Dear maester steven, I was wondering if I could ask you something regarding Deepwood Motte. You mentioned the coast nearby was one of the few places on the west coast of the North where a large number of ships could be held, and this seems right as Asha docked enough ships here for the 1000 Ironborn that took the castle. However, the books describe the coast as being tidal flats, which aren’t good for docking ships unless they have been dredged. Did they dock somewhere else on the Bay of Ice?

Ah, I see what the issue is. You’re thinking deepwater ships, whereas the Ironborn primarily use longships which have extremely shallow drafts and a fairly flat bottom.

Unlike a deepwater ship, which can’t really be beached without some very complicated launching procedures, longships can be hauled up off the beach and pushed out to sea very easily, which is part of the reason they were so suited to hit-and-run riverrine missions when you wanted to go a-viking.

So a tidal flat is actually ideal for longboats, as you can sail/row them up pretty close to the tide line, portage them if necessary, and the tide makes launching them again super-smooth. Meanwhile, galleys and other ships with long fin keels and deep drafts can’t pursue the longship onto the tidal flat lest they run around.

On what part of Planetos do you think R’hollorism first arose? I’m assuming not Asshai (although there’s probably a mission or semi-heretical sect or something) because a cult with a black-white moral system that aggressively tries to denounce other religions couldn’t have survived an infancy in a place as libertine as Asshai.

You think a city that lives “by-the-Shadow” where the very stones try to devour light, wouldn’t be attracted to a religion that worships the Light and believes that “the night is dark and full of terror”?

Moreover, Melisandre says:

“In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.“

That suggests that Asshai was one of the earliest centers of R’hllorism.

Do you buy the pre-Conquest historical record of ASIOF? The apparent stagnation of the thousands of years that supposedly separate the Long Night, the Andal invasion, and the events of the books seems very suspect to me. Of course, it could simply be an authorial choice, but Martin’s routine use of unreliable narrators makes me more inclined to think the Long Night was “actually” no more than a couple thousand years prior to the books and that Martin is imagining a Phantom Time hypothesis.

Yes I do, but I entirely disagree that it’s a history of “stagnation.” Indeed, this is one of my pet peeves about the ASOIAF fandom – Westeros is not stagnant either technologically (moving from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages), culturally (the arrival of the First Men, their assimilation with CotF culture, the arrival of the Andals, the assimilation of most First Men into Andal culture, the “Old God and the New” tolerance, the arrival and integration of the Rhoynar into Dorne, etc.), or politically (the shift from a hundred kingdoms to Seven, then from Seven to the Iron Throne, then from Targaryen hegemony to the Baratheon dynasty to civil war).

Moreover, WOIAF actually supports a narrative of technological change over time:

…in the first age of the world, the Dawn Age, men were not lettered. We can be certain that the world was far more primitive, however—a barbarous place of tribes living directly from the land with no knowledge of the working of metal or the taming of beasts…

…The children of the forest …worked no metal, but they had great art in working obsidian…They wove no cloths but were skilled in making garments of leaves and bark…they made their homes simply, constructing no holdfasts or castles or cities…

…unlike the children, the First Men farmed the land and raised up ringforts and villages. And in so doing, they took to chopping down the weirwood trees, including those with carved faces, and for this, the children attacked them, leading to hundreds of years of war. The First Men—who had brought with them strange gods, horses, cattle, and weapons of bronze—were also larger and stronger than the children, and so they were a significant threat…

…the Valyrians hungered for…copper and tin for the bronze of their weapons and monuments; later iron for the steel fo their legendary blades; and always gold ans silver to pay for it all…

…the Rhoynar…were said to be the first to learn the art of iron making…

…the Andals brought iron weapons with them and suits of iron plates…The fact that the Andals forged iron has been taken by some as proof that the Seven guided them—that the Smith himself taught them this art—and so do the holy texts teach. But the Rhoynar were already an advanced civilization at this time, and they too knew of iron, so it takes only the study of a map to realize that the earliest Andals must have had contact with the Rhoynar…and it would not be the first time that men learned of the working of iron from the Rhoynar; it is said that the Valyrians learned the art from them as well, although the Valyrians eventually surpassed them…

…Sweeping through the Vale with fire and sword, the Andals began their conquest of Westeros. Their iron weapons and armor surpassed the bronze with which the First Men still fought, and many First Men perished in this war…

…The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow again and deserts bloom…

…Tyrosh…not long after the city’s founding, however, a unique variety of sea snail was discovered in the waters off the bleak, stony island where the fortress stood. These snails secreted a substance that, when properly treated, yielded a deep dark reddish dye that soon became wildly fashionable amongst the nobility of Valyria. As the snails were found nowhere else, merchants came to Tyrosh by the thousands, and the outpost grew into a major city in the space of a generation. Tyroshi dyers soon learned to produce scarlet, crimson, and deep indigo dyes as well by varying the diet of the snails…

…The artisans of Myr, many of slave birth, are also greatly renowned; Myrish lace and Myrish tapestries are said to be worth their weight in gold and spice, and Myrish lenses have no equal in all the world…

…The oldest of these—a long-abandoned tower, round and squat and covered with gargoyles—has become known as the First Keep. Some take this to mean that it was built by the First Men, but Maester Kennet has definitively proved that it could not have existed before the arrival of the Andals since the First Men and the early Andals raised square towers and keeps. Round towers came sometime later…

…after Qhored, a slow decline began. The kings who followed QHored played a part in that, yet the men of the green lands were likewise growing stronger. The First Men were building longships of their own, their towns defended by stone walls in place of wooden palisades and spiked ditches…The arrival of the Andals in the Seven Kingdoms only hastened the decline of the Iron Islands, for unlike the First Men who had gone before, the Andals were fearless seamen, with longships of their own as swift and seaworthy as any that the ironborn could build. As the Andals flooded into the riverlands, the westerlands, and the Reach, new villages sprang up along the coasts, walled towns and stout stone-and-timber castles rose over every cove and harbor, and great lords and petty kings alike began to build warships to defend their shores and shipping…

…Braavos has a wall of ships such as no other city in the world possesses…the true wonder is the Arsenal. There, one of the purple-hulled war galleys of Braavos can be built in a day. All the vessels are constructed following the same design, so that all the many parts can be prepared in advance, and skilled shipbuilders work upon different sections of the vessel simultaneously to hasten the labor. To organize such a feat of engineering is unprecedented; one need only look at the raucous, confused construction in the shipyards of Oldtown to see the truth of this…

And so on and so forth.

Indeed, I would argue that if there is inaccuracy in the historical record, it actually is the appearance of stagnation, due to later chroniclers reinterpreting the history of eras thousands of years ago to fit the social order of their own time. As the WOIAF notes:

And besides the legendary kings and the hundreds of kingdoms from which the Seven Kingdoms were born, stories of such as Symeon Star-Eyes, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, and other heroes have become fodder for septons and singers alike. Did such heroes once exist? It may be so. But when the singers number Serwyn of the Mirror Shield as one of the Kingsguard—an institution that was only formed during the reign of Aegon the Conqueror—we can see why it is that few of these tales can ever be trusted. The septons who first wrote them down took what details suited them and added others, and the singers changed them—sometimes beyond all recognition—for the sake of a warm place in some lord’s hall. In such a way does some long-dead First Man become a knight who follows the Seven and guards the Targaryen kings thousands of years after he lived (if he ever did). The legion of boys and youths made ignorant of the past history of Westeros by these foolish tales cannot be numbered.

It is best to remember that when we speak of these legendary founders of realms, we speak merely of some early domains—generally centered on a high seat, such as Casterly Rock or Winterfell—that in time incorporated more and more land and power into their grasp. If Garth Greenhand ever ruled what he claimed was the Kingdom of the Reach, it is doubtful its writ was anything more than notional beyond a fortnight’s ride from his halls. But from such petty domains arose the mightier kingdoms that came to dominate Westeros in the millennia to come.

So has Westeros been in medieval stasis for eight thousand years? No. Westeros was in the Bronze Age until 6000 years ago, with the ancient Kings of the First Men having far more in common with Agamemnon or Hammurabi than they would with Edward III. If the account of the Rhoynar bringing steel into Westeros is accurate, then Westeros has only had steel for a thousand years and in that time has already hit the Late Middle Ages.

Consider by contrast that the European Iron Age lasted ~1,800 years, and the Middle Ages another 1,000 years.

Pegging Westerosi technology at mid 14th century – early 15th century depending on location (mail and leather in some places, full plate and armored horses in others) but with a total lack of gun powder. Assuming gunpowder never appears where does military technology and tactics go in the next 100 years? Woud a Renaissance with out gunpodwer resurect roman tactics? Also assuming the others don’t knock them back to the dawn age

That’s a great question! Without gunpowder, you’re not going to get the same movement from medieval armies focused around knightly charges to the pike-and-shotte tactics of the Early modern era, so you’re going to see a different development pattern.

In the short term, I think the Golden Company’s model of combined arms and disciplined infantry is going to become dominant once someone realizes how much there is to gain from upgrading the quality of Westerosi infantry and having them work in concert with the cavalry rather than independently.

You might see cavalry tactics shift somewhat if the Dothraki have a big impact on Westeros, similar to how the Byzantine cataphracts adopted the horsebow and hit-and-run tactics from the Huns, the stirrup from the Avars, etc. Westerosi knights are pretty damn effective already – if you could train them to use composite bows, you’d have a really frighteningly effective force on the battlefield.

And eventually, someone’s going to figure out how to make an effective repeating crossbow with a decent range and penetrating power, and then you’re likely to see a different kind of pike-and-shotte tactics:

Where is Littlefinger spending all the money he is embezzling, that his lands are a pile rocks with one guard, 23 sheep, and seaweed for breakfast? He can’t afford, i don’t know, a better house, or maybe some more sheep? Actual food?

I’d recommend reading “Who Stole Westeros?” to find out more of my thoughts on this, but…

The short version is that Littlefinger is using his money to buy ships, urban real estate, lending money at interest, speculating in commodities markets, and acting as your classic putting-out merchant type with an eye to vertical integration.

If you’re asking why he doesn’t have more land (other than the lands of Harrenhal, which are quite extensive if slightly cursed), it’s that Westeros doesn’t have a free market in land, wherein land becomes a fungible commodity that can be bought and sold at will and abstracted into derivatives and futures, etc.

Land in Westeros is distributed through feudal relationships that are traditional and customary in nature – fiefdoms are hereditary, taxation and rent levels are fixed, and tenancies are more likely to involve feudal obligations than pure cash rents.

Two questions regarding your endgame: 1) Will there be a new monetary policy in Westeros such as the fiat system? 2) Will Westeros strengthen or weaken ties with Essos?

Not sure what you mean by my endgame…if you mean the end result of my Economic Development Plans, then here’s what I think:

Gradually. Note that pretty much all of my plans include the development of finance and banking. With that will come an expansion of non-metallic financial instruments being used in the economy: letters of credit, banker’s drafts, cheques, and bank notes. It will take a while for these things to spread beyond the relatively narrow confines of the urban bourgeoisie, however, even with an active state promoting the use of them by making them legal tender for taxes, for example.
Absolutely. Again, pretty much all of my plans involve expansion of commerce with Essos, albeit with a very keen eye toward climbing the value added ladder as quickly as possible. In the long run, it’s not good for Westeros to be a natural resources exporter only.

what was Davos smuggling pre- Robert’s Rebellion ? Was there an active black market in goods in Westeros ? And an effective system of port duty collectors that needed to be evaded ? And who would have been backing him ? Also, did Davos break the siege of Storm’s End as a freelancer ? If not, who hired him ?

Given the size of Black Betha, Davos would have prioritized goods of a high value to size ratio. His former master Roro Uhoris, for example, sold weapons to the wildlings in exchange for furs, ivory, amber, and obsidian (and got hanged for it). From his conversation with Salladhor Saan, Davos used to specialize in smuggling spices and silks from Braavos, Myr, and Volantis, which fit the bill as being both very valuable and relatively compact.

As most royal taxes are excise taxes of some kind and there is a pretty substantial bureaucracy of harbormasters, customs sergeants, factors, etc. there is an active black market and a small industry of men like Davos Seaworth and his former master who evade them for a profit. In terms of who backed him, Davos used to work with Salladhor Saan, for example.

Davos went to Storm’s End of his own accord.

RE: Founding of White Harbor. I guess it was headcannon, but do you think Manderlys brought other people from the Reach with them such as skilled shipbuilders? Also explains the high concentration of Seven worshipers in White Harbor since Northerners, granting a liege lord’s push, seem VERY reluctant to convert. If don’t think Reach folks came with the Manderlys, curious on backstory of converting Wolf’s Den to the Seven? Would it have been forced or local smallfolk did so on their own accord?

Oh, I’m absolutely certain they did – as a powerful noble House, the Manderlys would have brought their bannermen, soldiers, servants, etc. on their flight from the Reach, along with their wodgers of cash. You can even see that in the traditional title of the House as “Defender of the Dispossessed” – at the beginning at least, this likely referred to the people who the Manderlys brought with them who had lost their lands and property during the Manderlys’ expulsion.

I have a few questions regarding chartered cities, if that’s alright. First, how did the populations of the cities break down in terms of class? You’ve said that the people living in one are legally considered burghers, but surely not everyone would be of the middle class. Would many people be working higher income jobs than serfs, and be wealthier on average due to the lack of feudal taxes? Would there be taxes, if slightly lower, for the upkeep of the city? (1/2)

(2/2) As well, would cities have militia or a police force, similar in size, equipment and role to the goldcloaks in King’s Landing? Finally, would burghers be expected to join in military campaigns? If so, would they commonly have better equipment than the average serf due to their greater wealth? Thanks, and sorry about all of the questions.

So, as a legal term (as opposed to a class distinction), burgher originally meant that you are a citizen of the town (burgh means a town, and going further back means a fortified settlement), with the right to reside in the town and enjoy its rights and privileges. The social class of burghers that emerged in the 11th century were the elite of the towns and cities who were leaders of the guilds and who had the status necessary for being a city official.

In terms of Medieval urban class structures, we don’t have anything like good enough evidence to give detailed population breakdowns – and there’s a lot of social categories that don’t fit well into modern conceptions of class. For example, by the Early Modern period (when we have better statistics), about 20% of the population were servants – do we see these people as part of the poor or working classes, when being a servant was almost always a time-limited occupation where people in their teens from a range of backgrounds would work as servants until they had enough money set aside to set up their own household?

Likewise, I’ve seen some Early Modern figures that say that around 27% of the population of London were apprentices – again, our perspective of these people’s class position depends on how likely they were to make the climb up to journeyman and then master, which would radically alter their class position. Certainly, apprentices would have been seen as better off than unskilled laborers.

In terms of income, yes, city-dwellers tended to have higher wages (and living standards) than rural peasants, but you have to balance that against their significantly worse mortality statistics – living in a medieval or early modern town or city was a recipe for epidemic disease, so lots of people died in the cities. So city living was something of a gamble of higher wages in the short-term vs. increased likelihood of death in the long run?

There were taxes – burgage taxes for leasing property (and later on, being a voter), murage taxes for building and maintaining walls, pavage taxes for streets, pontage taxes for bridges, and so on. But most of these taxes were property taxes, so if you didn’t own property (or if you were a sub-tenant), you didn’t pay. There were fairly hefty import, export, and other customs duties, which your average laborer would pay indirectly.

Yes, there were militias, and they did tend to be better trained and equipped, because the towns and cities could support them from public revenue. And if they had enough money, they could even hire a mercenary company.

Sorry, another question. Where/why/how did medieval cities tend to develop?

There’s a huge literature on this, and there’s no one right answer, but…

Where – Medieval Cities developed around pre-existing (usually Roman) cities or settlements, cathedrals and other centers of worship, major castles/the courts of kings and major nobles, significant points on rivers, roads, and passes, and ports.

Why – usually to offer specialized goods and services to a place where permanent or steady demand existed. So at cathedrals you get stonemasons, makers of stained-glass-windows, candlemakers, etc. And those people in turn need brewers and bakers and butchers, etc. Nobles need smiths, tailors, clothmakers, clerks, lawyers, moneylenders, etc. And so and so forth.

How – usually a combination of the gradual accretion of population and the acquisition of a charter.