Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Jaime II, ASOS
“…wolves’ work, or maybe lions, what’s the difference?”
Synopsis: Jaime, Brienne, and Ser Cleos arrive at the Inn of the Kneeling Man, where everybody knows your name.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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Good question!
So I’ve talked a bit about how you become a courtier, a bit about various offices, a bit about how you would get paid (or not)…But let’s say we’re talking about someone who isn’t one of these people, who is literally just a hanger-on: what do they do with their days?
A big part of what they’re there for is access. Since royal politics is far more organized around proximity to the person of the monarch and, further out from there, proximity to people who are proximate to the person of the monarch, just being around the court means that you can present petitions, ask for favors or money (you’d be amazed at how good nobility were at mooching), and (more importantly) get money from less important people for doing it for them. (There’s not a huge difference between being a courtier without office and being a lobbyist.) But mostly, you’re hanging around waiting to be noticed and given your big break, just like show business.
So while you wait, a big part of your life is entertainment. Remember, these hangers-on are nobility; by definition, they don’t work for a living and would be horribly offended if you suggested that they should. So they have money from the family’s estates, and they spend their lives in the pursuit of pleasure – and to do that, you need a big enough concentration of highborn folks that you can do social events. So there’s hunting, feasting and drinking (and other recreational substances), dancing, having affairs, GAMBLING (for reckless gamblers, you really can’t beat that combination of cultural disdain for money and aristocratic competitiveness), amateur and professional arts, and other organized activities, and some of them are socialized as male and some as female and some as mixed (because courts are also marriage markets, because one of the ways that people who don’t work make their way in life is by marrying well). And as smart people like @goodqueenaly and @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly have written about, these entertainments had symbolic political functions, which is why people paid for them to happen.
And another big part? Gossip, rumor, and public opinion. In the absence of a news media, it’s handy to have a big group of well-connected people who have nothing to do but talk about what’s going on. You’d better bet that there are ambassadors who hang out with or pay courtiers-without-office for the latest scuttlebut about what the king and his family and his officials are up to, so there’s real value here. Likewise, if you’re the king, the royal family, and the government, without any way to assess public opinion, the court is the only sounding board you have – and it’s a sounding board that is connected to the broader political class, because all of these hangers-on will talk to their relatives and peers back home – so it matters if a proclamation or decree or policy is very unpopular at court. And since no one’s getting elected, the standing of any official is their popularity with the court, so rumor could “make or mar.”
So that’s what the idle rich did with their lives.
It’s somewhat complicated, but this is actually quite accurate to medieval societies. While there were a bewildering number of different kinds of land tenures under feudal law – everything from knight service and serjeanty to scutage, socage, copyhold, and quit-rent – it was extremely rare for land to be owned outright without any form of obligation or traditional responsibility to anyone. What is known in common law as freehold ownership was very rare, and in most cases until quite recently were actually “customary freehold,” which was itself a kind of copy-hold lease.
This is why Polayni argued that state action was necessary to bring into being a free market in land, to turn it into a fungible commodity that could be bought and sold, that could be turned into futures and other forms of derivatives, etc. The vast vast majority of those feudal tenures were all based on custom – rents and rights and obligations were usually fixed either by some document held at local manorial courts (copyhold for example is a form of tenure where tenancies were written down in the rolls of the manorial court and tenants were given a copy to ensure that the terms of their tenancy couldn’t be altered), or by tradition (in the common law, a property or benefit that had been held since “Time whereof the Memory of Man runneth not to the contrary” did not need any record other than the memory of the oldest man in the parish), and could only be changed with great difficulty subject to challenge in court.
However, this doesn’t mean that people were not possessive of land – ask any number of medieval kings who faced aristocratic rebellions when they tried to transfer fiefdoms or “innovate” their way to some new revenue – but rather that they didn’t think of possessing land as being free from all other claims. If a given manor had “belonged” to a family for hundreds of years, they thought of it as theirs, even if they had to pay traditional rents to a liege lord or give three pheasants a year to the local bishop.
Great question!
Jack Cade was a fascinating character. We know almost nothing about him personally, except that he was from Kent, and that he sometimes used the name John Mortimer, which some people at the time thought suggested a claim to the throne of England through Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the heir presumptive to Richard II, and part of Richard Duke of York’s claim to the throne. (Another reason why some people then and now think he was working for the Yorkists.)
We do know a good deal about why Cade’s Rebellion happened because he published a manifesto in 1450 – which by itself suggests that he was either educated himself or as others have suggested that he was working with Yorkists – called “The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent.”
The Complaint is a fascinating look at the politics of the immediate pre-Wars of the Roses period. It’s a classic bit of “evil councilors” political rhetoric, blaming the ills of England on the fact that the king is surrounded by “insatiable, covetous, malicious persons that daily and nightly are about his highness, and daily inform him that good is evil and evil is good” and setting forth a list of grievances:
So as you can see, the manifesto is pretty Yorkist in tone, but it’s pretty authentically rooted in complaints about the direction of public policy in 1450. And it was enough to get 5,000 men to take up arms behind Jack Cade.
Jack Cade then defeated the royal force to put down his rebellion at Sevenoaks, marched into London and declared himself Lord Mayor, and then had James Fiennes (HIgh Sherriff of Kent, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord HIgh Treasurer of England, Baron Saye and Sele, and a major supporter of the Duke of Suffolk) and his son in law put on trial and executed for treason.
Unfortunately for him, Jack Cade and his men got drunk and started looting the city, at which point the people of London got sick of him, closed London Bridge against him and fought a pitched battle to hold the bridge, which caused Cade to retreat having suffered heavy casualties. Cade was then persuaded by Archbishop (and Lord Chancellor) John Kemp to disperse his army, issuing general pardons and promising to fulfill the Complaint’s demands.
Henry VI then revoked those pardons and put a 1,000-mark reward on Cade’s head, who was tracked down and mortally wounded. His body was given a mock trial and beheaded, then quartered so that his limbs could be sent to various cities in Kent as a warning to anyone else who got ideas.
As to why you haven’t heard more of him, he was immortalized in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2.
To quote Wolf Hall:
“I hope he doesn’t think still of invading France.”
“God damn you! What Englishman does not! We own France. We have to take back our own…Mind you, you’re right…We can’t win,” the duke says, “but we have to fight as if we can. Hang the expense. Hang the waste – money, men, horses, ships. That’s what’s wrong with Wolsey, see. Always at the treaty table. How can a butcher’s son understand-”
“La gloire?”
So yes, if you look at English politics from the 15th century on, there was a good deal of revanchism. A good deal of the Wars of the Roses began as a split between the peace faction of the Duke of Somerset, his brother the Cardinal, and the Duke of Suffolk, and the war party of Richard Duke of York and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who blamed Suffolk and Somerset’s military incompetence for the loss of much of England’s territories in France.
And you see the same tensions outlasting the Hundred Years War. When Edward IV went into exile in 1470, he went to Burgundy which had been England’s ally against France and where the Duke was Edward’s brother-in-law. Burgundy gave Edward the cash he needed to return to England when France declared war on Burgundy, making a friendly Yorkist king in England a useful check on French aggression. (Meanwhile France was a major supporter of the Lancastrian claim, due to their links to Marguerite d’Anjou.)
In 1475, Edward IV actually went to war with France and landed in Calais with 16,000 troops, but when Burgundy failed to follow through with military support, the French paid him 75,000 crowns plus a yearly pension of 50,000 crowns to forgo his claim to France and abandon Burgundy. Charles the Bold died two years later at the Battle of Nancy, leading to the collapse of the independent duchy of Burgundy and its incorporation into France.
Richard III hadn’t been a huge fan of Edward IV’s deal with France, going so far as to refuse the pension that France had agreed to pay him, especially when France renewed its Auld Alliance with Scotland to keep the English busy, leading to war with Scotland in 1480. Richard’s well-known anti-French sympathies led the French government to provide troops to Henry Tudor to overthrow him.
Henry VII repaid his French assistance with some rather spectacular double-dealing. When France supported Perkin Warbeck the imposter in a bid to keep England divided, Henry invaded Brittany. On the other hand, he was happy to be bought off with the French dropping Warbeck and giving him 742,000 crowns, even if this meant betraying Britanny, since he didn’t really care about regaining England’s lands in France. On a third hand, he allied himself with Spain and signed a peace deal with Scotland (in both cases through dynastic marriages) in an effort to isolate France. His more romantic son Henry VIII was very much interested in regaining England’s lands in France, and went to war with France in 1512, 1513, 1521, and 1544.
Note that the Kings of England maintained their claim to the French throne until 1i902.
Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Davos II, ASOS
“Ser Davos, and undrowned. How can that be?”
“Onions float, ser.”
Synopsis: “Sing to me, oh muse, of the man resourceful, who, storm-buffeted far and wide…”
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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That seems to be the case, according to the WOIAF:
“An example of the differing Dornish laws and attitudes due to the influence of the Rhoynar may be found, curiously, in the last days of the Dance of the Dragons. From Archmaester Gyldayn’s history concerning Gaemon Palehair’s brief reign.”
So it probably is the case that Dornish veterans have to be supported by their lords, or that “the poor be given bread and beer in times of famine,” since we definitely know that in Dorne it’s definitely the case that “girls [are] equal with boys in matter of inheritance.”
Now, specifically on the point about veterans and real-world medieval practice…it’s hard to say, and it depends on how systemic a practice we’re talking about, and how many veterans survive their wounds vis-a-vis the capacity of the state. It’s certainly true that the medieval Catholic Church ran huge networks of hospitals that were as much about providing people with food and shelter as any form of medical care. And sometimes, you did have monarchs who would go out of their way to care for their veterans – after the failure of the Spanish Armada, for example, Phillip II provided medical care to the 10,000 survivors in attempt to expiate God’s wrath. On the other hand, Elizabeth’s government coldly refused to care for the sailors who had helped to save England purely for financial reasons.
Fortified bridges were a real thing and lots of people built them; I don’t know that they particularly distinguish one noble house as an analogue to the Freys, necessarily.
Rather, I think the correct analogue to the “Late Lord” Walder Frey is the perfidious Thomas Stanley:
”Lord Stanley…came from a staunch Lancastrian House, but was married into the Yorkists through the Earl of Warwick. At the Battle of Blore Heath, one of the opening battles of the war, Stanley raised 2,000 men at his King’s command but then withheld them just a few miles away as a Lancastrian army was defeated by a smaller Yorkist force. When Edward IV took up the Yorkist cause, Stanley defected and fought alongside the new King; when Warwick defected from Edward IV, Stanley fought to restore Henry VI for the last time. Remarkably, he managed to get appointed to Edward IV’s royal council even after his betrayal. He then married Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor, while helping Richard III fight the Scots. Famously, Stanley held back his forces at Bosworth Field despite Richard III holding his son hostage, and then charged Richard’s rear once the King was fully committed, personally crowning Henry VII to make sure he ended up on the right side.”
As his reward for conspicuous disloyalty to both sides and general amorality (Stanley is one of the candidates for having actually killed the Princes in the Tower), Stanley was raised from a baroncy to the Earldom of Derby, was made a knight of the Garter, Lord High Constable of England, High Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, Chamberlain of Chester and North Wales, and many many other honors, offices, and lands.
And what makes it worse is that, as his family prospered quite well under the Tudors, his descendants were patrons of William Shakespeare, who made Stanley out to be a righteous and loyal vassal in his plays. Just goes to show that it really doesn’t matter who writes the histories as much as who pays for the histories to be written.
Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Iron Islands (Part II)
When we last left off with the political development of the Iron Islands, the Old Way had come crashing down thanks to the arrival of the Andals to Westeros and the ambitions of men with axes. What would fill the void was yet to be discovered…
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This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten this question, but I looked and couldn’t find a post where I’d answered it before, so I might as well.
Syrio took the job precisely because he’s the ex-First Sword. The old Sea Lord died, there was an election, and the new man wanted his own First Sword instead of Syrio, so Syrio needs to find a new job.
And the problem with being a bravo in Braavos is that there are a lot of bravos looking for work, so competition is fierce and underemployment is rampant (hence why so many bravos run protection rackets or resort to mugging or begging with menaces).
We don’t know whether the Sea Lord died of natural causes or whether Syrio left in disgrace because the Sea Lord died on his watch, but it could well have been the case either way that he found it difficult to find employment in the city, because it’s not the best branding.
Alternatively, one of the ways you get work as an ambitious bravo looking to make your name is to kill a bravo with an established name, like say Syrio Forel. Now, the First Sword doesn’t run, but Syrio Forel might have grown weary of killing hot-headed young men and decided to move to somewhere that wasn’t something he had to deal with on a regular basis.
As for why King’s Landing? It’s a big city near to Braavos that doesn’t have a culture of bravos, as most of the Free Cities do (remember, water dancers are from Braavos, but not all bravos are water dancers). And while the nobility might not hire him for their sons, King’s Landing has a thriving merchant community (and not a small number of foreign merchants) who might want their sons to learn the blade even if they’re unlikely to become knights.
Also….he could also be an actual dancing master. A lot of swordmasters taught dance as well – footwork, balance, timing, etc. are critical to fencing so a lot of the skills carry over, the training rooms are essentially identical so if custom flags in one area you make up the difference in the other.
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