Rereading A Game of Thrones it kind of surprises me that there were no Northerners at all in the Hand’s Tourney except for Eddard’s guards. Not even Manderlys and White Harbor knights when they follow the Seven and practice knighthood. Do you suppose this is due to the Manderlys adopting the Northern disinterest in tourneys? In fact besides Ned’s household I don’t recall seeing any Northerners in King’s Landing or anywhere in the south before the war. The North seem detached from Westeros.

First, about jousting in general. According to WOIAF:

“As knighthood is rare in the North, the knightly tourney and its pageantry and chivalry are as rare as hen’s teeth beyond the Neck. Northmen fight ahorse with war lances but seldom tilt for sport, preferring mêlées that are only just this side of battles. There are accounts of contests that have lasted half a day and left fields trampled and villages half–torn down. Serious injuries are common in such a mêlée, and deaths are not unheard of. In the great mêlée at Last Hearth in 170 AC, it is said that no fewer than eighteen men died, and half again that number were sorely maimed before the day was done.”

In other words, Northmen don’t joust (much – Brandon Stark didn’t do too bad at Harrenhal, there’s Jorah Mormont at Lannisport) because they consider it too refined, too sanitized, too fancy, and boring to boot, whereas southerners consider Northern melees to be disorganized, disorderly, and insanely violent. It’s a nice continuation of the North/South cultural divide.

Second, about the Hand’s Tourney. The makeup of tourneys depends very much on the location and publicity of the event, and in this case the Hand’s Tourney was A. located down in the South, which means folks oop North are going to hear about it much later and have a hard time getting there, and B. a spur-of-the-moment decision of Robert’s, so there wasn’t the time to get the word out as much as there was for the Tourney at Harrenhal, for example. (Notably, in that latter tournament, the Starks were there in force, they brought their bannermen and companions, so there were way more Northerners)

One question why is their a large lack of large scale big knight orders like the knights templar knights hospitaler and Teutonic Knights even warhammer has the down with the reiksguard knights of the white wolf and knights of Moore so for example I think their would be say a knights of the golden lion and you should make up orders for all the kingdoms

Ok, well you’ve pushed me into it…

The Vale: The Brotherhood of Winged Knights, natch. Seven knights to honor the Seven. Chosen by a tourney of no less than 77 applicants to guard the King of the Mountain and Vale for seven years. To honor the memory of Artys Arryn’s victory, the Brotherhood have a custom of insisting that any Arryn who takes the field of battle must don an eighth set of the armor and livery of the Brotherhood, to ensure that his enemies cannot spy him out. And hey, let’s go nuts and say that the Winged Knights are especially feared for their horse-frightening harnesses.

The Riverlands: The Order of the Trident. One of the more recent chivalric orders in Westeros, the Order of the Trident was founded by House Teague in order to bolster their hold on their newly-won kingdom. By their original charter, the knights of the Trident were charged with maintaining the peace on the “roads and rivers of our kingdom,” which led to the construction of many chapter houses at fords and other intersections where travelers could sleep protected – in more recent centuries following the fall of House Teague, many of these chapter houses were abandoned and later converted into inns. This charter also requires each member to maintain a shallow-drafted warship of no less than 10 oars a side, which may explain their ceremonial weapons. Notably, rather than implicitly stating it, only members of the Faith of the Seven are allowed to join, which is why no Blackwood has ever participated and why every single generation of Brackens have held membership (with no less than a dozen grand-masters among them). According to rumor, the Order may have been instrumental behind-the-scenes in many of the rebellions against those rulers who succeeded the Teagues to the crown of the Riverlands – which is probably false…

The Westerlands: The Grand and Most Puissant Order of the Golden Mane. Unlike most orders of chivalry in Westeros, the Order of the Golden Mane was primarily not a martial order – rather, the Order was established during the reign of King Norwin Lannister as a means of raising revenue, with membership dues being originally listed at 100 grains of pure gold annually. In exchange for their dues, members were granted knighthoods if they did not already have them, but also a number of privileges including the right to be tried only by the Order, the right to arbitration by the Order in all disputes between fellow members, and even the right to advise the king on “weighty matters.” During the rule of Tytos Lannister, these privileges were badly abused by dozens of social climbers, leading to the diminishment of the order’s prestige and an increase in public disorder, as many used the order’s immunity from normal criminal procedure as a shield against Casterly Rock itself. Shortly before the Reynes of Castamere, Tywin Lannister raised the membership fee to five times the member’s body-weight in gold, and then took advantage of a number of sudden vacancies to have the order declared extinct due to lack of quorum.

The Reach: since the Order of the Green Hand is taken, let’s talk about the Lady Companions of the Blessed Maris. Given the Reach’s love affair with tourneys, pageants, dances, and other social occasions, someone has to do the organizing of the social calendar, otherwise the whole thing goes haywire and vendettas set up. Guided by an inner circle of noblewomen who can trace their descent to Maris the Maid, Rowan Goldenhair, or Ellyn Ever-Sweet (all women of acceptable moral purity, although of course the Gardener Queen was always given a position out of respect for Highgarden), the Lady Companions make sure that each seat of note is appropriately honored with fetes, that there are always enough tourneys to keep the knights occupied while ensuring decent attendance at each, and that enough mixed-gender events are held to ensure that the right young ladies meet the right young men. While the Green Hand may have perished on the field of battle, the work of the Lady Companions continue to this day, although there was much grumbling when a certain Tyrell claimed the Gardener Seat for her house on the grounds that Aegon had deeded Highgarden to them.

The Stormlands: The Ancient and Most Honorable Guild of Castlewrights. While the origins of the Guild are lost to legend and myth (some tales claim that the founders of the guild were the assistants of the mysterious Brandon who built the final castle of Storm’s End), the Stormlands takes the construction of castles more seriously than any other realm. To that end, the Durrandon kings gave (in addition to the honor of knighthood) this order the “responsibility for inspecting and maintaining the castles of my kingdom,” along with some fairly wide-ranging powers to commandeer labor and materials to make repairs when necessary for the defense of the realm. Over the centuries, the Guild turned into an order of knights who were experts both in the construction of castles and siegecraft. Many a seemingly desperate siege was won or lost due to the presence of a single Guildman using their authority to take over direction of assault or defense of the castle, especially in the Marches. Famously, the Guildmen take an oath never to allow themselves to be captured alive, lest they be tortured into revealing their occult wisdom.

Dorne: The Knights of the Wells. If there is anything that unites the often fractious peoples of Dorne, it is their common love of horse-riding. Thus, to keep their people happy and distracted, the Martells have organized both hippodrome races and cross-country races for the better part of a thousand years. Recruited from among the ranks of the winners, the Knights of the Wells were trained in the arts of cartography by maesters from Sunspear, given the best sand steeds that the Martells can buy and, formally, charged with little more than accurately mapping the oft-foreboding terrain of Dorne. Informally, the Knights of the Wells were the Martells’ best spies and scouts, who use their superior knowledge of the land to guide the armies of Dorne and track the armies of her enemies, and many wars have been won (or lost) because of the bravery and cunning of these swordless knights. Membership in the Wells is a dangerous proposition, however – both in Aegon’s War and Daeron’s, the order saw casualties of more than nine in ten of their members, with the Targaryens frequently posting lavish bounties for their deaths. Indeed, it was a significant provision of Daeron II’s treaty that the Martells were forbidden from re-establishing the Knights of the Wells, although some claim the order continues in secret…

Is it knightly protocol to return important weapons to the heirs of their owners (as Ned does with Dawn, and the Lannisters obviously do not do with Ice?). One has to imagine this is part of the reason why these sword stay with a family for centuries. Is there anything equivalent in history, or do the precedents belong more to legend (Excalibur and the like)?

Ooh boy, this goes into some tricky areas where Martin is just not very consistent about Valyrian swords, because there are arguments that go either way: House Corbray lost Lady Forlorn to Robar II Royce and then supposedly got it back after the Battle of Seven Stars, which points one way, but Gwayne Corbray died on Redgrass and the sword somehow got back to the family (possibly because the loyalists retained the field and Daemon forbade looting of his honorable foe?).On the other hand, plenty of Valyrian swords were acquired by the ancient right of Acquiris Quodcumquae Rapis. The Harlaw blade Nightfall was won in battle, Red Rain was stolen by Hilmar “the Cunning” Drumm (with the aid of a blackjack), etc.

So I think this is something of a legal/cultural controversy: on the one hand, returning the arms and armor of a worthy opponent is a big part of the Knightly Code; on the other, Valyrian steel swords are literally beyond price and few people are going to have the moral strength to turn one down.

RE: Jaime. Shouldn’t we just asume that Kingsguard vows take precedence over the knighthood ones, if they ever come into conflict?

Well, you know what they say about assuming things…

But seriously, unless otherwise stated, it would be much more likely that the earlier binds the former, just as legal precedent itself means that older decisions are binding on future decisions. In this case, my contention is that, having sworn the oath of knighthood, Jaime is not in fact completely free to swear to “Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his” in any situation where obeying the king or doing his bidding would cause him to violate the first oath.

To take an example that’s not too farfetched given events in ASOIAF: given that the oath of knighthood requires knights to “protect all women” and to “defend the young and innocent” should a kingsguard obey Joffrey’s command to beat Sansa? I would argue that Sansa’s ACOK chapters suggest strongly that any knight who obeys such a command is not a true knight, whether we’re talking about brutes like Boros Blount or Meryn Trant or the squeamish like Arys Oakheart.

On that last Jaime point, perhaps you’re right under our own moral apparatus but I don’t believe even Eddard ever held that against Jaime, certainly less then the oathbreaking. Plus would it have made a difference other then throwing Jaime’s own life away alongside Lord Rickard and Brandon? All I’m asking is what effective resistance we should reasonably expect from Jaime given his position? Or Tyrion who noted that being born a Lannister tied him to their fate/destruction at the time?

Not just under our own apparatus – it’s also the case under the ideals of knighthood. A true knight is supposed to uphold their vows at all costs and no matter the consequences – which points to GRRM’s romantic/existential leanings. And the oath of knighthood explicitly states that:

“In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.”

The Mother’s clause points to the fact that Rickard and Brandon were innocent (and helpless, given their chains) until proven guilty; the Father’s clause reminds us that the laws of men and the laws of the old gods and the new state unequivocally that they had the right to a trial and killing them without one is murder; the Warrior’s clause demands that Jaime fight for the right no matter the odds.

And yes, it’s not easy. As Jaime points out, there were dozens of knights in that room, many of them of great reputation, who did nothing, who put their oath of obedience above their oath of knighthood. But true kngihts are rare precisely because it is so difficult to put your ideals ahead of all practical considerations. Remember Dunk at the Tourney of Ashford and how rare it is to find a knight who remembers his vows; remember Brienne’s desperate fight against the Bloody Mummers or Jaime’s suicidal leap into the bear pit.