do lobbying?

Great question!

The answer is they do it quite a bit. Except during those rare times in which the Great Council is in session, there are no legislative politics per se – governments take action through the decrees and decisions of the king and his ministers, so if you want anything from the government, you have to do it through lobbying.

And we have a lot of examples of this in the series, leaving aside the omnipresent chivvying for lands and titles:

…the septa could not have known that today’s court would be anything but the usual tedious business of hearing petitions, settling disputes between rival holdfasts, and adjudicating the placement of boundary stones. (Eddard XI, AGOT)

Lord Redwyne asked only for thirty years’ remission of the taxes that Littlefinger and his wine factors had levied on certain of the Arbor’s finest vintages. When that was granted, he pronounced himself well satisfied and suggested that they send for a cask of Arbor gold, to toast good King Joffrey and his wise and benevolent Hand. (Tyrion III, ASOS)

Jalabhar Xho was the first to petition her that day, as befit his rank as a prince in exile. Splendid as he looked in his bright feathered cloak, he had only come to beg. Cersei let him make his usual plea for men and arms to help him regain Red Flower Vale…Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers be allowed to hatch any dragon’s eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the isle was safely back in royal hands…(Cersei VIII, AFFC)

Indeed, one could argue that courtiers are essentially lobbyists with better fashion sense.

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Arya III, ASOS

“I could have stayed with Hot Pie. We could have taken the little boat and sailed it up to Riverrun. She had been better off as Squab. No one would take Squab captive, or Nan, or Weasel, or Arry the orphan boy. I was a wolf, she thought, but now I’m just some stupid little lady again.” Synopsis: Arya has two conversations with Harwin, one more honest than the other. SPOILER WARNING: This chapter…

View On WordPress

Anon Asks:

gazyrlezon:

racefortheironthrone:

How much land would huge cities like Rome or Constantinople or Athens or the free cities in ASOIAF need to feed the population of just that urban city?

Great question! The answer is: large cities in any period of history, be it during classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, well into the Industrial Revolution, require a very large hinterland to provide the necessary food to feed their populations.

On a general rule of thumb, you’d generally expect cities of those size to command the resources of the countryside around them for at least several day’s travel distance from the city (basically, as far back as you can reasonably get goods to market before they go bad).

However, all of the cities you mention are port cities, which changes the story somewhat: Rome drew its food supply not just from Italy but also from western North Africa etc., Constantinople drew its food supply both from nearby Anatolia and Thrace but also from Egypt, and the Free Cities can draw their food both from their hinterlands but also from Westeros or other parts of Essos.

Actually, this got me thinking: Were there ever any cities of comparable size that were entirely landlocked and supported purely by their surroundings (before, say, the Renaissance, or even the industrialization)?

@racefortheironthrone: Your answer seems to imply there were some, but I can’t think of any. What have I missed?

Well, there is a middle ground between a port city and being landlocked – being on a river (think the city of York, on the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss) or on a major overland trade route (Florence).

But yes, there were landlocked cities although they tended to skew somewhat smaller than port or riverrine cities: for example, landlocked Madrid was 30,000 strong in 1561, whereas Paris was more than 150,000 strong by that time. Similarly, Vienna in 1500 had 45,000 residents, while London had about 100,000 at that time.

Before the introduction of modern communications such as radio, how would a naval commander go about coordinating his fleet’s movements in battle?

Flags!

While flags and other signals have been used throughout history, beginning in the 17th century there was a movement to standardize their use and link individual flags to letters and numbers, so that extensive messages as well as standard signals could be sent.

The way it usually worked is that you’d have a lookout on the crow’s nest of each ship who would look out for the signals of other ships and shout or run the message down to the deck, and then some of the crew manning the ropes who would send up particular sequences of flags when ordered to. While each ship could obviously send and receive information on its own, generally the rule was that the flagship (and yes, that’s where the name comes from) would initiate orders and then ships would re-broadcast that message out to the rest of the fleet, and then other ships would send back updates, warnings, requests, etc. to the flagship.

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Sansa II, ASOS

She would wear her new gown for the ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor…that must be why Cersei is having it made for me, so I will not look shabby at the wedding. Synopsis: Sansa gets a new dress, goes hawking with Margaery, and has a conversation with Ser Dontos. SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of…

View On WordPress

Hi Maester Steven, lover your blog. From time to time both in ASOIAF and in actual history, I see references to ‘the [adjective] Marches’ or ‘[noun] of the [adjective] Marches’. What exactly are ‘marches’, in this context? A general term for border regions, or something more specific? And how did this concept get this name? Thanks.

Marches do indeed refer to border regions and the lords who live in them are called marcher lords (or marquesses or margraves, etc. depending on the language).

Because Marcher Lords were expected to defend the frontiers of the realm against raids and full-scale invasions, they were given certian legal privileges. For example, Marcher Lords tended to be direct vassals of the king with no intermediary liege lords; they had the right to build castles, which otherwise required a license from the king; they had powers to wage war in their regions without seeking permission from the king; they had administrative and judicial autonomy (for example, they could grant charters that otherwise were the prerogative of kings), and had the exclusive right to “any and every feudal due, aid, grant, and relief" from their vassals instead of kicking those bennies up to the king, giving them the revenue needed to maintain their castles and armies.

In essence, you can think of marches as semi-militarized border zones where the central authority has ceded certain powers to the local authorities in a bid to get them to settle in and raise castles in very dangerous regions so that they can provide the central authority with a dedicated first line of defense.

In what fashion would a royally chartered city be punished for not upholding it’s feudal obligations (say by refusing, in times of war, entrance too and use of the city by forces loyal to the crown)? – Thank You, RSAFan.

Well, it depends who won and how they wanted to proceed. The City of London, for example, was known for its Yorkist sympathies, but Henry Tudor understood his need for the capitol (and its capital) outweighed any desire for revenge. But losing your charter might be a potential punishment – indeed, the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament to punish Boston for the Tea Party are an 18th century example.

Worst-case scenario?

Münster

in 1534-5, which was put under siege by its own bishop (the chartered city in this case was part of a prince-bishopric), starved out, and then sacked.

Besides carrying the standard, would a standard bearer typically have any other duties?

The standard bearer’s primary role is to motivate and help direct the troops by showing them which direction they were to go and where they should rally to in the confusion of battle – thus why standard-bearers were chosen from among the strongest and bravest, to make sure that they would be right at the front of every charge and would never abandon their position even in the most dire situation, which in turn would ensure that the soldiers looking to them for guidance would not go astray.

In the Middle Ages, it was also common for standard-bearers to act as bodyguards for the lords and kings whose banners they held. For example, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, when Richard III made his suicidal cavalry charge intending to kill Henry Tudor, Sir William Brandon (Henry’s standard-bearer) placed himself in between Richard and his prey and was slain by the king, saving Henry’s life. Equally impressively, Richard III’s standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thirlwall, kept the Yorkist banner flying even after losing both of his legs.

Did medieval nobles value land itself, apart from the money they could make out of it or the defensive value? Did controlling a number of acres give you prestige by itself, or would people always ask how fertile it was and what you were producing from it?

Medieval nobles probably wouldn’t measure prestige in acreage or income; that’s much more of an Early Modern/19th century thing (think Jane Austen, where members of the gentry are sized up as having or “being on” “four or five thousand a-year.”). Rather land would be described in looser, more traditional terms: a “goodly” or “well-stocked” manor or fiefdom, as a barony or a county or duchy, etc.

As to how they felt about the land itself, it’s a bit complicated in the Medieval era, because technically, nobles didn’t own the land itself but rather owned an “estate in land,” i.e various rights over that land. Then again, virtually no one owned land outright, with it being far more common for people to have various tenancies and sub-tenancies. So the land (apart from the land held by the lord directly as opposed to rented out) is less important than one’s rental income.

This changed rather dramatically beginning in the late Middle Ages, as statues like Quia Emptores gradually allowed for the easier sale and purchase of land, and as cash rents replaced feudal obligations – leading to the period known as “bastard feudalism.” Basically, as lords increasingly began to own land outright and pay for soldiers directly as opposed to giving away land for feudal service, all of the sudden the nobility has a much higher stake in land management, because the more cash you can get out of your estate, the more men you can pay to be part of your affinity.

So if you’re a nobleman with an eye for the coming thing, you’re going to hire some people to turn any wasteland you might own into productive land by draining fenland and the like, you’re going to support the enclosure movement to get your hands on the commons, you’re going to invest in modern farming techniques, and try to raise rents whenever and however you can.

What is the difference between a city charter and a town charter? What are the advantages each brings? Also how does a charter affect the people and how would a Lord Paramount or the King grant a charter? Does someone ask for one or does the Lord/King decide where the new city or town will be built and how?

City charters offer more extensive rights than town charters (and generally speaking, if a city had a city charter, it would include the rights of a town charter but not vice-versa). So for example, a town charter might provide borough rights (i.e, its inhabitants are burghers not peasants) and some measure of self-government but only a city charter would give you the staple or storage right (which was necessary to conduct international trade). a town charter might give you the right to hold a market but you might need a city charter to the right to establish a warehouse (which was very important for long-distance, international, and bulk trade).

In terms of how a charter affects the residents of a town, it provided a whole host of legal, political, and economic opportunities that could change one’s status enormously. Being a burgher meant that you not only had the right to live in the town, but that you were a free person under the law and not a serf. Living in a chartered town or city probably meant that there were guilds you could join and become a member of, and it definitely meant access to markets and trade and occupations that could not be accessed outside of that town/city. It might mean that there was a city government that you could vote for or run for office in if you got wealthy enough.

While there are cases of charters being granted ahead of construction – often as a means of enticing people to move to a new (and therefore risky) settlement – usually, the settlement would predate the charter. The way it normally worked is that you had a settlement of people who would petition the king or overlord for a charter, the charter would be written out and sealed (as we see above), and there would be a big ceremony where the king/overlord would present the charter to the city government, after which the city would now exist as a legal corporation.