Some points about Harchong

The discussion on numbers of 'priests' or let's say clergy doesn't specifically address healthcare workers, teachers and lecturers of all sorts, everyone involved in any kind of social care, farming consultants, lawyers, vets. A bland 'monasteries' doesn't really give a good impression of how much work members of the orders actually do on Safehold. 1‰ sounds way too low. Anyone got a handle on the numbers of clergy and religious in mediaeval Europe? Then add a fair bit because healthcare law and even education seem further on than that even in Harchong

Randomiser wrote:The discussion on numbers of 'priests' or let's say clergy doesn't specifically address healthcare workers, teachers and lecturers of all sorts, everyone involved in any kind of social care, farming consultants, lawyers, vets. A bland 'monasteries' doesn't really give a good impression of how much work members of the orders actually do on Safehold. 1‰ sounds way too low. Anyone got a handle on the numbers of clergy and religious in mediaeval Europe? Then add a fair bit because healthcare law and even education seem further on than that even in Harchong

The only source I've managed to find states that it was about 2%:

In 13th Century England, about one man in fifty was a cleric. Many of these were "in minor orders," i.e. deacons and sub-deacons (not priests) who could conduct services, but not officiate at mass.

There's also this part:

The basic administrative division of the church was the parish, which had on average about 400 members.

If CoGA uses similar numbers, this would mean that there are 485 000 parishes in Harchong alone. Dunno how meany clergyman are in a single parish, but I guess that gives us some sort of minimum number.

This is another one of those questions that doesn't have a single answer, because it depends on where you are, when.

I suspect that 485,000 is a good ballpark figure, though I would point out that that only gives a base for the number of priests, since some large parishes are certain to have more than one and cathedrals will have many. There's also the question of whether all the Schuelerite schoolmasters and superintendents are priests or lesser brothers of the Order, but from the scraps of evidence we have seen, a lot if not all of them are going to be priests. There has also been a reference to a local intendant, IIRC, who would definitely have been a priest. I don't know if there would be a school everywhere there's a church - I think there's supposed to be, but when it's inconvenient to the landlord they don't always operate - and there probably isn't a hospital, so the number of priests resident in a parish will usually be 2, but could be as low as 1 or as high as 20 or so.

Kakai wrote:

Randomiser wrote:The discussion on numbers of 'priests' or let's say clergy doesn't specifically address healthcare workers, teachers and lecturers of all sorts, everyone involved in any kind of social care, farming consultants, lawyers, vets. A bland 'monasteries' doesn't really give a good impression of how much work members of the orders actually do on Safehold. 1‰ sounds way too low. Anyone got a handle on the numbers of clergy and religious in mediaeval Europe? Then add a fair bit because healthcare law and even education seem further on than that even in Harchong

The only source I've managed to find states that it was about 2%:

In 13th Century England, about one man in fifty was a cleric. Many of these were "in minor orders," i.e. deacons and sub-deacons (not priests) who could conduct services, but not officiate at mass.

There's also this part:

The basic administrative division of the church was the parish, which had on average about 400 members.

If CoGA uses similar numbers, this would mean that there are 485 000 parishes in Harchong alone. Dunno how meany clergyman are in a single parish, but I guess that gives us some sort of minimum number.