A galley is a ship primarily powered by rowing, tends to be rather long and narrow with a relatively shallow draft. Galleys were the dominant seacraft in the Mediterranean from the classical era through to the 16th century, especially in the era before gunpowder weapons where naval combat focused on ramming and boarding.
A galleas is a heavier galley – they were higher on the sides, they were longer than galleys, and they were slower. They also tended to have more masts and thus more sails than galleys, relying less on oarpower (although they had oars) in order to use the saved space for gun-decks, which meant that they could pack a lot more firepower than a galley. In a sense, the galleas is a transitionary ship between the pre-gunpowder era and the gunpowder era of naval combat.
A cog is a sailing ship without oars, that emerged in the 10th century in the Baltic. Cogs are made from oak, have a single mast, and a square sail. They’re small ships designed for ocean-going commerce, not warships.
Carracks are larger sailing ships than cogs, with three or four masts, which were perfected by the Portugese in the 15th century. With more sails than the cog, you can sail a bigger ship faster, which made the carracks excellent for long sea-voyages and long-distance commerce, because their larger holds allowed you to carry more goods and supplies. When you think about the voyages of Columbus or Magellan, you’re thinking about carracks.
“Might be you fooled these others, crow, but don’t think you’ll be fooling Mance. He’ll take one look a’ you and know you’re false…”
Synopsis: Jon Snow meets Mance Rayder.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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1. Lady Falyse looked as if she were about to cry. “Your Grace is good to ask. Mother’s hip was shattered by the fall, Maester Frenken says. He did what he could. Now we pray, but …”
Pray all you like, she will still be dead before the moon turns. Women as old as Tanda Stokeworth did not survive a broken hip. “I shall add my prayers to your own,” said Cersei. “Lord Qyburn tells me that Tanda was thrown from her horse.”
“Her saddle girth burst whilst she was riding,” said Ser Balman Byrch. “The stableboy should have seen the strap was worn. He has been chastised.”
Was Bronn behind Lady Tanda’s fall from her horse?
I like to think that something like this happened.
2. When I ordered Bronn seized, one of his knights had the insolence to say that I should do as Lord Stokeworth said. He called him Lord Stokeworth!“ Lady Falyse clutched at the queen’s hand.
How come none of the Stokeworth garrison came to Falyse’s aid?
“…the news comes from Rome that the Emperor’s Spanish and German troops, who have not been paid for months, have run wild through the Holy City paying themselves, plundering the treasuries and stoning the artworks…Thomas More says that the imperial troops, for their enjoyment, are roasting live babies on spits. Oh, he would! says Thomas Cromwell. Listen, soldiers don’t do that. They’re too busy carrying away everything they can turn into ready money.” (Wolf Hall)
Here’s the thing about sacks: While they are awful on a human level, they are not the end of the world when it comes to property. Soldiers are running around stealing stuff, but they can only steal as much as they can carry away and are going to prioritize precious metals. So the losses are going to be partial and uneven rather than total, and if you’re lucky enough that your money is in real estate or wool rather than gold, you might escape the sack altogether.
And the loss of human life means that if you’re lucky enough to survive, you have some opportunities: lots of dead people means property that can be snapped up on the cheap, means wages are going to go up (because labor supply just dropped), means less competition in your given trade so you can put up your prices.
And all of these factors also mean you’re likely to see an increase of migration into the city – if you’ve got some small capital, you might be looking to buy some real estate or set yourself up as an artisan or a merchant; if you don’t, you probably can get better wages in the city than you could in Duskendale, so why not move?
Sure. So here’s GRRM’s description of Bittersteel (emphasis added):
His real name was Aegor Rivers, and he was the natural son of King Aegon IV by his fifth mistress, Lady Barba Bracken. Younger than Daemon Blackfyre, older than Bloodraven. Bittersteel was also a warrior, and looked the part. He was only half Tagaryen, so he got the purple eyes, but his hair was black. As a adult he wore a beard, cropped very short, little more than a shadow on his face and jaws. Somewhat of a Conanesque look to him, but not the Frank Frazetta Conan and definitely not the Arnold Conan, more the Barry Windsor-Smith version, or the one described by REH – he is tall and well made, but lean and lithe as a panther. And angry. No smiles here. Bittersteel was pissed off all his life, and had a special loathing for Bloodraven and his mother, who had displayed his own mother as the king’s favorite.
For reference, this is what Barry Windsor-Smith Conan looks like:
So where is the parallel/deconstruction?
Personality-wise, Robert E. Howard described “Conan, the Cimmerian,” as “black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” So Bittersteel certainly got the sullenness and the melancholies, if not the “gigantic mirth.”
However, I think there’s more to the parallel than that. Conan was a purely physical hero, who defeated evil wizards like Thulsa Doom or Thoth-Amon or supernatural monsters like Thog of "Xuthal of the Dusk" or the demon Khosatral Khel, by being impossibly fast, strong, resilient, and iron-willed. And Conan begat a whole series of musclebound “sword and sorcery” heroes who would vanquish puny wizards with a swing of the sword…which in the 1960s led Michael Moorcock to create Elric of Melniboné as the anti-Conan.
Where Conan was dark and muscled like a panther, Elric was a frail albino. Where Conan was a practical man imbued with unstoppable will and relentless energy, Elric was neurotic, introspective, and self-loathing. Where Conan was a warrior, Elric was a sorceror. The only time Conan got his hands on a magic sword, he promptly broke it across the head of one of his enemies; Elric’s story was defined by his struggle with the sword Stormbringer, a sentient vampiric blade that gave Elric strength and vitality but demanded souls in return.
The old school SAT analogy is clear – Bittersteel:Bloodraven::Conan:Elric. Bittersteel is a dark-haired warrior who trusts in his own strength alone, Bloodraven is an albino sorceror with a magic sword. And just as Conan and Elric represented duelling tendencies within the genre, Bittersteel and Bloodraven are set against each other form birth, born into an ancient blood-feud, competing over the love of the same woman, choosing opposing sides in a life-long civil war, and both of them extending their conflict into eternity – Bittersteel through his mercenary company and his deathbed vow, Bloodraven through the magics of the greenseers.
There is something that fascinates me, and is Tywin and Stannis parallelism and admiration for each other. Tywin speaks of how he always felt Stannis as a grander threat that the rest of them (kings) combined, but even so he makes the same mistake than with Robb, namely, “his sun set at the Blackwater” “the rest of them are usurpers and thieves”. While Stannis spoke of how, with Robert holding his hand, both saw someone on the Iron Throne so solemn that they thought it was the king and even when Steffon confessed them that it was Tywin the hand, Stannis believed that was the image a king should have (just like Jon said Jaime was the image a king should have).
I say this because, while both have the same outward behaviour, is the same as Aerys and Robert’s behaviour, namely, Stannis and Tywin are very introverted, only in public when neccessary, frown upon them all, etc.
BUT, and here’s the problem, they are actually the same face on different coins, while Aerys and Tywin are faces on the same coin, Robert and Stannis are another coin, though Robert was corruptible and therefore worn away until it was unrecognizible but Stannis’ face has been kept untarnished. I say this because, well, summing up, Tywin is a gilded surface with a rotten core, while Stannis is a rotten (or simply rough) surface with a golden core.
I want to know where did they differ. I understand Tywin continously hearing mocks under a house whose ancient history he was keenly aware of (and therefore asking himself why do they have to suffer such shitty behaviour) but so is Stannis, specially after knowing Robert was horned, it was more than love for Robert (love that they did have, embittered as that may be) like humilliation for their entire house, the “Lannister woman” laughing at him. So, where did Tywin finally break and think that image and not substance nor acts were more important whereas Stannis chose to do the right thing? Where did they diverge?
And also, another thing I was thinking, having into account that Renly most likely was an attempt to give Rhaegar a royalblooded bride, and supposing that Robert is equally socially skilled with women as well as men, it may mean that Female Stannis STILL holds Storm’s End while leaving his two supposed children (as Rhaegar would have another plot-excused reason to have his third child with Lyanna, Ice and Fire after all) in Dragonstone, and I mean, Female Stannis would be a Doctoral Thesis on duty. What are your thoughts on that?
Wow. That’s a lot to take in. I guess I could see the parallels to an extent, but I don’t know if I agree entirely. For one thing, I think Tywin always cared about power primarily, and image only as it extended to power, whereas Stannis’ fixation on law counter-balanced his resentment.
“The old woman smelled of rosewater. Why, she’s just the littlest bit of a thing. There was nothing the least bit thorny about her.”
Synopsis: Sansa meets ALL THE TYRELLS Margaery and the Queen of Thorns.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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Cellador is alongside Marsh and Yarwyck when they go to address concerns from Marsh and Co.
Septon Cellador cleared his throat. “Lord Slynt,” he said, “this boy refused to swear his vows properly in the sept, but went beyond the Wall to say his words before a heart tree. His father’s gods, he said, but they are wildling gods as well.“
Is Cellador’s opposition towards Jon based in part on being prejudiced towards those who follow the old gods or as he calls them "wildling gods”?
This is just an educated guess, but probably milk.
The problem with farming for meat is that prior to the agricultural revolution of the 18th century, something I talk about in my economic development series in reference to growing cereal crops, it was difficult to keep meat animals alive over the winter due to lack of food for them. Hence, you’d slaughter animals when they were roughly a year old, which limited their growth and thus how much meat you could get from them. (Lack of refrigeration and other means of storage was also a problem.)
During the agricultural revolution of the 18th century, you have a number of interlocking developments that changed that:
Changing rotation of crops to replace fallow fields with turnips, clover, hay, and other legumes. Not only do these help restore nutrients to the soil, which improves the yield of cereal crops, but they also meant that you now had a new source of fodder to feed your animals and could afford to keep them alive over the winter.
Introduction of water-meadows. Water-meadows are areas of grassland that are irrigated to keep them continuously damp, which promotes the early growth of grass, which allowed for animals to be pastured on these meadows in those tricky periods of late winter/early spring where you’ve run out of winter fodder but the legumes and grass haven’t kicked in generally.
Selective breeding of livestock. By carefully breeding animals for specific traits, farmers profoundly reshaped the economic potential of entire species. To give an example, the “average weight of a bull sold for slaughter at Smithfield was reported around 1700 as 370 pounds (170 kg), though this is considered a low estimate: by 1786, weights of 840 pounds (380 kg) were reported.”
The combination of these factors meant that animals were now routinely being kept alive over the winter, which means they produced much, much more meat, especially once farmers created breeds of cattle especially for that purpose.
And when I say more meat, I mean cows that looked like this:
That’s a square cow. That thing couldn’t be more genetically modified unless it came shaped in detachable burger shapes.
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