How many Rangers of the North were there ?

[shadowfax]

Originally Posted by Rumil

Ah, Morth, the Toes of a King are the Toes of a Healer

On the one hand you'd imagine many hundreds or a few thousand or so Dunedain, as only a small proportion would be Rangers (say 10%??). The majority must have been farmers, hunters, gatherers etc to feed the population.

That is assuming that there was a formal deifinition for being a ranger as such. The rangers must have lived off something (Aragaorn did have coins) and I don't think it was all charity. I imagine that many of them worked their land or followed their trade much of the time but would go out into the wild as a ranger when called upon.

So on that basis, any male Dundeain who was old enough and able enough to be of any use in ranger activities was a ranger.

The idea of a professional full time army didn't really arise until the Renaissance period.