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Is ASOIAF noble’s use of a permanent garrison realistic? How common were permanent guards during times of peace in the Middle Ages? Where did they come from (levies, sons of soldiers…)? How many guards could the Earl of Salisbury afford, for example?

Sure, it’s realistic – depending on what period you’re talking about.

Generally speaking, the earlier you go, the more the army looks purely feudal – land is literally divvied up by how much it takes to support a heavily-armed and armored mounted soldier – whether we’re talking about the knight’s fee/knight-service as a unit of land in England, or the fief du haubert (i.e, a fief that can pay for a hauberk of chainmail) in France – and armies are made almost entirely out of men providing military service as their rent. 

For reasons that have been talked about in the fandom a lot, this was always a bit of a pain for rulers – armies take a long time to assemble, armies start to dissolve if the fighting lasts longer than the term of service laid down in their contracts, and so on. It was also not hugely popular from the lower end either – once they’ve got their nice fief, and especially once that fief becomes hereditary and much harder for kings to revoke or transfer, military service for the higher ups interferes with your nice local land-grabs and feuds, managing your estate, hawking and hunting, and the other pastimes of the aristocracy. 

So somewhere between the 12th and 13th centuries across a wide swathe of Medieval Europe, people came up with the scutage as an alternative. This is a cash tax paid in lieu of military service, and it was rather convenient all-around. It meant that the king had regular cash-in-hand (especially once they figured out you could impose a scutage during peace time as well as during a war) and could hire mercenaries to supplement their feudal levies, and it meant that landowners who didn’t want to fight could pay cash instead. And the popularity of this system meant that increasingly armies were more professional and less feudal in nature.

And this is how we get to the situation around the time of the Wars of the Roses where we have what historian Charles Plummer called bastard feudalism. In this period – the 14th through 16th centuries – kings and nobles realized that it was a lot easier to convert rents and taxes from service into cash, and then use that cash to hire people to fight for them, than the old feudal system. In this new system, people would join the affinity of a nobleman and, in addition to room and board and cash and an inside track to lands and appointments, would wear the livery of their patron. And nobles found out that they could afford to hire a lot more people this way than with the old land-sharing system. Hence the phenomenon of over-mighty vassals who could put a lot more men under arms than the monarch could deal with their more traditional armies – and why Edward IV and Henry VII both spent a good deal of their reigns trying to abolish the system. 

Now, who were these men who were fighting for a living? Well, one thing to understand is that, from the beginning of this period, there’s always been a class of people who took room and board and a cash wage to serve as permanent soldiers of a household  – the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians had their housecarls; the Franks had their socii or scara, who served as the retainers and bodyguards of the various counts, dukes, kings, and emperors; and so on. Later on, the impact of primogeniture within the nobility meant that you had a significant population of men who had been trained as knights who weren’t going to get land – those men need work. During “bastard feudalism,” it gets even more complicated, because you had iterative affinities as the Earl of Salisbury’s affinity was part of the larger Neville affinity, and he would have had lesser lords in his affinity. 

As for examples – the Earl of Salisbury during the Wars of the Roses had a personal affinity of at least a thousand men, while the Earls of  Darby had about 2,000 men in their affinity, and so on. 

Do you think it was Bloodraven who stole the Dragon egg from Butterwell in the Mystery Knight?

warsofasoiaf:

I think Dunk had it on the money. He knew about the tournament, but didn’t know who all of the backers would be, so he let it proceed so he could gather them in one place. He sent the dwarf jesters to poach the egg to prevent a potent symbol being in Daemon’s hands, and had them pass it off to Maynard Plumm.

Bloodraven played them for chumps from the getgo, all so he could have his enemies in one place to render the Blackfyre cause that much more symbolically weaker. After all, arranging for ‘accidents’ for Blackfyre supporters engenders suspicion and dislike of the monarchy, but an outright defeat displays the monarchy’s strength and the weakness of the Blackfyre cause. Any lord harboring treasonous thought will think twice about meeting together lest it be another trap, and Bittersteel looks weak for being unable to protect Daemon’s third son and namesake, as well as all the lords who were loyal to him even after all that time.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

Agreed. Slight difference. Bloodraven was Maynard Plumm. 

What’s the history behind mercenary fleets and “sellsails”? My understanding is that private navies, requiring substantial and expensive infrastructure and so usually the preserve of monarchs, have been less common throughout history than private armies?

Less common, but certainly extant. So for example, in my research on the recent medieval naval warfare question, I found out that it was common in the Medieval ages to hire merchant ships as sellsails – either as transport ships or using the bigger ships that had some defensive capabilities built into them. 

Likewise, it was also common for naval powers – Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the Hanseatic League – to sell their services to other countries for economic considerations.

“Daemon was not a good man, at all.” My point precisely. I thought the whole idea was that Daemon was such an asshole that it might make him King material, a la the popular notion of Shakespeare’s roguish Prince Hal. And I don’t know what “morally acceptable” has to do with it, this is not a series that has ever set truck by conventional morality. Anyway, I’m sorry for this back-and-forth, it’s just that I am surprised how people see Daemon’s actions so much worse compared to stuff in Asoiaf?

poorquentyn:

“I don’t know what “morally acceptable” has to do with it, this is not a series that has ever set truck by conventional morality.” This is a truly staggering misread. One of GRRM’s goals with this series is to resensitize us to horrors and abuses of powers that other medieval fantasies have desensitized us to, or ignored entirely. Did you read the scene with Blood and Cheese? It’s unspeakably horrifying! We are supposed to come out of that room realizing that nothing is worth this, that a line has been crossed and innocent lives utterly destroyed, that the man who ordered this is not roguish, but evil. Moral consciousness is central to ASOIAF. I don’t know how you can read Arya or Dany’s storylines especially and think otherwise. 

And as I’ve said, that “how much worse” game is a cowardly dodge. That other characters have done horrible things does not excuse Daemon one iota. He was an adult, and not just any adult, but an absurdly powerful and gifted one; he had all the choices in the world, and what he did with them was horrific. 

Amen.