What's a Holdfast

[Scion of House Osgrey]

I'm so confused on what a holdfast is.  They get mentioned all throughout  the books but their isn't a clear definition and I tried googling it 

Here is all my question 

- first off what is a holdfast

- who owns the holdfast and who runs it 

- what is a holdfast for 

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, Scion of House Osgrey said:

I'm so confused on what a holdfast is.  They get mentioned all throughout  the books but their isn't a clear definition and I tried googling it 

Here is all my question 

- first off what is a holdfast

- who owns the holdfast and who runs it 

- what is a holdfast for 

It is a fortified building, but not quite large enough to be a proper castle. That's always been my assumption, at least.

[Lord Hanna]

I always imagined it was kind of like a defensive fort instead of a huge castle? Probably completely wrong, but thats the image i get in my head when i hear about it. 

[YOVMO]

35 minutes ago, Scion of House Osgrey said:

I'm so confused on what a holdfast is.  They get mentioned all throughout  the books but their isn't a clear definition and I tried googling it 

Here is all my question 

- first off what is a holdfast

- who owns the holdfast and who runs it 

- what is a holdfast for 

it is like a hold slow....only quicker! bum dum ching.

 

Really though. I would think there are essentially two kinds of holdfasts. The first kind is simply a small castle build to hold (fast) a land. Maegor's holdfast is one. Harrenhall is another.

A good example of this would seem to me to be Mormont Keep. Bear Island was a disputed northern land between the iron men and the king in the north. When Theon Stark chased the ironmen out he needed bear island to be held. So he gave it to the Mormonts and so the Mormonts set up a holdfast to hold bear island for the king in the north and later for the Lord of Winterfell.

The second type in my opinion would be Landed Knights who build, at the pleasure of their overlord, a strong keep. I think you could call that a holdfast as well. So Gregor Clegane has Clegane's keep. It is certainly no castle. But neither is it a farm house. He probably has a few servants, squires and maybe even a house guard or retainers. He holds a piece of land from his keep though does so in the name of his liege lord, in Clegane's case Tywin Lannister.

[Scion of House Osgrey]

So holdfast are owned by landed Knights ?

[Shireen Purratheon]

3 hours ago, YOVMO said:

it is like a hold slow....only quicker! bum dum ching.

I was going to say the opposite of a release slow, lol.

I agree that holdfast is a term for any kind of medium defensive fortification that can be held by any from a sergeant to the LP's brother.

[Brother Seamus]

Seems pretty clear it's a fortified compound that doesn't qualify as a proper castle. a relatively small fortified building or cluster of buildings.

[YOVMO]

3 hours ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

I was going to say the opposite of a release slow, lol.

I agree that holdfast is a term for any kind of medium defensive fortification that can be held by any from a sergeant to the LP's brother.

We are on the same page today with funny.

[YOVMO]

3 hours ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

I was going to say the opposite of a release slow, lol.

I agree that holdfast is a term for any kind of medium defensive fortification that can be held by any from a sergeant to the LP's brother.

Slow release is actually the perfect opposite of hold fast. Gonna snigger to myself now.

[GallowsKnight]

My understanding it's a similar word to "Keep". It can either refer to the most defended part of a castle. Like Maegor's holdfast. Or it can refer to a smaller structure used for defence, Like the tower in the compound Yoren shelters in. Or a castle itself in it's entirety. 

[Lion of the West]

I kind of assume it was basically a smaller fortified settlement where smallfolk could flee in times of conflict and war.

[tugela]

It is basically a tower that a knight or lord would live in while defending a position for their liege lord.

[MadeiraXT]

The holdfast is a noble Castle and their respective lands.

Examples:
-North
-Correrrio
-The Twins

[StarkofWinterfell]

A holdfast is what you would call a fortified tower-like structure

[stonecold stoneborn]

The description of a holdfast on a wiki of ice and fire is "A Holdfast is a castle or fortress used to lay claim to an area of land. An example of this would be Harrenhal". Can be found on the following link http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Holdfast

[elder brother jonothor dar]

Ser Amory had no ladders, but the holdfast walls were rough-cut and unmortared, easy to climb,

 

This is the picture I normally have when I think of one, 

[Traverys]

So, put into context of Westeros, a holdfast is something you build to assist you in laying claim to surrounding lands. Harrenhal is by no means small or crude. Instead, it was a massive structure that would allow King Harren (an Iron Islander by birth) to maintain his claim to territories in the Riverlands. Meaning anyone wanting to contest that claim would either need to overthrow his holdfast (Harrenhal)... or be prepared to defend against the onslaught of the provisioned army King Harren was maintaining behind its walls.

Maegor's Holdfast is an interesting example because it seems like a play on the holdfast concept. It's a defensive fortification within the Red Keep, which is, of course, in the capital. It seems to me like Maegor's Holdfast is named due to its ability to defend the Red Keep, specifically... You can breach the Red Keep's walls, but you also have to breach the Holdfast (which is walled with a spiked moat, if I recall correctly). Otherwise you can't claim to have conquered King's Landing or the Red Keep. Maybe this was obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't to me.

So, going into Lord Paramount/Seven Kings: while many of them have fancy castles, they need other fortifications spread throughout their land in order to maintain their influence and control. Winterfell is a good example, considering the North is so big and even Winterfell (which is massive... acres!) couldn't possibly be a good starting point to defend all of it's lands. Thus, the lords would build smaller "holdfasts" as strategic forts, which they could occupy while defending their lands...

The idea is that you could assign a family (for example, a landed knight who may or may not eventually be elevated to a lord) to maintain these holdfasts so that they could always be occupied. Then, villages would build around these holdfasts because the villagers could seek refuge inside their walls during times of invasion/war/battle. And then the land becomes a much safer place to live for everyone.

Hopefully that illuminated the topic more. I'm not a medieval/feudal expert by any stretch of the imagination. Just using intuition.

[Graydon Hicks]

5 hours ago, Traverys said:

So, put into context of Westeros, a holdfast is something you build to assist you in laying claim to surrounding lands. Harrenhal is by no means small or crude. Instead, it was a massive structure that would allow King Harren (an Iron Islander by birth) to maintain his claim to territories in the Riverlands. Meaning anyone wanting to contest that claim would either need to overthrow his holdfast (Harrenhal)... or be prepared to defend against the onslaught of the provisioned army King Harren was maintaining behind its walls.

Maegor's Holdfast is an interesting example because it seems like a play on the holdfast concept. It's a defensive fortification within the Red Keep, which is, of course, in the capital. It seems to me like Maegor's Holdfast is named due to its ability to defend the Red Keep, specifically... You can breach the Red Keep's walls, but you also have to breach the Holdfast (which is walled with a spiked moat, if I recall correctly). Otherwise you can't claim to have conquered King's Landing or the Red Keep. Maybe this was obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't to me.

So, going into Lord Paramount/Seven Kings: while many of them have fancy castles, they need other fortifications spread throughout their land in order to maintain their influence and control. Winterfell is a good example, considering the North is so big and even Winterfell (which is massive... acres!) couldn't possibly be a good starting point to defend all of it's lands. Thus, the lords would build smaller "holdfasts" as strategic forts, which they could occupy while defending their lands...

The idea is that you could assign a family (for example, a landed knight who may or may not eventually be elevated to a lord) to maintain these holdfasts so that they could always be occupied. Then, villages would build around these holdfasts because the villagers could seek refuge inside their walls during times of invasion/war/battle. And then the land becomes a much safer place to live for everyone.

Hopefully that illuminated the topic more. I'm not a medieval/feudal expert by any stretch of the imagination. Just using intuition.

about what i was thinking. normally, i think the common use of the term in the series is reserved for smaller keeps, not quite big enough to be considered a true castle, but does a good strong main building, the keep proper, maybe a couple extra building like a stable, storage facility for food animals and related harvest crops. maybe even a wall around the immediate property. the lands allotted to this "holdfast" might range from a few immediate acres that the master of the house himself and his household might tend, the keep being large enough for maybe an adiitional family or two for the purposes of being servants, tending to the animals, that kind of thing, all the way to a couple square miles. the hamlets, or even villages that might be on the land would answer to the master of the keep, and he would protect them in turn, the typical feudal style. a tithe of what he farms, harvests, mines, ect, would go to his immediate overlord, who in turn would send the appropriate amount from his collections on to his overlords, and so on and so forth. over time, the small keep might grow bigger, the lands aligned to it might expand, and the ranking of the master of the house might improve. likely some of the houses and aligned keeps in westeros started this way.

[GyantSpyder]

Biologically, a holdfast is a root-like structure that anchors an organism like an algae or seaweed to a particular spot, but doesn't draw nutrients from that spot.

Using the term for human towers and castles invites the comparison of the instruments of human government to a biological system that spreads across the countryside, takes root in places, and exerts its influence from there.

The weirwood trees in the various godswoods are likely holdfasts, in a biological sense - and perhaps in a political sense as well.