more expensive that waterbourne transport.



I certainly agree that processed ore is much more likely to be traded than raw ore, which is far more bulky, but I'm not sure that finished goods will automatically be preferred -- think of wool in medieval England: although England had a thriving cloth-making industry, much of its wool was exported to Flanders.

I know very little about the trade in minerals during medieval times, and to some extent you're right, finished goods were produces near the supply of raw materials (iron nails from the Forest of Dean and Derbyshire, for instance), but there was also demand for processed minerals, so local craftsmen could produce goods to satisfy local demands -- many towns had mints, for instance, even those not particularly close to silver mines.

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http://www.penultimateharn.com

I agree. Take lead, for example. As I understand it, raw ore taken from Derbyshire mines was processed (washed, smelted, and cast into ingots) close to where it came out of the ground. The transportation of ingots makes more sense than the movement of raw ore over long distances, as Andy said; you avoid carrying a lot of useless waste material along with the former option. As an alternative, the lead could be alloyed with other metals to create pewter, bronze, etc. before being cast into ingots.

Once processed, the ingots would be taken wherever there was demand, be that somewhere in England or overseas. They would then be melted down by craftspersons and poured into molds in order to create end products (e.g. roof tiles, pipes, etc.).

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Christopher Golden
Living History in England, c. 1190 A.D.: http://www.aedificium.org

What about grain? I don't have the LQ lists with me, but I always imagined that Kaldor was a bread basket, and places like Azadmere & Orbaal were always looking for extra sacks of oats, or delicate vegetables that don't grow in the mountains.

IIRC, someone was kind enough to post spreadsheets with LQ listed for all of Harn. I'm going to track that document down and do some averages.

Is that wrong?

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A moment is the most you can ever expect from perfection.

More than useful, Jeremy! Thanks for making your work available.


That sounds like the sort of thing that is on Jeremy's site. Try there first.


Well...I took a quick look at that and what I found made me decide to leave it off this first go!

You're right, I think -- Azadmere imports some foodstuffs, and I imagine the specialities of any one kingdom find their way to the others in trade. But.... by my quick figuring, there is almost twice as much food produced on Hârn as can be consumed! I certainly welcome other opinions on that, but it immediately suggests that much of the surplus grain, at least, finds its way to the cities of Lythia.

Re Chybisa's relative mineral wealth: that has much to do with the small population. Even one mine is more than enough to satisfy local demands, so anything else becomes surplus. But Anadel is a rich country, and if the guild could only control the barbarians....


Interesting idea, Keith. I had considered only ingots of the refined metal. But I see bronze and brass listed in the HM pricelist, suggesting trade in those alloys is likely.

As for converting the metals to finished goods near the source, that idea makes sense too....I see artisan villages, so to speak, growing up near the smelting sites, or perhaps in the nearest town where the ingots are traded. But I also think it would be easier to move the ingots as bulk cargo, and artisans across Hârn (if not craftsmen) would probably want at least some of the unworked metal on which to work their art. I'm not sure which is closer to our model, but both seem reasonable.


Agreed. It will help us identify the relative importance of each, and whether it falls into the luxury vs necessity category. Jeremy has made a start on that with his "Mines" project, but we can start collecting up more info for him as we find it.


I'm looking for help there, but some ideas that come to mind are: the relative "development" of a location -- Coronan, for example, probably has a greater demand for lead, copper, and other metals that go into the buildings of that city; likewise, the ratio of upper-class citizens to lower-class citizens (relative wealth) will come into play; the number of artisans in a place -- though I've left Evael out, for now, that place probably has a higher per captia demand for the metals that go into artwork. And I'm sure there is more I haven't yet considered. Ideas?

Thanks for the good response, guys. This is going to help a great deal.

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

So would that mean a place like Laket (which has a number of mines nearby) and possibly Geda would have an unusualy high concentration of metal crafters?

Quick Numbers
I found several spreadsheets that I downloaded a while ago by Andy G (Gibson?). I had to assume for one or two spreadsheets that 1 House Hold = 5 people.

These numbers represent total raw acres, I'm not sure what percentage of land was used for farming. If it was 50%, then halve the acres per person. I can't remember how many people an average acre of land will support. If I knew, I'd have a pretty good idea of what the surplus was in each area.

Kingdom ; Total Acres ; LQ ; Acres per Person
Chybisa ; 125,450 ; 1.22 ; 12.99
Kaldor ; 1,156,640 ; 1.11 ; 9.01
Kanday ; 1,057,410 ; .99 ; 10.58
Melderyn ; 1,452,580 ; 1.05 ; 8.95
Orbaal ; 585,110 ; 0.98 ; 7.99
Rethem ; 870,810 ; 1.06 ; 8.87
Tharda ; 746,090 ; 1.03 ; 7.12

<Edited 3-18, 10:53 CST>

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A moment is the most you can ever expect from perfection.

That looks close to what I came up with, but I did it in the aggregate for the whole island, and included the non-human kingdoms as well as estimates for the population of the barbarians.

I based my quick conclusion on the assumption (derived from the published material) that 4 acres would sustain one person. That rate implied a peasant's standard of living, but even if we make them all well-fed and portly by, say, going with 6 or 7 acres per person, that gives us a surplus.

When I get some time for it, I intend to take a closer look at the number of acres under cultivation or exploted as woodland (rather than just gross acres) and make allowance for the LQ to refine my rough guesstimates, but it looks like there will be at least some surplus on the island.

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

You analysis will be more accurate, but here's what I got:
Assumptions: 50% of Acres/Person is actual food production.
Took Acres/Person * LQ = Effective Output
Each person needs: 4 Acres
Surplus * Population / 4 is the additional number of people that can be fed.

Surplus acres of food per person ; surplus population this can support
Chybisa: 3.92 ; 9,473.70
Kaldor: 1.00 ; 32,110.88
Kanday: 1.24 ; 30,910.25
Melderyn: .7 ; 28,351.68
Orbaal: -.08 ; -1,554.31
Rethem: .7 ; 17,207.58
Tharda: -.33 ; -8,728.83

I'm looking for Azadmere stats now. (This is really going to help my calendar, as my whole year is food supply/demand driven)

Found it! (Thanks Jeremy)
Azadmere: 70,330; .73 ; 9.29
Effective Surplus: -.61 ; -1,156.39

(Side note: interesting how Tharda is in a position to play Kanday against Rethem by trading between the two for cheap food. You also can see which nations can sustain war the longest.)

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A moment is the most you can ever expect from perfection.

That was my first thought, and I think it still makes sense (for example, I can see skilled craftsmen choosing to locate close the source to ensure an uninterrupted flow of raw materials), but probably not to the degree I'd first imagined. As Chris and Andy pointed out, it seems that primary raw materials, such as metal ingots, were in fact pretty common exports, and further processing took place locally. Now that I give it more thought, this seems logical. Craftsmen are retailers and vice-versa; presumably, there's no real place for "retail markup" in the value chain, so the only way to make money is to buy raw materials and craft the goods yourself.

Furthermore, the demand for specific finished products might fluctuate regionally, and therefore would have to be adjusted for on a local basis (e.g., this month, there's a new building going up, so there's a demand for nails and similar hardware; last month, a new plough team was added to handle the newly-cleared arable, and so there was a need for a new plough, etc.). But the demand for the raw material itself (iron, in the case of my example) is relatively constant -- ploughshares or nails, some sort of iron-based good is going to be needed this month.

The obvious exceptions would be goods for which local craftsmen don't exist, perhaps even within the kingdom. Very fine glasswares, ceramics, and weapons come to mind.

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

IIRC, it's mentioned somewhere in canon that most regions are self-sufficient for food. Azadmere has always been a problematic exception, but I would imagine that in most cases the cost of a sack of grain that's had to travel a hundred leagues would be prohibitive.

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

Estimates for medieval England suggest a household of 5 people could subsist on 15 acres of arable land. That assumes an elder, two adults and two children. At such a macro level, we could assume three acres of arable allows one person to subsist.

Remember, though, that Harnic acreages include not just arable lands, but pasture, wood and waste. IIRC the "average" is 40 per cent arable.

So, using Arthur's figures, but applying the 40 per cent modifier for arable we get:

Kingdom ; Arable Acres ; LQ ; Arable Acres per Person
Chybisa ; 50180; 1.22 ; 5.20
Kaldor ; 462656; 1.11 ; 3.60
Kanday ; 422964; .99 ; 4.23
Melderyn ; 581032; 1.05 ; 3.58
Orbaal ; 234044; 0.98 ; 3.20
Rethem ; 388324; 1.06 ; 3.55
Tharda ; 298436; 1.03 ; 2.85

Thes figures aren't particularly accurate -- Orbaal, for instance, will have much less arable land and will rely more on upland pasture and fishing. But they give an indication.

Remember (a) that the 3 acre figure is subsistence, not comfortable living, (b) that there are number of people, such as monks, not accounted for in the population figures and that (c) some people, such as knights, have a standard of living far above subsistence level.

It doesn't look to me like there's a huge grain surplus on Harn...

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Perhaps this is exactly as it should be. If we assume that grain isn't an export, because its cost after transport is prohibitive, then there's no point in producing more grain than you need, because there's no market for your surplus (and even if there were, there's no infrastructure to transport it).

Once again, though, I'm hypothesizing without any historical evidence to back me up.

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

It rather depends on supply and demand. If the harvest is poor in a particular area, the price of grain there will rise and it will be cost-effective for merchants to transport grain from places further away than usual.

Although much of medieval London's grain came from the home counties, there was at least one occassion around AD1300 when a merchant shipped grain from Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Nations with good water transport may well export grain to or import it from nearby nations. There is probably some overland transport around Tharda, Rethem and Kanday, which have direct borders. Azadmere, which has a severe grain shrtoage and no water trade routes, will pay a lot for its grain -- but dwarven-made items probably fetch a fair amount as well (though it may be that dwarven swords, etc, aren't as rare as we sometimes assume -- swords and armour can last a long time, but Azadmere needs grain every year).

A really good source for the grain trade, and the sort of distance grain will be transported under certain circumstances is A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian production and distribution in the London region c. 1300 (Campbell, Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 1993, ISBN 1 870074 12 2). It's rare, but I managed to find a copy for six quid via abebooks a few weeks ago. The data it gives obviously apply to England, rather than Harn, but the general principles will remain the same.

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http://www.penultimateharn.com

Keith, I have found the following article by Richard Britnell to be a very useful introduction to the medieval grain trade:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.h.britnell/articles/Grain.htm

As you suspect, there is was very little international grain trade - but there was a lively domestic trade in England in the thirteenth century.

You *could*, however, posit that Tharda trades with both Kanday & Rethem for grain, for two reason:

a) The Thard provides a potential means of transporting grain in a relatively affordable manner.

b) Tharda is loosely modelled on Rome, and Rome certainly was a significant importer of grain, from as far afield as North Africa. This was a state organised activity to feed the populace of Rome.

Just some thoughts.

Jeremy

SNAP ... Andy beat me to it...

I notice that your link derives its transport costs from the book I referenced.

The point to note from it is that costs of transporting by water are 1/10 the costs of land transport -- therefore you can transport 10 times as far by water for the same cost.

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http://www.penultimateharn.com

Keith mann wrote:


Azadmere, page 1. the first sentence of the section "Economics" reads:


With that in mind, I think Arthur Reyes' results on Tharda and Orbaal need to be re-examined; he seems to be showing a shortage.

Either we're missing something in this admittedly sketchy analysis, or we need to add a "fudge factor" to make the results match canon.


Unless people aren't interested in matching canon --

That would make things easier, methinks, by limiting any real trade in grain to regional trade on Hârn itself. But in looking over the numbers, I still think it may be a bit more than can be consumed locally. That's okay, I think, it just gives us something else to think about and, as Keith points out, it will pretty much have to move by water if the cost is to be kept reasonable.

Looking over HârnManor, it tells us the average amount of woodland is 20%, and gives us (1d10+15)% to randomize it. That leaves as little as 75% of the gross acerage as arable. HârnManor defines waste only as land on which no labor is expended, so that is going to vary with circumstances. The remaining land, then, is arable, with some of it fallow and the rest under this year's crops. (that HM figure of "about four acres" per person, by the way, assumes half is under crops and half is pasture).

HârnManor guidelines really don't address topography such as Orbaal or Azademere, methinks, so the GM will have to do some tweaking of the guidelines to get some realistic results there. And I think manors near the frontier will have a slightly higher percentage of woodland, but applying that figure of 75% arable to Kaldor, that works out to 1,156,640 (total acres) * 0.75 (%arable) / 128,405 persons = about 6.7 arable acres per person. Factor in average LQ of 1.11 for Kaldor and we get the equivalent of about 7.5 arable acres per person.

As pointed out, 4 acres per person is probably not a very comfortable lifestyle. But I think 7.5 acres per person gives a surplus of production. How large? I'm not sure....maybe one acre per person? Not much, but in Kaldor alone that would still work out to enough surplus to feed (at a subsistence level) another 32,000 persons for one year.

Again, I'm surprised at the figure, as I originally had the idea that most regions of Hârn pretty much produced just enough to meet their needs. But in reading over the material Jeremy linked us to, I get the sense that we may not be far off the model here when I note that grain accounted for as much as 53% of the goods (by value) exported by foreign merchants through Hull between 1304 and 1309.

(Yes, I know, Hârn is not medieval England, but it is modeled after it in many respects).

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

I think we are okay if we go with something closer to that 75% figure rather than the 50% figure for the amount of acerage that is arable. That would give Orbaal: 585,110 (total acres) * 0.75 (% arable) / 73,000 persons = about 6 arable acres per person. Average LQ in Orbaal is 0.98, resulting in the equivalent of 5.89 arable acres per person.

That makes them at least self-sufficient, methinks.

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

Sophia

But isn't approximately 1/2 of cleared land pasture, not arable? So as I see it, 40% of manor acres are cropland / arable (20% woods, 40% pasture, 40% arable).

HarnManor does account for topography through Land Quality, doesn't it? Or did you mean something else?

Here is what I think:

Kaldor's poplulation (calculated from manorial census): 128,405

Kaldor's Gross Acreage: 1,156,640
Average Land Quality: 1.11
Effective Acreage: 1,280,684

40% of Effective Acres: 512,273 -> Effective arable / crop land

Effective Cropland / Person: 3.9

I think we are at subsistence level.

Jeremy

Exactly so. But this is another one of those things that requires me to do some rationalizing when it comes to rectifying this stuff with the published material. Take salt, for example....who needs it? Melderyn needs it. Who has it? Tharda has it. So why don't we have salt convoys instead of salt caravans?

I'll close my heretical little mouth now and go back to my quiet little corner of Chybisa....

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::Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone -- all by itself.::

Well, one (half joking/half serious) suggestion is that Harnic ships aren't water-tight enough; the salt would disolve...

On the other hand, if they are that leaky, what would be transportable? And would land transport be any drier?

I don't know - I just like trying to get things to fit canon, even when it seems hopeless

J.

Three 'nudges':

a) Its 3 acres per person for subsistence, not 4. That helps
b) Orbaal has a greater reliance on fishing than other areas; this reduces their dependency on arable land.
c) Tharda must have a higher percentage of arable than normal - even 45% arable will give an effective arable acreage per person of 3.3 acres.

I think canon is safe.

J.