How many Rangers of the North were there ?

[PrinceOfTheHalflings]

Originally Posted by shadowfax

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.

*cough* The Romans had a professional full-time army.

Gondor most certainly had a professional full-time army and what's more there is a specific reference in the book to the "Rangers of Ithilien" who are clearly soldiers. Aragorn is definitely a full-time Ranger and although no doubt any able bodied Dunedain male could have taken up arms and helped out in a pinch I'd imagine that most of the Rangers were "full time". These guys were guarding places like the Shire - this couldn't really be considered a casual job.

As to how many Rangers there were in Eriador ... it's unlikely that there could have only been 30 (or 31 if you add Aragorn). Presumably there were other Rangers who were still guarding the women and the children of Aragorn's kinfolk in the North. We know that the watch over the Shire and Bree was affected due to the absence of Rangers, but it's unlikely that the Rangers' settlements would have been left unguarded. There would have been little point in overseeing a victory over Sauron and then returning home to find all the women and children had been carried off and/or slaughtered by orcs (or other dark forces).

Just at a guess I'd imagine that there were probably a minimum of 100 full-time Rangers and at least an equal number of other men. Then there must have been around 200 women, plus 100 children under the age of 18. So that's 500 already. That's not a huge number - there were probably more than 500 people living in Bree, and there must have been thousands of Hobbits living in the Shire. Halbarad's apology for only bringing 30 Rangers certainly implies that there were a lot more than just 30. Presumably that was just the number that could rounded up within a day's ride or so, and Eriador is a big place.

On the hand if there'd been 1000 Rangers then there would have been less of a problem sending a reasonable detachment off to Aragorn and still maintaining a watch over Eriador, so there can't have been that many.