“Anonymous asked: In a pre-modern society how many people need to be farmers to support a non-farmer? Like whats the percentage? More than the 99 to 1 for soldiers, would 9 farmers for 1 non-farmer make sense?

…I wasnt talking about a knight but a non-farmer, tradesmen, merchants and miners those sorts of people dont farm, so how many farmers are needed to support a family of non-farmers food wise, how much excess food do pre-modern/subsistence farmers produce to allow all these specialized/non-food producing professions to exist?

Ah, ok, I gotcha.

Generally speaking, premodern societies were ~ 90% peasants and 10% everyone else: nobility, clergy, merchants, urban workers, etc.