What’s a confessor? In the real world it’s like, a holy person (like King Edward -1) or a priest who administers the eponymous sacrament. But how would a secular nobleman become one of these, as per Larys Strong’s first court post? Also, I thought a septa was mentioned somewhere as a princess’ confessor. The name septa suggests a female septon, but they act more like nuns than priestesses from what we see in the text. Maybe they’re something like Roman Catholic deacons, but more powerful?

Good catch!

In Westeros, a confessor seems to have a grislier, secular purpose:

The entrance to the dungeons proper was at ground level, behind a door of hammered iron and a second of splintery grey wood. On the floors between were rooms set aside for the use of the Chief Gaoler, the Lord Confessor, and the King’s Justice.

And for that task, Ser Ilyn Payne was singularly ill suited. As he could neither read, nor write, nor speak, Ser Ilyn had left the running of the dungeons to his underlings, such as they were. The realm had not had a Lord Confessor since the second Daeron, however…

The girls became handmaids to Princess Rhaenyra, whilst their elder brother, Ser Harwin Strong, called Breakbones, was made a captain in the gold cloaks. The younger boy, Larys the Clubfoot, joined the king’s confessors.

My reading of the above text is that The Lord Confessor was in charge of torturing prisoners in the royal dungeons, to elicit confessions. Which fits Larys’ track record as a pragmatic, if not ruthless, politician.

Could Tywin have asked Robert to release Jaime from the Kingsguard immediately after the rebellion? And send him back to Casterly Rock. Also if the answer is yes, I don’t understand why he didn’t do it.

He could have asked, but Robert wouldn’t have necessarily said yes…

However, the way Tywin phrases it here suggests that he did see Jaime’s vow as binding until recently:

Lord Tywin glanced at Jaime’s stump again. “You cannot serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—”
“I can,” he interrupted. “And I will. There’s precedent. I’ll look in the White Book and find it, if you like. Crippled or whole, a knight of the Kingsguard serves for life.”
“Cersei ended that when she replaced Ser Barristan on grounds of age. A suitable gift to the Faith will persuade the High Septon to release you from your vows. Your sister was foolish to dismiss Selmy, admittedly, but now that she has opened the gates—” (Jaime VII, ASOS)

So it may well have been that he thought at the time that it was unthinkable that a member of the Kingsguard would be dismissed from office, but once it happened, he was happy enough to use the precedent (and a fair bit of bribery) to get what he wanted.

I don’t know if you’ve been asked this before, but can you buy or sell land in Westeros? Lady Ellyn Reyne and her husband Lord Tarbeck buy up land surrounding them. The Westerlings lost land over the years. Just how would that transaction work and would it be acknowledged by others as legal?

I’ve discussed this before, so I’ll just quote myself:

The Westerlings selling their land is a highly unusual event in Westeros – the only other times we hear about selling land is in the context of the Tarbecks forcing people to sell their land through threat of armed force, so voluntary (to the extent that the necessities of poverty qualify as voluntary) land sales are a sign that the feudal order is in crisis.

It suggests that the Westerlings were falling into genteel poverty, such that their rental income had fallen massively behind their ability to service their debt, and that they were having to surrender the collateral they had put up to secure the loan.

Legally, this could be quite tricky. In Medieval England, for example, the feudal principle of “Nulle terre sans seigneur” (no land without a lord) meant that selling land outright, known as “alienation of lands by will,” was actually legally impossible in the late 12th century. (The Magna Carta, for example, says that “No free man shall henceforth give or sell so much of his land as that out of the residue he may not sufficiently do to the lord of the fee the service which pertains to that fee.”) Selling land was legalized by the Statute of Quia Emptores in 1290, although the buyer was “required to assume all tax and feudal obligations of the original tenant,” so the land remained under the same lord as before. It wasn’t until the Tenures Abolition Act of 1660 that those feudal obligations were eliminated.

The TL,DR is this: normally you cannot buy and sell land freely in Westeros. The Westerlings selling land and the Tarbecks buying land suggests the feudal order breaking down somewhat in the Westerlands.

“But wrt to Robb, there is legal precedent for his will. The Night’s Watch has released men from their vows in the past.” When was this?

Ok already! Given the flood of anon asks, I’ll answer. So the evidence for this is as follows:

“Jon is a brother of the Night’s Watch, sworn to take no wife and hold no lands. Those who take the black serve for life.”
“So do the knights of the Kingsguard. That did not stop the Lannisters from stripping the white cloaks from Ser Barristan Selmy and Ser Boros Blount when they had no more use for them. If I send the Watch a hundred men in Jon’s place, I’ll wager they find some way to release him from his vows…”

“Not unless he’s legitimized by a royal decree,” said Robb. “There is more precedent for that than for releasing a Sworn Brother from his oath.” (Cat V, ASOS)

Granny: Is there any chance that Jon could be released from his oaths of the nightwatch?

George_RR_Martin: The great council would have released Aemon from his maester’s oath, so I suppose it would be possible. With an appropriate authority. (Source)

Let’s break this down:

Robb’s comment that “If I send the Watch a hundred men in Jon’s place, I’ll wager they find some way to release him from his vows” suggests to me that there is some process for the Watch to release someone from their vows in extraordinary circumstances.
Likewise, Robb’s comment that there is more precedent for legitimizing bastards than there is from releasing someone from their oath suggests to me that there is some, but very little, precedent for releasing someone from their vows.
GRRM’s response to the question about Jon, and keep in mind this question is being asked after ACOK came out but before ASOS came out, suggests to me that the “appropriate authority” can release Jon from his vows. Now, the authority in question could be many things: the Lord Commander, the Brothers voting as a whole, a king’s decree, etc.

Also, I remember GRRM talking about it on some HBO video, an Inside the Episode or History and Lore, where he said that it had happened but they don’t like doing it, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

1 ==> Is breaking the King’s Peace an act of treason agianst the Crown?

It depends on how the authorities want to treat the case, and what kind of act we’re talking about. Within the Westerosi tradition, we know that Eddard Stark as Hand of the King declared Gregor Clegane’s attack on the Riverlands worthy of attainder, which is associated with serious felonies and treason, and that historically kings like Aegon V have dealt with breaches of the peace by leading royal armies in the field to arrest and quite likely execute the violators.

On the other hand, in the English legal tradition, making a “breach of the peace,” wasn’t technically a criminal or civil offense, because it’s considered a violation of the royal prerogative to maintain the peace. So what happens when you commit a breach of the peace is that you get arrested, put in front of a magistrate, and “bound over” (essentially put on probation/bail) where you are required to refrain from certain activities (usually but not always the activity that involved the breach) for a given period of time. However, if you violate the terms of your binding, you’re in contempt of court, and then criminal penalties involve.

However, a lot depends on what kind of act we’re talking about. A drunken fistfight is technically a breach of the peace, but so is banditry. And given the context of Ser Gregor Clegane’s case, he was being accused of banditry, murder, wanton destruction of property, and in short being an “outlaw.” And in early common law, if you defied the laws of the realm you could be declared an outlaw or a legal non-person – which meant that murdering you was legal, and helping you was a crime. It’s arguably worse than being a traitor, as legal penalties go.

Likewise, if the powers that be decided that your breach of the peace was made as a deliberate insult towards the king – that you were implying through your action that the king was too weak or feeble to defend the peace, for example – you might be guilty of Lèse-majesté, and that is a form of treason.