Tag: house stark

Who were the “She-Wolves of Winterfell”?

“a group of formidable Stark wives, widows, mothers, and grandmothers that I dubbed ‘the She-Wolves“

Based on the timeline, we can work out who most of them are:

  • Larra Royce, wife/widow of Lord Beron Stark, mother of Donnor, Willam, Artos, Berena, Alysanne, Errold, and Rodrik. 
  • Myriam Manderly, widow of Lord Rodwell Stark (Beron’s older brother), no issue.
  • Alys Karstark, widow of Lord Brandon, mother of Lord Beron and Lord Rodwell.

Those are the three I’m most sure about. However, we know the She-Wolves were five in total, so there’s room for two others, and there’s a bunch of possible candidates to fill those slots:

  • Arrana Stark, daughter of Edric and Serena Stark, wife to Osric Umber, who has kids AND/OR Aregelle Stark, daughter of Edric and Serena Stark, wife to Robart Cerwyn. Either or both would be an interesting pick, because they both have issue, and they represent competing succession claims: Edric Stark was the third son of Cregan, whereas Beron and Rodwell succeeded from Brandon, who was the youngest of Cregan’s sons; moreover, Serena Stark was the daughter of Rickon Stark, Cregan’s oldest son (and was married to Edric to reconcile the claims). So they could plausibly argue that their claim is better than that of Beron and Rodwell and their heirs.
  • Serena Stark, if she’s still around, would probably want her line to regan the lordship that was lost to them when Rickon’s daughters were passed over in favor of his half-brothers. (Which does sort of muddy the “In the north the children of a man’s body still come before his uncles, ser.“ thing from Jon IV of ADWD.)
  • Wylla Fenn, highborn mistress of Lord Brandon Stark and mother of Lonnel Snow, the last surviving son of Lord Brandon’s body. 

Am I forgetting any? This period of Stark history is tangled indeed. 

How exactly did the Manderlys receive their fief in the North? Did some Stark King hear of their fate and take pity? Or were the Manderlys actively looking for new land? A House migrating from one Kingdom to another never happened before or since then, right?

As I’ve discussed here, here, and here, the Manderlys went into exile with a good bit of portable income and were looking for not just land to settle on but royal protection (they were for all intents and purposes exiled fugitives), and the Starks were looking for a House with ready income to take over the Wolf’s Den and solve the tricky problem of the security of their eastern border:

“A thousand years before the Conquest, a promise was made, and oaths were sworn in the Wolf’s Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies. The city is built upon the land they gave us. In return we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!“

As for a House migrating, we’ve definitely seen some examples of this: the Blackwoods moved from the North to the Riverlands, and lots of Andal Houses would have moved from the Vale to the Riverlands to the Westerlands and the Reach. 

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). 

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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. 

Is Rickon bound for death in Winds of Winter? I can’t figure his involvement in the narrative other than to provide Davos with a certainly thrilling excursion to Skaagos. Rickon can’t be a true KITN contender if Robb’s will surfaces and that it is a pretty well smoking Chekov’s gun. Your thoughts on Rickon’s arc?

I think he’s there to set up internal conflict in the North. 

If Wyman Manderly believes Rickon Stark to be the last living legitimate son of Ned Stark, you’d better believe he’s a true contender for the Northern throne. I imagine there’s going to be not a few people who’ll argue that Robb wrote his will believing Rickon to be dead, so that invalidates the will. 

Likewise, I’m sure the forces of the Vale will argue that Sansa is the last legitimate child of Ned Stark, and that Rickon is an imposter pretending to be a dead prince. In rebuttal, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Manderlys argue that Sansa is an imposter put up by the treacherous Littlefinger and that sons come before daughters.

Similarly, in Jon Snow’s camp, there will no doubt be arguments from the Glovers, Mormonts, and Reeds that the will should trump all, that an adult male proven warrior is a better choice than a child or a woman. (On the other hand, when R+L=J comes out, that’s going to complicate the situation, because bastard-born or not, Jon Snow comes from the female and not male line of the Starks.)

Why is Bronze Yohn so committed to the cause of House Stark to the point of being in “near open revolt” over Lysa’s failure to support Robb ?

  1. The Starks and the Royces are kin: Beron Stark married Lorra Royce, so all Starks since Beron have Royce blood in them.
  2. Ned and Yohn were contemporaries and knew each other pretty well: Ned was fostered at the Eyrie where the Lord/heir to Runestone would have frequently attended court, Yohn was at the Teourney of Harrenhal, Yohn almost certainly fought with Ned during Robert’s Rebellion, Ned hosted Yohn at Winterfell when Waymar Royce joined the Night’s Watch, etc. 
  3. Yohn rightly views the Lannisters as his personal enemies: Yohn was there when Robert died, he was put on Cersei’s enemies list, and managed to get out of the Capitol ahead of the Goldcloaks. 
  4. Yohn is likely one of those Valesmen who blame the Lannisters for the death of Jon Arryn.
  5. Yohn’s a traditionalist and views Lysa’s failure to fight in defense of her own kinfolk as failing in the honor code of the Vale.

How does infeudation works in stark lands? Glover and thallarth and cerwyn have lands but the cassels . Are the clans directly loyal to winterfell or they are like the umber, boltons etcccc

Good question!

The Glovers and Tallharts are “masterly” Houses, which makes them equivalent to landed knights – as principal Houses, they hold a lot of land (Deepwood Motte/the Wolfswood and Torrhen’s Square respectively) directly from House Stark, but they don’t have the right of pit and gallows. Instead, on Glover or Tallhart land, justice comes from the Starks themselves (which fits with Northern custom and tradition).

The Cassels and the Pooles are minor, unlanded nobility (i.e, sworn swords or the equivalent of household knights) in customary service to the Starks of Winterfell: the Cassels serve in various military capacities as master-at-arms, captain of the guard, castellan, etc. whereas the Pooles serve as stewards of Winterfell.

The Cerwyns are regular bannermen of the Starks: they have their own land near Winterfell, they have their own castle, they have the title of lords, indeed they even have vassals in the form of House Condon. So technically the Cerwyns have a higher status than the Glovers or Tallharts, even though the Glovers and Tallharts have much more land than they do.

The hill clans are direct vassals of Winterfell, and given the unusual terms of their feudal contract with Winterfell, I’ve argued that they were probably among the first vassals of House Stark. Notably, unlike the Umbers or Boltons (and most of the other Northern houses), there are no records of the hill clans being subjugated in war by the Kings in Winter. 

Still, to be fair to the video here, considering Brandon the Builder was the founder of House Stark and his reputation as a craftsman, wouldn’t that suggest he was technically of small-folk origin by birth who capitalised on his engineering prowess/feats to become the King of Winter, thus likely starting off as someone’s subject/vassal before climbing the social ladder after the Long Night?

I doubt it, for a couple reasons: 

  1. There’s at least some legends that suggest that Brandon the Builder was a grandson of Garth Greenhand, which if true would make him highborn indeed. 
  2. Bran would have had to have been highborn in order to give the Gift to the Night’s Watch. 
  3. Given the high degree of likelihood that Brandon the Builder was the Last Hero, the fact that he started out with “a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions,” suggests noble status.

Maester Steven, thank you for the quick answer. Though there are several historical accounts of various gruesome executions that took place in the North (13 deserters entombed in the wall, entrails hanged in heart tree, Pink pavilion, flaying, Theon Stark’s Easter Island Corpse Statues, etc), the Starks, in recent times, seemed to have adopted a more moderate stance. Is this correct and if so, why go in that direction and did the North suffer certain drawbacks from this stance on justice?

Well, as I’ve talked about with the Starks and personal justice, I think it’s more a statement of judicial philosophy than moderation per se. 

The Starks essentially invert the normal order of medieval justice as Foucault saw it: rather than making the royal body symbolic and larger than life, it’s made literal as the king becomes the executioner; rather than dwelling on the obliteration and humiliation of the body, the emphasis is on one precise strike with a Valyrian steel sword, almost an artisan guillotine.

In some ways, it’s actually most reminiscent of the classical Greek model that Hesiod wrote about, where lords and kings are local warlords who people come to lay their cases in front of, because they’re the only people around who can enforce judgement. In that situation, carrying out the execution yourself is a dramatic political display, showing off the personal strength and martial prowess of the king which is the proof of their right to rule. 

But I think there’s another purpose to Ned’s thing about “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” One of Hesiod’s major, major complaints is that the lordly system of justice is corrupt – given that the judges are literal strongmen, they don’t really give a damn about fairness, so the parties come to them with bribes disguised as tribute, and the king sides with the rich man over the poor man. By having the king be personally implicated in the execution, he’s making a public statement that the king is sure that the condemned deserves to die (because if the king kills someone who’s innocent, that’s when supernatural retribution kicks in…) and that therefore the justice system is honest. 

So I think that it’s something that historically worked in favor of the Starks. As with the Justmans, personally identifying the Starks with justice created a strong bond of loyalty between subject and sovereign. And the Starks lived up to their own mythologizing: hence Ned going in person to Bear Island to chop off the head of Jorah Mormont, showing to everyone who sees or hears about his progress from Winterfell that the Stark will uphold the law against anyone, even the lords. 

Are the Manderlys richer than the Starks? What are Winterfell’s and Whiteharbours incomes?

I doubt that the Manderlys are richer than the Starks, since the Starks get income from the entire North in addition to from the Manderlys, so they’re taxing 3.5-4 million people rather than a hundred thousand or so. And even though the per-capita income of the Manderly’s subjects is way higher than the rest of the North, it’s not enough to outweigh the Stark’s manpower advantage.

I did a rough estimate of Great House incomes here, but let’s try to do some calculations based on the ones I did for the Seven Kingdoms as a whole. The North has 3.5 to 4 million people, and assuming that 90% of them earn around 3-5 dragons a year, we’re talking 10.5-20 million gold a year as the rough GDI of the North.  

Now, medieval taxation thankfully was generally simple (because medieval states lacked the bureaucracy to get fancy) so we’ll be using the English “tenth” (i.e, a 10% tax on moveable property and income) as our model. That would suggest that the North generates 1-2 million in tax revenue. Now, a good part of that goes to the King, but the Starks probably keep the bulk of it. 

Now, the North is considerably less fertile and prosperous than the rest of Westeros, so we might want to start with the low range for peasant income and then adjust further. So if the North is half as prosperous as the average, then the North has a GDI of 5.25 million and produces 525,000 gold in tax revenue. If we say it’s two-thirds, then we’re talking a GDI of 7 million and 700,000 in tax revenue. 

The Manderly’s income is a bit harder to figure out, because we don’t have a firm number on their total population – we know that White Harbor has 50,000 people living in it, but we also know that the Manderlys control a broad swathe of territory beyond just the city and  have a higher per capita GDI than the rest of the North between their silver and their artisans. I would say that at a minimum, the population of White Harbor brings in 15,000 golden dragons to the Manderlys just on the regular tenth, not counting taxes and fees coming in from the port.