Hi! Couple of questions: what does a steward actually do, and what were the real-world equivalents of maesters and Hands of the the King?

A steward is the chief servant of an estate: they are responsible for the condition of the buildings, the productivity of the land, whether the taxes are being paid, and at least in the early period, they were also in charge of the household and thus managed all the staff.

However, the term can also be used to describe more illustrious offices: in the UK, the Lord Steward is one of the highest-ranking officials of the royal household and historically both carried out normal stewardly duties (for the king, mind you) and carried messages between King and Parliament and swore in new members of Parliament; the Lord High Steward is one of the Great Officers of State, outranking even the Lord Chancellor, responsible for bearing the crown during coronations, historically responsible for trials of peers in the Lords, and attached to the Earldom of Leicester since the 12th century.

In Holland, Norway, Denmark, etc. the etymologically equivalent term – statholder – referred to an official appointed by a feudal lord (more often king) to govern part of their estate, essentially a royal governor.

In the real world, the closest thing to maesters were university-educated priests, who were among the literate elite and thus invaluable in running both secular and church bureaucracies. There isn’t exactly a Hand of the King analogue, because historically no one gave out that many powers and authorities to just one man. The Hand is like the entire Privy Council rolled up into one.

Matt Asks: House Guardsmen

This may have been asked before, but the Great Houses at least (Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, Arryn, ect) all have large bodies of Guardsmen (who I assume are the equivalent of men-at-arms at least) who seem a separate class from household knights.

Would these be the equivalents of personal retainers for these Houses, and do any ‘lesser’ Houses have them?

Pretty much all noble houses above the lowly position of Ser Eustace Osgrey have guardsmen – in fact, they’re obligated to have them, as part of their feudal contract to supply fighting men to their liege lord.

Take Rohanne Webber, for example. House Webber is a minor house, a vassal to a Lesser (though principal) House, with one modest castle and ~60 tiny villages worth of peasants. And yet Lady Webber can assemble 33 fighting men, including six knights and six squires (plus Longinch), a dozen mounted crossbowmen, and nine men-at-arms, without calling a general levy.

What is the difference between tax farming and collecting rents in the context of Westeros? Like for the smallfolk in the Crownlands, would I deal with a tax collector (to pay taxes to the king) and an overseer (if I live on lands owned by the king)? What about in other regions? Sorry if this is a really silly question or if I am misunderstanding something. My English is not the best.

There’s quite a few differences.

Who you pay: in traditional feudal taxes and rent, you’re paying to the lord of the fief, who is bound by recriprocal feudal obligations, the custom of noblesse oblige, and a certain long-term interest in keeping his tenants a going concern. With tax–farming, you’re dealing with a middleman who is bound by nothing and has no long-term interests at all, since tax-farming contracts are usually strictly time-limited.
How much you pay: traditional feudal taxes and rents were fixed by custom and law, and usually recorded as well. While this had the effect of making past injustices very hard to shift, it also meant stability and predictability. Tax-farmers, by contrast, paid for their contract through an auction process, were looking to turn a profit on their investment, and could impose whatever rates they wanted to – which meant higher rates and substantial unpredictability.
What you pay: a lot of feudal taxes and rents were either in kind or in the form of labor, which is handy when you’re a farmer who has lots of agricultural produce but not much cash on hand. Tax-farmers are far less interested in going through the messy process of storing and selling these goods, and tend to want cash on hand, which is not good for farmers.

There’s also an issue of sub-infeudation – i.e, the layering of land ownership from king down to lord to lesser lord to knight to peasant. So normally in the Crownlands you would pay your rent and your taxes to your local knight or lord, and then they’d pay their feudal taxes to their liege lord, who pays their taxes to the lord of the principle house, who pays their taxes to the king.

If you lived on the King’s own land as opposed to lands that he gives out as fiefs to the various lords of the Crownlands, you have a simplified system where you pay your taxes and rents directly to the King as your liege lord. Unless the king sells the right to collect to some tax farmer…

Does the “Right of Pit and Gallows” give lords the authority to decide the law in their holdings, like a modern legislature, or merely the authroity to interpet continent-wide Westerosi law on a disgressionary basis, like a modern judge?

Here’s what we know – the right of pits and gallows is the right to imprison and execute, respectively. How the lords execute that right is unknown.

We know two other things of importance: first, we know that liege lords can act as courts of appeal, and the king as the supreme court, because we see that in Eddard XI. Second, we know from the WOIAF that Jaehaerys I established a single royal law code, and if it exists, it must be used somehow.

So here’s my best guess: maesters in the Citadel are educated in the law from Jaehaerys’ code and the various precedents of interpretation. They advise the lord as to what the law is (and depending on the lord, they might be the judge in all but name) but don’t have the power to make the lord follow it. (Although, as the keepers of the ravens, they do have the power to potentially inform on their lord…) However, a decision that violates the code might well be reversed by that lord’s liege lord, because it’s technically treason and would (if found out about) bring the wrath of the Iron Throne down upon the lord might their liege who failed to uphold the king’s laws.

On the other hand, that all depends on whether anyone with influence gets the word out. If a lord decides to hang a common peasant who the law says shouldn’t be hung, the chances of a successful appeal or reproach to the liege lord are extremely slim, unless some other knight or lord makes it an issue. (For example, if a lord hangs another knight or lord’s peasant (like Dake from Sworn Sword), or the peasant in question happens to be a servant of someone important who takes offense) A merchant or very rich peasant might have enough money to pay a maester to draft a formal complaint or to bribe the liege lord into hearing their case, so that’s riskier. A knight or lord, and now you may very well be talking about either an appeal or a rebellion.

WarsofASOIAF Asks: A Successful Aegon V Reformation

Couple days back I was asked a question about how an Aegon V reformation would go down. Let’s say you’re the Hand of Aegon V. The Fortunate King has been able to successfully get all four of his marriages to go off without a hitch. I’m sure some form of your EDP’s will make their way into it, but what sort of acts would you do to reform and restructure the government for the sake of the smallfolk?

Cheers,

-SLAL

As I talked about a while back, it’s very hard to know what Aegon’s reforms consist of, because GRRM is very unspecific about them and because a lot depends on what precisely is the legal status of westerosi smallfolk.

But if I had to guess, I would say that there probably would be a lot of legal reforms – royal judges and sheriffs, eliminating the right of pit and gallows, the right to a jury, etc. – given the lawlessness of the period (especially in the Westerlands), Egg’s experience with local conflicts between nobles in the Reach, and so on.

Given that he gave food to the North during winter (which may also have been prompted to his trip to Winterfell), I think he was definitely focused on charity during natural disasters and the like.

But beyond that, I don’t know.