Jaak Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 What's your estimate on the number of Lords in Westeros? (I have my guesses. But start with your understanding). Also, how many knights do you think are in Westeros? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Vance II Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 I mean, I don't think there's any way to figure out the first...I'm going to take a shot and say 1,000, maybe a bit more? Just sounds right, there are many minor lords we've never heard of, I mean the Reach alone probably has a hundred minor lords we don't know and never will. I'm sure a few of the troop number obsessed folks in here will spend weeks arguing about the knight numbers, but without knowing question one, question two is pretty impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrhex Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Lords, from Paramount to great, there are hundreds. Add the smaller ones, the petty lordlings who are still called lord because GRRM did not bother with all the historic titles, and landed knights, there are thousands. Knights there are tens of thousands. Depending on interpretation those would be "high hundreds/low hundreds" etc, but that is the scale we are talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Nice topic. I've done some estimates on this in the past. I often use the North as an example, because that is the region we have by far the most information on. There are about 16 what I would call "principal lords" in the North. These are Houses: Mormont Karstark Umber Bolton Hornwood Cerwyn Glover Tallhart Ryswell Dustin Manderly Slate Locke Flint of Widow's Watch Reed Flint of Flint's Finger Each of these rule a significant portion of the North, and have sub-lords below them. Then we have two more regions, which are of similar size, but who don't have "principal lords" in charge. Instead, they only have the sub-lord equivalents from the other regions. These two regions are the Mountain Clan lands and Skagos. So that's 18 regions in total. We have only one example of what the sub-lord structure looks like within one of these regions. And that comes from the most populous of these regions - the Manderly lands. Here we are told that there are 12 "sub-lords" (petty lords) and 100 landed knights. So if we assume that this is on the high end, due to the Manderly's large population, I would imagine that the average is quite a bit lower than that. Or else, the numbers could stay relatively similar, but each petty lord in the Manderly lands is just more powerful than an equivalent petty lord on Bear Island, for example. In any case, you easily get to more than 100 petty lords in the North, and probably around 500-1000 landed knight equivalents. How that compares to the other kingdoms, I don't really know. Remember that while the South has a higher population density, the average Northern petty lord may rule 5 times as much territory as a southron petty lord, resulting in a similar total population in both cases. So the number of lords in the North might be quite well representative of a southron kingdom. It is just that the lord's lands are more spread out in the case of the North. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zyee Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Quote Forty-seven lesser lordlings and six hundred nineteen knights had lost their lives beneath the fiery heart of Stannis and his Lord of Light, along with several thousand common men-at-arms. I'm not sure if the knights refer to simple knights or landed knights but Stannis had the power of the majority of the Stormlands and maybe half of the Reach during Blackwater. I don't know how big were the casualities compared to the men fighting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrhex Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 15 minutes ago, Zyee said: I'm not sure if the knights refer to simple knights or landed knights but Stannis had the power of the majority of the Stormlands and maybe half of the Reach during Blackwater. I don't know how big were the casualities compared to the men fighting. I've done a few estimations on the losses on the Blackwater in the past. Of the actual armies of the Stormlands and the Reach, losses in total were in the low thousands, so close on 700 lordlings and knights and a couple thousands more of men at arms and sergeants etc. The majority of the deaths were of the crews of the two fleets due to the wildfire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaak Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 OK, then have a look at my estimates. We know the specific number of Lords present at Field of Fire. 600. With Gardeners bringing twice as many as Lannisters, meaning 400 for Gardeners and 200 for Lannisters. This would have been most Lords of Reach and Westerlands. Not all. For one, Lord is a lifetime title. Many lords would have been unfit for combat because of old age/illness (and a few because of young age or female gender). Those lords would mostly still have sent their soldiers, under command of their heir if possible, and other family members or unrelated household knights if impractical - but not called and therefore not enumerated as Lords. And some Lords capable of fighting would have been detailed to command the forces left behind - like the Osgrey Marshal of North March left behind when Gardener rode against Storm King, or Tyrells at Highgarden (not called Lords, though) and Hightowers. It would seem a plausible guess that Reach and West between them mobilized 600 and excused 400 Lords, having 1000 lords between them. An average of 300 Lords for every Kingdom other than Reach would suggest something like 2500...3000 Lords for the whole Westeros. Is this plausible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrhex Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 10 minutes ago, Jaak said: OK, then have a look at my estimates. We know the specific number of Lords present at Field of Fire. 600. With Gardeners bringing twice as many as Lannisters, meaning 400 for Gardeners and 200 for Lannisters. This would have been most Lords of Reach and Westerlands. Not all. For one, Lord is a lifetime title. Many lords would have been unfit for combat because of old age/illness (and a few because of young age or female gender). Those lords would mostly still have sent their soldiers, under command of their heir if possible, and other family members or unrelated household knights if impractical - but not called and therefore not enumerated as Lords. And some Lords capable of fighting would have been detailed to command the forces left behind - like the Osgrey Marshal of North March left behind when Gardener rode against Storm King, or Tyrells at Highgarden (not called Lords, though) and Hightowers. It would seem a plausible guess that Reach and West between them mobilized 600 and excused 400 Lords, having 1000 lords between them. An average of 300 Lords for every Kingdom other than Reach would suggest something like 2500...3000 Lords for the whole Westeros. Is this plausible? Yes, but it's counting petty lords next to great lords. To take Free Northman Reborn's list of 16 major lords, and add about a dozen petty lords per, would give you ~200 "lords" great and small in the North, not including landed knigts/Serjeanty (or whatever the Northmen call thier non-knight armored lancers who must control some land to afford the equipment and horse and perhaps even a lance). Again with the high end Manderly example of 100 landed knights, this is an upper limit of ~1,600 in the North, though probably under ~1,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaak Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 2 hours ago, Nyrhex said: Yes, but it's counting petty lords next to great lords. Yes, but that´s the aim. Estimate the total number of Lords, great or petty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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