The Cost of Gathering and Marching Torrhen's Army across the North

[Lord Giggles]

A while back, there was a thread in which we were debating how rich (or not) the North was pre-series. During this debate, I ended up calculating the costs of gathering a Northern army and Free Northman Reborn asked me if I could do the same thing for the costs that would have been incurred when Torrhen was gathering his army. So I did, and this is the result.

 

Currency:  Using Dunk and Egg, Dunk sells his horse for 750 stags. In medieval England(13th century) two horses viewed as suitable for a man of knightly class cost 10£. So if we say each of those horses was of the same quality and cost 5£ each then we get 150 stags to 1£. Armour and we get 114 stags to 1£. So around 1£ 10s to 2£ in a gold dragon. 

 

 

For the numbers of troops supplied by each House, I used the figures worked out by Free Northman Reborn and for the distances I worked them out by measuring the length of the wall on a map of North and then applying the length I got for fifty miles to the distance between the various houses holds.

 

 

Seat:	Distance to Winterfell:	Distance to Moat Cailin:	Time for Raven to travel:
Winterfell	0	550mi	0
Last Hearth	350mi	?	1-2 days
Karhold	600mi	?	2-3 days
Dreadfort	450mi	?	1-2 days
Cerwyn	150mi	?	1 day
Torrhen’s Square	250mi	?	1 day
Deepwood Motte	250mi	?	1 day
Bear Island	100mi by sea, 160mi land	?	1-2 days
Mountain Clans	250mi	?	1 day
Barrowton	400mi	250mi	1-2 days
Greywater Watch	630mi	100mi	2-3 days
Flint’s Fingers	950mi	500mi	2-4 days
White Harbor	450mi	200mi	1-2 days
Oldcastle	550mi	300mi	2-3 days
Widow’s Watch	750mi	650mi	2-3 days

 

 

So, those are the distances I used. Next, for figures as to how much it would cost to feed the troops being mustered, I used figures that we have from Medieval England. Feeding a field labourer for a day cost about 2d. and a horse cost 75d. In the same thread about how wealthy the North is, I worked out the value of a gold dragon as 1£ 10s(in medieval English money). Using Free Northman Reborn’s figures for troops and factoring in 2 weeks muster time and then each lord’s troops covering 10-20mi per day, for a muster of the houses who are closest to Winterfell you get the following figures for the costs.

Muster at Winterfell:

Stark: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 484 gold dragons/day. 14,520-29,040 gold dragons to keep these men fed while waiting for others to show up. 13,068-26,620 marching to Moat Cailin.

Umber: 500 cavalry, 1,500 foot. 17-35 days marching time. 322 gold dragons/day. 5,474-11,270 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 4,186-8,050 gold dragons waiting. 8,694-17,710 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Karstark: 500 cavalry, 1,500 foot. 30-60 days marching time. 322 gold dragons/day. 9,660-19,320 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 8,694-17,710 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Bolton: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 22-45 days marching time. 484 gold dragons/day. 10,648-21,780 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 3,872-7,620 gold dragons waiting. 13,068-26,620 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Cerwyn: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 7-15 days. 157 gold dragons/day. 1,099-2,355 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 3,611-7,065 gold dragons waiting. 4,239-8,635 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Tallhart: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 12-25 days. 157 gold dragons/day. 1,884-3,925 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 2,808-5,460 gold dragons waiting. 4,239-8,635 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Glover: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 12-25 days. 157 gold dragons/day. 1,884-3,925 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 2,808-5,460 gold dragons waiting. 4,239-8,635 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Mormont: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 11-19 days. 157 gold dragons/day. 1,727-2,983 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 2,983-6,437 gold dragons waiting. 4,239-8,635 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

Mountain Clans: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 12-25 days. 484 gold dragons/day. 5,808-12,100 gold dragons for march to Winterfell. 8,712-16,940 gold dragons waiting. 13,068-26,620 gold dragons marching to Moat Cailin.

 

 

Then there are the costs of waiting in Winterfell for the other forces to arrive and the costs of marching to Moat Cailin, included above.

 

 

Next are the houses who I believe linked up with Torrhen’s main army at Moat Cailin rather than Winterfell.

Dustin: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 12-25 days march. 484 gold dragons/day. 5,808-12,100 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Reed: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 5-10 days march. 157 gold dragons/day. 785-1,570 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Manderly: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 10-20 days march. 484 gold dragons/day. 4,880-9,680 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Flint of the Fingers: 250 cavalry, 750 foot. 25-50 days march. 157 gold dragons/day. 3,900-7,800 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Flint of Widow’s Watch: 500 cavalry, 1,500 foot. 32-65 days march. 322 gold dragons/day. 10,304-20,930 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Locke: 250, 750 foot. 15-30 days march. 157 gold dragons/day. 2,355-4,710 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Ryswell: 500 cavalry, 1,500 foot. 12-25 days march. 322 gold dragons/day. 3,864-8,050 gold dragons for march to Moat Cailin.

Finally, here are the total costs to each house with the expenses from marching to the Trident(a march of 52-105 days) and waiting at Moat Cailin.

Stark: 52,756-106,480 gold dragons.

Bolton: 52,756-106,480 gold dragons.

Manderly: 40,656-82,280  gold dragons.

Dustin: 40,656-82,280 gold dragons.

Mountain Clans: 52,756-106,480 gold dragons.

Flint of Widow’s Watch: 27,048-54,740 gold dragons.

Ryswell: 27,048-54,740 gold dragons.

Karstark:  35,098-70,840 gold dragons.

Umber: 35,098- 70,840 gold dragons.

Cerwyn: 17,113-30,420 gold dragons.

Tallhart:17,113 -30,420 gold dragons.

Glover:17,113-30,420 gold dragons.

Mormont:17,113 -30,420 gold dragons*

Locke:10,519 -21,195 gold dragons.

Flint of the Fingers: 10,519-21,195 gold dragons.

Reed: 10,519-21,195 gold dragons.

Total Cost to the North: 463,881-920,425 gold dragons.(695,821£ 10s-1,380,637£ 10s in medieval English £)

*=In all likelihood the Mormont’s costs are higher than this due to needing to hire ships to ferry their troops to the mainlaind but I couldn’t find the cost of hiring a ship for such a purpose in medieval times.

[James Steller]

Wow. You really put a lot of effort and thought into this.

[Ser Rolland Storn]

+1.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Great effort. Really displays the cost that the North's size imposes on any attempt to mobilize an army, and the disproportionate influence this has on their army sizes. Will reread it in detail and respond more specifically at that point.

[Lord Giggles]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Great effort. Really displays the cost that the North's size imposes on any attempt to mobilize an army, and the disproportionate influence this has on their army sizes. Will reread it in detail and respond more specifically at that point.

The financial constraints the North's size imposes on it get worse when you factor in that most feudal obligations in our world only lasted around 40 days and at best it takes them 27 to get to Moat Cailin to Winterfell from Winterfelll. After 40 days they probably need to pay their men wages(anywhere between 2-6d. for infatrymen, 12d. for men-at-arms and 1s 6d. for knights getting higher until it reaches 1£ 5s, if I remember right, for a Duke, if we take medieval England as an example). So in addition to the costs of feeding their men(which I listed above) they would likely have to wage them. 

 

If I'm being generous and say that they only need to start paying from when they pass Moat Cailin, that's still an extra 7,500 cavalry and 22,500 foot you're needing to wage per day. Putting the wages at the lowest possible rate, that adds on an extra 375 gold dragons per day that the lords are shelling out as a whole, adding on an extra 19,500-39,375 gold dragons that the North is going to have to find to pay for this whole thing. If they also gave their men a decent fee to find their way home with(which most lords did) of say 2s. or 2 Moons in Westerosi currency per infantryman and about 1£ per cavalryman so 20 moons, that adds 6,500 gold dragons, cheap compared to feeding them but still an estimable sum of money.

[Nikhil Singh]

Holy Shit man ,great thread 10/10,

 

But ,could u pls link the the other tread u reference 

[Lord Giggles]

 

11 hours ago, Nikhil Singh said:

Holy Shit man ,great thread 10/10,

 

But ,could u pls link the the other tread u reference 

Good to know someone finds my ramblings interesting. 

There's the other thread I referenced. 

[Lord Vance II]

Is there any real-world prescident for some kind of Leige Lord/Bannerman cost split? 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, Lord Vance II said:

Is there any real-world prescident for some kind of Leige Lord/Bannerman cost split? 

The important take here is that the cost of marching Torhenn's army to the Trident didn't fall far short of the Crown's entire current debt to the Iron Bank. Signifying that the North is not nearly as devoid of resources as some try to suggest.

 

[Lord Giggles]

3 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Is there any real-world prescident for some kind of Leige Lord/Bannerman cost split? 

There are various real-world prescendents. In Edward I's England, his vassals(the Earls) paid for the men they brought with them and the horses they brought with them. However, they were only obliged to serve for 40 days each year and so after that point the King could only ask that they stay. He couldn't force them to. So Edward I paid for the knights he brought with him and his Earls paid for the knights they brought with them while the infantry was hired privately by the King, completely seperate from his vassal's feudal obligations. Then in France right up until the battle of Agincourt, same thing. Each nobleman paid for every single man he brought on campaign with him, so if he brought 200 men-at-arms he had to pay to feed those 200 men-at-arms and pay their wages. Those are just two . 

 

I'd also like to point out the cost could well be much higher than this. I used an average of 3 horses per cavalryman/knight/man-at-arms. Most of the great lords would likely have more than that(the Dukes of England were allowed to take up to 50 horses with them on the Agincourt campaign) while it's not impossible that some of the richer infantrymen also ride horses while travelling but then fight on foot(as English archers in the later stages of the Hundred Years War did). Also I used the amount eaten by a labourer for the cost of feeding each men whereas a fighting man would likely eat more. So these are minimum costs.

 

In the 1400s, the number of horses a noble's rank allowed him to take on campaign with him were as follows=

Duke=50

Earl=24

Banneret/Baron=16

Knight=6

Esquire=4

Archer=1

[Nyrhex]

On 24.9.2016 at 6:12 PM, Lord Giggles said:

A while back, there was a thread in which we were debating how rich (or not) the North was pre-series. During this debate, I ended up calculating the costs of gathering a Northern army and Free Northman Reborn asked me if I could do the same thing for the costs that would have been incurred when Torrhen was gathering his army. So I did, and this is the result.

Currency:  Using Dunk and Egg, Dunk sells his horse for 750 stags. In medieval England(13th century) two horses viewed as suitable for a man of knightly class cost 10£. So if we say each of those horses was of the same quality and cost 5£ each then we get 150 stags to 1£. Armour and we get 114 stags to 1£. So around 1£ 10s to 2£ in a gold dragon. 

For the numbers of troops supplied by each House, I used the figures worked out by Free Northman Reborn and for the distances I worked them out by measuring the length of the wall on a map of North and then applying the length I got for fifty miles to the distance between the various houses holds.

 

Seat:	Distance to Winterfell:	Distance to Moat Cailin:	Time for Raven to travel:
Winterfell	0	550mi	0
Last Hearth	350mi	?	1-2 days
Karhold	600mi	?	2-3 days
Dreadfort	450mi	?	1-2 days
Cerwyn	150mi	?	1 day
Torrhen’s Square	250mi	?	1 day
Deepwood Motte	250mi	?	1 day
Bear Island	100mi by sea, 160mi land	?	1-2 days
Mountain Clans	250mi	?	1 day
Barrowton	400mi	250mi	1-2 days
Greywater Watch	630mi	100mi	2-3 days
Flint’s Fingers	950mi	500mi	2-4 days
White Harbor	450mi	200mi	1-2 days
Oldcastle	550mi	300mi	2-3 days
Widow’s Watch	750mi	650mi	2-3 days

 

 

On 26.9.2016 at 6:17 PM, Lord Giggles said:

There are various real-world prescendents. In Edward I's England, his vassals(the Earls) paid for the men they brought with them and the horses they brought with them. However, they were only obliged to serve for 40 days each year and so after that point the King could only ask that they stay. He couldn't force them to. So Edward I paid for the knights he brought with him and his Earls paid for the knights they brought with them while the infantry was hired privately by the King, completely seperate from his vassal's feudal obligations. Then in France right up until the battle of Agincourt, same thing. Each nobleman paid for every single man he brought on campaign with him, so if he brought 200 men-at-arms he had to pay to feed those 200 men-at-arms and pay their wages. Those are just two . 

 

I'd also like to point out the cost could well be much higher than this. I used an average of 3 horses per cavalryman/knight/man-at-arms. Most of the great lords would likely have more than that(the Dukes of England were allowed to take up to 50 horses with them on the Agincourt campaign) while it's not impossible that some of the richer infantrymen also ride horses while travelling but then fight on foot(as English archers in the later stages of the Hundred Years War did). Also I used the amount eaten by a labourer for the cost of feeding each men whereas a fighting man would likely eat more. So these are minimum costs.

 

In the 1400s, the number of horses a noble's rank allowed him to take on campaign with him were as follows=

Duke=50

Earl=24

Banneret/Baron=16

Knight=6

Esquire=4

Archer=1

 

Methodology issues (off the top of my head):

1. You are using an arbitrary example based on a partial comparison between Westeros and medieval England. GRRM made Westeros while inspired by England during the Wars of the Roses, but this is not a 1-1 expy. Your source is 

http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng215/medieval_prices.html

From the same source:

Knight's 2 horses               L10         1374  
Total Armor owned by a knight   L16 6s 8d   1374   

The knight's armor costs over 60% more than two "knight's" horses. In The Hedge Knight Dunk buys a basic set of a knight's armor for 800 Silver Stags, which is just a little over what he got for the horse.

You see here how this is not a fair 1-1 comparison?

2. You are ignoring the type of horse. Dunk was selling a Palfrey, which is a riding horse. "A knight's horse" in medieval England could also be refering to a different kind of horse, but the source is vague. Is a Palfrey the same cost as a Charger, a Courser or a Destrier? Of course not, they are completely different animals with different uses and as such different prices.

3. I've went with FNR plenty over the Northern troops numbers. They don't make any sort of sense and were both re-done by GRRM in later books and are vague and contradictory since AGOT. On top of that there is no agreement on how the Northern army works. We are not talking about historic examples of how the army works, we are given GRRM's impression of how he thinks a medieval army works. The economic model by which the Northern army works is unknown, and likely non-existant because it does not make much sense either way you work it. So getting the cost of it all is a problem. GRRM intentionally handwaved those issues until he wanted to use them for narrative reasons, and whenever he bothers to pay lip service to logistics and economics it just comes out horribly wrong. 

4. Travel times are, again, something that GRRM literally said he does not pay attention to and "just enjoy the story". I'm not sure how realistic it is to calculate payment for days of service when Gregor Clegane's men still have not been payed later in AFFC and don't even keep count of how much they are owed "We're owed," said one. "Ser promised us. Rich rewards, he said."

And those guys were hired since before Robb raised the Northern host. Again, this is due to GRRM not working with any economic model and just using numbers to sound large or small depending on his mood at the time of writing. 

Just for comparison sake, at over 900k gold dragons, the Northern call-up is close to the entire realm's debt to the Faith of the Seven. Almost a third of the sum that Ned was sure was reducing the realm, as in all 7 kingdoms as a whole, to bankruptcy. And this after Littlefinger had "worked magic" to increase the realm's income to ten times higher than just a short decade ago. The North in the mean time had no such economic growth, that is clear. So if Robb would need those kind of funds just to get to Moat Cailin, how much did he pay for his troops (add combat day pay-raise as well here) for the next few months? There is no way that he could have payed for all that, not if he took a third mortgage on Winterfell.

The Winterfell levy cost by maximum calculation (~29k) would still mean that Sandor Clegane after winning in the tourney could hire the same force, ~30 Lysene pirate ships (Saan's 30 ships cost 30,000 gold dragons a month), and still have ~40k extra for a short war in the Stepstones. He apparently could also carry ~10,000 gold coins in his saddle bags. Which means that Stranger is one hell of a horse to carry both Sandor, his armor, and that much gold. 

In the minimum calculation (~14k) it is close the the sum that Anguy spent in a weekend with three whores, good wine (fine, a bath of good wine) and a large lunch after winning the Archery competition. Oh and a good dagger, and a pair of boots. 

Now we know that most men would not see a gold coin in thier life time from character's thoughts and claims in the books, but here we have ~3,000 Stark levy seeing almost 3 gold coins for a month's work? 3 whores would see (even if they only keep a fraction of thier income) several times that? How does that work out?

5. We know from the Golden Company that each Westerosi knight has 3 horses and squires have 1. The above table has no relation to the story. 

"Can we walk across the waves, ser?" asked Lysono Maar. "I tell you again, we cannot reach the silver queen by sea. I slipped into Volantis myself, posing as a trader, to learn how many ships might be available to us. The harbor teems with galleys, cogs, and carracks of every sort and size, yet even so I soon found myself consorting with smugglers and pirates. We have ten thousand men in the company, as I am sure Lord Connington remembers from his years of service with us. Five hundred knights, each with three horses. Five hundred squires, with one mount apiece. And elephants, we must not forget the elephants. A pirate ship will not suffice. We would need a pirate fleet … and even if we found one, the word has come back from Slaver's Bay that Meereen has been closed off by blockade."

Of course here as well we have the methodological problem of "is the Golden Company representative of Westerosi armies? Do they represent the North?". The Northern army is not the Tyrell army. Where a Northern lord can still go to war with a mail shirt and a helm, in the south a common knight would already have a full suit of plate armor. The ramifications for the wealth of lords and knights, and how much an average knight or lord would spend during a campaign in the south compared to the North, are clear I believe.

6. Participation in the costs of a vassal is not something that we see much of. Historical examples are again, an arbitrary comparison. We have nothing in the text to even suggest that the Starks pay for the expenses that are mounting for the different lords in the army, let alone that there is a system to it.  

I'm sorry but the books don't make it possible to calculate how much such things cost. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

14 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

 

Methodology issues (off the top of my head):

1. You are using an arbitrary example based on a partial comparison between Westeros and medieval England. GRRM made Westeros while inspired by England during the Wars of the Roses, but this is not a 1-1 expy. Your source is 

http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng215/medieval_prices.html

From the same source:

Knight's 2 horses               L10         1374  
Total Armor owned by a knight   L16 6s 8d   1374   

The knight's armor costs over 60% more than two "knight's" horses. In The Hedge Knight Dunk buys a basic set of a knight's armor for 800 Silver Stags, which is just a little over what he got for the horse.

You see here how this is not a fair 1-1 comparison?

2. You are ignoring the type of horse. Dunk was selling a Palfrey, which is a riding horse. "A knight's horse" in medieval England could also be refering to a different kind of horse, but the source is vague. Is a Palfrey the same cost as a Charger, a Courser or a Destrier? Of course not, they are completely different animals with different uses and as such different prices.

3. I've went with FNR plenty over the Northern troops numbers. They don't make any sort of sense and were both re-done by GRRM in later books and are vague and contradictory since AGOT. On top of that there is no agreement on how the Northern army works. We are not talking about historic examples of how the army works, we are given GRRM's impression of how he thinks a medieval army works. The economic model by which the Northern army works is unknown, and likely non-existant because it does not make much sense either way you work it. So getting the cost of it all is a problem. GRRM intentionally handwaved those issues until he wanted to use them for narrative reasons, and whenever he bothers to pay lip service to logistics and economics it just comes out horribly wrong. 

4. Travel times are, again, something that GRRM literally said he does not pay attention to and "just enjoy the story". I'm not sure how realistic it is to calculate payment for days of service when Gregor Clegane's men still have not been payed later in AFFC and don't even keep count of how much they are owed "We're owed," said one. "Ser promised us. Rich rewards, he said."

And those guys were hired since before Robb raised the Northern host. Again, this is due to GRRM not working with any economic model and just using numbers to sound large or small depending on his mood at the time of writing. 

Just for comparison sake, at over 900k gold dragons, the Northern call-up is close to the entire realm's debt to the Faith of the Seven. Almost a third of the sum that Ned was sure was reducing the realm, as in all 7 kingdoms as a whole, to bankruptcy. And this after Littlefinger had "worked magic" to increase the realm's income to ten times higher than just a short decade ago. The North in the mean time had no such economic growth, that is clear. So if Robb would need those kind of funds just to get to Moat Cailin, how much did he pay for his troops (add combat day pay-raise as well here) for the next few months? There is no way that he could have payed for all that, not if he took a third mortgage on Winterfell.

The Winterfell levy cost by maximum calculation (~29k) would still mean that Sandor Clegane after winning in the tourney could hire the same force, ~30 Lysene pirate ships (Saan's 30 ships cost 30,000 gold dragons a month), and still have ~40k extra for a short war in the Stepstones. He apparently could also carry ~10,000 gold coins in his saddle bags. Which means that Stranger is one hell of a horse to carry both Sandor, his armor, and that much gold. 

In the minimum calculation (~14k) it is close the the sum that Anguy spent in a weekend with three whores, good wine (fine, a bath of good wine) and a large lunch after winning the Archery competition. Oh and a good dagger, and a pair of boots. 

Now we know that most men would not see a gold coin in thier life time from character's thoughts and claims in the books, but here we have ~3,000 Stark levy seeing almost 3 gold coins for a month's work? 3 whores would see (even if they only keep a fraction of thier income) several times that? How does that work out?

5. We know from the Golden Company that each Westerosi knight has 3 horses and squires have 1. The above table has no relation to the story. 

"Can we walk across the waves, ser?" asked Lysono Maar. "I tell you again, we cannot reach the silver queen by sea. I slipped into Volantis myself, posing as a trader, to learn how many ships might be available to us. The harbor teems with galleys, cogs, and carracks of every sort and size, yet even so I soon found myself consorting with smugglers and pirates. We have ten thousand men in the company, as I am sure Lord Connington remembers from his years of service with us. Five hundred knights, each with three horses. Five hundred squires, with one mount apiece. And elephants, we must not forget the elephants. A pirate ship will not suffice. We would need a pirate fleet … and even if we found one, the word has come back from Slaver's Bay that Meereen has been closed off by blockade."

Of course here as well we have the methodological problem of "is the Golden Company representative of Westerosi armies? Do they represent the North?". The Northern army is not the Tyrell army. Where a Northern lord can still go to war with a mail shirt and a helm, in the south a common knight would already have a full suit of plate armor. The ramifications for the wealth of lords and knights, and how much an average knight or lord would spend during a campaign in the south compared to the North, are clear I believe.

6. Participation in the costs of a vassal is not something that we see much of. Historical examples are again, an arbitrary comparison. We have nothing in the text to even suggest that the Starks pay for the expenses that are mounting for the different lords in the army, let alone that there is a system to it.  

I'm sorry but the books don't make it possible to calculate how much such things cost. 

Martin has admitted that Sandor Clegane's winnings was a ludicrous mistake. So you can ignore that.

As for your issues with the North being able to afford 900k to raise an army. Well, war is expensive. And in the North, they would store their resources for such necessities, rather than running up debts on extravagant luxuries. Ned's astonishment at the Crown's debt could as easily be explained by him phrasing it as follows: "I cannot believe you owe 900k dragons. I could raise an army of 30k soldiers with that amount".

 

[Lord Giggles]

1 hour ago, Nyrhex said:

 

Methodology issues (off the top of my head):

1. You are using an arbitrary example based on a partial comparison between Westeros and medieval England. GRRM made Westeros while inspired by England during the Wars of the Roses, but this is not a 1-1 expy. Your source is 

http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng215/medieval_prices.html

From the same source:

Knight's 2 horses               L10         1374  
Total Armor owned by a knight   L16 6s 8d   1374   

The knight's armor costs over 60% more than two "knight's" horses. In The Hedge Knight Dunk buys a basic set of a knight's armor for 800 Silver Stags, which is just a little over what he got for the horse.

You see here how this is not a fair 1-1 comparison?

2. You are ignoring the type of horse. Dunk was selling a Palfrey, which is a riding horse. "A knight's horse" in medieval England could also be refering to a different kind of horse, but the source is vague. Is a Palfrey the same cost as a Charger, a Courser or a Destrier? Of course not, they are completely different animals with different uses and as such different prices.

3. I've went with FNR plenty over the Northern troops numbers. They don't make any sort of sense and were both re-done by GRRM in later books and are vague and contradictory since AGOT. On top of that there is no agreement on how the Northern army works. We are not talking about historic examples of how the army works, we are given GRRM's impression of how he thinks a medieval army works. The economic model by which the Northern army works is unknown, and likely non-existant because it does not make much sense either way you work it. So getting the cost of it all is a problem. GRRM intentionally handwaved those issues until he wanted to use them for narrative reasons, and whenever he bothers to pay lip service to logistics and economics it just comes out horribly wrong. 

4. Travel times are, again, something that GRRM literally said he does not pay attention to and "just enjoy the story". I'm not sure how realistic it is to calculate payment for days of service when Gregor Clegane's men still have not been payed later in AFFC and don't even keep count of how much they are owed "We're owed," said one. "Ser promised us. Rich rewards, he said."

And those guys were hired since before Robb raised the Northern host. Again, this is due to GRRM not working with any economic model and just using numbers to sound large or small depending on his mood at the time of writing. 

Just for comparison sake, at over 900k gold dragons, the Northern call-up is close to the entire realm's debt to the Faith of the Seven. Almost a third of the sum that Ned was sure was reducing the realm, as in all 7 kingdoms as a whole, to bankruptcy. And this after Littlefinger had "worked magic" to increase the realm's income to ten times higher than just a short decade ago. The North in the mean time had no such economic growth, that is clear. So if Robb would need those kind of funds just to get to Moat Cailin, how much did he pay for his troops (add combat day pay-raise as well here) for the next few months? There is no way that he could have payed for all that, not if he took a third mortgage on Winterfell.

The Winterfell levy cost by maximum calculation (~29k) would still mean that Sandor Clegane after winning in the tourney could hire the same force, ~30 Lysene pirate ships (Saan's 30 ships cost 30,000 gold dragons a month), and still have ~40k extra for a short war in the Stepstones. He apparently could also carry ~10,000 gold coins in his saddle bags. Which means that Stranger is one hell of a horse to carry both Sandor, his armor, and that much gold. 

In the minimum calculation (~14k) it is close the the sum that Anguy spent in a weekend with three whores, good wine (fine, a bath of good wine) and a large lunch after winning the Archery competition. Oh and a good dagger, and a pair of boots. 

Now we know that most men would not see a gold coin in thier life time from character's thoughts and claims in the books, but here we have ~3,000 Stark levy seeing almost 3 gold coins for a month's work? 3 whores would see (even if they only keep a fraction of thier income) several times that? How does that work out?

5. We know from the Golden Company that each Westerosi knight has 3 horses and squires have 1. The above table has no relation to the story. 

"Can we walk across the waves, ser?" asked Lysono Maar. "I tell you again, we cannot reach the silver queen by sea. I slipped into Volantis myself, posing as a trader, to learn how many ships might be available to us. The harbor teems with galleys, cogs, and carracks of every sort and size, yet even so I soon found myself consorting with smugglers and pirates. We have ten thousand men in the company, as I am sure Lord Connington remembers from his years of service with us. Five hundred knights, each with three horses. Five hundred squires, with one mount apiece. And elephants, we must not forget the elephants. A pirate ship will not suffice. We would need a pirate fleet … and even if we found one, the word has come back from Slaver's Bay that Meereen has been closed off by blockade."

Of course here as well we have the methodological problem of "is the Golden Company representative of Westerosi armies? Do they represent the North?". The Northern army is not the Tyrell army. Where a Northern lord can still go to war with a mail shirt and a helm, in the south a common knight would already have a full suit of plate armor. The ramifications for the wealth of lords and knights, and how much an average knight or lord would spend during a campaign in the south compared to the North, are clear I believe.

6. Participation in the costs of a vassal is not something that we see much of. Historical examples are again, an arbitrary comparison. We have nothing in the text to even suggest that the Starks pay for the expenses that are mounting for the different lords in the army, let alone that there is a system to it.  

I'm sorry but the books don't make it possible to calculate how much such things cost. 

The rundown of the number of horses I gave was not used in my calculation of costs as it would have been very difficult, not to say impossible, to get even a guesstimate of how many men of each social rank were in each contingent. So I stuck with a flat number of 3 horses per man seeing as, once again, we don't know how many men of knightly class are in each contingent and how many men who were still squires were there(if the North has squires which I don't remember if they do or not).

Yes I am ignoring the type of horse in price comparison. However, that is because I was able only to find a cost for a rouncy which was a riding horse rather than warhorse and was the kind of cheap mount ridden by mounted archers rather than men of the knightly and noble class. 

Also, the cost for the Winterfell levies was not the total cost of raising them and marching them down south, it's the cost of feeding them for the 30-60 days it takes the other houses who I believe would assemble at Winterfell to travel there and then the time it would take to march down south to Moat Cailin. None of these costs include pay, all are for the costs of feeding the troops brought by each lord. I haven't added in figures for pay as then I'd also have to get into "regards" and the like in addition to having next to no information on Westerosi levy law. The total cost for feeding the levy from Winterfell throughout the entire campaign came to between 52k and 106k gold dragons. 

Also, yes the sum that it comes to in the end(this is just feeding the army remember) is enormous. Warfare in the medieval period was expensive, which was part of the reason that medieval governments were often in debt and part of the reason that medieval armies were so small. However, other than borrowing money, offering various items as surety of payment and the like, there are various methods a lord could use to pay his troops. One of the more novel ones was when Edward III seized sacks a large number of sacks of wool and paid his troops with those instead, as he lacked the cash to pay them. 

[Lion of the West]

On 2016-09-24 at 5:12 PM, Lord Giggles said:

Text

To put it short, excellent work. If you have time and inclination it would be very interesting to see some calculations on the costs for other armies sin the War of Five Kings. And if not then I thank you these calculations.

[Winter prince]

No wonder Cregan was pissed when he showed up to King's Landing and the Dance of Dragons was over

[Winter prince]

Also, amazing post.  Thank you

[dariopatke]

6 minutes ago, Winter prince said:

No wonder Cregan was pissed when he showed up to King's Landing and the Dance of Dragons was over

Lol, it really makes a lot of sense now.

To the OP: wow, just wow. Congrats! Great work you put there.

[Nyrhex]

22 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Martin has admitted that Sandor Clegane's winnings was a ludicrous mistake. So you can ignore that.

As for your issues with the North being able to afford 900k to raise an army. Well, war is expensive. And in the North, they would store their resources for such necessities, rather than running up debts on extravagant luxuries. Ned's astonishment at the Crown's debt could as easily be explained by him phrasing it as follows: "I cannot believe you owe 900k dragons. I could raise an army of 30k soldiers with that amount".

 

Leaving aside Sanor's winnings still eaves Anguy's weekend in Vegas, but I'll ignore that too. 

And I don't think it can be said with a straight face that Ned was flabbergasted with how Robert was spending alot. He was flabbergasted with how Robert was running the realm into the ground. Yes, war is expensive, but it's not "we are one region who is almost reaching Robert Baratheon level debt with just the callup of most of our army and marching to the border" expensive. Robert had earned that debt with a decade and a half of spending, a short war with the Greyjoys, and Littlefinger cooking the books and working a Ponzi Scheme. 

21 hours ago, Lord Giggles said:

The rundown of the number of horses I gave was not used in my calculation of costs as it would have been very difficult, not to say impossible, to get even a guesstimate of how many men of each social rank were in each contingent. So I stuck with a flat number of 3 horses per man seeing as, once again, we don't know how many men of knightly class are in each contingent and how many men who were still squires were there(if the North has squires which I don't remember if they do or not).

Yes I am ignoring the type of horse in price comparison. However, that is because I was able only to find a cost for a rouncy which was a riding horse rather than warhorse and was the kind of cheap mount ridden by mounted archers rather than men of the knightly and noble class. 

Also, the cost for the Winterfell levies was not the total cost of raising them and marching them down south, it's the cost of feeding them for the 30-60 days it takes the other houses who I believe would assemble at Winterfell to travel there and then the time it would take to march down south to Moat Cailin. None of these costs include pay, all are for the costs of feeding the troops brought by each lord. I haven't added in figures for pay as then I'd also have to get into "regards" and the like in addition to having next to no information on Westerosi levy law. The total cost for feeding the levy from Winterfell throughout the entire campaign came to between 52k and 106k gold dragons. 

Also, yes the sum that it comes to in the end(this is just feeding the army remember) is enormous. Warfare in the medieval period was expensive, which was part of the reason that medieval governments were often in debt and part of the reason that medieval armies were so small. However, other than borrowing money, offering various items as surety of payment and the like, there are various methods a lord could use to pay his troops. One of the more novel ones was when Edward III seized sacks a large number of sacks of wool and paid his troops with those instead, as he lacked the cash to pay them. 

3 horses as a flat number is sort of understandable, but by definition it is rounding things up quite a bit if we do not know how many squires or men at arms are present, who would have less or just one horse. (The North does indeed have squires, Robb and his uncle Brandon had squires, and Domeric Bolton was a page of Lady Dustin, indicating that the concept and the traditional stages exist in the North at least to some degree).

Leaving aside the type of horse, you still had two comparison points but only made use of one. If a knight's armor in 1374 cost over 60% more than two horses, but you compare it with Dunk who purchased his armor for roughly the cost of his horse, we have an indicator that either the price of a horse of the armor is different. If we go with Dunk's opening sum of 3,000 silver stags, double that and you get 6,000 silver stags for the price of a suit of armor. Dunk landed quite the deal if he got an armor for merely 800 stags. Even if you knock it down by 75% for being second hand armor, he payed half what he should have been paying by the historical example. 

My bad, cost of feeding not of upkeep. But cost of feeding is even worse. How on earth are you seeing farmers and tradesmen around Winterfell seeing those kinds of money if most have never seen a single gold dragon? Now a bunch of suppliers and farmers are seeing thousans of dragons? There was no looking at Westerosi prices for food here, it was using one example with the price of a horse from over a century ago, compared with a historic figure to see the fictional cost of feeding a fictional army, then working entirely with medieval English prices?

I have no issue with the math per person, but the conclusion is all wrong. Taking another example from the books, during the famine in King's Landing one dragon could buy you six skinny piglets. That was a shockingly high price. 

Take the minimun calcualtion you've made: 

Stark: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 484 gold dragons/day. 14,520-29,040 gold dragons to keep these men fed while waiting for others to show up. 13,068-26,620 marching to Moat Cailin.

14,520 gold dragons x 6 skinny piglets = 87,120

The Stark levy of 3,000 men and 2,250 horse would eat the equivalent of 87,120 skinny piglets during the couple of weeks of mustering them?!?! On what planet does that math work out? Each man, squire and horse have half a piglet a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Robert Baratheon does not eat like that.

And this with the maximum cost, assuming that local Winterfell farmers were ripping off thier lord and taking him for all he has because fuck him, where else is he going to buy food from?

 

20 hours ago, Winter prince said:

No wonder Cregan was pissed when he showed up to King's Landing and the Dance of Dragons was over

Cregan Stark took an army of spare mouths south to die before winter. He ditched them there for that exact reason.

[Free Northman Reborn]

33 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

I have no issue with the math per person, but the conclusion is all wrong. Taking another example from the books, during the famine in King's Landing one dragon could buy you six skinny piglets. That was a shockingly high price. 

Take the minimun calcualtion you've made: 

Stark: 750 cavalry, 2,250 foot. 484 gold dragons/day. 14,520-29,040 gold dragons to keep these men fed while waiting for others to show up. 13,068-26,620 marching to Moat Cailin.

14,520 gold dragons x 6 skinny piglets = 87,120

The Stark levy of 3,000 men and 2,250 horse would eat the equivalent of 87,120 skinny piglets during the couple of weeks of mustering them?!?! On what planet does that math work out? Each man, squire and horse have half a piglet a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Robert Baratheon does not eat like that.

And this with the maximum cost, assuming that local Winterfell farmers were ripping off thier lord and taking him for all he has because fuck him, where else is he going to buy food from?

Which part of that do you have a problem with, exactly? So from the figures you quote above, an army of 3000 men and maybe as many horses, requires 484 dragons per day to sustain 6 men and 6 horses for a day.   How much grain, horse fodder, food, ale and all the other required supplies could you exchange for 6 skinny piglets? Enough to feed 6 men and 6 horses for a day? I don't think that comparison is unrealistic at all.

In fact, 6 skinny piglets might well not buy you enough of all the other supplies you need to feed 6 men and 6 horses  for a day.

 

[Nyrhex]

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Which part of that do you have a problem with, exactly? So from the figures you quote above, an army of 3000 men and maybe as many horses, requires 484 dragons per day to sustain 6 men and 6 horses for a day.   How much grain, horse fodder, food, ale and all the other required supplies could you exchange for 6 skinny piglets? Enough to feed 6 men and 6 horses for a day? I don't think that comparison is unrealistic at all.

In fact, 6 skinny piglets might well not buy you enough of all the other supplies you need to feed 6 men and 6 horses  for a day.

 

I think we have a different mental picture of what a grown man eats in the army, and what a piglet looks like, costs, or translate to in other foods. 

Your average diet for the common medieval soldier did not have bacon with every breakfast and pork chops with every lunch. For the overwhelming majority of those Stark soldiers a gold dragon is a considerable sum, and not "a family's food budget for a week or two" considerable, the "90 stags (1/3rd dragon) would buy a hit on a Bran Stark" considerable. Six coppers got you a melon during the same timeframe of the six skinny piglets, and a stag got you a bushel of corn. A gold dragon is laughably more than you would spend on such a small group for a day.

A farmer in Duskendale, which suffered relatively little during the war, went on to recieve lashes because he could not afford the 50 stags he was fined for mixing sawdust in his flour. By your calculation the man was willing to suffer 50 lashes (or at least 1 per 1 stag he was short) rather than cough up a ~2.5 day's worth of food (assuming he had a horse, or up to a week's worth of food if he was living alone and ate sparingly). Who the hell can't afford that, that they would be willing to take lashes?

A common number of silver stags found in purses of characters is in the single digits. This is for traveling characters, which would consider this a traveling sum to last a while, not a pocket change sum for minor purchases at the market.

If a suit of basic plate armor costs 800 stags, (just under 4 gold dragons), are you suggesting that an unskilled worker saving a couple of months could purchase a suit of plate armor? Because the books would beg to differ. We barely see farmers with any sort of metal armor even in town militias. The entire Northern mounted contingent can't afford plate, they are only refered to as wearing mail (at least the bulk of them are wearing mail and the ones who wear better are a minority), and yet it was all relatively easily purchasable and they simply chose otherwise because fuck it, it's heavy and they already carry too many furs because of the cold? 

 

 

Just leave it. GRRM does not do economy well. Tywin has the "Dwarf's Penny" while acting Hand, to pay for the Royal Wedding. One penny per act. Let's work the math on that one, no real world prices needed. King's Landing has ~500,000 people, plus <20,000 Lannisters from Tywin's army, and <80,000 from the armies of the Reach and the Stormlands. Let's go with ~250,000 males in King's Landing. Let's not reduce every man and child too old or young to perform an act. Let's add ~100,000 soldiers, and double them by 2.5 for the sake of argument, to show that they perform more regularly than the average person, horny soldiers and all. 500,000 pennies, over the ~2 months, at best that the tax was in place, how many acts were performed? Let's say everyone goes to a whore once a day. 60x500,000 pennies = 30,000,000 pennies. Divide by 11,760 we get ~2,551 gold dragons, or, about what Robb Stark had to pay in order feed his own men for a week (using the above minimal estimation).

Do you see the problem with this? Tywin can just reduce the City Watch back to it's original size for a couple of weeks that the armies of the Westerlands, Reach and Stormlands are in the Capital, and he has the money for literally the feast of the century. How many guests was that? Tyrion beggs to reduce the number from 1,000 to 300 but was refused. 1,000 nobles ate and drank and feasted on 77 courses far more costly that the average food of a common soldier in the Stark host, I think you'd agree. So ~2,551 gold dragons buys you 77,000 expensive meals, plus all the food and drink for the soldiers that we do not see. 

This is of course a massive exaggeration. Not every greybeard and every toddler go to a whorehouse. Not even all men of age. Not everyone has the coin, and not everyone is a sex addict who has to go to a whorehouse at least once a day. 

And even if we are talking about something that aided the Lannisters to pay for the wedding, with what other other funds were they using? The coffers were next to empty after Tyrion used it all up on Wildfire and his chain, the interest on all the loans was eating awy the overwhelming majority of the incomes of the crown, and Tywin was both insisting on not using his own funds for a royal event and on not going for the Tyrells in order to show the power of the crown. We are talking abouta massive event that was payed for entirely out of the "Dwarf's Penny" tax. An event you would insist could have been payed for entirely by Robb Stark saving up the cash he was spending on just feeding his 3,000 troops and 2,250 horses for one week.

 

Give me a break.