Chapter 18: The Village

46 claims, 8 marked for safety

25 confirmed
3 amended
6 partly confirmed
12 unresolved
8 marked for safety

Filter the rows

J1 Safety confirmed Bench 4 preamble, steps 2; failures

Never dig an unlined hole deeper than the waist in sand; sand collapses without warning and kills in seconds; dig by the sinking method, ring by ring; never alone; if buried to the chest, dig the sand from the chest first, do not pull

To check against: Trench-collapse fatality data (OSHA/BG BAU); hand-dug well manuals (Watt & Wood 1979 *Hand Dug Wells*; WaterAid)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: OSHA Trenching and Excavation Safety fact sheet (osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/trench_excavati…)
Note: OSHA: "Trench collapses, or cave-ins, pose the greatest risk to workers' lives". A protective system is required at 5 ft (1.5 m) or deeper. Test the atmosphere when deeper than 4 ft. The book's waist-deep limit for unlined sand is stricter than OSHA and consistent with it. Not verified: "kills in seconds", the sinking method, and "dig the chest free first" (Watt & Wood, WaterAid, BG BAU not ope...

J2 Safety confirmed Story water; Bench 4 steps 1, 6; failures

Well at least 30 m from and uphill of privy, midden, pig and stall; sand filters nothing; nitrate from manure reaches the well within a season; nitrate causes methaemoglobinaemia (blue baby) in infants under six months; boiling does not remove nitrate

To check against: WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality (nitrate 50 mg/l; infant risk); Sphere handbook 30 m rule; Brandenburg groundwater nitrate surveys (LfU)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: Directive 98/83/EC, Annex I Part B (legislation.gov.uk/eudr/1998/83/annex/I): nitrate 50 mg/l; US EPA NPDWR table (epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national-primary-…); US EPA Emergency Disinfection page
Note: Nitrate limit 50 mg/l. EPA: "Infants below the age of six months… could become seriously ill and, if untreated, may die… blue-baby syndrome", with sources including "leaking from septic tanks, sewage". EPA: boiling "will not destroy… salts, and most other chemicals", which covers nitrate. Not verified: the 30 m Sphere distance, "uphill", and "within a season". The WHO GDWQ itself was not reacha...

J3 Safety confirmed Bench 4 step 6

Water for infants and the sick boiled from any well; the village's cleanest well is the one furthest from stalls and middens

To check against: WHO household water treatment guidance
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: US EPA Emergency Disinfection of Drinking Water (epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/emergency-disinfe…), citing WHO 2015
Note: Boiling kills "most disease-causing microorganisms". "Bring water to a rolling boil for at least one minute", or three minutes above 5,000 ft (the page pairs this with "1,000 meters", an inconsistency in the source). Cloudy water should be settled and filtered through cloth first. "The cleanest well is the one furthest from stalls" follows from J2 and is the book's own rule.

J4 Safety amended Bench 4 step 9

Bad air in a well: lower a lamp first, if the flame dies nobody goes down; rope on the person who descends; two people

To check against: Confined-space entry guidance (CO2/H2S in wells); hand-dug well manuals
The verdict: AMENDED
Found: OSHA Trenching fact sheet (as J1)
Note: OSHA requires testing "for atmospheric hazards such as low oxygen, hazardous fumes and toxic gases" in excavations deeper than 4 ft. The lamp test catches only low oxygen or heavy CO2. A flame that keeps burning does not prove the air safe (H2S, CO). A flame can also ignite methane. I found no source that endorses the lamp as sufficient. The rope and two-person rule stand. Proposed: "Lower a lamp first: if it dims or dies nobody goes down, and even if it burns, the one who goes down wears the rope and the other holds it."

J5 Safety confirmed Failures

Ergot (*Claviceps purpurea*) in a wet rye harvest: black horns in the ear; discard every sheaf with them; never grind it

To check against: doc 121 (ergotism); EU maximum levels for ergot sclerotia (Reg 2023/915: 0.2 g/kg rye); Ch 6 rows
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: Clin Dermatol 2021, "Ergotism and Saint Anthony's fire", doi:10.1016/j.clindermatol.2021.07.009 (abstract); Compr Rev Food Sci Food Saf 2026, PMC13039774 (abstract)
Note: Claviceps purpurea forms black sclerotia ("black kernels") in the ear, and rye bread made from infected grain causes ergotism. Ergot is most frequent in rye. The EU limit (Reg 2023/915, 0.2 g/kg sclerotia in rye) could not be opened because EUR-Lex returned empty or blocked, so the figure is not verified here. Discarding every sheaf is the book's own rule, stricter than the law.

J6 Safety unresolved Failures

Scythe carried blade down and behind; stone moved away from the edge; nobody inside the arc

To check against: Scythe safety guidance (Vido 2019 *The Scythe Book*; Sensenverein)
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: —
Note: No constructible URL for Vido's *The Scythe Book* or Sensenverein guidance. This is an own-practice rule with no source opened.

J7 Safety amended Story grindstone; failures

When the last canner gasket hardens canning is over; low-acid food is salted, smoked, dried, soured or cellared, never sealed (botulism)

To check against: doc 120 (gasket 1–3 years; 121 °C for spores); Ch 12 rows on canning and botulism
The verdict: AMENDED
Found: NCHFP "Ensuring safe canned foods" and "Recommended canners" (nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/general-information/)
Note: "Low-acid foods must be processed in a pressure canner to be free of botulism risks", and low-acid means pH above 4.6 (meats, fish, vegetables). But acid foods (fruit, pickles, soured foods) are safely processed in a boiling-water canner, which has no gasket. So a hardened gasket ends pressure canning, not all canning. Proposed: "When the last canner ring hardens, meat, fish and beans are no longer put up in jars; fruit and sour pickles still go into the water bath."

J8 Safety unresolved Story narrows; Bench 2 (implicit)

The three narrows demand daylight-to-dark heavy labour at 490 kcal/h in June to August heat: water, salt (Ch 11's 8.5 kg is for the year), rest at midday, and the risk of heat illness

To check against: Ch 6's 490 kcal/h row; occupational heat-stress guidance for agriculture
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: —
Note: NIOSH and CDC heat-stress pages returned empty bodies to curl. The 490 kcal/h figure is a Ch 6 cross-reference and not checked here. No occupational heat-stress source was opened.

J9 partly confirmed Opening; Story reckoning, water, threshold

Brandenburg villages sit on sand islands at the edge of the Luch; strips on the sand, common meadow below, one herd under one herdsman; the Angerdorf with green, pond (Dorfteich), church and smithy

To check against: Historisches Ortslexikon für Brandenburg; Enders *Die Uckermark* 1992; Schich; Ch 8 row on the Mark's herds
The verdict: CONFIRMED (general layout); UNRESOLVED (sand-island/Luch specific)
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angerdorf
Note: The Angerdorf pattern — houses/farms around a central green (Anger), often with a village pond on the Anger, later joined by church, smithy and bakehouse, concentrated in East and East-Central Germany including Brandenburg — is directly confirmed. The specific claim that Brandenburg villages sit on "sand islands at the edge of the Luch" (a wetland/fen landscape) is well-known Brandenburg historical geography but I could not fetch a citable source confirming it in this pass (the direct Luch Wikipedia URL returned a 404, and WebSearch was unavailable) — recommend a follow-up check against Enders 1992 or the Historisches Ortslexikon directly.

J10 amended Story hectare; Bench 1 step 1; Numbers

4,000,000 kcal/yr for four = 2,740 kcal/head/day; 30/30/40 ratio is a fitness-blog ratio, not the AMDR (10–35/20–35/45–65); the fat argument (no oilseed on sand, fat must be animal)

To check against: doc 117; IOM/EFSA dietary reference values; 117's sources 9, 10, 41
The verdict: AMENDED
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117); en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptable_macronutrient_distributi…
Note: Doc 117 itself states "4 million kilocalories per year... approximately 2,740 kcal per person per day" — confirming the draft's arithmetic exactly. However, the check column's critique of doc 117 is correct and independently confirmed: doc 117 asserts the AMDR "dictates roughly 30% protein / 30% fat / 40% carbohydrate," but the actual IOM Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range is 10–35% protein, 20–35% fat, 45–65% carbohydrate — a *range*, not a fixed target, and doc 117's 40% carbohydrate figure sits below the real AMDR's 45% floor. Doc 117's "30/30/40" is therefore not an accurate citation of the AMDR (it reads like a popular fitness-macro split). Proposed amendment: describe 30/30/40 as "a common fitness/diet-culture macro split," not as "the AMDR." The fat-must-be-animal argument (no oilseed crop on sand at this latitude/soil) is a reasonable inference, not independently checked further.

J11 confirmed Story hectare; Bench 1 step 2; Numbers

117's model: 1.0 ha arable in five 0.2 ha blocks (lupin, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, rye) + 0.5 ha clover grass; 3 goats, 12 hens, 2 pigs

To check against: doc 117 (rests on library PDF 24 for the rotation); Ch 6 rows
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117)
Note: Doc 117's model gives a 1.0 ha arable block in the stated five sub-plots, plus a 0.5 ha clover-grass ley supporting three dairy goats (doc 117: "0.5 hectares of dedicated, intensively managed pasture can sustainably support a herd of three dairy goats," yielding ~2,100 kg milk/yr) — matching the draft's "3 goats" figure exactly. Doc 117's crop rotation is explicitly built on external cover-crop...

J12 confirmed Story hectare; Bench 1 step 3; Numbers

Sand yields: potatoes 20 t/ha, carrots 30, cabbage 30 (70 % edible), rye 30 dt/ha, lupin 20 dt/ha; block outputs 4,000 / 6,000 / 4,200 / 600 / 400 kg; milk 2,100 kg, eggs 3,000 (150 kg), pork 120 kg; gross 9,945,500 kcal

To check against: doc 117 (oekolandbau.de, LfL, Destatis, library PDF 24); no Brandenburg 25–40 Bodenpunkte trial data cited
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117)
Note: Doc 117 gives potato yield 20 t/ha (organic, sandy soil), matching the draft exactly; gross caloric output for the model is stated as "approximately 9,945,500 kcal," an exact match for the draft's figure. Carrot/cabbage/rye/lupin yields and block outputs not all individually re-verified line by line, but the two headline figures that anchor the row (20 t/ha potatoes; 9,945,500 kcal gross) both...

J13 partly confirmed Story hectare; Bench 1 step 3; Numbers

Buffers: 200 kg rye and 400 kg lupin to hens, 35 % drought/blight, 10 % seed/spoilage; net ≈ 5,440,000 kcal ≥ 4,000,000; "a subsistence model cannot rely on emergency external inputs"

To check against: doc 117 (intermediate totals lost, recomputed 6,049,875 and 5,444,887)
The verdict: CONFIRMED (mechanism); exact buffered totals UNRESOLVED (extraction artefact)
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117)
Note: Doc 117 explicitly walks through: Gross Output 9,945,500 kcal → minus human-edible feed diverted to poultry (200 kg rye, −638,000 kcal) → Adjusted Gross 9,307,500 kcal → apply a 35% climate/failure buffer → apply a 10% seed/storage-loss buffer. This confirms the buffer *mechanism and percentages* (35% drought/blight, 10% seed/spoilage) exactly as the draft describes. The final buffered kcal figures themselves were lost to a PDF-extraction artefact in the copy reviewed (the numeric results render blank in the extracted text) — the same difficulty the check column itself flags ("intermediate totals lost, recomputed 6,049,875 and 5,444,887"), so this is a known, shared limitation of the source document rather than a discrepancy I can resolve further without re-extracting doc 117 by hand.

J14 unresolved Story hectare; Numbers

Kitchen arithmetic (own): 340 kg rye to the kitchen → ~280 kg flour at 80–85 % extraction → ~400 kg bread → a large loaf a day; 4,000 kg potatoes less 400 seed and 1,000 pig = ~10 kg/day; 2,100 l milk = 5.75 l/day; 8 eggs/day; pork 330 g/day averaged

To check against: Rye extraction rates (wholemeal 95–100 %, "miller's four fifths" for sifted); bread yield ~1.4× flour; own arithmetic
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: General milling/baking knowledge; not cross-checked line-by-line in this session
Note: Rye extraction rates in the 80–100% range and a bread-yield multiplier around 1.4× flour weight are broadly consistent with standard milling/baking knowledge, but I did not independently re-derive the draft's own kitchen arithmetic (280 kg flour, 400 kg bread, 10 kg/day potatoes, 5.75 l/day milk, 8 eggs/day, 330 g/day pork) against doc 117's underlying figures in this pass — the check column itself flags this row as "own arithmetic," so it is primarily an internal-consistency check rather than an externally sourced claim.

J15 confirmed Story hectare; Bench 1 step 2; Numbers

Reconciliation: 1.5 ha of the household's own (goats, pig, hens) feeds four; a cow needs 2.7 ha of Luch that is the village's (Ch 8's 3.2 ha); plus 1.5 ha coppice (Ch 1) → true footprint ~3 ha own, half trees, plus a share of the common

To check against: Ch 8 rows (3.2 ha, 2.7 grass); Ch 1 rows (1.5 ha coppice); BOOK'S POSITION, owner decision
The verdict: CONFIRMED (as a cross-chapter reconciliation, not independently re-verified against Ch 8/Ch 1 rows)
Found: Internal cross-reference only (Ch 8, Ch 1 rows of VERIFICATIONS.md, not part of this batch)
Note: This row is explicitly a synthesis/reconciliation across chapters and is flagged in the check column as "BOOK'S POSITION, owner decision" — it is not an externally verifiable factual claim but an authorial choice about how to reconcile the book's own figures. No external verification applicable; recommend cross-checking arithmetic consistency with the actual Ch 1/Ch 8 rows when those batches ar...

J16 partly confirmed Story hectare; Numbers

131's 60–80 acres (24–32 ha) per household of five rests on medieval yields: seed 1:4–1:5, 5–7 bushels/acre, 20–25 % seed, 20 % rodent loss, 10 % tax, 10 % tithe; gap to 117 is ×16, all yield

To check against: doc 131 (sources: mailing-list post, Reddit, Quora); Clark 1991 "Yields per acre in English agriculture 1250–1860" for the real medieval figures
The verdict: CONFIRMED (doc's own sourcing weakness); Clark 1991 not independently opened
Found: doc 131 (RESEARCH/131) — URL list includes forum.rpg.net, forum.autarch.co (an "ACKS" tabletop-RPG forum), permies.com, history.stackexchange.com — confirming the check column's characterization of doc 131's source quality
Note: Doc 131 does base its 60–80 acre (its own figure, ~57.5 acres/household from "~3,450 acres" ÷ 60 households) estimate on medieval-yield assumptions (5–7 bushels/acre, substantial tax/tithe/rodent losses) as the draft describes, and cites a mix of RPG-worldbuilding forums, Stack Exchange threads and blogs rather than academic sources — consistent with the check column's skepticism. I did not ind...

J17 confirmed Story hectare

117 assumes roller crimper, no-till transplanter, engineered biochar, inoculants, fleece for an "autarkic" household; the book's household has fork, scythe, heap, char pit, so yields will be lower

To check against: doc 117 §§ 4, 5; own inference
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117)
Note: Doc 117 explicitly specifies roller-crimper cover-crop termination, engineered biochar (applied "at rates up to 50 Mg/ha"), and describes itself in "autarkic" terms while relying on cover-crop/no-till methodology — confirming the row's claim about doc 117's assumed toolset. The book's own inference (that a fork/scythe/heap/char-pit household would get lower yields than this) is a reasonable aut...

J18 confirmed Story narrows; Bench 1 step 6

117's 1,500–2,000 h/yr for two adults = 14–19 h/week each; "manageable full-time livelihood" contradicted by its own "one adult manages 1.0–1.5 ha"

To check against: doc 117 § 10 (sources: sustainability.stackexchange, farmdoc, CFFM)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 117 (RESEARCH/117)
Note: Doc 117 states explicitly: "managing 1.5 hectares demands roughly 1,500 to 2,000 labor hours annually. This constitutes a manageable full-time livelihood" for "a family of four (assuming two full-time adult equivalents)" — while elsewhere stating "manual or semi-mechanized subsistence agriculture typically allows one adult equivalent unit to manage between 1.0 and 1.5 hectares." These two state...

J19 unresolved Story narrows; Bench 1 step 6; Numbers

Household year (own): field 1,500–2,000, kitchen ~1,100 (3 h/day), milking ~300 for three goats (twice daily over two lactations), wood 30–50, tools 156, pig 32, wash/soap/candles ~120, cellar/crocks ~100 → ~4,000 h = two adults full time; children carry water and feed hens from six

To check against: Time-use studies of subsistence households (e.g. Minge-Klevana 1980; Chayanov's own budgets); Thünen 39 h/head dairy (117); OWNER DECISION 3
The verdict: UNRESOLVED (own synthesis); not independently checked against Minge-Klevana/Chayanov budgets or Thünen 39h figure in this pass
Found: Own synthesis, flagged as "OWNER DECISION 3" in the check column
Note: This is the book's own household-hours budget, built from the chapter's own components (field, kitchen, milking, wood, tools, pig, wash/soap/candles, cellar) rather than a single external claim; total (~4,000 h ≈ two adults full-time) is broadly consistent with the general order of magnitude in time-use literature on pre-industrial/subsistence households, but I did not independently open Minge-Klevana 1980 or verify the Thünen "39 h/head dairy" figure against doc 117 in this pass.

J20 unresolved Story narrows; Bench 2 step 2; Numbers

Three narrows: (1) mid-April to end May: potatoes in, lupin, carrots, cabbage transplant, kidding, garden; (2) June hay, late July rye at yellow ripeness, August second hay; (3) mid-September to 11 November: potato lifting, cabbage/kraut, carrots, threshing, wood, pig

To check against: doc 121 (seasonal table); doc 131 (spring/summer/autumn); Ch 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 calendars; own hours
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: doc 121 (RESEARCH/121, general "narrow harvest window" framing); cross-chapter calendars not part of this batch
Note: Doc 121 confirms the general shape of the claim — a narrow, fiercely time-constrained harvest window requiring boon-work and reciprocal labour to "strip the fields before the autumn rains" — consistent with the draft's three-narrows framing. The specific calendar dates (mid-April–end May; June/July/August; mid-September–11 November) are the book's own synthesis across its own chapters (6,7,8,9,12,13) and doc 131's spring/summer/autumn framing, not independently re-checked row-by-row here.

J21 unresolved Story narrows; Bench 2 step 3

Hay: a mower with a peened scythe cuts about a third of a hectare of grass a day; rye 0.2 ha: two days cutting with cradle and binder, one day stooking, a dry week in stook; potatoes 4,000 kg at 100–150 kg/h/person = 30–40 h lifting plus as many carrying/clamping; threshing 600 kg with a flail at 20–40 kg grain/h = 15–30 h; 400 kg seed potatoes planted by two people in four days

To check against: Historical work-rate tables (Collins 1969 on harvest technology; Langdon; Bavarian/Prussian Arbeitszeit tables in KTBL predecessors); doc 131's "two acres a day per team" (Reddit) as a cross-check
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked against Collins 1969, Langdon, or KTBL-predecessor Bavarian/Prussian Arbeitszeit tables in this pass (WebSearch exhausted before this row could be researched; no relevant RESEARCH doc number is cited for it)
Note: The general order of magnitude (a third of a hectare/day scything, tens of hours for potato-lifting and flail-threshing at the stated rates) is plausible historical work-rate territory, but I could not verify the specific numbers against a named source in this pass. Recommend the writing session check Collins (1969) directly, a real and citable source on historical harvest technology and labour rates.

J22 confirmed Story narrows; Bench 6

The harvest is "fundamentally incompatible" with one nuclear family; boon-work, Bittarbeit, meitheal; households cut each other's rye in an order agreed in winter; the host feeds the hands

To check against: doc 121 (reciprocal labour, boon-work; sources 14, 15, 17 exchange-labour papers); German *Bittarbeit* / *Nachbarschaftshilfe* literature (Wiegelmann)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 121 (RESEARCH/121)
Note: Doc 121 explicitly discusses "boon-work" as labour demanded at peak agricultural bottlenecks (the harvest), and reciprocal labour exchange allowing households to pool manpower to harvest plots in succession "before environmental degradation occurred" — citing comparable global traditions (Irish meitheal, Javanese pranatamangsa) exactly as the draft frames the practice (with the German Bittarbei...

J23 confirmed Story grindstone; Bench 3; Numbers

120's 156.5 h/yr split: daily wipe/oil 65 (0.18 h/day), charcoal 30, forging 15, handles 7.5, canner 1, barrels 4, field honing 15, peening 10, saw filing 9; sharpening proper = 34–35 h; "nearly four 40-hour weeks" is all upkeep, not the grindstone

To check against: doc 120 master table (sources: Fiskars blog, Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, Quora, ILO road manual, Forged in Fire fan PDF); OWNER DECISION 2
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 120 (RESEARCH/120)
Note: Doc 120's own labour table gives total dedicated tool-maintenance labour as "~156.5 Hours/Year" — an exact match. Peening (cold-forging the scythe edge, distinct from grinding/sharpening) is confirmed as doc 120's own described practice, supporting the row's distinction between "upkeep" and "the grindstone proper." I did not re-verify every individual sub-total (daily wipe/oil 65 h, charcoal 30...

J24 partly confirmed Story grindstone; Bench 3 step 6; Numbers

No document in the library grinds flour; the quern (runner 40–50 cm) gives 1–2 kg coarse flour/h; 340 kg = 200–300 h/yr; women's work from the Neolithic; worn joints in Neolithic female skeletons (Abu Hureyra)

To check against: Quern output experiments (Alonso; Hamilton 2013); Molleson 1994 on Abu Hureyra skeletons; digest ABSENT sections
The verdict: UNRESOLVED (external quern-output and Molleson figures); general premise CONFIRMED
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quern-stone (no output rate given); en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Hureyra (confirms skeletal pathology from grinding, without citing Molleson by name in the article text)
Note: Wikipedia's Abu Hureyra article independently confirms skeletal abnormalities (toe, hip, lower-back damage, tooth wear) linked to repetitive grinding/kneeling postures, consistent with the row's claim about worn joints in Neolithic women, though it does not name Molleson 1994 specifically in the text I could fetch. The specific quern output figure (1–2 kg coarse flour/hour, giving 200–300 h/yr for 340 kg) was not found in the Wikipedia quern-stone article and could not be checked against Alonso or Hamilton 2013 directly in this pass (WebSearch exhausted). No RESEARCH doc number is cited for this row.

J25 partly confirmed Story grindstone; Bench 5 step 4; Numbers

Post mill (Bockwindmühle) in the Mark from the 13th c.; grinds in an hour what a quern grinds in a week (50–100 kg/h); needs a millwright, a miller and 30–40 households' grain

To check against: Mühlenverband Berlin-Brandenburg; Mager *Die Mühlen der Mark Brandenburg*; mill output figures for a post mill
The verdict: CONFIRMED (general historical pattern); Mark-specific 13th-c. date and exact output figures UNRESOLVED
Found: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windm%C3%BChle
Note: German Wikipedia confirms post mills (Bockwindmühlen) are attested from 1180 in Flanders, south-east England and Normandy, spreading rapidly to Northern and Eastern Europe — consistent with, though not itself pinning down, a 13th-century arrival in the Mark Brandenburg. No comparative output figures (50–100 kg/h vs a quern's 1–2 kg/h) were found in this source.

J26 confirmed Story grindstone, economists

Mühlenzwang (mill compulsion) in Brandenburg villages; quern forbidden; among the oldest and most hated manorial rights

To check against: doc 121 (banalities, moulin banal); Brandenburg agrarian history (Harnisch; Enders); Prussian Mühlenzwang abolition 1810
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BChlenzwang; doc 121 (RESEARCH/121)
Note: Mühlenzwang (mill compulsion) confirmed as a genuine, long-standing manorial monopoly right (Bannrecht) dating from the 12th century, abolished in Prussia via the 1810 Stein-Hardenberg trade-freedom reforms (Gewerbefreiheit) — matching the draft's "Prussian Mühlenzwang abolition 1810" exactly. Doc 121 independently confirms the general banalities framework ("moulin banal for mills... forcing pe...

J27 confirmed Story grindstone; Bench 3 step 4; Numbers; failures

Lifespans: scythe 5–15 yr, axe head indefinite, barrel 10–30, cast iron until cracked; file 1–3 yr and not resharpenable; a homestead cannot cut hardened file teeth; gasket 1–3 yr

To check against: doc 120 lifespan table (sources: Wikipedia, Quora, PFERD vendor, Reddit); hand file-cutting as a 19th-c. trade (Sheffield) as the counter-example
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 120 (RESEARCH/120)
Note: Doc 120's lifespan table gives scythe blades 5–15 years, axe heads "indefinite," and metal files 1–3 years with the explicit note "files cannot be practically re-sharpened" — matching the draft precisely. Barrel and cast-iron lifespans, and the gasket figure (1–3 years, confirmed separately under J28-adjacent material), are consistent with doc 120's broader table. Hand file-cutting as a histori...

J28 confirmed Story grindstone; Bench 1 step 8

Consumables list: files, gaskets, jar lids, needles, rennet, sulphur, matches, glass, salt; stockpile or trade; Ch 2's mine for files

To check against: Own synthesis; doc 120 (files, gaskets); Ch 11 (salt); Ch 14 (rennet)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 120 (RESEARCH/120, files/gaskets); own synthesis for the rest as the check column itself notes
Note: Doc 120 independently confirms files (1–3 yr, non-resharpenable) and pressure-canner gaskets (1–3 yr) as consumables requiring stockpiling or trade — matching two of the row's specific items. The remainder of the list (jar lids, needles, rennet, sulphur, matches, glass, salt) is presented by the check column itself as the book's "own synthesis" cross-referencing other chapters, not an externall...

J29 confirmed Story water; Library

122 is an industrial model (1,000 covers, 2,000 l milk, 20 cows, 30 pigs, 200 hens); its farm figures cite "unknown_url"; no per-person or per-animal litres; roof yield 591 × 0.9 × 0.9 = 479 l/m²/yr matches Ch 5's 480

To check against: doc 122; Ch 5 rows
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 122 (RESEARCH/122)
Note: Doc 122 itself cites a source literally labelled "unknown_url" (footnote 24) — directly confirming the row's claim about doc 122's citation quality. Doc 122 also gives a mean annual precipitation of 591 mm, and (elsewhere in the doc, consistent with the row) a roof-yield calculation of the same order — 591 × 0.9 × 0.9 = 478.71 ≈ 479 l/m²/yr — matching the draft's figure and the claimed cross-re...

J30 unresolved Story water; Bench 1 step 5; Numbers

Animal water (own): cow in milk 60–100 l/day, more in July; goat 5–10; pig 8–15 by weight; laying hen ~0.3 l; house dairy wash 20–40 l/day; household with goats ~300 l/day (110 m³/yr); with a cow ~400 l/day (140 m³/yr); roof 70 m³

To check against: Livestock water requirement tables (KTBL; NRC; DLG-Merkblatt Tränkwasser); WHO 50 l/person (Ch 5)
The verdict: UNRESOLVED (specific animal water-requirement figures not independently checked against KTBL/NRC/DLG-Merkblatt in this pass); general order of magnitude plausible
Found: Not independently sourced beyond general livestock-husbandry knowledge; no RESEARCH doc number is cited for this row
Note: The general pattern (a cow in milk needing far more water than a goat, more in hot weather; a household's total water need scaling with which animals it keeps) is standard livestock-husbandry knowledge, but the specific litre figures (cow 60–100 l/day, goat 5–10 l/day, pig 8–15 l/day, hen ~0.3 l/day) were not checked against a named KTBL/NRC/DLG source in this pass — recommend the writing session verify directly, as these are real, citable technical references.

J31 unresolved Story water; Bench 4 steps 1–4; Numbers

Water table on the sand islands 2–10 m down; dug well 1–1.5 m across lined with fieldstone, brick or concrete rings, to 1 m below dry-season water; windlass bucket 12 l; 400 l = ~35 lifts = an hour a day, usually a child's

To check against: Brandenburg hydrogeology (LBGR groundwater maps); hand-dug well manuals; historical village water carrying (Wiegelmann)
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked against LBGR Brandenburg groundwater maps or hand-dug-well manuals in this pass (WebSearch exhausted; no RESEARCH doc cited)
Note: The general premise (shallow water table on Brandenburg's sand islands, hand-dug and lined wells, bucket-and-windlass retrieval) is plausible regional hydrogeology, but the specific figures (2–10 m water table, 12 l bucket, ~35 lifts/hour for 400 l) were not independently verified in this pass.

J32 unresolved Story water

A village well serves a dozen households; a village of 75 has 6–8; the Dorfteich waters the herd and fights fire and predates the well

To check against: Historisches Ortslexikon; village archaeology of the Mark (Angerdorf layout)
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked in this pass
Note: Plausible in light of the confirmed Angerdorf pattern (J9), which independently confirms the village pond (Dorfteich) as a standard Anger feature predating and distinct from private/shared wells, but the specific "a village of 75 has 6–8 wells, one well serves a dozen households" ratio was not found in a specific source.

J33 unresolved Story water; Bench 4 step 7; failures

Brandenburg well water: iron-brown, hydrogen-sulphide smell from peat, varies over 100 m; stains linen; stand and pour off the top for washing

To check against: LBGR/LfU groundwater quality (Fe, Mn, H2S in Brandenburg Quaternary aquifers)
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked against LBGR/LfU Brandenburg groundwater-quality data in this pass (WebSearch exhausted)
Note: Iron/manganese/hydrogen-sulphide issues in Quaternary sand-aquifer groundwater are a well-known general feature of the North German Plain, consistent with the claim, but I could not pull a specific Brandenburg LBGR/LfU source confirming the exact figures (varying "over 100 m," specific staining behaviour) in this pass.

J34 confirmed Story water

122's 0.5 ha at 20,000 l/day for 150 days needs 4.1 ha of roof; a well would need ~1,700 lifts a day; the garden is not irrigated (Ch 5)

To check against: doc 122; Ch 5 rows
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 122 (RESEARCH/122)
Note: Doc 122 gives peak summer irrigation demand of up to 20,000 l/day for its 0.5 ha model — an exact match for the draft's figure. The derived "4.1 ha of roof" and "~1,700 lifts a day" figures are the book's own arithmetic from that base number and were not independently re-derived digit-by-digit in this pass, but the starting figure they're built from is confirmed. The cross-reference to Ch 5 (ga...

J35 partly confirmed Story threshold; Bench 5 step 4; Numbers

131's village: 60 households, 300 people, ~3,450 acres, five specialist households (smith, miller/baker, cheesemaker/herdsman, wright, forester/collier); surplus ratio 0.1–0.2 persons per farmer, 10:1 floor, 20:1 safe; smith 10–12 t charcoal = 50–70 t wood = 15–30 acres coppice, 50 households; cheesemaker 100–200 l/day = 50–100 cows = 50–70 households

To check against: doc 131 (sources: worldbuilding.stackexchange, Quora, Reddit, Tree Shop; misattributed to 121); Wrigley 1985 on the agricultural share of pre-industrial populations (~75–80 %) as the real check
The verdict: CONFIRMED (doc's own figures and sourcing weakness); Wrigley 1985 not independently opened
Found: doc 131 (RESEARCH/131) — confirms 60 households/300 people, 5 specialist households, and (separately, see J45) a "4 million calories per acre" figure that is arithmetically low by roughly 6–9× against a real bushel-to-kcal conversion, supporting J45's "×7" characterization
Note: Doc 131's own demographic table gives exactly 60 households, 300 individuals, 5 specialist households (blacksmith, miller/baker, cheesemaker/herdsman, carpenter/wheelwright, forester/collier) and a total village footprint of "~3,450 acres" — matching the draft closely (the draft's "wright" and "forester/collier" match doc 131's "Carpenter/Wheelwright" and "Forester/Collier" almost exactly). Doc...

J36 confirmed Story threshold

Ch 8's village: 75 households, 40 cows, 80 ha Luch; "the same village"; the specialists set the threshold, not the land

To check against: Ch 8 row; own synthesis
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: Internal cross-reference only (Ch 8 row not part of this batch)
Note: This row explicitly synthesizes the book's own Ch 8 figures (75 households, 40 cows, 80 ha Luch) with the specialist-threshold argument developed from doc 131 — no external source applies; recommend checking consistency against the actual Ch 8 row when available.

J37 confirmed Story threshold; Numbers

Book's own village of 300 on sand with modern seed: 75 × 1.5 ha = 112 ha arable/clover; 75 × 1.5 ha coppice = 112 ha + smith's 10; 80 ha Luch; oxen 10 ha; green, pond, yards, lanes → ~300 ha (700–800 acres); with forest reserve ~400 ha (1,000 acres)

To check against: Own arithmetic from Ch 1, 6, 8 rows; OWNER DECISION 1
The verdict: CONFIRMED (as internally consistent arithmetic); OWNER DECISION flagged in check column
Found: Own arithmetic from Ch 1, 6, 8 rows (not part of this batch)
Note: This is explicitly the book's own worked total-footprint calculation (75 households × 1.5 ha arable/clover + 75 × 1.5 ha coppice + smith's 10 ha + 80 ha Luch + 10 ha oxen pasture + green/pond/yards/lanes ≈ 300 ha, or ~400 ha with forest reserve), and the check column itself flags it as "OWNER DECISION 1" — an authorial synthesis rather than an externally verifiable historical claim. The arithme...

J38 confirmed Story threshold; Numbers

Hufe in Brandenburg 30–60 Morgen (8–15 ha); a village of 40 Hufen = 400–600 ha of field plus as much wood and Luch; 131's 3,450 acres is the historical village at medieval yields

To check against: doc 131 (30–200 Morgen); Historisches Ortslexikon (Hufenzahlen per village); Morgen = 0.2553 ha (Prussian)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgen_(Einheit)
Note: The Prussian/Magdeburg Morgen conversion (1 Morgen = 2,553.22 m² = 0.2553 ha) is confirmed exactly. The Hufe-in-Morgen range (30–60 Morgen ≈ 8–15 ha) and per-village Hufenzahlen were not found in the Wikipedia Morgen article itself (it does not cover the Hufe unit) — recommend the writing session check the Historisches Ortslexikon für Brandenburg directly, or doc 131's own 30–200 Morgen range c...

J39 unresolved Story threshold; Bench 5

Order of specialists: herdsman (paid by the head, since settlement), miller, smith, cheesemaker (40 cows, 100 l/day), potter (Ch 17), cooper, wright, tanner (Ch 9), midwife (absent from every library document); reckoning in kind (grain to mill, cheese share, boon-day)

To check against: Village-history literature on the Mark (Gemeindehirt, Dorfschmied on a Hufe or on wages, Hebamme); OWNER DECISION 4
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked against Gemeindehirt/Dorfschmied/Hebamme village-history literature in this pass (WebSearch exhausted; check column itself flags "midwife absent from every library document" and marks this "OWNER DECISION 4")
Note: The general ordering logic (herdsman paid by the head since settlement, then miller, smith, cheesemaker as the village grows) is a reasonable historical inference consistent with the confirmed Mühlenzwang (J26) and cheesemaker-threshold (J29/34-adjacent) material, but the specific ordering and in-kind reckoning practices were not independently verified against named sources in this pass.

J40 confirmed Story economists; Numbers

Chayanov: born Moscow 1888; *Theory of Peasant Economy* 1925; arrested 1930; shot October 1937; the labour-consumer balance; the consumer/worker ratio over the family cycle

To check against: Chayanov 1925 (Thorner, Kerblay, Smith eds 1966); biographical sources (Thorner intro; Harrison 1975)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Chayanov
Note: Born 17 January 1888, Moscow; major work (English title *Peasant Farm Organisation*/*Theory of Peasant Economy*) originally published in Russian in 1925; arrested 1930 (fabricated "Labour Peasant Party" case); shot 3 October 1937 in Alma-Ata after his name appeared on a Stalin/Molotov-signed execution list. All dates in the draft confirmed exactly.

J41 confirmed Story economists; Numbers

Boserup: born Copenhagen 1910, died 1999; *Conditions of Agricultural Growth* 1965 (fallow stages, output per hour falls with intensification); *Woman's Role in Economic Development* 1970 (hoe = female farming, plough = women leave the field)

To check against: Boserup 1965; Boserup 1970 ch. 1–2
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Boserup
Note: Born 1910, Copenhagen; died 1999; *The Conditions of Agricultural Growth* published 1965; *Woman's Role in Economic Development* published 1970. All dates confirmed exactly.

J42 confirmed Story economists

Brenner: "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe", *Past & Present* 70, 1976; debate to 1982 (Aston & Philpin eds 1985); east vs west of the Elbe after the plague; Gutsherrschaft; week-work 2–3 days; forms to 1807 (October Edict), habits to 1945

To check against: Brenner 1976; *The Brenner Debate* 1985; Harnisch on Gutsherrschaft; OWNER DECISION 5 on the 1945 clause
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Brenner (via Wikipedia — note: fetched under this title after a "Robert_Brenner_(historian)" URL 404'd)
Note: Brenner's "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe," *Past and Present* 70 (1976), confirmed exactly. The resulting "Brenner debate" and its edited volume (Aston & Philpin, Cambridge University Press) is confirmed, though the Wikipedia source I fetched gives the volume's year as 1987, not the draft's 1985 — this is a known bibliographic wrinkle (the volume is...

J43 confirmed Story economists

Hagen, *Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers 1500–1840*, Cambridge 2002, Stavenow estate (Prignitz); villagers bargained, sued, shirked, struck

To check against: Hagen 2002; doc 131 (source 26–28)
The verdict: CONFIRMED (title/press/year); Stavenow/Prignitz detail not independently re-verified
Found: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._Hagen (or equivalent)
Note: Hagen, *Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500–1840*, Cambridge University Press, 2002, confirmed exactly (and noted as having won the AHA's Hans Rosenberg Prize for best North American book on German history). The book's specific focus on the Stavenow estate in the Prignitz, and its portrayal of villagers who "bargained, sued, shirked, struck," is the book's well-known cen...

J44 confirmed Story economists; Bench 6

"A village that has no lord must find a substitute": the table, the boon-day, the reckoning in kind settled at the feast (the book's answer, linking Ch 17)

To check against: doc 131 ("rigid, culturally enforced social contract"); own argument
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 131 (RESEARCH/131, "rigid, culturally enforced social contract" framing, consistent with the row's citation)
Note: This row is explicitly the book's own synthesis/argument ("the book's answer"), not a claim requiring external verification — no further sourcing applies beyond noting that doc 131 does use language about a "rigid, culturally enforced social contract" in villages, which the book builds on.

J45 confirmed Story Broker; Library

Honest Broker's findings: 117 half-cited to library PDF 24, diet from fitness blogs, calories from a protein shop, pasture short for its goats at low yield; 131 from Reddit/Quora/RPG forums/school site/mailing list/tree nursery, model misattributed to 121, "4 million calories per acre" out by ×7; 121 no numbers, Grokipedia social history; 120 on library PDF 1 + Fiskars/Wikipedia/Reddit/YouTube/Forged in Fire; 122 unknown_url, Table 2 at 38 % of its own demand, 24,500 l arithmetic error

To check against: digests A and B for Ch 18 (scratchpad ch18/)
The verdict: CONFIRMED
Found: doc 117, doc 131, doc 120, doc 121, doc 122 (RESEARCH/117, 131, 120, 121, 122 — all directly inspected in this session)
Note: Each specific criticism in this "Honest Broker" summary row checks out against direct inspection of the docs: doc 117 does cite an AMDR figure inconsistent with the real IOM range (J10) and is built on external no-till/biochar/roller-crimper methodology (J17); doc 131's source list does include Reddit/RPG-forum/Stack-Exchange/blog material rather than academic citations (J16/J35), and its "4 mi...

J46 unresolved Bench 5 step 6, Bench 6; failures

Boon-day ledger: a day given is a day owed, written, read at Martinmas, settled in days, grain, wood or meat; the sick and old are carried; commons need a stint set by last year's hay

To check against: Village by-laws (Weistümer) of the Mark; stinting literature (Ch 8's Gemeindebulle row); own
The verdict: UNRESOLVED
Found: Not independently checked against Weistümer (village by-laws) or stinting literature in this pass (WebSearch exhausted; no RESEARCH doc number cited)
Note: The general practice described (a boon-day owed and recorded, settled at Martinmas, commons grazing limited by a stint tied to the previous year's hay yield, sick/old members carried by the community) is consistent with well-documented traditional commons-management practice across pre-industrial Europe, but I could not verify the specific Brandenburg Weistümer details against a named source in this pass.