Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have luck.
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Your ability to manage economic matters; to count costs and revenues, balance books, pay the most advantageous prices for things.
Knights are rarely good bean counters. In fact, it’s often frowned on, for the portrayal of generosity and open-handedness is an important part of the social contract. To be loose with your finances is a signal of your virtue1.
On the other hand, a lot of knights are poor. Not poor by any real means, to fear the real poverty of the common folk—but barely making enough to fit the expectations of their social class, always at risk of falling “out” of the ranks of the gentry. Their financial desperation can make them prey to all kinds of get-rich schemes, or to a more covert use of this skill to soundly keep their coffers together.
Footnotes
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For the other Social Classes, it’s more of a mixed bag. People are certainly suspicious of financially astute clergy, who are expected to be models of charity, but within the system there are pressures to make sure things are running well. Ladies similarly are expected both to be excellent managers of their households and models of generosity. ↩