What was the effect of the Roman Empire being able to tax enough to support its army upon its populace? With medieval governments being smaller than the Roman one, did that mean a peasant in medieval Europe was taxed more lightly and was economically better off than his Roman counterparts? Or, was the Empire able to tax the wealthy more effectively, or have a more productive economy due to the sort-of globalization inside the Roman world? Or, did medieval taxes just support nobility lifestyles?

The main effect seems to have been a great deal of internal economic growth and peace, as we can see from the fact that Roman cities grew in size but didn’t build walls until the crisis of the third century.

In terms of your second question, I lean more towards the effective taxation of the wealthy angle (at least at the height of the Empire’s power), as medieval taxes tended to have higher rates and more regressive forms to make up for the fact that the medieval state often didn’t tax the wealthy effectively.

Calculating GDP per capita in premodern eras is extremely difficult, but it does seem as if there was decline or stagnation at best in living standards between 1 AD and 1000 AD, with a slow recovery during the High and Late Middle Ages, which picked up steam during the Renaissance and Early Modern eras, and then really took off following the Industrial Revolution.

This is kind of a follow up to the Aegon reforms question and I apologize if it is a bit long or boring. Do we have any information (or do you have any guesses) on how towns, cities and municipalities overall are originated and administered? Burghers were generally a separate class from manoral peasant IIRC and had unique privileges as well (though I may be wrong). Most municipalities seem to predate the Targs though so it seems a little unclear how is overseeing here. Additionally do you think

status hierarchy varies at all by region? I seem to recall from the Defiance of Duskendale section of WOIAF that Lord Darklyn was partially inspired by the fact that the Dornish lords retained their ability to autonomously administer cities (which is odd because they apparently don’t have any!). I completely understand if you want to correct me somewhere or if you think GRRM has not really developed this part of the worldbuilding.

One correction: Darklyn was primarily inspired by the Essosi paradigm (where you have full city-states), not the Dornish paradigm: “It was Lord Denys’s desire to win a charter for Duskendale that would give it more autonomy from the crown, much as had been done for Dorne many years before, that began the trouble. This did not seem to him such a vast demand; such charters were common across the narrow sea, as Lady Serala most certainly had told him.” (WOIAF, Aerys II)

The answer is we don’t know much. We know that city charters exist, we know they involve autonomy from the crown on some matters, notably “port fees and tariffs,” and that they require royal approval in the Crownlands and used to as well in the Riverlands when they were independent.

One thing we can say is that the most expansive form of rights, where cities were completely self-governing communes answerable to no one but the king, doesn’t exist in Westeros. White Harbor is ruled by the Manderlys, Oldtown by the Hightowers, Lannisport by the Lannisters, Gulltown by the Graftons.

From the little we know, city charters seem to be largely focused on taxation and other economic regulations – city charters allow cities to set their own port fees and tariff rates to some extent, allowing them to more effectively compete for trade. I say to some extent, because we know that Tywin and Aerys II fought over tariff rates and port fees at Oldtown, Lannisport, and King’s Landing, so it’s clearly not full autonomy.

Based on historical parallels and the fact that city charters are expected to lead to expansion, my guess is that the main things that Westerosi charters involve are:

the right to hold markets and fairs and regulate them.
the right to establish public warehouses where goods can be stored.
the staple right, which means foreign merchants have to unload their goods in your town and exhibit them for sale there for a given period before moving on.
some sort of autonomy or revenue-sharing on port fees, tariffs, and other taxes on commerce.

Is asoiaf’s depiction of minor lord’s living in poverty realistic? For instance, Godric Borrel can’t afford to repair or heat his castle, has his meals cooked and served by his own family, and even his liege lord can’t afford to equip his own sons as knights.

Absolutely, that’s one of the more realistic things about ASOIAF. Here’s the crucial factor to consider about the economics of the nobility – in feudalism, rents are generally fixed at traditional rates. Which means that the nobility are more exposed than most to economic shifts, especially shifts in prices.

One of the reasons why we see peasant revolts in the 14th century following the Black Death (which greatly decreased the labor supply and thus raised wages, at a time when noble incomes were declining because their rent-paying tenants were dying or running away) and then again after the Great Price Revolution (which raised the price of everything, and thus was a major real income cut for people on fixed incomes) is that these events hammered the economic position of the nobility, the nobility responded by trying to violently restore the balance of power (both by trying to freeze wages and worker mobility, which often meant attempts at enforcing or re-establishing serfdom), and the peasantry responded with violence in return.

Now, the greater nobles were better able to adapt to changing economic circumstances – they had more land and more liquid capital, so they could convert more easily to pasturage and thus get into the lucrative cloth trade, they could invest in new commercial and industrial ventures, etc.

But the lower nobles didn’t. Hence the figure of the impoverished nobleman, who becomes ubiquitous from Don Quixote to Jane Austen to the freaking Bluths.