Endowment in Book of Estate

[Luca Cherstich]

Another question, this time on Book of Estate and especially the "Endowment" = a part of land (= Assized Rent?) that you give permanently to a religious institution.

Maybe I asked about it in the past in the old forums (but I was not able to find it) or maybe not, but now that I'm doing this game more seriously I need to understand!

 

The Abbey (p.86) says it requires an Endowment of £3 for the abbot + £4 (£1 for five monks x 4 since there is a minimum of 20 monks).

Given the above simple calculation it is clear that £7 is the basic endowment required to for the smallest Abbey.

HOWEVER, looking at the estate examples of Axe (on p.61) it is clear that the Axe Abbey owns only £3 of land....how can that be?

Here I have 3 options:

1) Axe example is wrong

2) Endowment description is wrong

3) I've not understood anything! (which is frankly quite possible, since I'm not a native english speaker! And Book of Estate has its own problems in explaining things...)

Any suggestion?

 

[Atgxtg]

It could be any of 1,2, or 3 but there is also option 4 

4) Axe Abbey gets additional income from another source.

IMO that would be quite likely as often lands were held by multiple lords. So over time Axe Abbey could have been given land by one lord and more land by another. As land can be bought and sold under those conditions, the abbey might have even sold some land back to the lord of the Hundred.

 

Also IMO, most of the examples and hard numbers from BoE and BoW don't quite work out. They mostly do, but some examples seem off or conflict with other rules or examples. I think the whole thing probably could use a good looking over/edit. 

 

 

 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

1) Axe example is wrong

Found it. Greg changed the Endowments between v1.2 and v1.3, and no one thought to check Axe. So Axe Abbey ought to be £7 to make it fit. The £1 that Axe estate gets is from the pilgrims (famous church strange things special). The Hundred Assized Rent should be £50.3 (Estate £43.2 + Abbey £7) and the hundred court profits £1.5, meaning the Axe Estate Customary Revenue ought to be £43.2+£1+1.5 = £45.7. That's how I would deal with it. (You could lower the Axe Estate Assized Rent instead by £4, thus keeping the Hundred Assized Rent the same. But personally I would rather keep the Estate value and just boost the whole Hundred a bit.)

[Luca Cherstich]

11 hours ago, Morien said:

Found it. Greg changed the Endowments between v1.2 and v1.3, and no one thought to check Axe. So Axe Abbey ought to be £7 to make it fit. The £1 that Axe estate gets is from the pilgrims (famous church strange things special). The Hundred Assized Rent should be £50.3 (Estate £43.2 + Abbey £7) and the hundred court profits £1.5, meaning the Axe Estate Customary Revenue ought to be £43.2+£1+1.5 = £45.7. That's how I would deal with it. (You could lower the Axe Estate Assized Rent instead by £4, thus keeping the Hundred Assized Rent the same. But personally I would rather keep the Estate value and just boost the whole Hundred a bit.)

This makes sense!!

My doubts/Notations:

- the £1 which I feel it's not from famous abbey but from the £1 of Free Income which abbey give, as per page 59 "one additional librum").

- the Hundred Court profit should be 3% of the hundred Assized Rent (as per Estate p.56), so the 3% is of the TOTAL assized rent of the Hundred (including the £7 of the Abbey now own by the Lord of the Estate) which is: £50.2.

So….the TOTAL Hundred Assized Rent SHOULD BE £50.2 but the Abbey got £7 in endowment = the Lord of Axe has only £43.2 in Assized Rent.

The 3% of 50.2 = £1.5 (as you said!).

OK, so....just let me check I welll understood (sorry I'm not native english speaker and Estate is so badly written).

 

TEXT AS IT IS:

Customary Revenue: £44.2+£1.4 = £45.6

Axe Hundred (with Court), Ascalon

Assized Rent: £43.2 in Render

Additions: Axe Abbey £1 (from £3)

Hundred Court Profits: £1.4; moot at Axe

Held by Others: Axe Abbey (£3, above)

Outliers: Thornvale

 

CHANGES (IN BOLD)

Customary Revenue: £44.2 (which is made of Assized Rent + £1 from Abbey) +£1.5 Hundred Court = £45.7

Axe Hundred (with Court), Ascalon

Assized Rent: £43.2 in Render (this is the part owned by the Lord of the State, the total Hundred AR is £50.2)

Additions: Axe Abbey £1 (from £7)

Hundred Court Profits: £1.5 (This is 3% of the TOTAL Hundred Assized Rent); moot at Axe

Held by Others: Axe Abbey (£7, above)

Outliers: Thornvale

 

 

Right?

Edited March 20, 2020 by Luca Cherstich

[Morien]

24 minutes ago, Luca Cherstich said:

- the £1 which I feel it's not from famous abbey but from the £1 of Free Income which abbey give, as per page 59 "one additional librum").

Thanks for pointing this out! Rereading pages 58 and 59, it is clear that the £1 is deferred from the Axe Abbey as render (the example of a British Abbey paying part of their endowment back to the estate), so the Axe Abbey should actually make £8, of which £1 is returned to the estate and £7 spent to keep the Abbey functional. In ADDITION, it may give a free Russet Monk Chaplain, which would turn £1 court expense into £1 Discretionary Funds, if the Estate Holder is happy with a Russet Monk Chaplain.

So as far as I can tell...

CHANGES (IN BOLD)

Customary Revenue: £43.2 Assized Rent + £1 Axe Abbey Render + £1.5 Hundred Court = £45.7

Axe Hundred (with Court), Ascalon

Assized Rent: £43.2 in Render

Additions: Axe Abbey £1 (from £8) (Note: Also a free Russet Monk Chaplain, in which case, +£1 Discretionary Funds.)

Hundred Court Profits: £1.5; moot at Axe

Held by Others: Axe Abbey (£8, above)

Outliers: Thornvale

 

Normally, the Discretionary Funds would be 10% of CR, so £4.6, but if the estate holder takes the russet monk as his chaplain, DF would be £4.6+£1 (saved from court expense) = £5.6.

(As a quick additional note: Those monks are living pretty lean lives if they are living on £0.2 per head from Endowment alone. I think it is reasonable to assume that the Monks are actually farming part of the Endowment themselves directly, hence gaining harvests and such which makes up for most of their actual upkeep. Just like the peasants are actually making enough to support themselves and their families, and Assized Rent is just what gets paid to the landholder.)

Quote

- the Hundred Court profit should be 3% of the hundred Assized Rent (as per Estate p.56), so the 3% of £43.2 should be £1.3 and not £1.4.

Hundred Court Profit is 3% of the HUNDRED Assized Rent, which is the total, not just the Estate Assized Rent. Hence 3% of £51.2 (£43.2+£8, see above) = £1.5, not £1.3.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Morien

[Luca Cherstich]

Now I'm frankly lost!!! We need a completely rewritten, clarified Book of Estate 2.0 or (let hope) they integrate the basis of it in what will be KAP VI without contradictions.

OK.... I try to get it...

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Thanks for pointing this out! Rereading pages 58 and 59, it is clear that the £1 is deferred from the Axe Abbey as render (the example of a British Abbey paying part of their endowment back to the estate), so the Axe Abbey should actually make £8, of which £1 is returned to the estate and £7 spent to keep the Abbey functional. In ADDITION, it may give a free Russet Monk Chaplain, which would turn £1 court expense into £1 Discretionary Funds, if the Estate Holder is happy with a Russet Monk Chaplain.

I re-read p.58-59, as you did, and I got even more confused, but I got the impression that Abbeys give MANY advantages, right?

At least two:
- Surplus Food (ONLY British Abbeys)

- Free Clerical Advisor +£1 Discretionary Funds.

 

DOUBT 1 (about SURPLUS FOOD given back to the Estate Lord, as per page 58-59)

"They are all endowed with holdings sufficient for their maintenance, and often with more than is needed. In such cases the excess may be returned to the estate, usually in the form of food render.The information is thus notated: Abbey £ 4 (from £ 19). This specifies the abbey harvests £ 19, pays £ 4 to the estate, and retains £ 15 for its own use."

The Bold part is mine. Is that the reason why you said that the Abbey has £1 endowed?

If So... the Abbey SHOULD NEED only £7 of endowment, but since it has £8, it can give £1 to the Estate Lord, right?

If this is the case, the Abbey in the example page 59 which gives £ 4 out of £19 can live only of £15 of endowment, but it has a surplus of £4, right? This means thatr it should be a huge Abbey with one abbot + at least 60 monks.

Maybe I got it....but Greg should have written it more explicitly (am I wrong?).

Furthermore: why is this "Surplus Food" only given by British Abbeys? Shouldn't we get similar benefits from Roman and Pagan (!) Abbeys?

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

In ADDITION, it may give a free Russet Monk Chaplain, which would turn £1 court expense into £1 Discretionary Funds, if the Estate Holder is happy with a Russet Monk Chaplain.

DOUBT 2 (About the Clerical Advisor, bottom of page 59, fist column)
"The type of abbey is important because it can provide one clerical advisor for free to the landowner. If the estate holder chooses to do this, then he has one additional librum to use for discretionary money!"

So...this is +1 Discretionary Money in ADDITION to all other bonuses? If so it should be easy....just +£1 per Winter at the end of all calculations....

However, why are you saying that it turns Court Expense into Discretionary Money?

Is it written anywhere that this "Clerical Advisor" becomes the Chaplain?

I mean, subtracting £1 from Court Expense maybe somehow give you +£1 Discretionary Funds, but I got the impression that you can keep your chaplain + get the Clerical Advisor which give £1, right? 

 

DOUBT 3 (On Russet Monks)
Please, correct me if I'm wrong. From what you say it seems that Russet Monks are special....but from a mechanical point of view they remain the same as a Basic ""Clerical Advisor" described on page 59 right? Or do they give some other bonus explained anywhere else in the book? (excluding the part on recovering damaged lots)???

Edited March 20, 2020 by Luca Cherstich

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Luca Cherstich said:

If So... the Abbey SHOULD NEED only £7 of endowment, but since it has £8, it can give £1 to the Estate Lord, right?

Correct.

Quote

If this is the case, the Abbey in the example page 59 which gives £ 4 out of £19 can live only of £15 of endowment, but it has a surplus of £4, right? This means thatr it should be a huge Abbey with one abbot + at least 60 monks.

Correct.

Quote

Maybe I got it....but Greg should have written it more explicitly (am I wrong?).

You got it, and it is pretty much as explicit as it can be in English. Now an enumerated list like you provided before (1. Surplus food, and 2. Free clerical advisor.) would make it even more explicit.

Quote

Furthermore: why is this "Surplus Food" only given by British Abbeys? Shouldn't we get similar benefits from Roman and Pagan (!) Abbeys?

Note that not all British Abbeys a) have the excess or b) return it to the estate. They MAY be endowed with extra and they MAY pay it back to the estate. It is case by case bases, and is more of a little local oddity than anything else. I don't see any reason a Pagan Abbey could not do likewise, but granted, those are much more rare in Logres. As for Roman Abbeys, I think the point there is that since they are much more tied to the church hierarchy, such excess money might go up the chain of command or be jealously hoarded by the Abbot. Remember also that in the case of the British Abbeys, often the Abbot is the son or a brother or an uncle of the current estate holder, so they have a familial motive to help the estate out. This is likely not the case with the other two options.

1 hour ago, Luca Cherstich said:

I mean, subtracting £1 from Court Expense maybe somehow give you +£1 Discretionary Funds, but I got the impression that you can keep your chaplain + get the Clerical Advisor which give £1, right? 

Wrong. This free clerical advisor replaces the Chaplain (whose upkeep is £1, see page 38 Court Expense), and that is where the extra £1 Discretionary Funds comes from (you don't have to pay for a Chaplain). The monastery doesn't suddenly pay you £1 extra simply because you accept one of their monks into your household!

I admit, this could definitely been stated more explicitly, but that is the intent: instead of you paying for the chaplain, you accept a monk as your clerical advisor, and the abbey pays for his upkeep. The Abbey benefits from having 'their guy' whispering advice to the estate holder, and the estate holder gains a small monetary benefit from not having to pay for the upkeep. Win-win. Whereas if there was another guy who is the actual confidant and advisor and the monk is just an extra guy, there is much less influence that the Abbey would get, and hence less incentive for them to do this. Especially since they'd have to pay for the 2nd Chaplain AND pay an extra £1, too! Where are they going to get that extra £1?

1 hour ago, Luca Cherstich said:

From what you say it seems that Russet Monks are special....but from a mechanical point of view they remain the same as a Basic ""Clerical Advisor" described on page 59 right? Or do they give some other bonus explained anywhere else in the book? (excluding the part on recovering damaged lots)???

So excluding the bits that make them special, aren't they the same?

Russet Monks are special, since they are British Christians and have that Lot repair ability. Also, you can see that all three priest types have a slightly different set of skills that you can pick from. So it does matter which Abbey (and hence Clerical advisor/Chaplain) you pick. For example, if you are a Pagan, do you want a Roman Christian Chaplain (Black Monk) for free or a Pagan Priest, even if you have to pay the Pagan's upkeep? Roleplaying!

Edited March 20, 2020 by Morien

[Luca Cherstich]

@Morien Thanks a lot!

I feel I'll post zillions of questions in this forum, since the quality of help from all of you is always so high!!

[Morien]

19 minutes ago, Luca Cherstich said:

@Morien Thanks a lot!

Happy to help.

19 minutes ago, Luca Cherstich said:

I feel I'll post zillions of questions in this forum, since the quality of help from all of you is always so high!!

Well, it is helpful on this side, too, since it is showing where the rules could do with a bit of clarification, and correcting some errors or omissions that might have crept in. (Disclaimer: While I worked with Greg on many of the products, especially the landholding side of things, I am not a Chaosium employee nor empowered to make any official announcements on their behalf. But I figure I can speak up on "this is the way it is supposed to work".)

Besides, for each rules question, I am sure that there are at least a dozen or so people going: "Oh so that is the way it was supposed to work? Never stopped to think about it." So it is helpful for them, too.

Of course there are also plenty of questions where there are simply no easy or canonical answers.

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Furthermore: why is this "Surplus Food" only given by British Abbeys? Shouldn't we get similar benefits from Roman and Pagan (!) Abbeys?

Just trying to help a little here. Historically land given to the Roman Church belonged to the Roman Church and any surpluses would go to the larger church organization as a whole. So the abbot might have part of the surplus to the local Bishop, or Archbishop. Since British Christianity isn't centralized to the same extent, everything is kept more on a local level. 

It's much the same reason why the right to name the head of a chruch or abbey is more of a British thing than a Roman one, especially at the higher levels. 

[Luca Cherstich]

14 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Just trying to help a little here. Historically land given to the Roman Church belonged to the Roman Church and any surpluses would go to the larger church organization as a whole. So the abbot might have part of the surplus to the local Bishop, or Archbishop. Since British Christianity isn't centralized to the same extent, everything is kept more on a local level. 

It's much the same reason why the right to name the head of a chruch or abbey is more of a British thing than a Roman one, especially at the higher levels. 

I agree on the general stricter hierarchy that Roman Church and about the greater strength of what the Roman Church holds.

However, during the Middle Ages feudal nobles  (sometimes even here in Italy, where Church has always been strong) have tried to exert some control or exert some rights on church lands (although admitedly, quite often with poor successes and never at the scale that was practiced in northern europe).

So, yes, I understand now the reason for Roman Abbeys not giving surplus food but, given that in Estate it is said that Advowson is practiced only for small Roman churches, I guess some degree of variability can exist.

EDIT:

I'm re-reading Book of Uther...now maybe I start understanding why Abbeys are more "special" for the British Church: the have no Bishops to collect their money!!!

Edited March 21, 2020 by Luca Cherstich

[Morien]

24 minutes ago, Luca Cherstich said:

I'm re-reading Book of Uther...now maybe I start understanding why Abbeys are more "special" for the British Church: the have no Bishops to collect their money!!!

Yes, each Abbot is pretty much their own bishop, too. Like @Atgxtg said, the British (Celtic) Christianity is much more localized and tied to the local community than the Roman Christianity.

EDIT: Mind you, there are plenty of accounts of not only the feudal nobles feuding with bishops, but abbots and bishops feuding against one another, too. It was pretty common for a bishop to try and be the superior to all the abbeys and such in his bishopric, while the abbots, especially the richer ones, tried to stay independent of the local bishop and be beholden directly to the pope instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemption_(canon_law)

Edited March 21, 2020 by Morien

[Luca Cherstich]

So Book of Uther p.77 says that British Church has no Bishops!!

Now I understand why Church lands are more tied to local feudal lords.

 

One Question: what happens to the "Bishop Roger" of Sarum mentioned in the Core Rules?

Does it become the Abbot-Bishop "Rhain of the Rock" mentioned in BoU p.81?

This is even odder, since Roger was supposed to be "wealthy and wordly" while Rhain should be a member of the poor Russet Monks (as per table p.79)!

EDIT:

Without considering that Bishop Roger has some role in the GPC...

Edited March 21, 2020 by Luca Cherstich

[Morien]

3 minutes ago, Luca Cherstich said:

One Question: what happens to the "Bishop Roger" of Sarum mentioned in the Core Rules?

Does it become the Abbot-Bishop "Rhain of the Rock" mentioned in BoU p.81?

This is even odder, since Roger was supposed to be "wealthy and wordly" while Rhain should be a member of the poor Russet Monks (as per table p.79)!

Yes, Rhain. And while Russet Monks are supposed to be poor, it is not always the case. See UTHER p. 80: "Each abbey is independent of the others, and some tend to the poor while others tend to the nobles." Given that Rhain's monastery is right there at the Count's main seat, I would not put it past him to be a suave politician and more concerned with the needs of this world than the next, and dress in fine robes paid for by the income of his monastery. You could even read the table in p. 79 to mean that he doesn't need to contribute any knights at all (although I read it just as a rounding of the eschille number), which would leave him with even more money to spend on looking the part. Can't let those black brothers of Ambrius to make us look shabby, after all!

[Luca Cherstich]

What a pity!

I've often already used the name "Bishop Roger" in my games....I feel it will become "Abbot Roger Rhain" or something similar...

Furthermore, I guess it is not an Abbey strong enough for its Abbot to be called an "Abbot-Bishp", right?

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Furthermore, I guess it is not an Abbey strong enough for its Abbot to be called an "Abbot-Bishp", right?

UTHER, p. 80: "Some titles given here appear as “abbot(-bishop).” The leader’s title is “abbot,” and the -bishop part indicates that they also have the power to make new priests, while most of the abbots do not."

[Baba]

8 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

What a pity!

I've often already used the name "Bishop Roger" in my games....I feel it will become "Abbot Roger Rhain" or something similar...

Furthermore, I guess it is not an Abbey strong enough for its Abbot to be called an "Abbot-Bishp", right?

This may be very obvious advice - if so, just ignore it - but I'm guessing the best thing for your campaign will be for you to change anything you want, without feeling constrained by the books.

I you like Roger, and you like him as a bishop, just keep him, and ignore Abbot Rhain.

The organization of the church has not had any significance in my campaign - it may in yours, but then again, it may not.

[Morien]

27 minutes ago, Baba said:

I you like Roger, and you like him as a bishop, just keep him, and ignore Abbot Rhain.

Seconded. After all, you have Counts named Roderick and Robert anyway.

[Atgxtg]

On 3/21/2020 at 3:02 PM, Morien said:

Seconded. After all, you have Counts named Roderick and Robert anyway.

Third-ed (??).

 

Besides, with the passing of time NPCs do come and go. Nothing says you can't have one die off or move on elsewhere and replace him with the other. Sometimes things like that can actually help to enhance the game. In my campaign I had a knight who had joined a knightly order accidentally show up as a member of a different order a decade later, by mistake. Instead of retconnining my mistake I gave the knight some backstory to explain why he left the first group to join the second. It make him a much more interesting character, and helped to give him a stronger personality.