Vassal Knights, Bannerets & Barons

[Luca Cherstich]

I just went again through the books (KAP 5.2, Estate, Warlord & Uther) and tried to make sense of some terms, giving precedence to some book over others.
Please, tell me if this is wrong or not!

 

Holdings (value in CR)

Manor: most manors are about £10. Some are richer, but up to £29. 

Estate: £ 30- £ 150, although £50 and £ 100 seem to be common values.

Honour: At least £150??? Many are between £200 and £500.

 

Titles

Household Knight: no holdings, he sleeps in the hall of his lord

Vassal Knight = He holds usually 1 single £10 manor or, in any case, not an Estate

Estate Holder = He holds an estate (at least £30)

Vavasour = Whoever holds lands from a Baron (either as a Vassal Knight or as an Estate Holder, which depends on the holding' size ).

Knight Banneret = Whoever holds lands from the King except Barons (either as a Vassal Knight or as an Estate Holder, which depends on the holding' size, although the King usually gives at least Estate-level holdings )

Baron = Whoever holds lands from the King AND has an honour-level Holding (£150?)

 

Glory Awards (as per Warlord p.6)

Vassal Knight 200

Estate Holder 200

Baron 200

 

QUESTIONS:

1)Bannerets are now Estate Holder which are direct vassals of the King ....which means that large Estate Holder serving Earl Roderick (as Sir Hywell in KAP 5.2 p.71) are not Bannerets anymore, but just Vavasours, even if rich ones? Right?

2) If anybody gets a quick promotion, he may get multiple glory bonus (for example being promoted directly from Household Knight to Estate Holder will give 200 for Vassal Knight + 200 per Estate Holder). Right?

 

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Luca Cherstich

[Greyblade]

i would say yes, also its kind of silly that you get the same amount of Glory for being a simple vassal knight or a big time baron

[Morien]

4 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Holdings (value in CR)

Manor: most manors are about £10. Some are richer, but up to £29. 

Estate: £ 30- £ 150, although £50 and £ 100 seem to be common values.

Honour: At least £150??? Many are between £200 and £500.

Manors can be technically of any size, or you can have a collection of manors.

Estate is more of a legal term in a way, since the estate becomes legally a singe, indivisible entity, even if it is not contiguous geographically. So you could start with 4 manors, each £10 or so, and then the King (or the liege of all of those manors) decides that you should get a higher title and those 4 separate manors now constitute a new Estate called "Fourmanors", worth £40. Nothing else changes. £50 estate was a simplification in the Book of the Estate, although Greg did also use £100 for the bannerets, more of that below.

Honours can be as low as £100. So there is a bit of overlap between higher estates and lowest honours. The difference is that honours are held 'by barony', i.e. they grant the title of a Baron. Estates do not, they are held 'by knight-service', meaning that the holder is still a knight, not a baron, even if they have vassals of their own.

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Titles

Household Knight: no holdings, he sleeps in the hall of his lord

Vassal Knight = He holds usually 1 single £10 manor or, in any case, not an Estate

Usually one, but it is possible to have multiple ones, even a dozen, although that surely would be very very rare.

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Vavasour = Whoever holds lands from a Baron (either as a Vassal Knight or as an Estate Holder, which depends on the holding' size ).

"Vassal of a vassal". So holding land from an estate holder or another knight would also qualify, although usually only Barons and higher are wealthy enough to have vavasours.

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Knight Banneret = Whoever holds lands from the King except Barons (either as a Vassal Knight or as an Estate Holder, which depends on the holding' size, although the King usually gives at least Estate-level holdings )

Wrong. You have to have an estate from the King to be a banneret, a mere 1-manor knight would not be a banneret. Usually these are larger estates (£100 or so) given as a gift for significant battlefield heroics. It seems also to be possible to be an estate holder who is a direct vassal of the king but who is not a banneret (lacking the personal promotion due to battlefield heroics). Depends a bit how cute you want to get with the titles.

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Baron = Whoever holds lands from the King AND has an honour-level Holding (£150?)

... which he holds by Barony. It would be technically possible to have a nobleman who has significant holdings, but none which confer the title of a Baron. However, these cases would be rare as it would be a bit of a slap on the face of the noble in question not to get elevated to a Baronial rank if his landholdings are that extensive.

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Glory Awards (as per Warlord p.6)

Vassal Knight 200

Estate Holder 200

Baron 200

Yep. All Barons (in Logres) are direct vassals of the King of Logres, of course, and hence get the extra Glory for that, too. It is also possible for mere knights to be direct vassals of the King, rather than vavasours, in which case they'd get extra Glory, too.

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QUESTIONS:

1)Bannerets are now Estate Holder which are direct vassals of the King ....which means that large Estate Holder serving Earl Roderick (as Sir Hywell in KAP 5.2 p.71) are not Bannerets anymore, but just Vavasours, even if rich ones? Right?

Estate holding vavasours, but yes. Although given how much rarer vassals are now, I am very much not convinced that there would be any vavasour estate holders left in Salisbury. Greg explicitly retconned Lady Adwen's banneretcy out of existence with his Heiresses Revised forum post. But it is your campaign, do as you like.

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2) If anybody gets a quick promotion, he may get multiple glory bonus (for example being promoted directly from Household Knight to Estate Holder will give 200 for Vassal Knight + 200 per Estate Holder). Right?

Yep! You get the Glory for the skipped rungs on the title ladder. This is explicitly stated in Warlord p. 5, with an example of a Vassal Knight becoming a Baron gaining 400 Glory.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Morien

[Tizun Thane]

I would repeat myself. I do not use the new concept of feodality presented in Book of the Warlord/Estate. It's a mess. It's hard to explain to my players. It's not fun for me. It's heavily based of William the conqueror new feodality, and I don't think it's fitting for KAP.

Instead, I use a much more easy model of feodality to handle (the old one, by the way). It's a very easy to understand pyramidal structure of oaths :

• The King
• The high lords (Barons, counts, dukes, whatever). They hold directly or indirectly their fiefdom in the name of the king
• A few bannerets by county, powerful vassals of the high lord.
• A bit more humble vassal knights
• Bachelors knights, who serve rich lords and bannerets (even rich vassal knights)
• Squires and Esquires. They serve

Of course, I do not exclude the possibility of a knight not being a vassal of the nominal count, because of specific reasons (lands granted by the king or another powerful lord, the church, whatever).

However, I use the new gestion rules, much more playable in game.

IMHO, do not bother with this new feodality mess. You will win an headache for nothing.

4 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

2) If anybody gets a quick promotion, he may get multiple glory bonus (for example being promoted directly from Household Knight to Estate Holder will give 200 for Vassal Knight + 200 per Estate Holder). Right?

Yes. For example, when the count robert will be knighted, and being a "true" count, he will win:

• 1000 glory points to be a knight
• 200 for being a vassal knight
• 200 for being an estate holder
• 200 for being a baron
• 200 for being a count
• XXX glory for being the son of Count Roderick (1/10e of the glory)

[Morien]

12 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

• 1000 glory points to be a knight
• 200 for being a vassal knight
• 200 for being an estate holder
• 200 for being a baron
• 200 for being a count
• XXX glory for being the son of Count Roderick (1/10e of the glory)

... and 100 Glory for being a direct vassal of the King. For a total of 1900 + Inherited Glory.

[Atgxtg]

On 3/30/2020 at 7:55 AM, Morien said:

... and 100 Glory for being a direct vassal of the King. 

Oh, I missed that one. Since two of thre PKS in my game were just made bannerettes by Aruelius after his march to retake Brtian, they will be happy.

BTW, Is that 100 just from the High King, or would any king do? For instance, since Uther no longer is elected High King in Pendragon, would anyone he appoints get such glory or even be considered a Bannerett? Hmm, come to think of it, if Uther was't High King, why was Gorlois in trouble for leaving Uther's Court? It's not like Gorlois is his vassal.

 

 

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, Is that 100 just from the High King, or would any king do? For instance, since Uther no longer is elected High King in Pendragon, would anyone he appoints get such glory or even be considered a Bannerett? Hmm, come to think of it, if Uther was't High King, why was Gorlois in trouble for leaving Uther's Court? It's not like Gorlois is his vassal.

It is explicitly from the King of LOGRES. I might give like 50 for one of the secondary kingdoms (Gorre, Lothian, Malahaut, Greater Gomeret, Escavalon... Cornwall+Brittany might be 75). Not for any petty kings of the Pennines and Cambria.

Gorlois is the Duke of Cornwall, which is part of Logres. Thus, Gorlois is Uther's vassal, and definitely so after their reconciliation in 489.

[Atgxtg]

30 minutes ago, Morien said:

It is explicitly from the King of LOGRES. I might give like 50 for one of the secondary kingdoms (Gorre, Lothian, Malahaut, Greater Gomeret, Escavalon... Cornwall+Brittany might be 75). Not for any petty kings of the Pennines and Cambria.

Hmm, so its' probably tied to the size of the kingdom. 

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Gorlois is the Duke of Cornwall, which is part of Logres. Thus, Gorlois is Uther's vassal, and definitely so after their reconciliation in 489.

Cornwall wasn't part of Logres before, but its own land. Oh wait, I forgot SIRES subdivides Cornwall into three seperate lands, which later get gobbled up by Gorlois and Idres, after Riothamus is killed.. Still if Tintagel is part of Logres there doesn't seem to be much of Cornwall in Cornwall.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Atgxtg

[Morien]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Cornwall wasn't part of Logres before, but its own land. Oh wait, I forgot SIRES subdivides Cornwall into three seperate lands, which later get gobbled up by Gorlois and Idres, after Riothamus is killed.. Still if Tintagel is part of Logres there doesn't seem to be much of Cornwall in Cornwall.

Greg made the distinction between KINGDOM of Cornwall (its own kingdom) and DUCHY of Cornwall (part of Logres) already back in GPC (p. 25-26). The map in p. 35 makes this absolutely clear, as does the text on the same page: "It is noted before the battle that some of Uther’s vas-
sals did not show up for the muster. Among them, the most prominent absent lord is Duke Gorlois of Cornwall." Among them, i.e. Uther's vassals, the most prominent absent lord is Duke Gorlois of Cornwall. Ergo, Gorlois is Uther's vassal. There has never been any confusion about this in GPC, for example, Gorlois' 485 write-up in Gamemaster's Characters: "Lord: King Uther".

Book of the Warlord and Book of Uther are even more explicit about Duke Gorlois being a vassal of the King of Logres. Also, BotW has this to say about Gorlois' dominion on the Cornish peninsula: "He has taken much of the Cornwall peninsula from King Idres and guards against incursions from the Irish." That is why we put that into SIRES, since it was already stated in BotW. And it nicely helps to explain why Idres is so eager to reclaim it, during Anarchy.