Tag: higher education

Hello! You’ve mentioned in a few places that Essos is more advanced and more urbanized than Westeros. But – though I understand it’s about relevance – 1) there are only so many cities mentioned, practically all of them save Norvos, Qohor & Vaes Dothrak are coastal. Doesn’t that leave most of the HUGE territory of Essos as just rural hinterland or waste (or ruin)? Do we know anything of it other than the disputed lands ? 2) What do we know of its scientific advancement compared w/the Citadel?

Hello!

  1. There’s also the unmentioned cities: “We speak of Nine Free Cities, though across the width of Essos one may find many other Valyrian
    towns, settlements, and outposts, some larger and more populous than Gulltown, White Harbor, or even Lannisport. The distinction that sets the Nine apart is not their size but their origins.”     Essos is so urbanized that cities the size of Lannisport go unnmentioned as unimportant. (Must remember to double-check my Essos population estimates against this.)
  2. Well, Tyrion’s journey down the Rhoyne gave us a sense of the Volantene hinterland, and I’d imagine you’d see similar wrt to the other city-states where room applies.
  3. Here’s what we know: Myr has advanced optics, advanced crossbows (which means a good handle on levers, gears, pullys), “fine woolens, lace, glassworks and tapestries….But Qohor has metalworking on lockdown, Tyrosh has dyemaking and distillation (which suggests chemistry) and competes with Myr on armaments, Lys is a competitor in the tapestries business and has a better chemicals industry than Tyrosh, Norvos is a competitor in the tapestries business, Braavos dominates in finance and is the only place that’s figured out the assembly line and interchangeable parts.” Pretty much all high-valued added manufacturing happens in Essos, as well as a huge amount of commerce in luxury goods (spices, silks, gemstones, exotic animals/skins). Whereas Westeros exports mostly natural resources (food, timber, wool, wine, furs, stone and metal), with a smattering of finished goods (Dornish silks and satins, linen from the Reach, gold and silverware from the Westerlands). So while we don’t know about Essosi higher education (and there’s signs that it must exist), their economies and level of technology are more advanced. So maybe the Essosi go in for applied vs. academic sciences?

Maester Steven, do you think there’s a reason that Essos lacks a comparable institution of higher education to the citadel given how they are comparatively far more developed than the seven kingdoms? And if so how do you think it would develop? I’d imagine that it would be much more a centralized place of learning for the children of magisters and other free city notables than the lifelong monastic commitment of the citadel. Probably with atlesst one existing in every major free city.

I’ve discussed this before here, but given their level of technology and literacy, Essos must have more of an education system than is shown in the text. 

There’s a couple possibilities:

  • Greco/Roman slave-tutoring: this fits the Free City’s social structure, even if that social structure isn’t super well-suited to their level of technology but w/e. Well-educated slaves tutoring the elite philosophy, rhetoric, and the rest of the trivium and quadrivium is certainly a long-lasting “successful” model of education, so there you have it. 
  • Local Academies: This is more likely in Braavos and Braavos-centric cities that don’t have slavery. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Essosi academies are A. more focused on Valyrian “humanism” as opposed to the Citadel’s relentless focus on empiricism, and B. more focused on applied sciences needed for finance, commerce, and high-end manufacturing than the Citadel’s trade-school-approach to feudal administration.