can you explain the stark civil war/succession crisis that happened when beron stark died?

Ok, settle in, because this is going to get byzantine.

The background of this is that Cregan Stark was a serial monogamist with a gift for children living to adulthood.

With his first wife Anna Norrey (who must have died young for reasons that will become clear in a second), Cregan had his firstborn son Rickon, who married Jeyne Manderly and had two daughters before dying outside Sunspear in the armies of Daeron the Young Dragon.

Cregan married a second time to Alysanne Blackwood after the Dance of the Dragons, and had four daughters (doesn’t seem like any of them had issue).

He then got married again to his cousin Lynara Stark (although where she came from is a bit unclear, but it must have been back a few generations at least since she wasn’t the descendant of his uncle and his grandfather only had two sons), and had four sons with her.

This caused something of a dynastic issue, because Rickon’s daughters Serena and Sansa had a claim that arguably would supersede those of his living sons and at least Serena was married into the Umbers so she had political backing. Meanwhile his living sons also had significant political marriages: Jonnel (the oldest) was married into the Ryswells, and Brandon (the youngest) was was married into the Karstarks (but sleeping with a highborn crannoglady from House Fenn).

As the Peter O’Toole in the Lion in Winter that he was, Cregan dealt with the situation by marrying his relatives to one another. Serena Stark’s Umber husband died, so that let him marry her to Edric (his second-oldest), and Sansa was married to Jonnel, whose Ryswell wife had also conveniently passed away. Problem solved, right?

Except that Jonnel died without issue (which leaves Sansa a loose end), then Edric had twin sons and two daughters (who married into the Umbers and Cerwyns, and had issue), except that Winterfell didn’t pass to any of them (the sons may or may not have been alive), instead it passed to Barth Blacksword (the third-oldest) and from him to Brandon. I don’t imagine this went over well with Edric’s wife, who had now been passed over twice and who had the Umbers and Cerwyns on her side and the Manderlys (although they might have been temporarily peeled off when the Manderlys married Rodwell Stark), but it’s not like the Karstarks were about to step aside when they had an adult male Stark with two half-Karstark sons waiting to inherit.

Beron was the youngest of those two sons, and was mortally wounded fighting Dagon Greyjoy’s Ironborn, leaving behind five sons who were probably around Egg’s age at the time. However, alongside Lorra Royce, Beron’s widow, you probably also had Arrana Stark and Aregelle Stark (the daughers of Edric and Serena) both of whom had issue and a claim that was undeniably better in everything but proximity, you might have had Lonny Snow or the Blackwood daughters still kicking around.

So you have a nasty combination of competing claims and competing power blocs.

Without dragons, the Targaryens were, on paper, one of the weaker of the Great Houses, relying more on their established seat at the head of the table, which gave them the ability to assemble coalitions against rivals & enemies, than beating them solely on their own muscle. Do you think this is the same dynamic on a lesser scale within the various realms, with Lords Paramount having less incomes & fewer levies than some vassals, using the advantages of Paramount status to maintain supremacy?

To a certain extent, that is ultimately the story of how feudalism dismantled the medieval state post-Charlesmagne, and why kings in many different kingdoms from the High Middle Ages onwards spent so much of their time trying to slowly expand their power vis-a-vis their overmighty vassals. However, it’s not necessarily true that the pattern repeats all the way down – the reason why certain vassals got overmighty is that a lot of lords were good at accumulating as much land as possible while distributing as little as they could get away with while keeping their followers in-hand.

Indeed, whether king or duke or count or baron, there are two basic rules to medieval politics that follow from the above: first, gain land/power for yourself to remain primus inter pares (while avoiding the level of monopolizing greed that might provoke rebellion), second, divide and rule among your subordinates so that you don’t ever have to fight them all at once and can thus overawe any one rebel vassal.

And we have some local examples of that: as the Reynes and Tarbecks found out, they did not have more income and more levies than the Lannisters…

Was it common for medieval kings to actively hold the noble classes in disdain? Something that I’ve seen somewhat regularly in medieval fantasy is a monarch that wants beneficial progress, but is blocked by the nobility, and hates them for it. Stannis is an example with his “if all the lords had but one neck” remark. Are these sorts of characters a bit of an overoptimistic take on absolutism, or did they turn up in real life?

Given the long history in many different countries of monarchs struggling with the aristocracy over centralization vs. decentralization of power, it’s not an inaccurate portrayal, but how common that attitude was did change over time.

I’m not sure I would always go as far as to say the class as a whole or as a concept was disdained – a lot of the centralizers would still defend at least the social prerogatives of the nobility against the peasantry or the urban burghers and none of them attempted to abolish or eliminate the nobility. Rather, the aim was usually to try to make the nobility a compliant and dependent part of the monarchical system.

Barbey Dustin says that she contributed as few of her men to the Stark host as possible. Would the Starks not be aware of how many men she can raise, and questioned this disloyalty?

Well, this gets us to the twisty nature of the feudal contract. As bilaterally-negotiated documents, feudal contracts could vary dramatically in terms of what kind of service was negotiated – how many knight’s fees your land was valued at, how many days’ service you were required to provide, how many men you had to bring, etc.

What this could often result is that there was a difference between the minimum a lord was required to kick in and the maximum they could actually bring to the table, and how many men actually showed up would depend on politics. If the king is popular and/or powerful, if the war is going well and there’s a good chance of winning loot/land, you bring extra men above your minimum requirement so as to gain royal favor. If the king is unpopular and/or weak, if the war is going badly and the risk/reward on participation is bad, you send as few as you can get away with.

We see this very early on in the War of Five Kings with Bran VI of AGOT: the lords who show up in full force to Winterfell are looking to gain something in return, whether it’s a military command, or Robb’s hand in marriage, or for him to give them some land or some use-rights, or to side with them in a dispute or what. Barbrey Dustin is making much the same political calculation, but in reverse: what’s the least amount of men she can get away with sending without incurring a felony?

Harys Swyft’s Coup

How was Harys Swyft able to consolidate power over the government so fast? The two Kettleblacks were arrested by Kevan, not Swyft, so why’d they stick around for Kevan to show up? Why’d Osfryd tolerate being stripped of command of the Goldcloaks without causing a Goldcloak civil war between himself and Humfrey Waters? And what was Osmund doing? Why didn’t Swyft remove him too? Wouldn’t the two have reason to skip town once they heard of Cersei’s arrest, like Owen Merryweather and Aurane Waters? And why did Qyburn tolerate being kicked off the Small Council? Why didn’t he move first and have Swyft ousted?

It was really Pycelle running the show, and Pycelle has decades of experience in royal government.
Osmund couldn’t run, he was a member of the Kingsguard. Osfryd was either loyal to his brothers or lacked the initiative to go on his own.
Who’d fight for Osfryd? Osfryd’s a transparent henchman of a deposed queen, so he doesn’t have any political influence after Cersei’s arrested. (Add to that that his brother’s just confessed to treason, perjury, aatnd murdering the High Septon.) Osfryd is an incompetent and frankly a bit dim, and he has absolutely no connections to the Goldcloaks, having been named about two months prior. By contrast, Humfrey Waters is the former captain of the Dragon Gate – he’s got substantial experience in the City Watch and likely made more than his share of friends – and has the backing of the King, the Hand, and the Grand Maester.
Probably stuck guarding the King.
Pycelle probably considered him less of a threat b/c he’s just one knight.
See above.
What’s Qyburn’s alternative? He’s Cersei’s appointee, and Cersei’s just been arrested. He has no pull with Tommen, no one in royal government knows or trusts him.

Two questions about bastardry if you’ll oblige. Firstly, is Catelyn’s fear of Jon’s children vying for control of Winterfell reasonable? Secondly, in AGOT Ned vehemently declares that Jon, as a bastard, would be shunned at court but we don’t really see that level of prejudice throughout the series; is this something GRRM decided to tone down a bit?

Broadly, yes. It’s a bit exaggerated – Catelyn does after all have three sons whom Ned has all claimed as his own, so a Daemon Blackfyre scenario is not likely – but there havee been cases where bastards have challenged or surplanted their trueborn kin (looking at you Ronard Dondarrion né
Storm, you cunning so and so).
I’m not sure how to view that comment, because I think you could see it from a number of angles. One answer is that Ned, wanting to keep Jon’s secret, does not want an entire court’s worth of gossips and conspirators wondering who the mother is. Another might be that Ned, not being familiar with King’s Landing politics, has overestimated the prejudice – it could well be the case that Jon would be sneered at behind his back or by the Lannisters, but a Hand’s favored bastard son is not a bad person for a courtier to cultivate. A third might be that court ettiquette follows the monarch – given Cersei’s murderous dislike of Robert’s bastards, she might have set the standard that bastards period are not welcome at her court. And finally, it might be an example of early installment weirdness.

i have a feudalism question. Youve said before that some lands belong to kings directly whereas others are owned by other nobles who pay tribute in taxes/military service to the king. But doesnt technically the whole realm belong to the king? Isn’t that the whole “sovereign ruler” schtick ?

It’s kind of complicated. The thing is that, in feudalism, almost no one actually owns anything outright in the sense that we think about it; rather property is distributed in various leases and use-rights and tenancies, all the way up and all the way down

And while in our 21st century capitalist mindset leases, use-rights, and tenancies sound like precarious second-class statuses that fall fall short of true ownership, that wasn’t the case in medieval societies. These statuses were backed up by tradition, law, and the willingness of very touchy mounted soldiers to go to war to uphold them against infringement from on high. Thus, even if something was de jure “owned” by the king, once noblemen felt that they had a right to inherit the fiefdom, de facto it became owned by those noblemen (save in the case of felony).

Is there a difference between freeriders and sellswords, or it more a case of all freeriders are sellswords, but not all sellswords are freeriders?

I thought I had answered this earlier, but searching through my archives and through google (because Tumblr’s search function is terrible) failed me, so I might as well do it now.

They are actually two distinct occupations, as explained by GRRM in one of his “So Spake Martin” Q+As:

“Sellswords are mercenaries. They may or may not be mounted, but whether ahorse or afoot they fight for wages. Most tend to be experienced professional soldiers. You don’t have a lot of green young sellswords – some, sure, but not many. It’s a profession a man tends to cho[o]se after he’s tasted a few battles and learned that he’s good at fighting….

Freeriders… well, that term is both broader and narrower. Narrower in that it excludes foot soldiers. You need a horse to be a freerider. Otherwise broader.

Freeriders are mounted fighters who are not part of a lord’s retinue or feudal levy. Some are veterans, sure, but also green and untrained recruits, farm boys on ploughhorses, men dispossessed by the fighting, a very mixed bag. They don’t as a rule collect wages. Some fight for plunder, of course. Other to perhaps to impress a lord or a knight, in hopes of being taken permanently into his service. For many it is simply a means to survive. If the war sweeps over your village, your house is burned, and your crops stolen or destroyed, you can hide in the ruins and starve, flee to the nearest city for refuge, take to the woods as an outlaw (the ones who do that are oft called “broken men”)… or you can saddle your horse, if you’re lucky enough to have one, and join one army or the other. If you do, you’re a freerider. Being part of an army at least gives you a better chance of being fed.

There are all sorts of freeriders, ranging from wandering adventurers who are virtually hedge knights (lacking only the knighthood) to the aforementioned farm boys on drays. Most are used as scouts, outriders, foragers, and light cavalry.

Obviously, there is some overlap between the two terms. A mounted man who fights for pay could be called either a freerider or a sellsword.

Both terms carry a certain stigma in Westeros. Sellswords are said to have no loyalty, and freeriders no discipline.”

So the distinction is that a mercenary is a professional soldier who fights for wages, whereas a freerider is an amateur volunteer who fights primarily for room and board with maybe a chance of plunder or getting a permanent job.

The social status of the freerider is interesting, because horses are quite expensive, and even a plowhorse is an indicator that a peasant family is doing well for itself and is probably among the upper ranks of the peasantry. Moreover, learning to ride and fight from horseback is not a simple endeavor and requires substantial training and spare time to do the training in.

Given this, it’s kind of interesting that someone would choose the economically precarious lot of the freerider. My guess is that you get freeriders through a couple different social processes:

Additional recruitment beyond the feudal levy. While most medieval wars were fought by professional soldiers, with traditional feudal levies being gradually phased-out, the longer and more intense a conflict became, the more you turn to additional sources of manpower and better-off peasants who have their own horses are an easy way to find additional cavalry.
“War is a young man’s game.” Another part of what might be going on is the trickle-down effect of a society and culture dominated by a warrior caste who conflate the virtues of masculinity and soldiering. Thus, we see situations like that of Rolly Duckfield or Dunk, young peasant men who dream of becoming knights even if their birth should rule it out might well be swept up in the romance of war and ride off to chase their dreams in the service of their lord, who’s unlikely to turn down “free” military labor.
Social mobility through any means necessary. Both historically, and in Westeros, working for the nobility was a good path to social mobility. Not only was pay, benefits, and job security pretty good, but because physical proximity is the coin of medieval politics, even low-level flunkies have a chance to raise in status. They’re probably nto going to become knights or lords, but they might well become sheriffs, which in turn might allow them to become an esquire and get their family officially into the lowest ranks of the nobility. So it may well be that, despite the lack of pay and the risk of death, peasant boys might think that the chance of getting into a lord’s service is worth it.

At what age would people in ASOIAF not try and marry widows like Donella Hornwood? She wasn’t able to have more children because of her age, but it seemed like everyone and their cousin was trying to marry her.

It’s not about child-bearing, since her children by someone else wouldn’t have a right of inheritance to her former husband’s lands. Rather, it’s about access to a widow’s “use-rights.” In many cultures, prior to the invention of life insurance or survivor’s insurance, widows had a customary right to use at least part of their former spouse’s estate for the rest of their lifetime, to ensure that they wouldn’t be left destitute.

Thus, marrying Lady Hornwood would give her suitor a claim to the Hornwood lands, at least for the duration of her lifespan. (Another sign of the Boltons’ abuse of the social contract is that Ramsay claims a permanent right to the Hornwood lands due to his forced marriage to/abduction of the widow Hornwood).

“The Boltons are planning to betray the Lannisters when they get a chance” Wait, what?

See here and here. Tywin’s original plan always had tension between the interests of the Lannisters and the Boltons:

“Why, do you plan to mistreat her?” His father sounded more curious than concerned. “The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark…Come spring, the northmen will have had a bellyful of krakens. When you bring Eddard Stark’s grandson home to claim his birthright, lords and little folk alike will rise as one to place him on the high seat of his ancestors.” (Tyrion III)

Lord Bolton will wed the girl to his bastard son. We shall allow the Dreadfort to fight the ironborn for a few years, and see if he can bring Stark’s other bannermen to heel. Come spring, all of them should be at the end of their strength and ready to bend the knee. The north will go to your son by Sansa Stark … if you ever find enough manhood in you to breed one. Lest you forget, it is not only Joffrey who must needs take a maidenhead.” (Tyrion VI)

“The price was cheap by any measure. The crown shall grant Riverrun to Ser Emmon Frey once the Blackfish yields. Lancel and Daven must marry Frey girls, Joy is to wed one of Lord Walder’s natural sons when she’s old enough, and Roose Bolton becomes Warden of the North and takes home Arya Stark.” (Tyrion VI)

So the Boltons would have the Wardenship and Arya, Tyrion would have Sansa and Winterfell, but that’s not a tenable situation over the long-term because only one of these houses can rule the North. So Tywin wants to wear down Roose Bolton’s power by having him fight the Ironborn and the Stark loyalists, and then turn on him to consolidate power in the person of Tyrion’s Lannister-Stark son.

Roose Bolton realizes this, but he also realizes that once he’s up in the North with his carefully-hoarded Bolton-Frey army, there’s really nothing the Lannisters can do to him all the way down in King’s Landing:

“Lord Bolton aspires to more than mere lordship. Why not King of the North? Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks. Old Walder Frey will not object to his fat little Walda becoming a queen. White Harbor might prove troublesome should Lord Wyman survive this coming battle … but I am quite sure that he will not. No more than Stannis. Roose will remove both of them, as he removed the Young Wolf. Who else is there?” (ADWD, Prince of Winterfell)