Re: Carls, Half carls and Gardners

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_...>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 10:52:21 -0600


At 7:56 PM +1300 3/7/02, Peter Metcalfe wrote:
>At 16:33 6/03/02 +0000, you wrote:
>>Anybody have ideas about the percentages of gardeners, carls and
>>half carls on a typical stead.
>
>TR p40 says Carls "usually have a stead, with a family of poor
>carls or cottars to help with chores; about 15 to 25 people
>total". Since most steads will be headed by Carls, a minimum
>of one carl per stead sounds about right.
>
>I can't find any stats on the number of beasts that a carl's
>stead owns (the stead on page p18 is too big and if scaled
>down implies that a stead containing 15 people only has 26
>cattle which is too few). I suspect that one or two of the
>other people in the stead are half-carls and the rest cottars
>and gardeners.

        The Heortling social thing is puzzling because it doesn't address women very well. Can a non-Vingan be a carl? What's the status of a carl's wife or children (before they are old enough to be Carls themselves). A son of a carl who is building his herd is a -- what? Carl? Half-carl? Carl-to-Be? Cotter?

        TR, p.40 says that a carl supports about 16 people (of course, as Mr. Metcalfe points out, a paragraph or two lower it says 15-25). The carl has at least 8 oxen, plus at least 34 additional cattle. If this number includes cotters and the like, we might have a population like this:

Carl
Carl's spouse
2 young adults, children of the carl but not old enough to be "classed" A cottar and spouse
2 additional cotters or a married couple 8 children, some the carl's and some the cotters'

One or more of these might be elders, possibly of carl rank but not doing that level of work. Assuming one of the young adults is a male or a fighting woman, the group would field 2-4 people for the fyrd (a cotter or two might be up to it if they were trying to move up in the world).

For half-carls, have the numbers.

This is assuming the carl is a farmer. All four Providers should be able to produce carls, and I expect there is some other ranking system for them, although herding and farming are prtty entwined. A hunter or fisher who produces a certain amount of game for the clan should be ranked as carl despite not having a plow, oxen, etc. On the other hand, most hunters and fishers are probably cotters.

Now, I can't imagine that Heortlings live in 16 people steads. It certainly doesn't match the description of a stead on TR, p.18. I think that you can divide the population of a stead by 16 to get the number of "carl equivalents." A stead with 120 people will have 7.5 carls, which might work out to 5 carls and 5 half-carls. Most of the carls and half-carls would be farmers. At 42+ cattle/carl, that gives us 315 cattle, way too many for the description on TR, p.18, especially if we assume that all 42 cattle belong to the carl and don't include clan property.

If the numbers Mr. Metcalfe quotes are more correct, a stead of 120 people might have ~6 carl equivalents, which gives us 252 cattle, closer to the p18 numbers (although the stead I'm describing is a little smaller), assuming the 42 cattle/carl includes clan cattle. The population might be:

4 carls (most with spouses)
4 half-carls (most with spouses)
5 elders (retired carls)
10 young adults (children of carls not yet of "carl" age) 30 cotters (some married couples, some not) 60 children

If a few of the carls and/or half carls are part- or full-time hunters or fishers, this would bring the cattle numbers closer to those of the p.18 stead.

Peter Larsen

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