When a lord or king decides to build a new seat or give lands to a knight as a reward, where does that land come from? I know that in war it can just be taken from a defeated enemy and given to a loyal supporter, but what about in peace time? Where did Daemon Blackfyre’s land come from? Or the land Daeron II built Summerhall on? I assume most, if not all, land within the borders of the realm is spoken for to one degree or another. How can you do this in peacetime without creating bad blood?

Great question, which builds nicely off of this one.

The answer is, it depends and is complicated. Surprise, surprise.

For one thing, liege lords don’t give away all of their land to their vassals – indeed, historically, they kept a plurality of it and usually the choicest lands for themselves while handing out the rest. So in the case of Daemon Blackfyre, who was given “a tract of land near the Blackwater” (no indication of how huge it was), chances are that was royal land in the Crownlands, as opposed to the fiefdom of any lord.

In the case of Summerhall, however, we have a more complicated story. Summerhall is located “where the boundaries of the Reach, the stormlands, and Dorne met.” This leaves a couple possibilities: first, Summerhall could be on formerly Dornish land that was given to the King as part of the peace treaty. (In which case, the political bramble is the Martells to grasp.) Second, it could be formerly part of the Reach or the Stormlands, in which case the King has to get the local lord and/or the Lord Paramount to hand it over.

This is where the politics get delicate. Yes, the king could potentially just take the land, like Aegon IV did with the Teats, but that causes bad blood. It becomes somewhat easier if the ownership of the land is in question – the last owner died intestate or the new owner can’t pay the customary tax that a new vassal owes their liege lord when they inherit, the owner is a minor who happens to be a ward of the crown, two or more claimants are in dispute about who owns it and are appealing to the king, etc. – because the king gets to rule on that.

But potentially, the king can offer the owner to take the land off their hands. This isn’t exactly the same thing as buying and selling the land outright – what’s actually going on is the crown getting the owner to agree to surrender their customary rights to various incomes and usages of that land – and it’s got more in common with barter. Most likely, the king would be offering title on some other land, or some royal charter or privilege (think water rights, hunting rights, etc.), or possibly a royal pension or a royal office, as an exchange for their current rights, instead of a sum of money.

It can be done, and it was done all the time, but it requires extreme delicacy because if the owner decides to dig in their heels the king either faces a lot of bad press and probably a protracted legal battle.

Anon Asks:

When Aegon confirmed the titles of those pledging fealty to him, what does that mean? How does a king confirm the properties of his vassals? Does every king do that when inheriting or just when conquering?

This can get a bit complicated and contradictory, but at least in theory under feudalism titles represent a feudal contract between a vassal and their overlord: so if you’re the Knight of Standfast, for example, you hold that land from House Rowan, who holds it from House Tyrell, who holds it from the King.

That fiefdom is (in theory) a grant from the liege lord that they can give or revoke technically at will. And even in a situation in which practically speaking a feudal system had moved from the Carolingian model in which fiefdoms were considered a grant for life only and then reverted back to the king to an inheritance model in which fiefdoms were considered to be the rightful property of the heir of the previous lord, there still were a lot of medieval ceremonies that took place when either a vassal or a liege lord died, in order to re-enact the agreement between vassal and overlord.

So what Aegon was doing was writing a bunch of feudal contracts, “giving” the lands in question back to his new vassals in return for their homage and an agreement about what kind of service they would give in return (which would include military service, taxation, etc.). And then when Aegon died and Aenys I was crowned, he would have received the homage of his subjects, and at that ceremony the feudal contract would have been renewed between the new king and his subjects.

Could the king rewrite those contracts and shift the land around? Sure, we’ve seen plenty of examples of it, from the Brackens and the Blackwoods lobbying the King to choose which of them gets various disputed lands, to Harrenhal handed out as a token of royal favor, to the creation of the New Gift and the founding of Summerhall. But it’s risky, because taking land from some to give to others creates a lot of angry people…just ask Raoul of Cambrai.

Why don’t you condemn Aegon The Conqueror like you do Renly Baratheon? After all, they both ultimately based their claim on the strength of their arms, rather than the will of the people or rights of succession. I’m not defending either of them, just wondering what you see as the difference.

I think that’s a misinterpreation of Aegon the Conqueror. As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects:

“Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. To his oldest supporters he gave new honors…Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros. When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer … but the smallfolk, the fisherman and field hands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.”

“the men of the Trident had no love for their ironborn overlords…so now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances,
Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs… summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal…The next day, outside the smoking ruins of Harrenhal, King Aegon accepted an oath of fealty from Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, and named him Lord Paramount of the Trident. The other riverlords did homage as well —to Aegon as king and to Edmyn Tully as their liege lord.”

And this went on and on – the homage of the Westermen and the Reachermen ater the Field of Fire, the submission of Highgarden, Torrhen kneeling at the Trident, and Aegon’s anointment and coronation at Oldtown. At every step of the way, Aegon spends as much time establishing the reciprocal bonds of feudal obligation and enacting the symbolism of monarchy as he does fighting. And he continued this policy as King:

“he worked to knit the realm together with his presence—to awe his subjects and (when needed) frighten them…the other half of the year he dedicated to the royal progress. He traveled throughout the realm for the rest of his life,
until his final progress in 33 AC—making a point of paying his respects to the High Septon in the Starry Sept each time he visited Oldtown, guesting beneath the roofs of the lords of the great houses (even Winterfell, on that last progress), and beneath the roofs of many lesser lords, knights, and common innkeepers… In these progresses, the king was accompanied not only by his courtiers but by maesters and septons as well. Six maesters were often in his company to advise him upon the local laws and traditions of the former realms, so that he might rule in judgment at the courts he held. Rather than attempting to unify the realm under one set of laws, he respected the differing customs of each region and sought to judge as their past kings might have.”

Hey Steve! How does a merchant like Spicer get to take the name Spicer? If he gets rich enough, does he just get to take a last name for himself? Or does he have to go to Lord Tytos and pay some money and get approval? How did Maggy the Frog’s son get to found a House? How does it work?

Good question!

Well, if we’re going by medieval England as we usually are, you can pick a last name whenever there’s enough people in a given area that it’s tricky to keep track of who’s related to who, because last names weren’t a signifier of status as much as titles or coats of arms or mottos (which required approval from above and usually some payment). So Ralph the spicer becomes Ralph Spicer and becomes considered a particularly well-established member of the merchant classes who’s following the forms.

The big change is what happens when Ralph Spicer wants to make the transition from merchant to the nobility and found House Spicer. This was a difficult and slippery process, because one would have to start by becoming a gentleman (which generally required that one owned a manor that could support you without your own labor), then ascend to the status of esquire (which definitely required approval from above in the form of achieving some form of office that brought the title of esquire with it, usually Justice of the Peace or Sherriff or something else having to do with the law), then become a knight (which requires being knighted), and generally only after could one aspire to the nobility. Along the way, there were not merely legal forms one had to pass through but cultural forms as well – gentlemen were supposed to learn to be “genteel,” to get into chivalry and noble sports and out of trade, they had to get a coat of arms which meant their pedigrees had to pass muster with the College of Heralds (although this could often be finessed with the right payments to the King and then to the herald).

So if Ralph Spicer was in England, he would probably have started by getting his hands on enough land that he could pretend that he wasn’t a spice merchant any more or to give it up altogether, then gotten himself a Justiceship by knowing the right people or bribing people, then making sure that his kids were squiring for a local knight and then marrying them off to any impoverished nobility in the area, and then making a bid for a knighthood and hope to ascend from there.

But Westeros is less legalistic and bureaucratic than that, at least as how GRRM describes it. It could be as easy as Ralph getting his hand on a bunch of land then paying off a hedge knight to make all of his sons knights.

In regards to the question about Renly, my question would be, is there a better way forward for his general political direction? Like a permanent great council and elective monarchy in the future seems like a possibility to me.

That is absolutely not Renly’s “general political direction” and it points to how Renly is profoundly misunderstood by the fandom. Despite his pretentions to meritocracy and popularity, Renly does not believe in the concept of an elective monarchy or Great Councils at all. He says this directly:

“Robb will set aside his crown if you and your brother will do the same,” she said, hoping it was true. She would make it true if she must; Robb would listen to her, even if his lords would not. “Let the three of you call for a Great Council, such as the realm has not seen for a hundred years. We will send to Winterfell, so Bran may tell his tale and all men may know the Lannisters for the true usurpers. Let the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them.”

Renly laughed. “Tell me, my lady, do direwolves vote on who should lead the pack?” Brienne brought the king’s gauntlets and greathelm, crowned with golden antlers that would add a foot and a half to his height. “The time for talk is done. Now we see who is stronger.” Renly pulled a lobstered green-and-gold gauntlet over his left hand, while Brienne knelt to buckle on his belt, heavy with the weight of longsword and dagger.”

When you take away the witty repartee, Renly’s political theory is naked tyranny – his personal excellence or popularity only matter to the extent that they attract soldiers to install him as king by force of arms, and you can see how paper-thin those rationalizations are when Catelyn tells him to put his money where his mouth is and stand for election in front of the political community and Renly says no.

I’m honestly perplexed how people keep missing the fact that Renly is a hollow man: the thematics are everywhere, from Donal Noye comparing him to copper to Maester Cressen remembering him as a pageantry-obsessed attention-seeking child. The tragedy of Brienne in ACOK is that Renly doesn’t give a damn about her (as Loras says later, “Renly thought she was absurd. A woman dressed in man’s mail, pretending to be a knight”), he only gives her the cloak because Barristan didn’t show up and he knows he can make use of her (“He said that all his other knights wanted things of him, castles or honors or riches, but all that Brienne wanted was to die for him”), he knows she’s in love with him and treats her like a dog he can summon and dismiss whenever he wants (”His words seemed to strike the girl harder than any blow she had taken that afternoon. “As you will, Your Grace.” Brienne sat, eyes downcast.”).

And as I’ve explained in my recaps of AGOT and ACOK, Renly does all of this knowing that Joffrey is not Robert’s heir, that Stannis is telling the truth, that he himself has no right to be king. HE IS A BAD MAN WITH GOOD PR.

Do you think that Wyman Manderly is sincere in claiming that the old customs officers were still loyal to King’s Landing or is he taking the chaos and inexperience of a new administration to consolidate his power in White Harbour with more loyal/less scrupulous appointees?

Both.

Here’s the thing about our good friend Wyman Manderly: he believes in doing well by doing good and vice-versa. He’s always going to be there for the Starks, and he’d never be so crude to demand to be compensated first…he’s not a Frey after all. Instead, he steps forward as the good vassal in times of need, and then he comes forward with all kinds of helpful suggestions about how he can be even more helpful if he was given all kinds of new offices. And it’s understood that, just as it would be crude to demand payment in advance, it would be rude to deny such a loyal vassal such a minor favor…

But here’s the thing – he’s not lying about any of it, because he doesn’t have to. Of course the royal customs officers who were in place before the War of Five Kings aren’t going to support a rebellion against the Iron Throne, so they need to be replaced. And I’m sure the people who replaced them were loyal to Robb Stark, because Wyman Manderly would have made sure of it. Likewise, establishing a mint or a royal navy are absolutely in Robb Stark’s best interests – but they’re also going to rebound to Wyman Manderly’s benefit by boosting White Harbor’s economy and military power.

Where things get trickier is the Hornwood Question and what happens when Wyman starts conflating what’s good for House Manderly and what’s good for the North. On the one hand, Wyman was perfectly happy to play the normal Northern political game when it came to the Hornwood lands. But when Ramsay broke the rules and it didn’t look like Rodrik was going to do anything, Wyman didn’t hesitate to occupy the Hornwood lands “for their own protection.” And that’s the kind of thing that can be politically destabilizing, and you get the sense that, as with Garth Greybeard, the Manderlys were not entirely innocent when it came to their feud with the Peakes.

But…and this is important, they’re still mostly constructive, and as long as their liege lord maintains a firm hand, giving them enough of a return on their good work without giving away the shop, and making sure that the rewards get spread around liberally and the Manderlys are made to play nicely with the others so that jealousy doesn’t give way to feud, they’re a credit to their kingdom.

When Wyman Manderly offered to build a fleet of warships for Robb, would those ships have been a Royal fleet where Manderly would have had influence on appointments, or would they have been a Manderly fleet, fighting for the Starks due to Wyman’s oaths of fealty? Did vassals need permission to build up their own military capabilities?

From the way that Wyman Manderly puts it…

Wyman Manderly had a great booming laugh. It was small wonder he could not sit a saddle; he looked as if he outweighed most horses. As windy as he was vast, he began by asking Winterfell to confirm the new customs officers he had appointed for White Harbor. The old ones had been holding back silver for King’s Landing rather than paying it over to the new King in the North. “King Robb needs his own coinage as well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is the very place to mint it.” He offered to take charge of the matter, as it please the king, and went from that to speak of how he had strengthened the port’s defenses, detailing the cost of every improvement.

In addition to a mint, Lord Manderly also proposed to build Robb a warfleet. “We have had no strength at sea for hundreds of years, since Brandon the Burner put the torch to his father’s ships. Grant me the gold and within the year I will float you sufficient galleys to take Dragonstone and King’s Landing both.”

…I would lean heavily towards the former. The customs officers serve the King in the North, and the king has the power to confirm them or not, but Wyman gets to appoint them (although he might have to pay for them as quid-pro-quo). Likewise, I’d assume that Wyman pays for the mint, gets to appoint the officials, Robb confirms them and keeps the right of seignorage, etc.

So with the fleet, I would imagine that, especially if Robb is paying for them with royal funds as Wyman suggests, it’s a royal navy based out of White Harbor. Which means that there will be lots of offices and sinecures in this new royal navy for Manderlys and Manderly vassals, as per usual subject to the king’s approval.

To answer your last question…it’s tricky. Under the normal rules of feudalism, military capabilities were limited by the terms of the feudal agreement – you get so much land, you agree to raise so many men, the number of men per unit of land is fairly standardized – and it was hard to alter that, because the vassals’ vassals know their rights in law and get pretty litigious about it.

It’s really more when you get to what’s known as “bastard feudalism” that things start to go off the rails. Under bastard feudalism, instead of relying on those feudal agreements to raise soldiers, you convert military service obligations into taxes paid in cash and then use the cash to put fighting men on the payroll, who wear your livery and are counted as members of your “affinity.”

So now you have a system where noblemen can raise and maintain private military forces above and beyond their feudal rights – and the only limit to how many of these guys you have on the payroll is your ability to make payroll on the first of the month.

That’s what leads to “over-mighty vassals” starting private wars and making themselves extremely difficult to govern by their liege lords, because they might have more military manpower than their overlords. And that’s what eventually brings down heavy regulation where vassals did indeed need legal permission to have any military power whatsoever.

Does each new lord/lady of a vassal family have to swear fealty to their overlord, or is it explicit continuation from their predecessors? Does each new overlord or monarch summon their vassals to swear fealty to them upon ascension?

Good question!

The short answer is that it depends on the particular feudal culture and the particular period, because it matters whether the fiefdom was seen as the personal gift of the monarch or the rightful inheritance of the son, and so on.

In most feudal systems I’m aware of, however, there was a necessity to have the new vassal make homage to their new overlord. It’s an opportunity to redo the ceremony – which is handy for the sovereign because it means that they get to do the ceremonies regularly and display their power. It’s also an opportunity for revenue-generation – a lot of feudal systems assessed a one-time tax when a fiefdom was inherited. And the same goes for a new overlord – you want to make sure that all the vassals know who’s in charge now, and to firmly establish their direct loyalty to the new man.

Moreover, if you think of it in symbolic/ideological terms, it makes sense that you would want to renew whenever there’s a transfer of power between generations. Remember, medieval politics is all about the body – the king is physically annointed, they give status and title by touching you or giving you a ring, and political influence comes from how close you are physically to the king.

So if you have a new body or bodies standing in as vassal or overlord, it’s a new physical relationship and you need to enact the ritual again.

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.

Where does the internal heirarchy of each region comes from? As in how do you know who are lesser lords and high lords? I thought in Westeros you had a three tier system of King>Lord Paramount>Vassal Lords.

It’s a bit more complicated than “King>Lord Paramount>Vassal Lords.” Under the Lords Paramount of the Great Houses, you have the Lesser Houses. But the Lesser Houses can be subdivided in different ways.

Principal vs. Non-Principal

For example, you have the distinction between the Principal Houses and the non-Principal Houses. Principal Houses are the leading Houses of each Kingdom, and not every Lesser House is a principal House; we don’t know precisely what it entails to be a principal House or what kind of status it offers. So for example, the Karstarks, Umbers, Flints, Mormonts, Hornwoods, Cerwyns, Reeds, Manderlys, Glovers, Tallharts, and Boltons are considered principal Houses, but the Dustins and the Ryswells are not, neither are the Norreys or the Liddles or the Harclays, etc.

Lordly vs. Masterly/Knightly

One of the major distinctions between the lesser Houses is the question of whether they are lordly or masterly/knightly. Lords have the right of pit and gallows but landed knights or masters do not. This can be a potentially confusing distinction, however. There are many petty lords who jealously cling to that right, but who are far weaker than landed knights – think of the difference between the Lords of House Baelish and their few sheep versus the Knight of Ninestars who can raise a thousand men. Likewise, the Glovers and the Tallharts may be Masterly rather than Lordly, but they remain principal houses of the North and their fiefdoms are quite large and important.

Direct Vassal vs. Subinfeudation

Another major distinction, which may or may not be tied up in principal vs. non-principal, is whether the House in question pledges its fealty directly to the Lord Paramount or whether they are vassals of vassals. For example, the Webbers and Osgreys are bannermen of the Rowans who in turn are bannermen of the Tyrells, which points to the higher status of the Rowans than either.

But again, things can be complicated/confusing: House Hightower and House Mullendore are both principal Houses of the Reach, but the Mullendores are sworn to Oldtown rather than to Highgarden directly. Does this mean that the Mullendores are less than the Vrywels or the Florents?

Status, Wealth, and Power

Another thing that confuses this is that status, wealth, and power don’t always track with one another. There’s lots of examples of Houses that have a lot of prestige but nothing else – think of the Westerlings, with their ancient First Men blood and their royal connections, but almost no money and land and a castle sinking into disrepair, or the touchy Waynwoods whose pride forces them to live above their means, allowing Littlefinger to buy up their debts.

Likewise, there’s other examples of Houses that have a lot of money but little prestige – the Freys are considered jumped-up toll collectors, the Butterwells are called cow thieves, the Spicers only two generations away from being “in trade.” And there’s other examples of Houses with wealth but no power – the Lannisters of Lannisport are rolling in gold but they’re second fiddles; the Arryns of Gulltown married into merchant money, but don’t control Gulltown (rather the Graftons do, although the Shetts clearly have a good deal of power there too).

And there’s some Houses that have a good deal of power beyond perhaps what their economic power would suggest – think about the Brackens and Blackwoods who somehow manage to be strong enough that their feuds can’t be suppressed by Lords Paramount or Kings; or the way in which the Boltons have roughly as many soldiers as the Freys without anything like the economic advantages of the Twins.