Do you think that Wyman Manderly is sincere in claiming that the old customs officers were still loyal to King’s Landing or is he taking the chaos and inexperience of a new administration to consolidate his power in White Harbour with more loyal/less scrupulous appointees?

Both.

Here’s the thing about our good friend Wyman Manderly: he believes in doing well by doing good and vice-versa. He’s always going to be there for the Starks, and he’d never be so crude to demand to be compensated first…he’s not a Frey after all. Instead, he steps forward as the good vassal in times of need, and then he comes forward with all kinds of helpful suggestions about how he can be even more helpful if he was given all kinds of new offices. And it’s understood that, just as it would be crude to demand payment in advance, it would be rude to deny such a loyal vassal such a minor favor…

But here’s the thing – he’s not lying about any of it, because he doesn’t have to. Of course the royal customs officers who were in place before the War of Five Kings aren’t going to support a rebellion against the Iron Throne, so they need to be replaced. And I’m sure the people who replaced them were loyal to Robb Stark, because Wyman Manderly would have made sure of it. Likewise, establishing a mint or a royal navy are absolutely in Robb Stark’s best interests – but they’re also going to rebound to Wyman Manderly’s benefit by boosting White Harbor’s economy and military power.

Where things get trickier is the Hornwood Question and what happens when Wyman starts conflating what’s good for House Manderly and what’s good for the North. On the one hand, Wyman was perfectly happy to play the normal Northern political game when it came to the Hornwood lands. But when Ramsay broke the rules and it didn’t look like Rodrik was going to do anything, Wyman didn’t hesitate to occupy the Hornwood lands “for their own protection.” And that’s the kind of thing that can be politically destabilizing, and you get the sense that, as with Garth Greybeard, the Manderlys were not entirely innocent when it came to their feud with the Peakes.

But…and this is important, they’re still mostly constructive, and as long as their liege lord maintains a firm hand, giving them enough of a return on their good work without giving away the shop, and making sure that the rewards get spread around liberally and the Manderlys are made to play nicely with the others so that jealousy doesn’t give way to feud, they’re a credit to their kingdom.

When Wyman Manderly offered to build a fleet of warships for Robb, would those ships have been a Royal fleet where Manderly would have had influence on appointments, or would they have been a Manderly fleet, fighting for the Starks due to Wyman’s oaths of fealty? Did vassals need permission to build up their own military capabilities?

From the way that Wyman Manderly puts it…

Wyman Manderly had a great booming laugh. It was small wonder he could not sit a saddle; he looked as if he outweighed most horses. As windy as he was vast, he began by asking Winterfell to confirm the new customs officers he had appointed for White Harbor. The old ones had been holding back silver for King’s Landing rather than paying it over to the new King in the North. “King Robb needs his own coinage as well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is the very place to mint it.” He offered to take charge of the matter, as it please the king, and went from that to speak of how he had strengthened the port’s defenses, detailing the cost of every improvement.

In addition to a mint, Lord Manderly also proposed to build Robb a warfleet. “We have had no strength at sea for hundreds of years, since Brandon the Burner put the torch to his father’s ships. Grant me the gold and within the year I will float you sufficient galleys to take Dragonstone and King’s Landing both.”

…I would lean heavily towards the former. The customs officers serve the King in the North, and the king has the power to confirm them or not, but Wyman gets to appoint them (although he might have to pay for them as quid-pro-quo). Likewise, I’d assume that Wyman pays for the mint, gets to appoint the officials, Robb confirms them and keeps the right of seignorage, etc.

So with the fleet, I would imagine that, especially if Robb is paying for them with royal funds as Wyman suggests, it’s a royal navy based out of White Harbor. Which means that there will be lots of offices and sinecures in this new royal navy for Manderlys and Manderly vassals, as per usual subject to the king’s approval.

To answer your last question…it’s tricky. Under the normal rules of feudalism, military capabilities were limited by the terms of the feudal agreement – you get so much land, you agree to raise so many men, the number of men per unit of land is fairly standardized – and it was hard to alter that, because the vassals’ vassals know their rights in law and get pretty litigious about it.

It’s really more when you get to what’s known as “bastard feudalism” that things start to go off the rails. Under bastard feudalism, instead of relying on those feudal agreements to raise soldiers, you convert military service obligations into taxes paid in cash and then use the cash to put fighting men on the payroll, who wear your livery and are counted as members of your “affinity.”

So now you have a system where noblemen can raise and maintain private military forces above and beyond their feudal rights – and the only limit to how many of these guys you have on the payroll is your ability to make payroll on the first of the month.

That’s what leads to “over-mighty vassals” starting private wars and making themselves extremely difficult to govern by their liege lords, because they might have more military manpower than their overlords. And that’s what eventually brings down heavy regulation where vassals did indeed need legal permission to have any military power whatsoever.

if you wanted to invest in a massive trade navy, is there any advantage of having longships instead of the regular tradeships the westerosi and essosi use?

Unless you’re dealing with a situation where you want to trade up a riverrine network where ships with deeper drafts can’t go (or if you’re trying to set up a smuggling network where you can’t dock in a normal port and need to beach and then ship out in a hurry) no there is no advantage whatsoever.

Longships aren’t that suited to trade – they’re very small vessels with very limited holds so you can’t carry very much, only one sail as opposed to two or three, they’re very low to the water so rough seas run some pretty serious risks of swamping, etc.

By contrast, your galleys, galleases, cogs, carracks, etc. are much better suited to trade: they’re much bigger so that they can hold more per trip (which leads to economies of scale), they have multiple sails in addition to often having more oars so they’ll generally be faster than longships (which people often get backwards), they’re higher out of the water so they can deal with rough seas more easily, etc.

Quick question. If a peasant managed to capture a knight or a lord in a battle, does he get the ransom or at least a share of it?

warsofasoiaf:

I’m having difficulty finding sources to answer your question, but I’d imagine it’d be difficult to tell which lucky peasant was the one who captured the noble in battle, since they’d probably be in formation. My guess is that it would depend upon the general of the capturing side. A peasant rebellion against the nobility probably is killing any nobles they capture, and a feudal levy might be so tightly overseen that the captain in charge takes control of the POW fairly quickly.

My instinct tells me that the captain would reward the peasants that captured the knight, perhaps with coin, and the general would collect the ransom, but again, my typical sources aren’t helping me here. @racefortheironthrone might know, though.

Thanks for the question, Overlord.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

Good question.

Part of the tricky thing here is the term “peasant,” which I guess means peasant levy? Because there were a lot of soldiers who were non-nobles but professionals and therefore of higher status – your men-at-arms, your mercenaries, your household guard, etc. – who might technically be “peasants” in the sense of not being nobles or clergy, but who had all or most of the equipment and training of a knight.

But for more specifics, let’s jump on the research train!

Turns out…yes, sort of. Culturally/ideologically it was a bit of a problem: Michael S. Drake in Problematics of Military Power points out how the common soldiers was a bit of a problem conceptually for the medieval mindset in general because they were commoners who did knightly stuff yet were too necessary to ban; likewise, common soldiers were not necessarily ransomable (there were some pretty ugly mass killings of captured peasant levies in the Hundred Years War, for example) and one couldn’t necessarily trust them to ransom a noble as opposed to rob his corpse.

But, while I’ve seen a few legal scholars say the law of war forbade peasants/common soldiers from ransoming prisoners, they seem pretty well out-argued by the folks who can point to historical accounts of just that thing happening, so I’m going to say that whatever the laws of war might have said, once you have thousands of professional killers roaming the battlefield with misericords with profit in mind, those laws are promptly ignored so that nobles could be safely ransomed rather than being brutally murdered for their rings…

So yes, common soldiers could ransom, and odds are non-levies would be ransomed (because soldiers learned to keep enough liquid capital to pay a ransom pretty quick) albeit on the cheap. What seems to have become the practice vis-a-vis the common soldier capturing a knight is that the ransom would be bought by a higher up for a percentage of its value. For example, at one point Henry I of England bought the King of France’s banner (which had been taken on the field by a common soldier) for 20 marks, so that he could have the gloating privileges.

Poor Lorath always seemed to get too much of a bad rap in my opinion. Does the city have any redeeming qualities in your opinion?

Hey. Same anon that asked about Lorath before. I was reading through the WOIAF and it just kind of struck me that the fisherfolk and farmers overthrowing the Boashi is much more noteworthy than it gets in the text. Has there ever been another successful smallfolk revolution in Planetos? I get the feeling that Lorath is kind of like Haiti, the site of a momentously important people’s history that gets overshadowed by its poverty, probably caused by its satellite status to Braavosi capital

I always think of Lorath as akin to one of the post-industrial cities of the Northeast – not even one of the former greats in decline, but a scrappy woulda-been-a-contenda that never quite got its shot. It’s got some economic base – cod, whaling, sealskins and walrus tusks, velvet, trading for furs, ivory, and obsidian – but it’s kind of second-tier and it can’t exercise dominion over its own hinterland.

In terms of stuff that I find interesting about Lorath – the cult of Boash is an interesting ascetic egalitarian faith and I’m kind of sad it’s not around any more, the three princes is an interesting political system but it’s not around any more, but most of all the whole thing about the mazemakers and their connection to the Deep Ones.

OTHO, Qarlon the Great is pretty boring and doesn’t add anything, and there isn’t much else.

So we know about the Reach’s golden ‘hands,’ and I’d be incredibly surprised if the Kingdom of the Rock’s currency wasn’t based around golden ‘lions,’ but do you have any suggestions for the names and metallic content of the Seven Kingdoms’ pre-Conquest currencies? I think I remember the North being a primarily silver-based economy, but ‘silver direwolves’ just doesn’t strike me as a good money name.

Let’s see:

The Reach: as stated, “golden hands.” Notably smaller and thinner than your post-Targaryen dragons.

The Rock: agreed, definitely gold and definitely “lions.”

The Stormlands: I wouldn’t be surprised if the stag as a coin predated the Conquest, given the Durrandon’s once-mighty empire. Perhaps they were once minted in gold, but had to be downgraded to silver as the Durrandon empire waned?

The North: silver wolves sounds good; when in doubt, simplify.

Riverlands: a wild mix of coinage, suggesting the political instability of the realm. I like the idea of the pious Teagues introducing the Star, tho.

The Vale: silver falcons are too close to the sigil to be avoided, I think.

Dorne: Golden suns I think would be almost mandatory.

Iron Islands: “he decreed that gold and silver coin should in future have no value, and ordained that the people should use iron money only…which in weight was over a pound and a quarter, and in value not quite a penny.” And according to legend, dipped in vinigar to make the coins brittle and thus even less useful….

How do you think the Faith of the Seven is institutionally organized across the Andalized kingdoms? Does the High Septon appoint ‘bishops’ to administer the Faith’s affairs in each region? Could the Most Devout actually just be these bishops in conclave? Do you imagine local rulers exercising a Gallican veto over appointments to ensure local religious authorities support secular power?

These are excellent questions!

So the Most Devout are a council (or conclave) of the highest ranking Septons. How they are chosen is unclear – so it could be the High Septon appointing, or it could be a more presbyterian system.

Now, historically, the Most Devout chose the High Septon from among their ranks, although that’s not a necessity. After Jaehaerys’ peace with the Church, the Crown claimed the right to name the High Septon, although this seems to have been carried out by the King nominating a candidate who would always be elected no matter what.

I find the pre-Targaryen period a fascinating mystery – I can’t imagine the rulers of Dorne or the Stormlands or the Westerlands or the Riverlands being particularly happy with the idea that the head of the Faith is so intimitately connected with House Hightower, even if that doesn’t always mean connected with House Gardener. So I would imagine there would have to be a fairly Galician system, and some very Renaissance lobbying during the choosing of new High Septons.

Does each new lord/lady of a vassal family have to swear fealty to their overlord, or is it explicit continuation from their predecessors? Does each new overlord or monarch summon their vassals to swear fealty to them upon ascension?

Good question!

The short answer is that it depends on the particular feudal culture and the particular period, because it matters whether the fiefdom was seen as the personal gift of the monarch or the rightful inheritance of the son, and so on.

In most feudal systems I’m aware of, however, there was a necessity to have the new vassal make homage to their new overlord. It’s an opportunity to redo the ceremony – which is handy for the sovereign because it means that they get to do the ceremonies regularly and display their power. It’s also an opportunity for revenue-generation – a lot of feudal systems assessed a one-time tax when a fiefdom was inherited. And the same goes for a new overlord – you want to make sure that all the vassals know who’s in charge now, and to firmly establish their direct loyalty to the new man.

Moreover, if you think of it in symbolic/ideological terms, it makes sense that you would want to renew whenever there’s a transfer of power between generations. Remember, medieval politics is all about the body – the king is physically annointed, they give status and title by touching you or giving you a ring, and political influence comes from how close you are physically to the king.

So if you have a new body or bodies standing in as vassal or overlord, it’s a new physical relationship and you need to enact the ritual again.

How usefull do you think the band of the nine were for the golden company? would they have been better off just conquering and holding the disputed lands by themselves?

Highly useful. Let’s take a look at the Band of Nine:

THE OLD MOTHER: A pirate queen.
SAMARRO SAAN, THE LAST VALYRIAN: A notorious pirate from a notorious family of pirates from Lys, with the blood of Valyria in his veins.
XHOBAR QHOQUA, THE EBON PRINCE: An exile prince from the Summer Isle, he had found his fortunes in the Disputed Lands and led a sellsword company.
LIOMOND LASHARE, THE LORD OF BATTLES: A famed sellsword captain.
SPOTTED TOM THE BUTCHER: Hailing from Westeros, he was captain of a free company in the Disputed Lands.
SER DERRICK FOSSOWAY, THE BAD APPLE: An exile from Westeros, and a knight with a black reputation.
NINE EYES: Captain of the Jolly Fellows.
ALEQUO ADARYS, THE SILVERTONGUE: A Tyroshi merchant prince who was wealthy and ambitious.
MAELYS BLACKFYRE, THE MONSTROUS: Captain of the Golden Company

Of the Nine, three are pirates who could provide the Golden Company with badly-needed naval support for their amphibious invasion. (Remember, the Golden Company is a land-based mercenary army that needs a lot of ships to transport itself by sea. Hence the whole malarky they get into with Volantis in ADWD.)

Three or four (depending on where you put Derick Fossoway) of them are other sellsword company leaders, no doubt there to provide additional manpower. This is also highly useful for the Golden Company – while they’re some of the best soldiers in the world, there are still only 10,000 of them and if you’re going to go up against the Iron Throne, you need manpower.

Alequo Adarys provided finance and a credible puppet-ruler in Tyrosh, and lasted the longest out of all of them.

So yeah, I think the Band of Nine were overall a positive. The only drawback I see is that trying to grab Tyrosh first might have delayed an invasion of Westeros, but it’s not like going straight for Westeros had been particularly successful in the past.

Follow up to the Royal Fleet question: Would you characterize the 200+ ship royal fleet under Stannis as being exceptionally well-maintained and centralized then, or do you think that most of that is holdovers from the build-up following the War of the Usurper and Greyjoy’s Rebellion?

More the latter.

Consider that the Royal Fleet was destroyed in that big storm when Dany was born and Stannis had to build a new one. That highly unusual circumstance meant that, for once, the royal fleet would not be a patchwork but rather a unified cohort of ships with the same longevity, which would be running out around the start of the ASOIAF timeline. This provides unusual opportunities to maintain a steady number of ships through rationalized maintenance and repair schedules and other procedures.

Now, an open question is to what extent the Greyjoy Rebellion offered an opportunity to overhaul the Royal Fleet – after all, the ships would be about halfway through their normal lifespan and here you have a war where naval power is absolutely necessary; likewise, the voyage around Westeros to link up with the Redwynes, the subsequent Battle of Fair Isle, and the various amphibious landings that followed it would put a good deal of wear-and-tear on the fleet. So it’s possible that the Royal Fleet got a refresh before or after the Greyjoy Rebellion.

All of that Watsonian explanation aside, I think GRRM doesn’t want the headache of tracking ship counts over time – he’s trying to tell a story, and it’s not a Patrick O’Brien story where that kind of nautical pedantry sells.