Allow approximately 20 miles a day for horseback travel presuming the same people are riding the same horses day after day (i.e. no regular remounts). Yes sure a horse can cover way more than 20 miles a day, but if you want them to keep it up day after day you're going to have to pace them. You can maybe edge this up a bit if both the horses and riders are fit and the horses can be grain fed (grazing takes time). I've done 30 miles in a day but I couldn't have expected the same horses to do 30 miles the day after
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Oh, okay, thanks for the stuff on the horses! Dang, that means I severely underestimated exactly how long it would take them to ride there. Changes are in order.
Have you decided on the geography? In real-life France there's the Massif Central in the middle, which means that a direct SE-NW route can't be taken, and countries that size do tend to have mountainous, or at least seriously hilly, areas in them at some point - even England has the Peak District and Pennines.
And I agree with birdsedge about the weapons. Unless you are working with a specific guild/sect/group, it would be purely opportunistic. One thing to remember, if it is anthing like real-life 11th/13th century society, there would always be a lot of people around the victim, if important enough to be worth assassinating; that was a major way in which their status would be displayed. Privacy was something that didn't happen much, and one of the reasons hermits were seen as weird was that they wanted to be alone.
Well, geography doesn't really affect them too much. It isn't based completely off France, the only thing that it really has any similarity to France is in its size....the direct path is made up mostly of relatively low hills and plains. The mountains are actually in the south, in this case.
The changes in weather from late summer to early winter are not drastic enough to make a real difference. Heavy rain might delay them slightly, but that's about it.
Otherwise, what birdsedge said. Without remounts, about 20 miles a day, tops.
As for the weapons search, try eliminating "assassin" from your search terms. You can figure anything easily concealable can be used as a weapon (and don't forget poisons).
This site: http://www.circlerranch.com/education/edu5.html has the MPH of the average horse's gait. At a trot, 5-6 mph is about right for the average horse. Horses can trot for hours at a time with only a relatively short rest break.
All you really need is the MPH and the distance and you can figure it-- with about a half-hour rest break per 2 hours trotting, your horse can trot as long as your human can ride.
I don't think this makes sense. A super-fit horse could trot for a long time, certainly, but..endurance races are generally between 50 and 100 miles long, but they're one-time things, with the horses being totally worn out by the end of the day. And the horses are carrying hardly any weight, and have frequent vet checks, etc.
I think the 20 mile a day guideline is a lot closer to reality in this situation.
Ok, forgive me, I was making the assumption that the main character was not a competitive rider. Most "average people" would end up butt-sore and very, very tired after about four to six hours of hard riding.
I have been there== we went on a "day long" riding camp trip, and after three hours of straight riding, I was ready to call it quits. And that was with a 20 minute break after every hour of riding.
Twenty miles a day tops, for sure. With fit, prepared horses on good roads and good weather. Make it 15 average if you want to be realistic and include things like the day one horse throws a shoe, the day it's not easy to find grazing/forage/stabling, the day the roads are rough, muddy, or simply too hot to push very hard (if it's not one season, it'll be another!). Expect to keep these horses very well fed, and on a long trip they're going to lose condition anyway...
The paces ridden should vary--walk, trot, canter; these require various efforts of the rider as well. And horses are not machines; they often have their own opinions about what they should be doing at any given moment. Also, the quality of their gaits varies according to the quality of the riding as well as the conformation of the horse.
It's probably been said adequately enough already, but I got these rates of medieval travel from the book "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman to use in my own fantasy story, and they might be useful for you. Also if they're wrong perhaps someone will correct it for me :] It's looking like they're saying 20 MPday for horses now, so that's one...
Average Day's Journey: On foot - 10-30 miles, depending on terrain Horseback - 30-40 miles (on good terrain) Messenger, sleeping at night - 40-50 miles on horseback, 20-25 on foot Messenger, changing horses along the way - 100 miles Pack trains - 15-20 miles Armies - 8 miles Recommended a day of rest for horse and rider after five days of riding, if possible. Sailing on river - 25-44 miles (upriver), so about 5 mph; 11 mph with sail if wind is blowing right/going downstream (this is based on the ancient Nile; I've been having trouble figuring it out for medieval cargo ships, but.)
For example, medieval guidebooks for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela expected the pilgrim on foot to do the whole journey, including the crossing of the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian and Galician mountains, in an average 20-24 miles a day, and that's about the distance apart the medieval pilgrim hospices are. (New ones have had to be built in the gaps for modern pilgrims!) One 15th-century pilgrim left a diary of his triple pilgrimage to Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem - over which entire journey he averaged more than 17 miles a day. On some days mountains, snowdrifts, broken bridges, washed-away roads, and brigands meant the distance covered was much less; he made up for it by regularly making 24 or 25 miles a day whenever the conditions were good
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So, you're saying that, Medieval riders (especially people on an urgent mission of some sort) could probably average, at the very least, 30-40 miles a day? That would cut down on the travel time significantly. Thank you!
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And I agree with birdsedge about the weapons. Unless you are working with a specific guild/sect/group, it would be purely opportunistic. One thing to remember, if it is anthing like real-life 11th/13th century society, there would always be a lot of people around the victim, if important enough to be worth assassinating; that was a major way in which their status would be displayed. Privacy was something that didn't happen much, and one of the reasons hermits were seen as weird was that they wanted to be alone.
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Otherwise, what birdsedge said. Without remounts, about 20 miles a day, tops.
As for the weapons search, try eliminating "assassin" from your search terms. You can figure anything easily concealable can be used as a weapon (and don't forget poisons).
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Aside from that, I think you should just do a general "11th century weapons" search.
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All you really need is the MPH and the distance and you can figure it-- with about a half-hour rest break per 2 hours trotting, your horse can trot as long as your human can ride.
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I think the 20 mile a day guideline is a lot closer to reality in this situation.
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I have been there== we went on a "day long" riding camp trip, and after three hours of straight riding, I was ready to call it quits. And that was with a 20 minute break after every hour of riding.
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The paces ridden should vary--walk, trot, canter; these require various efforts of the rider as well. And horses are not machines; they often have their own opinions about what they should be doing at any given moment. Also, the quality of their gaits varies according to the quality of the riding as well as the conformation of the horse.
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Average Day's Journey:
On foot - 10-30 miles, depending on terrain
Horseback - 30-40 miles (on good terrain)
Messenger, sleeping at night - 40-50 miles on horseback, 20-25 on foot
Messenger, changing horses along the way - 100 miles
Pack trains - 15-20 miles
Armies - 8 miles
Recommended a day of rest for horse and rider after five days of riding, if possible.
Sailing on river - 25-44 miles (upriver), so about 5 mph; 11 mph with sail if wind is blowing right/going downstream (this is based on the ancient Nile; I've been having trouble figuring it out for medieval cargo ships, but.)
Hopefully is of some help!
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For example, medieval guidebooks for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela expected the pilgrim on foot to do the whole journey, including the crossing of the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian and Galician mountains, in an average 20-24 miles a day, and that's about the distance apart the medieval pilgrim hospices are. (New ones have had to be built in the gaps for modern pilgrims!) One 15th-century pilgrim left a diary of his triple pilgrimage to Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem - over which entire journey he averaged more than 17 miles a day. On some days mountains, snowdrifts, broken bridges, washed-away roads, and brigands meant the distance covered was much less; he made up for it by regularly making 24 or 25 miles a day whenever the conditions were good ( ... )
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