Northern cavalry - a discussion

[Free Northman Reborn]

51 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

There are various kinds of medieval societies, and those societies evolved over time.

It doesn't have to be that way in the North.

It doesn't have to be that way in the North. And even if it was this doesn't necessarily translate into them all having heavy armored cavalry, and that's what we are talking about here.

Barrowton most certainly doesn't have a population of 5,000-10,000 people. That would be a metropolis by medieval standard. Certainly not a town.

There are such towns mentioned to exist in the Crownlands, the Reach, and the Riverlands. Nobody does ever mention any of those in the North. As soon George comes around and mentions those towns I'll admit their existence. But I don't imagine that stuff there for which we have no evidence.

We don't know if anything came from that. And no, just because the Manderlys have built ships doesn't mean something came of that. The Manderlys don't need the Umbers to get some wood.

One assumes that there didn't come a lot of venison from, say, White Harbor. Because, you know, that would take quite some time. One assumes only the lords living near the Wall would provide them with food. White Harbor could sent them salted food and the like via ship.

Yeah, that is stuff the lords do. The lords have horses. And a lot of other resources. The commoners don't.

The Umbers means 'the smallfolk of the Umbers' in that context. Or do you think the Greatjon is a shepherd?

Because they need to eat them and store them to prepare for winter. Most of their goods cannot be for sale. And they would not have enough surplus food to use that as currency. You can do that in the real world where winter is usually just a nuisance but anyone who knows he is not going to be able to plant crops for 4-6 years or so is not going to look at some turnips as expendable stuff.

I'm really baffled that nobody sees that. Could be that use hides, furs, salt, iron, or whatever resources they can find in the earth as a currency in the North. But not food.

Well, for one Wales is much smaller place. Germany was actually the Holy Roman Empire in those days, the largest political power in Europe. 

It was also a very fractured political entity, with the Emperor only being its nominal head and the various princes, dukes, and counts vying for control of the land.

Castles were a means to control borders and trade. They were used to oversee roads and collect tolls. In a land where you could basically cross in two or three different countries in a day's walk such kind of things happened.

[If you get around the Atlantic one day, you are welcome to come visit a few places here. I can show you the real Eyrie and a lot of ruins where actual 'robber knights' once descended upon innocent travelers.]

In England most of the really powerful castles where in the Welsh Marches - defenses against the ever quarrelsome Welsh. Those are the inspiration for the Dornish Marches in the Stormlands and the Reach. But most of George's castles actually serve no political or military purpose whatsoever. Most of the castles in Westeros should not exist, or be manses, chateaus, palaces, or cottages. You don't need a big, strong castle in the middle of a pacified land.

But Westeros is completely different place. It has a 'castle culture' that's completely different from the real middle ages. The main centers of commerce and economy in the real middle ages were first monasteries (who controlled vast amounts of land and peasants in the early middle ages) and then the developing towns and cities, not the castles.

In Westeros things are different in that regard. There doesn't seem to be a strong and influential class of commoners in the towns and cities as a counterweight to the nobility in the rural areas. The nobles control everything, especially the peasants, and even the cities are controlled by the nobles and the royals.

Since there are also hints that Westerosi nobility does not do nothing and only collects the rent of their tenants and vassals but instead also controls trade to a degree we can safely expect that a lot of profitable trade is in the hands of the nobility, too.

The key thing there is that this is an abandoned village. What does this tell us about the population in the North?

Once that village apparently had a purpose. But that is clearly no longer the case.

@Kingmonkey

Scotland would be a pretty good comparison if there were freak year-long winters in Scotland. But there are no such winters in Scotland. We have no idea how many people a really long winter kills but I do know how many people die if an entire village runs out of food: everyone. And whoever has horses will first eat the horses before he begins eating the corpses of his neighbors, so we can also assume that horses are not likely to survive all that many winters in rural areas. And neither are any other farm animals.

Yeah, in the Riverlands and the Crownlands. Not in the North. In the North nobody ever mentions such villages and market towns. Neither in the novels nor in TWoIaF.

Yeah, they are just some mountains.

However, we know they are officially empty. Stannis has actual maps of the North, not just some stupid map done by this George R. R. Martin guy but real in-universe maps, and they actually don't indicate that there are any settlements of note in the lands of the clansmen, suggesting that no such villages/settlements exist there.

Surely we assume that Stannis either has proper maps of the Seven Kingdoms or the Night's Watch is in possession of such maps.

Well a rather intractable position that you take, quite clearly. Regarding the last, obviously Stannis does NOT have a detailed map of the Seven Kingdoms, as he didn't even know about 3000 clansmen warriors that were available for war in those mountains. What's more, this is not one clan, but something like two score clans, each with a clan chief, ruling from a holdfast or longhall, which would be surrounded by a settlement of some kind.

Each the equivalent of a petty lord, in southron terms, according to Jon.

And yet, despite all of these settlements - each one would have a name, by the way - not a single one has been named by George. But they clearly exist.

As for the one area that has been desribed to us, by the lord himself, Lord Manderly says he has a hundred landed knights and a dozen petty lords that serve him. Each landed knight by definition will have a keep and be in charge of protecting the settlements on his land. So we are already talking about hundreds of settlements just on the Manderly lands. And that's before we even mention the petty lords, who would be a rung higher on the social ladder. How many of these settlements have been named? Almost none, that we know of.

And is this situation unique to the Manderly lands? Nope. As I quoted earlier, Martin has said this, specifically about the Bolton and Karstark lands:

I am also a bit curious as to the social structure of westeros. I understand the seven high lords, and the slightly lower lords (ie. Boltons, Karstarks, Freys etc.). However, do these lords also have sub lords below them? Lords who maybe raise 10 or 20 men for the Karstarks?

George's Answer:

Yes, it is a feudal system. The lords have vassals, the vassals have vassals, and sometimes the vassals of the vassals have vassals, down to the guy who can raise five friends.

So quite clearly, the Boltons and Karstarks specifically, also have petty lords and landed knight equivalents ruling keeps as vassals to Karhold and the Dreadfort. And each keep would need to be supported by the peasant villages under the knight or petty lord's rule. So again, we are talking about hundreds of settlements in these lands. How many have been named? Not a single one.

Does that mean they don't exist? Nope, because Martin has specifically referred to them as existing, by confirming the existence of all these vassal lords in the North.

There is no basis for you to keep to the view that the North is not a typical medieval society. It is just one that is spread over a vast area. Take your denial of the Manderly-Umber cooperation to build ships. The point is not whether it actually happened (although I don't see what reason there is to doubt it). The point is that Rodrik clearly considered it a very sensible idea. If it was a ludicrous concept due to the logistical challenge thereof, he would not even have suggested it.

You really need to reconsider your position. It is very difficult to defend, given the obvious facts that disprove it. As for the long winters. It is an unrealistic aspect of the entire world. Even sunny Spain or Greece or Italy would have suffered from famine if there were just two consecutive years of non-stop Winter. Medieval society couldn't even deal with the year without a summer, when volcanic eruptions on the opposite side of the world caused a decrease in global temperatures of just a few degrees, causing Europeans to lose one year's harvest.

A multi-year Winter would be devestating anywhere, even in Dorne. So we cannot use that to single out why the North could not have a medieval social structure while the South remains unaffected. Westeros as a whole should not exist, given the lopsided Seasons. But it does. So we just have to accept it as part of the setting.

[Mander]

I would like to add some textual evidence from the first book.

Tyrion in AGOT

“West of the road were flint hills, grey and rugged, with tall watchtowers on their stony summits. To the east the land was lower, the ground flattening to a rolling plain that stretched away as far as the eye could see. Stone bridges spanned swift, narrow rivers, while small farms spread in rings around holdfasts walled in wood and stone. The road was well trafficked, and at night for their comfort there were rude inns to be found.”

Until you reach the Flint Mountains and the forested area to the east you have plenty signs of life and trade.

-         Watchtowers in the hills (though we are already aware from Dance, that there have to be a lot of mountain clan folk there)

-         Farms agglomerated around holdfasts

-         STONE bridges and also STONE holdfasts (the folk in the north is soo poor it can’t even afford to build things with stone – wasn’t there a lovely discussion about Deepwood Motte somewhere?)

-         well trafficked Kingsroad – say goodbye to the claim that there is no trade going on …

-         Inns – though not as fancy or culturally customised as Tyrion is used to in the south, could be either or both

 

He goes on …

“Three days ride from Winterfell, however, the farmland gave way to dense wood, and the kingsroad grew lonely. The flint hills rose higher and wilder with each passing mile, […]”

3 Days - the start of the Flint Mountains and the wood on the maps. Well, it is somehow to be expected, that a dense wooden area doesn’t see that much traffic, isn’t it?

 

Some pages later … more than a week has passed …

“Farms and holdfasts grew scarcer and smaller as they pressed northward, ever deeper into the darkness of the wolfswood, until finally there were no more roofs to shelter under, and they were thrown back on their own resources.”

Even a week into the forest there are still some farms, holdfasts and inns (or at least places rented out for sleep) scattered around.

 

And then almost at the end of the book in one of Jon’s chapters …

“He had a long journey ahead and only the one horse to see him through. There were holdfasts and farming villages along the road south where he might be able to trade the mare for a fresh mount when he needed one, but not if she were injured or blown.”

Again, holdfasts and villages and trade ...

“He would need to find new clothes soon; most like, he’d need to steal them.”

There has to be someone to steal from, and he would have to do it pretty soon to avoid being identified as a deserter, preferably before leaving the New Gift.

 

A little later he hears horses …

“Likely as not, they were only smallfolk from Mole’s Town, farmers on their way to their fields, although what they were doing out in the middle of the night . . .”

So, he thinks of farmers from Mole’s Town on horseback on the way to their fields … it should at least be not that uncommon to see farmers travel with horses to their fields …

 

Bottom line: The North is not empty, it is just not as densely populated as most of the southern regions.

[Free Northman Reborn]

17 minutes ago, Mander said:

I would like to add some textual evidence from the first book.

Tyrion in AGOT

“West of the road were flint hills, grey and rugged, with tall watchtowers on their stony summits. To the east the land was lower, the ground flattening to a rolling plain that stretched away as far as the eye could see. Stone bridges spanned swift, narrow rivers, while small farms spread in rings around holdfasts walled in wood and stone. The road was well trafficked, and at night for their comfort there were rude inns to be found.”

Until you reach the Flint Mountains and the forested area to the east you have plenty signs of life and trade.

-         Watchtowers in the hills (though we are already aware from Dance, that there have to be a lot of mountain clan folk there)

-         Farms agglomerated around holdfasts

-         STONE bridges and also STONE holdfasts (the folk in the north is soo poor it can’t even afford to build things with stone – wasn’t there a lovely discussion about Deepwood Motte somewhere?)

-         well trafficked Kingsroad – say goodbye to the claim that there is no trade going on …

-         Inns – though not as fancy or culturally customised as Tyrion is used to in the south, could be either or both

 

He goes on …

“Three days ride from Winterfell, however, the farmland gave way to dense wood, and the kingsroad grew lonely. The flint hills rose higher and wilder with each passing mile, […]”

3 Days - the start of the Flint Mountains and the wood on the maps. Well, it is somehow to be expected, that a dense wooden area doesn’t see that much traffic, isn’t it?

 

Some pages later … more than a week has passed …

“Farms and holdfasts grew scarcer and smaller as they pressed northward, ever deeper into the darkness of the wolfswood, until finally there were no more roofs to shelter under, and they were thrown back on their own resources.”

Even a week into the forest there are still some farms, holdfasts and inns (or at least places rented out for sleep) scattered around.

 

And then almost at the end of the book in one of Jon’s chapters …

“He had a long journey ahead and only the one horse to see him through. There were holdfasts and farming villages along the road south where he might be able to trade the mare for a fresh mount when he needed one, but not if she were injured or blown.”

Again, holdfasts and villages and trade ...

“He would need to find new clothes soon; most like, he’d need to steal them.”

There has to be someone to steal from, and he would have to do it pretty soon to avoid being identified as a deserter, preferably before leaving the New Gift.

 

A little later he hears horses …

“Likely as not, they were only smallfolk from Mole’s Town, farmers on their way to their fields, although what they were doing out in the middle of the night . . .”

So, he thinks of farmers from Mole’s Town on horseback on the way to their fields … it should at least be not that uncommon to see farmers travel with horses to their fields …

 

Bottom line: The North is not empty, it is just not as densely populated as most of the southern regions.

Great post. Thanks for the textual references. Note that Winterfell's supporting settlements ended around 3 days ride away for a small party travelling fast on horseback. What is that? Around 100 miles or so? By contrast, Galbart Glover's farmlands ended about 2 days out from Deepwood Motte, for Stannis's army, travelling around 20 miles a day.

Of course, then they still moved into the lands of Glover's vassals. The Wolfswood clans such as Houses Bole, Branch, Forester and the like. This is all of course entirely logical. Farmlands would not be universally distributed across the North. It would be concentrated in areas that have the best agricultural land. Maybe scores of villages stretching over a fertile area of 50-100 miles even. And then you would have wilderness areas seperating this settled area from the next one, where you would find more concentrations of villages and holdfasts. As was the case even in Medieval Europe, until forests were cleared for settlement in the later Middle Ages.

In short. The North is a normal medieval society. With some wilder areas and some more settled areas. And the same pattern we saw around Winterfell, would be in place around the Dreadfort, and Hornwood, and Barrowton and in the Rills, Flints Finger, Oldcastle, Karhold etc.

After all, to bring it back to the original topic, they raised 3300 heavy cavalry just from the Northern part of the North. You need a lot of economic activity to produce that type of force in a medieval setting.

[Kingmonkey]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Scotland would be a pretty good comparison if there were freak year-long winters in Scotland. But there are no such winters in Scotland. We have no idea how many people a really long winter kills but I do know how many people die if an entire village runs out of food: everyone. And whoever has horses will first eat the horses before he begins eating the corpses of his neighbors, so we can also assume that horses are not likely to survive all that many winters in rural areas. And neither are any other farm animals.

And a lot more than year-long too. Westerosi winters can last several years. 

I can't fault the logic of what you're saying, but let's take that logic to it's inevitable conclusion. Yes, horses are not likely to survive many (if any) winters in rural areas. Neither are any other farm animals. All true.

Neither are humans. 

Realistically, a longish Westerosi winter, say three years, would leave the North virtually unpopulated. In GRRM world, Northerners are able to survive on a diet mainly consisting of stored grain (implying there is in fact a fair amount of agriculture), food bought in from the south (implying that there is in fact a fair amount of trade), preserved food and large quantities of pure handwavium, with the hint that particularly in the harshest areas and particularly in the coldest winters they do have a fairly substantial increase in mortality. 

Given that we're not looking for a realistic model for the North, due to the existence of large numbers of people in the North giving the lie to any realistic model, Scotland is a good model to follow. The North, as it is described, is a good fit for Scotland. GRRM has indicated that he thinks of the North as being rather like Scotland. 

So why don't we have more evidence of all these towns and villages? Because they are not relevant. ASOIAF is a story of the nobility. With the exception of most of the prologues, every single PoV in the books is a noble PoV. The commonfolk are largely invisible. In this GRRM is paralleling our recorded history. Histories and chronicles have told us lots about kings and princes, but very little about farmers or small market towns. What we know of everyday life generally comes from archaeology and surviving bureaucratic record. Trying to decode the past as it was experienced by the vast majority of people is a relatively new endeavour. Lacking any archaeology or bureaucratic record of Westeros, we can only look for parallels in our own world to apply, and Scotland is the best we have for the North.

So what difference, taking account of GRRM's handwavium proteins, should we assume the long winters make?  Certainly keeping the population down. This is why at a third of the landmass of Westeros, the North does not have close to a third of the population of Westeros. In terms of urbanisation, we have an intriguing clue, which is the existence of Winterfell's Winter Town, virtually empty during the summers but full to bursting in the winters. 

Seasonal urbanisation makes a lot of sense. In a time of food scarcity, ingathering is very advantageous. Isolation means more land per person during productive times, but means greater energy expenditure during unproductive times. To cope with a seasonal influx, we should expect there to be MORE (though emptier) towns in Westeros, not fewer. 

As for the horses? GRRM's handwavium diet makes eating them unnecessary, just as it makes virtually the entire population dying unnecessary. 

[Lord Varys]

16 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well a rather intractable position that you take, quite clearly. Regarding the last, obviously Stannis does NOT have a detailed map of the Seven Kingdoms, as he didn't even know about 3000 clansmen warriors that were available for war in those mountains. What's more, this is not one clan, but something like two score clans, each with a clan chief, ruling from a holdfast or longhall, which would be surrounded by a settlement of some kind.

Well, perhaps those holdfasts and long halls and the like are so insignificant that they don't show up on maps? And just because Stannis got 3,000 men there doesn't mean there have to be all that many permanent settlements of note there. The lands of the clansmen are pretty vast, after all.

You just want to generalize everything. The lands of the clansmen don't have to look the same was as the Reach or the Riverlands.

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Each the equivalent of a petty lord, in southron terms, according to Jon.

Yeah, and we don't have any reason to believe that all the petty lords of the South show up on detailed maps of the Seven Kingdoms. And most definitely the pitiful villages they may or may not control.

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And yet, despite all of these settlements - each one would have a name, by the way - not a single one has been named by George. But they clearly exist.

They don't have to to be named. The villages on the Osgrey lands don't have any names, either.

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As for the one area that has been desribed to us, by the lord himself, Lord Manderly says he has a hundred landed knights and a dozen petty lords that serve him. Each landed knight by definition will have a keep and be in charge of protecting the settlements on his land. So we are already talking about hundreds of settlements just on the Manderly lands. And that's before we even mention the petty lords, who would be a rung higher on the social ladder. How many of these settlements have been named? Almost none, that we know of.

A landed knight does not have a keep 'by definition'. If he doesn't have the coin to build or repair a keep he does not have a keep. All a landed knight has by definition is land. He could also live in cottage, a house, a long hall, and so on. Wouldn't be as impressive as a stone keep, but then, nobody has said that a landed knight has to be impressive by definition.

Quote

And is this situation unique to the Manderly lands? Nope. As I quoted earlier, Martin has said this, specifically about the Bolton and Karstark lands:

I am also a bit curious as to the social structure of westeros. I understand the seven high lords, and the slightly lower lords (ie. Boltons, Karstarks, Freys etc.). However, do these lords also have sub lords below them? Lords who maybe raise 10 or 20 men for the Karstarks?

George's Answer:

Yes, it is a feudal system. The lords have vassals, the vassals have vassals, and sometimes the vassals of the vassals have vassals, down to the guy who can raise five friends.

So quite clearly, the Boltons and Karstarks specifically, also have petty lords and landed knight equivalents ruling keeps as vassals to Karhold and the Dreadfort. And each keep would need to be supported by the peasant villages under the knight or petty lord's rule. So again, we are talking about hundreds of settlements in these lands. How many have been named? Not a single one.

No, we are not. The questioner asked George a question about the general structure of the feudal hierarchy in Westeros. He named some houses as examples. George never clarified things for those examples, and he certainly did not lay out how many men these people can raise for any of the houses mentioned.

All we know about the Karstarks is that they showed up with a certain number of people at Winterfell. Where those men actually come from we don't know. How many of them were their personal men (household knight equivalents, guardsmen, men-at-arms, etc.) and how many of their men were actually raised by the vassals they most certainly have? We don't know.

My idea is that the bulk of the good cavalry the North has must come from the personal horsemen in permanent service of the powerful lords (i.e. household knight equivalents). Some landed knight equivalents might also have the coin to maintain powerful armor and horses for themselves, but I doubt that's the case for any man with a horse.

And whether all the landed knights and petty lords control villages (either in the North or the other kingdoms) is completely unclear. You cannot know that.

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Does that mean they don't exist? Nope, because Martin has specifically referred to them as existing, by confirming the existence of all these vassal lords in the North.

He didn't confirm them, and even if he did, he said nothing about their number and especially not about the number of the people that are down on the bottom of the list, nor now exactly these people live.

Quote

A multi-year Winter would be devestating anywhere, even in Dorne. So we cannot use that to single out why the North could not have a medieval social structure while the South remains unaffected. Westeros as a whole should not exist, given the lopsided Seasons. But it does. So we just have to accept it as part of the setting.

We actually can, because George has told us that winter is a lot milder in the South. It does not snow all that often in Highgarden and in Oldtown and Dorne it snows 'almost never'. That means the people down there can actually grow stuff in winter, or at least during some periods of winter). In fact, if winter affects Dorne at all it could actually make the climate milder down there, allowing the Dornishmen to grow crops in winter they can't grow in summer because of the heat.

@Mander

I know those quotes. The immediate area around Winterfell along the Kingsroad isn't deserted, and I never said as much. But that quickly changes as you point out and gradually gets worse while they are getting farther and farther north.

Jon doesn't mention when he is going to find those villages and holdfasts, though. Could be much more farther down south than one imagine. That some people live close to the Kingsroad is expected, both in the Gifts but also in the North itself. It is the major road through the North, after all.

@Kingmonkey

I'm with you that the years-long winters are unrealistic. I've been saying this for years. But even in light of that we are repeatedly told that the North suffers hardest from such winters. While we cannot realistically expect anybody in medieval setting to survive even a year-long winter we have to consider the effects of Westerosi winters (minus a plausibility factor p) on the Northmen in some fashion.

If starvation hits the North in the second, third, or fourth year of winter people will die. And they will die reasonably quickly because once you don't have any food all you can live off are fat reserves if you have any left. Then you are dead.

We don't have any numbers on winter casualties in the North but I could easily enough see the two six-year-winters we know of (130-136 AC, and 230-236 AC) killing a quarter to a half of the Northern population (and the winter after the Dance also killing roughly the same amount of people in the Riverlands, the West, and some portions of the Reach because the fighting would have destroyed a lot of stored food).

In light of such a setting I see no reason for anyone to believe that people would waste a lot of resources on the breeding of huge chargers and war horses, or that they would set a lot of valuable food aside to bring such animals through winter. It would in fact make more sense to assume that whatever war horses the Northmen have are imported luxury goods they buy from the Riverlanders and Reach men. They would be things to play with in summer and perhaps to get through mild and short winters, but they would be slaughtered along with all the other animals during a hard Northern winter.

[Free Northman Reborn]

39 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, perhaps those holdfasts and long halls and the like are so insignificant that they don't show up on maps? And just because Stannis got 3,000 men there doesn't mean there have to be all that many permanent settlements of note there. The lands of the clansmen are pretty vast, after all.

You just want to generalize everything. The lands of the clansmen don't have to look the same was as the Reach or the Riverlands.

Yeah, and we don't have any reason to believe that all the petty lords of the South show up on detailed maps of the Seven Kingdoms. And most definitely the pitiful villages they may or may not control.

They don't have to to be named. The villages on the Osgrey lands don't have any names, either.

A landed knight does not have a keep 'by definition'. If he doesn't have the coin to build or repair a keep he does not have a keep. All a landed knight has by definition is land. He could also live in cottage, a house, a long hall, and so on. Wouldn't be as impressive as a stone keep, but then, nobody has said that a landed knight has to be impressive by definition.

No, we are not. The questioner asked George a question about the general structure of the feudal hierarchy in Westeros. He named some houses as examples. George never clarified things for those examples, and he certainly did not lay out how many men these people can raise for any of the houses mentioned.

All we know about the Karstarks is that they showed up with a certain number of people at Winterfell. Where those men actually come from we don't know. How many of them were their personal men (household knight equivalents, guardsmen, men-at-arms, etc.) and how many of their men were actually raised by the vassals they most certainly have? We don't know.

My idea is that the bulk of the good cavalry the North has must come from the personal horsemen in permanent service of the powerful lords (i.e. household knight equivalents). Some landed knight equivalents might also have the coin to maintain powerful armor and horses for themselves, but I doubt that's the case for any man with a horse.

And whether all the landed knights and petty lords control villages (either in the North or the other kingdoms) is completely unclear. You cannot know that.

He didn't confirm them, and even if he did, he said nothing about their number and especially not about the number of the people that are down on the bottom of the list, nor now exactly these people live.

We actually can, because George has told us that winter is a lot milder in the South. It does not snow all that often in Highgarden and in Oldtown and Dorne it snows 'almost never'. That means the people down there can actually grow stuff in winter, or at least during some periods of winter). In fact, if winter affects Dorne at all it could actually make the climate milder down there, allowing the Dornishmen to grow crops in winter they can't grow in summer because of the heat.

@Mander

I know those quotes. The immediate area around Winterfell along the Kingsroad isn't deserted, and I never said as much. But that quickly changes as you point out and gradually gets worse while they are getting farther and farther north.

Jon doesn't mention when he is going to find those villages and holdfasts, though. Could be much more farther down south than one imagine. That some people live close to the Kingsroad is expected, both in the Gifts but also in the North itself. It is the major road through the North, after all.

@Kingmonkey

I'm with you that the years-long winters are unrealistic. I've been saying this for years. But even in light of that we are repeatedly told that the North suffers hardest from such winters. While we cannot realistically expect anybody in medieval setting to survive even a year-long winter we have to consider the effects of Westerosi winters (minus a plausibility factor p) on the Northmen in some fashion.

If starvation hits the North in the second, third, or fourth year of winter people will die. And they will die reasonably quickly because once you don't have any food all you can live off are fat reserves if you have any left. Then you are dead.

We don't have any numbers on winter casualties in the North but I could easily enough see the two six-year-winters we know of (130-136 AC, and 230-236 AC) killing a quarter to a half of the Northern population (and the winter after the Dance also killing roughly the same amount of people in the Riverlands, the West, and some portions of the Reach because the fighting would have destroyed a lot of stored food).

In light of such a setting I see no reason for anyone to believe that people would waste a lot of resources on the breeding of huge chargers and war horses, or that they would set a lot of valuable food aside to bring such animals through winter. It would in fact make more sense to assume that whatever war horses the Northmen have are imported luxury goods they buy from the Riverlanders and Reach men. They would be things to play with in summer and perhaps to get through mild and short winters, but they would be slaughtered along with all the other animals during a hard Northern winter.

Hang on now. The specific examples referred to in the question to George included the Karstarks and the Boltons. With House Karstark being used as the prime example given the number of men they are confirmed to have brought to Robb. Martin's answer makes it quite clear that he does not distinguish between the Northern and Southron Houses in terms of this feudal structure. It applies to all of them.

So in his answer he gives several rungs on the social ladder below House Karstark, with the very bottom being the guy who can bring 5 friends. And, as it turns out, this is pretty much exactly what Ser Eustace Osgrey can raise in the Dunk and Egg novels. So in George's mind, a landed knight of Ser Osgrey's level would be at the very bottom of the rung, even in the Karstark lands.

And we see that even Ser Osgrey rules a keep, and three villages.

As for the named holdfasts in the Mountain Clan lands. If it is the seat of a clan chief, it will have a name, even if it has the name of the Clan itself. Such as Norrey Hall, Liddle's Hold or what have you. Each clan will have such a holdfast. And therefore a settlement supporting it. And then in addition to these, you will have many more villages with no Clan seat, as they will be villages on a particular Clan's lands, but not the main village where his seat is based. So you will in effect have many more villages than there are clans, as the bigger clans will obviously rule over multiple villages.

This is quite obvious, given that their fighting manpower was in the region of 3000 men (excluding what they sent with Robb or held back to defend their lands against the wildlings). So that gives you an average of about 80 fighting men per clan. Now, if the average village only holds 50-100 people (of which half are women, and a third are children, with some old folks and non-fighters added into the remaining mix), that means you are unlikely to raise more than 5 or so fighting men from a village. Meaning you need at least 16 villages for the average clan to provide the manpower we are talking about. And the stronger clans will have many more. In any case, we are talking multiple villages supporting each Clan chief's holdfast, which will be located in the main village of his lands.

Now the Clan lands must be some of the harshest environments in the North. So expect areas of lesser elevation to be far more populated still.

As for Landed Knights. Come now. We have seen the most powerful of them, such as House Templeton who can raise 1000 men or more. And we have seen (and had Martin refer to) the weakest of them, such as House Osgrey, who can barely raise 5 friends. So clearly the average landed knight falls somewhere in between these two extremes. I point out again that George referred very disparagingly to the guy who can raise 5 friends, as the lowest possible vassal sworn to Houses like Karstark or Bolton.

So the average landed knight can quite likely raise a lot more than 5 guys (by the way, the guy who can raise 5 guys was referred to as the vassal of the vassal of House Karstark, meaning a vassal to such a landed knight or petty lord). And if even abandoned villages like Queenscrown and the Crofters village in the Wolfswood have stone towers of multiple levels, then occupied seats of landed knights will be at least of that level. And to have that - and raise the number of men that they do - they will need multiple villages to derive rent and income from.

So we are talking hundreds of settlements in any major Northern lord's lands. There is no getting away from it.

 

 

[Kingmonkey]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

In light of such a setting I see no reason for anyone to believe that people would waste a lot of resources on the breeding of huge chargers and war horses, or that they would set a lot of valuable food aside to bring such animals through winter. It would in fact make more sense to assume that whatever war horses the Northmen have are imported luxury goods they buy from the Riverlanders and Reach men. They would be things to play with in summer and perhaps to get through mild and short winters, but they would be slaughtered along with all the other animals during a hard Northern winter.

I think it's unlikely they would be slaughtered for one simple reason -- they're too expensive. Even in the most hard-hit part of the North, the Wall, it is not expected to slaughter the horses. In ADwD, Bowen Marsh tells Jon that they had set aside food for three to four winters, but things were so bad due to the fighting and the presence of thousands of extra mouths to feed that they may have to drink horse's blood by the time a year is out, implying that normally the horses would be spared even where the winters are worst. 

Remember that the primary consideration for a warhorse is not size, but training. What you discuss here would better apply to large draft horses than to those bred and trained for warfare. Chargers, trained not to bolt in the confusion and noise of close battle, aren't animals that get used for farm duties 90% of the time, they are a very specialist resource. They will be maintained by noblemen (and this is equally true in the south) and would be more likely to survive the winters than the average peasant. 

The North, having a lot more area to cover than other kingdoms, would have a premium on horse soldiery. The North also has an unusually active military, having to deal with frequent raiding parties from across the wall as well as Skagosi and Iron Born raiders. By contrast, horse soldiery in the Reach for example would be much more of a luxury. Now it's certainly true that the Reach can afford that luxury better, but then the North can't afford NOT to have a decent number of horse.

Given the Northern military needs, the premium would be on mobility rather than heavy carriage. That of course fits in nicely with the tradition of armoured knights being a lot less common in the North than in the South. That, indeed, would be a frivolity too expensive for the winter-blasted North. 

So in terms of the heaviest categories of armoured horse, I completely agree with you. These would be a luxury, not something common. On the other hand, lighter middle-weight warhorses bred for speed and endurance would be much more common. Theon picks out "the big destriers of the knights from White Harbor and the Twins", which fits this notion. The more southern-cultured Manderleys and the southern Freys.

On the other hand we have the northern tribes with their hardy ponies, and we have plenty of indications of a culture that at least amongst the nobles takes considerable interest in horse-riding.  House Ryswell seems to be particularly proud of its horse, and is presumably a major supplier to other Northern lords.

So heavy cavalry, yeah. Manderly, Ryswell and Dustin with their more southerly plains, Stark and Bolton for prestige, these houses would maintain a decent supply. The ratio of light/medium to heavy cavalry could be expected to be significantly higher in a Northern army than in a southern army, though. In terms of pure foot to horse ratio, I see no reason to assume the North would be unusually low though. 

[Mander]

Lord Varys, just from the last page in this thread, you stated several of the things, you seem to deny now ... so I will quote your own words.

On 11.2.2017 at 10:06 PM, Lord Varys said:

I don't expect there to be many stone structures in the North. The Glovers - not exactly no-names in the North - only live in a wooden keep, suggesting that the smallfolk is not likely to live in stone houses. Perhaps there are some in the Manderlys lands. Even Barrowton is a town completely built of wood.

Evident from my quotes from AGOT, there are several types and a lot of stone structures and not only from great lords. So, why could wood be used a little more in the North than in the South? It is probably a lot more convenient, because there are huge forests in close proximity, whereas in the South, most large forested areas were cleared a long time ago (shortage of wood). Nevertheless, if stone is needed for whatever reason (stability, security, etc.) it is used.

On 12.2.2017 at 1:28 PM, Lord Varys said:

I know what market towns are. And I know there many such in the Riverlands, and presumably in the Reach, the West, and the Vale as well (in the Stormlands not so much). The only (market?) town in the North seems to be Barrowton, actually.

I just don't believe there are many such in the North. They clearly are absent near the Kingsroad and during the wilderness Bran and the Reeds traveled through.

You deem it acceptable to assume, that there are many market towns in the South though we only get to see a few and only in some areas, but in the North it is unacceptable? Market settlements and trade is not absent near the Kingsroad, otherwise there would be no traffic north of Winterfell (and as far as I know, there aren't many people traveling for pure pleasure). Bran and friends tried actively to avoid being seen by anyone ... they would choose a path devoid of settlements ...

On 12.2.2017 at 5:28 PM, Lord Varys said:

Winterfell should be surrounded by fields and farms but they are never mentioned.

Well, there are and they are mentioned, and that is precisely where you are contradicting yourself.

On 12.2.2017 at 9:47 PM, Lord Varys said:

But I actually don't think there are that many people living in the Wolfswood. There are none to be seen when Bran makes his ride into the woods, and technically there should be people living close to Winterfell as well as close to the edges of the forest. 

See above.

And additionally, it should at least be considered, that the part of the wolfswood Robb and Bran are riding through is the Lord of Winterfells forest for hunting parties and therefor offlimits for any smallfolk. I don't say it has to be, but it wouldn't be unreasonable.

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In England most of the really powerful castles where in the Welsh Marches - defenses against the ever quarrelsome Welsh. Those are the inspiration for the Dornish Marches in the Stormlands and the Reach. But most of George's castles actually serve no political or military purpose whatsoever. Most of the castles in Westeros should not exist, or be manses, chateaus, palaces, or cottages. You don't need a big, strong castle in the middle of a pacified land.

The locations of most castles don't display current borders but very likely borders from the time before the 7 Kingdoms were united under a King. The castles in Westeros are very old and could represent former border regions.

 

Edit:

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Jon doesn't mention when he is going to find those villages and holdfasts, though. Could be much more farther down south than one imagine. That some people live close to the Kingsroad is expected, both in the Gifts but also in the North itself. It is the major road through the North, after all.

Right, he didn't specify that, but he thinks, that he has to do it soon to avoid detection. To see a young Nightswatch man in the Gifts is unlikely but not impossible. But to have such a lonely boy in black in the Umber lands should arouse some suspicion. Some time ago you mentioned that the areas close to the Kingsroad are empty ... The Gift is one of the most empty areas in the North, it certainly becomes more crowded further south.

 

Concerning the overly long seasons ...

1) Even if it is not snowing that much in the South it could, and very likely is too cold to grow crops.

2) Winter hits the North a little earlier and harder than the South. In turn the North should never suffer from heat waves and droughts, but that should be reasonable common in the South during very long summers.

[Lord Varys]

@Free Northman Reborn

What are you talking about? I don't contest that lords can have vassals and the like, but I have to ask you what this has to do with the quality of the armor and the number of armored horsemen these people can raise?

Aside from that, we know that the Osgreys and the Webbers are the vassals of the vassal of a great house (the Tyrells). What have you gained by seemingly 'proving' that the Karstarks must have such vassals, too (I never contested that)? These people are not likely to provide Lord Rickard with decent men-at-arms, be they mounted or not.

Many of the clansmen with Stannis seem to expect to die. That could suggest that more men than the people can actually spare went with the army so that whoever remains can share the meager provisions in the coming winter. Under such conditions it is impossible to make a good guess how many people there are actually.

You don't seem to care about the realistic aspect of all that. War is a luxury in a medieval society, and planting crops is hard. Staying alive is hard. Only a very small percentage of people can leave the farms and fields they are working on. We see what happened to the Karstarks and Glovers. They sent too many men off to war and thus failed to bring the harvest in.

One assumes that the rulers of the five cities of Westeros can raise an army ten thousand strong simply by drafting every able-bodied men living in their cities, but that way they would destroy those cities because most of those men would actually be doing stuff that keeps the cities alive.

We know some powerful landed knight houses like the Templetons but those are not representative for their class, or else we would know a lot more such names. They are exceptions. And considering that even the more powerful/richer families in the North don't seem to be particularly rich in comparison to their peers in the South I find it naive to just pick the best possible example (the Templetons), and then generalize them.

Mounted knights and warriors in general will always be better equipped and better fed on average in the West than they are in the North, simply because there is both money and food aplenty in the West.

You see the chasm between the cultures and the resources with Lynesse Hightower arriving on bleak and ugly Bear Island. She must have known that Lord Jorah Mormont wasn't exactly a great lord, but she presumably assumed that a smaller lord like he was wouldn't live, more or less, like a wildling chieftain (in a wooden hall in the middle of nowhere with no cultural infrastructure whatsoever). She would have assumed he would live more or less like the Serrys, Chesters, Hewetts, and Grimms do on the Shield Islands.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

I think it's unlikely they would be slaughtered for one simple reason -- they're too expensive. Even in the most hard-hit part of the North, the Wall, it is not expected to slaughter the horses. In ADwD, Bowen Marsh tells Jon that they had set aside food for three to four winters, but things were so bad due to the fighting and the presence of thousands of extra mouths to feed that they may have to drink horse's blood by the time a year is out, implying that normally the horses would be spared even where the winters are worst. 

I did not think they would be slaughtered in autumn/early winter (as livestock usually is when winter approaches - at least winter you can roughly guess when it will end) but I think horses are very unlikely to live through a winter where the North runs out of food. Expensive or not, a man can draw a plow himself if need be, and it is actually no choice to choose between yourself and your family and some horse. The horse has to go.

What makes no sense in any setting whatsoever (the plausibility factor p, again) that any person in Westeros in general and the North in particular would actually store food for their animals. It just doesn't make any sense at all. This is why I prefer the idea that only very few peasants in the North actually have horses because I cannot really believe they produce so much of a surplus in food throughout the years of spring, summer, and autumn to not only get the human population through years-long-winter but also the horses (and possibly even other animals). That just doesn't make any sense.

There is no food to be grown in winter/late autumn at all, at least in the Northern regions of Westeros, and the average peasant does not only feed himself and his family with his crops but also the local lord (and possibly even his liege) with more than a fraction of his harvest. How can this possibly work if he also has to get his animals through winter?

Perhaps things work much better if we assume that most of the peasants in the North actually have a more or less vegan diet, living mostly off vegetables rather meat. Meat could be more or less a luxury good, produced by the peasants working in the vicinity of the larger castles.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

Remember that the primary consideration for a warhorse is not size, but training. What you discuss here would better apply to large draft horses than to those bred and trained for warfare. Chargers, trained not to bolt in the confusion and noise of close battle, aren't animals that get used for farm duties 90% of the time, they are a very specialist resource. They will be maintained by noblemen (and this is equally true in the south) and would be more likely to survive the winters than the average peasant. 

Sure, that is why I think that some large chargers and war horses are kept alive during winter in the stable of the powerful lords. What I doubt is that those add up to the entirety of the cavalry showing up at Winterfell in AGoT. I don't think the horses of all those men spent winter in the stables of the Dreadfort, Karhold, Cerwyn, Hornwood, and the Last Hearth (Dustin, Ryswell, and Manderly men didn't show up at Winterfell at that point).

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

The North, having a lot more area to cover than other kingdoms, would have a premium on horse soldiery. The North also has an unusually active military, having to deal with frequent raiding parties from across the wall as well as Skagosi and Iron Born raiders. By contrast, horse soldiery in the Reach for example would be much more of a luxury. Now it's certainly true that the Reach can afford that luxury better, but then the North can't afford NOT to have a decent number of horse.

I think you are wrong there. The North has been pacified a long time ago by the Starks. There were rebellions and raidings and the like, but we have no reason to believe that the Skagosi, Boltons, and others used a lot of horses in their rebellions (or the Starks in defeating them). The Ironborn certainly wouldn't have used any horses, although one assumes the Arryns might have occasionally brought some armored knights with them during the long war for the control of the Stepstones.

Very much like Russia the North's vastness acts like sort of a natural defense. It seems to have been much easier just to retreat from the coasts threatened and controlled by the Ironborn than actually fighting them, and the same kind of strategy is now used to deal with the wildling raids. Just abandon those lands rather than fight for them.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

Given the Northern military needs, the premium would be on mobility rather than heavy carriage. That of course fits in nicely with the tradition of armoured knights being a lot less common in the North than in the South. That, indeed, would be a frivolity too expensive for the winter-blasted North. 

One assumes that any lord wealthy enough to own many horses would ensure he has a lot of horses to get messengers and people across the lands as quickly as he can. But aside from that I don't think will they will have much use for horses. Especially not for permanent use because those should actually be animals hardy enough to withstand the temperatures (not to mention the lack of food) in winter. And the Southron chargers don't even withstand an autumn snow storm.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

So in terms of the heaviest categories of armoured horse, I completely agree with you. These would be a luxury, not something common. On the other hand, lighter middle-weight warhorses bred for speed and endurance would be much more common. Theon picks out "the big destriers of the knights from White Harbor and the Twins", which fits this notion. The more southern-cultured Manderleys and the southern Freys.

My original point was that the Manderlys must have better horses than the other Northmen, so I'm completely in agreement there.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

On the other hand we have the northern tribes with their hardy ponies, and we have plenty of indications of a culture that at least amongst the nobles takes considerable interest in horse-riding.  House Ryswell seems to be particularly proud of its horse, and is presumably a major supplier to other Northern lords.

I expect those to be more horses bred for speed and fun, not necessarily for war. But then, I never assumed that there might not be a breed of war horses which can withstand the winter temperatures in the North. I just pointed out that the war horses the Southrons ride cannot possibly survive a winter in the North. At least not outside (headed) stables.

24 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

So heavy cavalry, yeah. Manderly, Ryswell and Dustin with their more southerly plains, Stark and Bolton for prestige, these houses would maintain a decent supply. The ratio of light/medium to heavy cavalry could be expected to be significantly higher in a Northern army than in a southern army, though. In terms of pure foot to horse ratio, I see no reason to assume the North would be unusually low though. 

Well, I won't argue against the numbers of the assembled horse. But the horse at Winterfell don't necessarily are representative of the ratio in the entire North.

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

Evident from my quotes from AGOT, there are several types and a lot of stone structures and not only from great lords. So, why could wood be used a little more in the North than in the South? It is probably a lot more convenient, because there are huge forests in close proximity, whereas in the South, most large forested areas were cleared a long time ago (shortage of wood). Nevertheless, if stone is needed for whatever reason (stability, security, etc.) it is used.

The stone structures visible a few days ride away from Winterfell most likely are stone structures raised at the behest of the Starks (and the tower in Stannis' village, too). We know that Ned tells Bran that he would one day hold a keep in Robb's name, so the Starks apparently have some minor keeps in their possessions that are usually given to younger Stark sons. Since no such castles are mentioned as being far away from Winterfell I go with those keeps being candidates for those.

I never contested that the greater Northern houses would built in stone. But I very much doubt that structures built by peasants or petty lords/masters/whatever little above the level of peasants would built in stone. If that was the case Deepwood Motte wouldn't be Deepwood Motte but Castle Deepwood.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

You deem it acceptable to assume, that there are many market towns in the South though we only get to see a few and only in some areas, but in the North it is unacceptable? Market settlements and trade is not absent near the Kingsroad, otherwise there would be no traffic north of Winterfell (and as far as I know, there aren't many people traveling for pure pleasure). Bran and friends tried actively to avoid being seen by anyone ... they would choose a path devoid of settlements ...

Read or reread TWoIaF, with a focus of the description of the Seven Kingdoms. We get those market towns mentioned, in passing during the descriptions as well as with names. We've got Tumbleton and Bitterbridge in the Reach, Stoney Sept, Lord Harroway's Town, Maidenpool, and Saltpans in the Riverlands, the Weeping Town in the Stormlands. I don't recall any names for the Vale and the West, but we might get some of those in the future.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

Well, there are and they are mentioned, and that is precisely where you are contradicting yourself.

Not in the immediate vicinity, though. Stuff you can oversee when you watch the land from atop the walls. Bran and Robb don't ride through any villages and fields on their way to the Wolfswood, nor are there any such villages or people mentioned inside the forest.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

See above.

And additionally, it should at least be considered, that the part of the wolfswood Robb and Bran are riding through is the Lord of Winterfells forest for hunting parties and therefor offlimits for any smallfolk. I don't say it has to be, but it wouldn't be unreasonable.

The entire Wolfswood until it crosses over into the Glover lands seem to belong to the Starks and only they are allowed to hunt there, of course. But there also live people in those woods. The idea that nobody is allowed to live in the lands where the lord is hunting doesn't sound all that likely to me. And it wouldn't explain why the lands outside of the forest are effectively empty. One should assume that fields and farms should be all around Winterfell, as they are around many other castles.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

The locations of most castles don't display current borders but very likely borders from the time before the 7 Kingdoms were united under a King. The castles in Westeros are very old and could represent former border regions.

Certainly not. Winterfell, Harrenhal, Casterly Rock, Highgarden, the Eyrie, the Dreadfort, the Red Keep, you name it serve no military purpose whatsoever. They are either residences of very wealthy/powerful people or serve as 'capitals' at the center of their kingdoms.

There is no talk of a string of castles and keeps guarding the border between the former Reyne and Lannister kingdoms, or between the Stark and the Bolton lands. If such existed they most likely are long gone.

There might be such castles along the former borders between the Seven Kingdoms but it is odd that Moat Cailin (one such) is a ruin. Goldengrove seems to be another, and we all know the Bloody Gate.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

Concerning the overly long seasons ...

1) Even if it is not snowing that much in the South it could, and very likely is too cold to grow crops.

Sure, I never said I'm absolutely sure you can grow crops in the Reach in winter. I just said it might be possible in some winters, or during some periods during some winters. The seasons are not everywhere the same in Westeros.

4 minutes ago, Mander said:

2) Winter hits the North a little earlier and harder than the South. In turn the North should never suffer from heat waves and droughts, but that should be reasonable common in the South during very long summers.

Droughts certainly are a problem. But they might also happen in the North. We don't know whether the drought early on in the reign of Aerys I was limited to only some regions or whether it hit all of Westeros.

In addition, the North has summer snows. Snow means that the temperature is either 0° C or reasonably close to that. Such things can destroy an entire harvest, even in summer, if things go bad. The crops can die or rot before it is time for harvest, etc.

[Kingmonkey]

23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

What makes no sense in any setting whatsoever (the plausibility factor p, again) that any person in Westeros in general and the North in particular would actually store food for their animals. It just doesn't make any sense at all. This is why I prefer the idea that only very few peasants in the North actually have horses

Aside from the quote someone gave above of Jon hearing horses and assuming it was peasant travellers, which doesn't really tally with this, I think you're being very selective in your assessment of plausibility. You agree that the long winters just are not plausible, but we have to pretty much handwave the survival of the majority of the population. Why should that handwaving not be extended to the livestock? As I mentioned above, we are specifically told that even as far north as the wall, killing the horses would be a special circumstance that only took place when the winters were particularly bad and there were far more mouths to feed than had been prepared for.

All that said, the amount of horses the peasants have isn't really relevant to this discussion. The levees might bring their own horses as pack animals, but not to ride into battle. Warhorses require quite a bit of training.

23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Perhaps things work much better if we assume that most of the peasants in the North actually have a more or less vegan diet, living mostly off vegetables rather meat. Meat could be more or less a luxury good, produced by the peasants working in the vicinity of the larger castles.

Unlikely. The North isn't the best grain growing land, and hunter/herders rely more meat. Snow-bound cultures eat a lot more meat, not less. Vegan Inuit would not last long!

23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I think you are wrong there. The North has been pacified a long time ago by the Starks. There were rebellions and raidings and the like, but we have no reason to believe that the Skagosi, Boltons, and others used a lot of horses in their rebellions (or the Starks in defeating them). The Ironborn certainly wouldn't have used any horses, although one assumes the Arryns might have occasionally brought some armored knights with them during the long war for the control of the Stepstones.

It's pacified, but less so than the rest of the seven kingdoms, which don't have as much raiding. The Iron Born and Wildlings are a constant problem. You miss the point about horses here -- this isn't horses to compete with the raider's horses, but horses to intercept groups of raiders over the vast distances of the north. The Arryns may be able to mount a foot expedition to deal with hill tribe raiders, but in the North you need to send horsemen if you want any chance of intercepting them before they've done their raiding and gone home.

23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I expect those to be more horses bred for speed and fun, not necessarily for war. But then, I never assumed that there might not be a breed of war horses which can withstand the winter temperatures in the North. I just pointed out that the war horses the Southrons ride cannot possibly survive a winter in the North. At least not outside (headed) stables.

In this I agree, they would use a different breed. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

38 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The entire Wolfswood until it crosses over into the Glover lands seem to belong to the Starks and only they are allowed to hunt there, of course. But there also live people in those woods. The idea that nobody is allowed to live in the lands where the lord is hunting doesn't sound all that likely to me. And it wouldn't explain why the lands outside of the forest are effectively empty. One should assume that fields and farms should be all around Winterfell, as they are around many other castles.

 

If those lands are treated anything like the forest preserve that the Normans established in England, then you don't expect many to live there. Kind of hard to live in a place where you can't hunt, can't cut down trees, fence in area, or disturb the vegetation. A few of them were allowed to let animals forage or gather firewood but it was pretty strict. We even have an example in the Kingswood:

“He paid the smallfolk for the food we ate, brought their grievances to King Aerys, expanded the grazing lands around their villages, even won them the right to fell a certain number of trees each year and take a few of the king’s deer during the autumn.”

Even if the wolfswood isn't set aside for the Starks use, frankly it's going to be very thinly populated to the point where not seeing anyone whilst hunting shouldn't broach a comment.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Once again, the selective bias in deeming what is reasonable or not is showing itself. The crofter's village is about as meagre a settlement as one can expect to see, and in the midst of the Wolfswood. And even that has a stone tower.

Deepwood Motte has a 50 foot tall stone watchtower around which the motte and bailey castle is constructed.  Are the Blackwoods in the Riverlands poor because Raventree Hall is a timber keep?

Even Queenscrown up in the Gift has a 5 story tall stone watchtower guarding the village. The idea that stone keeps are scarce in the North is completely false. If the crofters village and Queenscrown have stone watchtowers, then virtually every landed knight will have one too as his seat.

The bias is further evident when negative effects of the Seasons are only emphasized for the North. Cold winters apparently wreak havoc in the North, but droughts in the South must affect the North too. Why? After the long winter during Egg's reign droughts are said to have wreaked devestation in the South, but nothing is mentioned of the North.

As for warhorses, peasants won't be owning or raising them. Nobles will. For one, Roose Bolton seemed to have around 600 of them in the Dreadfort stables, given that his personal garrison arrived at Winterfell mounted.

Roose currently seems to have at least a thousand horses inside Winterfell. Probably closer to 1500, if you count the Frey and Manderly knights, Ramsay's cavalry and the at least 500 cavalry that returned with Roose from the South.

If every landed knight in the North has just 5 war horses, and every petty lord just 10 warhorses, we are already talking about 6000 or more warhorses, just owned by the petty lords and landed knights in the North. That's without the major lords' personal herds added in. Then we are probably talking around 300 or more horses per great lord, and probably upwards of a thousand each for lords like the Boltons, Starks, Manderlys, Dustins and Ryswells.

Of course, you will have many more horses than actual knights, as each knight needs multiple horses. But I would think we are realistically talking about tens of thousands of horses in the North, with around 10,000 trained warhorses.

 

[Lord Varys]

51 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

If those lands are treated anything like the forest preserve that the Normans established in England, then you don't expect many to live there. Kind of hard to live in a place where you can't hunt, can't cut down trees, fence in area, or disturb the vegetation. A few of them were allowed to let animals forage or gather firewood but it was pretty strict. We even have an example in the Kingswood:

“He paid the smallfolk for the food we ate, brought their grievances to King Aerys, expanded the grazing lands around their villages, even won them the right to fell a certain number of trees each year and take a few of the king’s deer during the autumn.”

Even if the wolfswood isn't set aside for the Starks use, frankly it's going to be very thinly populated to the point where not seeing anyone whilst hunting shouldn't broach a comment.

We just know that some people live in the Wolfswood. The Glover folk and others that show up in ADwD. Now, it could be that the Starks only have a large chunk of the forest near Winterfell set aside as hunting grounds, but that doesn't have to be the case. It could be that there are some (natural) clearings in the forest where some people live. And honestly we don't know how the rules are. Can the Northern peasants cut down some of the Stark trees? Perhaps not, perhaps some king or lord granted some people such permission.

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

Aside from the quote someone gave above of Jon hearing horses and assuming it was peasant travellers, which doesn't really tally with this, I think you're being very selective in your assessment of plausibility. You agree that the long winters just are not plausible, but we have to pretty much handwave the survival of the majority of the population. Why should that handwaving not be extended to the livestock? As I mentioned above, we are specifically told that even as far north as the wall, killing the horses would be a special circumstance that only took place when the winters were particularly bad and there were far more mouths to feed than had been prepared for.

The Night's Watch actually has the means to keep food (especially meat) fresh for very long periods of time. In addition, they are a military order. They need horses to do their duty. And even they slaughter them eventually if winter takes to long. The average peasants wouldn't have access to a lot of stored food, just the stuff they could set aside for winter or whatever rations their local lord grants them (presumably not much).

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

All that said, the amount of horses the peasants have isn't really relevant to this discussion. The levees might bring their own horses as pack animals, but not to ride into battle. Warhorses require quite a bit of training.

That is basically true. I don't really care how many horses the average peasant has. Nor whether Jon has a correct assessment of the resources of the peasants in the North. As far as we know he never visited any castle in the North aside from Winterfell, and he also didn't visit many commoners aside from those in the vicinity of Winterfell. He could assume that people have horses because those near Winterfell had them.

The Osgrey peasants don't see have to all that many.

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

Unlikely. The North isn't the best grain growing land, and hunter/herders rely more meat. Snow-bound cultures eat a lot more meat, not less. Vegan Inuit would not last long!

I know, but the Inuit live in a place where they can grow anything, and presumably hunting is going to be rather difficult in the middle of winter in the North. If the peasants are allowed to hunt (which may or may not be the case) then they certainly would try to hunt themselves some animals in winter.

My idea was more that they store whatever plant food they can for winter while killing all livestock and transforming them into meat instead of having them compete for the same limited provisions in winter.

One would also expect that people would never feed their horses (if they have any) carrots or apples, because they need those for themselves.

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

It's pacified, but less so than the rest of the seven kingdoms, which don't have as much raiding. The Iron Born and Wildlings are a constant problem. 

Again, only in recent years, and the North was clearly ill/not prepared for the decline of the NW. Else the Umbers and clansmen wouldn't complain all the time. Back when the Watch was still strong (10,000 men back in the days of the Conquest) the wildlings were only a danger under a King-beyond-the-Wall. And there weren't all that many of those.

And the Ironborn raided the North last in Dagon Greyjoy's days. Before that, there was no raiding in the Targaryen era, and again no raiding (as for as we know) since the days the Hoares took over. There is little to be had in the North, anyway.

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

You miss the point about horses here -- this isn't horses to compete with the raider's horses, but horses to intercept groups of raiders over the vast distances of the north. The Arryns may be able to mount a foot expedition to deal with hill tribe raiders, but in the North you need to send horsemen if you want any chance of intercepting them before they've done their raiding and gone home.

Nothing suggests that this is done. In fact, it seems as if the wildlings are far too fast for anyone to capture them, and they are not likely to take any horses across the Wall. It seems the North is so sparsely populated that you can walk up to a village in the Gifts or the Umber lands and just raid it, and word of that is only going to reach some lord when you are long gone.

 

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Deepwood Motte has a 50 foot tall stone watchtower around which the motte and bailey castle is constructed.  Are the Blackwoods in the Riverlands poor because Raventree Hall is a timber keep?

What can I say? Some people are traditionalists.

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Even Queenscrown up in the Gift has a 5 story tall stone watchtower guarding the village. The idea that stone keeps are scarce in the North is completely false. If the crofters village and Queenscrown have stone watchtowers, then virtually every landed knight will have one too as his seat.

That is a fallacy. There could be a lot of reasons why Queenscrown has a stone tower. It could have been a reasonably important place, once. Just because it has a stone tower doesn't mean the clansmen have them, too. And besides, one should differentiate between a watchtower (which could have served a military purpose, once - the Osgrey tower could originally have been one such, being part of the Gardener border fortifications against the Lannisters) and a residential tower (which some landed knight might built himself to live there). 

The towers on the Flint mountains could be structures raised by the Starks to overlook and control the Kingsroad. They could have an administrative purpose that has nothing to do with ruling over peasants and/or villages.

And again, the crofters village is on Stark land. The Starks can pay for that kind of thing.

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The bias is further evident when negative effects of the Seasons are only emphasized for the North. Cold winters apparently wreak havoc in the North, but droughts in the South must affect the North too. Why? After the long winter during Egg's reign droughts are said to have wreaked devestation in the South, but nothing is mentioned of the North.

Can you point me to a quote there? I don't recall that. I didn't say there have to be droughts in the North. I just said that there could be some there, too. If it is really hot in Westeros and no rain is coming then you have drought. There is no guarantee that it is raining all the time in the North. Not even in England, for that matter.

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for warhorses, peasants won't be owning or raising them. Nobles will. For one, Roose Bolton seemed to have around 600 of them in the Dreadfort stables, given that his personal garrison arrived at Winterfell mounted.

That doesn't mean all those men rode war horses, right?

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Roose currently seems to have at least a thousand horses inside Winterfell. Probably closer to 1500, if you count the Frey and Manderly knights, Ramsay's cavalry and the at least 500 cavalry that returned with Roose from the South.

Yeah, and those horses do not all belong to the Dreadfort, that much is clear.

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

If every landed knight in the North has just 5 war horses, and every petty lord just 10 warhorses, we are already talking about 6000 or more warhorses, just owned by the petty lords and landed knights in the North. That's without the major lords' personal herds added in. Then we are probably talking around 300 or more horses per great lord, and probably upwards of a thousand each for lords like the Boltons, Starks, Manderlys, Dustins and Ryswells.

That is why I don't think every landed knight in the North has five war horses, never mind every petty lord 10. And you also have to keep in mind that horses injure themselves and die (in each battle). Only men who actually have a master of horse are likely to have any specially trained horses. And only very wealthy landed knights and petty lords could afford those.

32 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Of course, you will have many more horses than actual knights, as each knight needs multiple horses. But I would think we are realistically talking about tens of thousands of horses in the North, with around 10,000 trained warhorses.

That doesn't sound convincing to me.

[Free Northman Reborn]

16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We just know that some people live in the Wolfswood. The Glover folk and others that show up in ADwD. Now, it could be that the Starks only have a large chunk of the forest near Winterfell set aside as hunting grounds, but that doesn't have to be the case. It could be that there are some (natural) clearings in the forest where some people live. And honestly we don't know how the rules are. Can the Northern peasants cut down some of the Stark trees? Perhaps not, perhaps some king or lord granted some people such permission.

The Night's Watch actually has the means to keep food (especially meat) fresh for very long periods of time. In addition, they are a military order. They need horses to do their duty. And even they slaughter them eventually if winter takes to long. The average peasants wouldn't have access to a lot of stored food, just the stuff they could set aside for winter or whatever rations their local lord grants them (presumably not much).

That is basically true. I don't really care how many horses the average peasant has. Nor whether Jon has a correct assessment of the resources of the peasants in the North. As far as we know he never visited any castle in the North aside from Winterfell, and he also didn't visit many commoners aside from those in the vicinity of Winterfell. He could assume that people have horses because those near Winterfell had them.

The Osgrey peasants don't see have to all that many.

I know, but the Inuit live in a place where they can grow anything, and presumably hunting is going to be rather difficult in the middle of winter in the North. If the peasants are allowed to hunt (which may or may not be the case) then they certainly would try to hunt themselves some animals in winter.

My idea was more that they store whatever plant food they can for winter while killing all livestock and transforming them into meat instead of having them compete for the same limited provisions in winter.

One would also expect that people would never feed their horses (if they have any) carrots or apples, because they need those for themselves.

Again, only in recent years, and the North was clearly ill/not prepared for the decline of the NW. Else the Umbers and clansmen wouldn't complain all the time. Back when the Watch was still strong (10,000 men back in the days of the Conquest) the wildlings were only a danger under a King-beyond-the-Wall. And there weren't all that many of those.

And the Ironborn raided the North last in Dagon Greyjoy's days. Before that, there was no raiding in the Targaryen era, and again no raiding (as for as we know) since the days the Hoares took over. There is little to be had in the North, anyway.

Nothing suggests that this is done. In fact, it seems as if the wildlings are far too fast for anyone to capture them, and they are not likely to take any horses across the Wall. It seems the North is so sparsely populated that you can walk up to a village in the Gifts or the Umber lands and just raid it, and word of that is only going to reach some lord when you are long gone.

 

What can I say? Some people are traditionalists.

That is a fallacy. There could be a lot of reasons why Queenscrown has a stone tower. It could have been a reasonably important place, once. Just because it has a stone tower doesn't mean the clansmen have them, too. And besides, one should differentiate between a watchtower (which could have served a military purpose, once - the Osgrey tower could originally have been one such, being part of the Gardener border fortifications against the Lannisters) and a residential tower (which some landed knight might built himself to live there). 

The towers on the Flint mountains could be structures raised by the Starks to overlook and control the Kingsroad. They could have an administrative purpose that has nothing to do with ruling over peasants and/or villages.

And again, the crofters village is on Stark land. The Starks can pay for that kind of thing.

Can you point me to a quote there? I don't recall that. I didn't say there have to be droughts in the North. I just said that there could be some there, too. If it is really hot in Westeros and no rain is coming then you have drought. There is no guarantee that it is raining all the time in the North. Not even in England, for that matter.

That doesn't mean all those men rode war horses, right?

Yeah, and those horses do not all belong to the Dreadfort, that much is clear.

That is why I don't think every landed knight in the North has five war horses, never mind every petty lord 10. And you also have to keep in mind that horses injure themselves and die (in each battle). Only men who actually have a master of horse are likely to have any specially trained horses. And only very wealthy landed knights and petty lords could afford those.

That doesn't sound convincing to me.

The trouble is, you do not wish to be convinced, because it doesn't fit your narrative.

For every cavalry unit you are likely to have 4 or more warhorses in reserve. Horses die a lot quicker than men, and are useless once injured. So if Robb had 5000 cavalry when he crossed the Neck, and if the Manderlys, Boltons, Dustins, Ryswells and others had another 2000-3000 cavalry in reserve back in the North, as seems evident now, then we are talking 8000 cavalry units available in the North. And that means at least 30,000 actual warhorses.

And that excludes horses used for non-military purposes like farming or other civilian pursuits. So most likely there are closer to 50,000 horses in total in the North. Maybe even 100,000, if there are 3 common horses for every warhorse. That is just reality, based on the actual numbers presented to us in the armies.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia on the matter:

Knights were expected to have at least one war horse (as well as riding horses and packhorses), with some records from the later Middle Ages showing knights bringing twenty-four horses on campaign.^[12] Five horses was perhaps the standard.^[43]

[Free Northman Reborn]

Another interesting bit from the Wikipedia article I just perused. This on the required size of horses:

Perhaps one reason for the pervasive belief that the medieval war horse had to be of draught horse type is the assumption, still held by many, that medieval armour was heavy. In fact, even the heaviest tournament armour (for knights) weighed little more than 90 pounds (41 kg), and field (war) armour 40 to 70 pounds (18 to 32 kg); barding, or horse armour, rarely weighed more than 70 pounds (32 kg).^[51] Allowing for the weight of the rider and other equipment, horses can carry approximately 30% of their weight; thus such loads could certainly be carried by a heavy riding horse in the 1,200 to 1,300 pounds (540 to 590 kg) range, and a draught horse was not needed.^[52]

Although a large horse is not required to carry an armoured knight, it is held by some historians that a large horse was desirable to increase the power of a lance strike.^[53] However, practical experiments by re-enactors have suggested that the rider's weight and strength is of more relevance than the size of the mount, and that little of the horse's weight is translated to the lance.^[54]

Further evidence for a 14-16 hand (56 to 64 inches (140 to 160 cm)) war horse is that it was a matter of pride to a knight to be able to vault onto his horse in full armour, without touching the stirrup. This arose not from vanity, but necessity: if unhorsed during battle, a knight would remain vulnerable if unable to mount by himself.

So it seems the size of the horse is not that important in terms of the effectiveness or power of a lance strike. Instead, the size of the rider is of greater importance.

So it may be that this entire debate regarding the comparative size of northern and southron horses is moot. It is the size of the riders that is more important.

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The trouble is, you do not wish to be convinced, because it doesn't fit your narrative.

For every cavalry unit you are likely to have 4 or more warhorses in reserve. Horses die a lot quicker than men, and are useless once injured. So if Robb had 5000 cavalry when he crossed the Neck, and if the Manderlys, Boltons, Dustins, Ryswells and others had another 2000-3000 cavalry in reserve back in the North, as seems evident now, then we are talking 8000 cavalry units available in the North. And that means at least 30,000 actual warhorses.

Not all of the horses riders might own have to we horses bred and trained for war. Take Ser Arlan of Pennytree and Dunk after him as an example. Or Eustace Osgrey.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Here is a quote from Wikipedia on the matter:

Knights were expected to have at least one war horse (as well as riding horses and packhorses), with some records from the later Middle Ages showing knights bringing twenty-four horses on campaign.^[12] Five horses was perhaps the standard.^[43]

Well, it is difficult to transfer such numbers into the story without good evidence.

And there is a difference between the horses a person might own and the horses that person actually takes along when he rides to war.

And, keep in mind, that knights in the real middle ages usually were all able to afford all their fancy armor and horses somehow. Which means they held land or had incomes which the Westerosi household knights (who are paid by the lords they are serving) would clearly lack.

Also note that - of course depending on the medieval location and time period, of course - somebody fighting for his lord (be he horseman or footman) actually had not only to pay for his own equipment and horses, but also for his food during the campaign. If we transferred that to Westeros it would be exceedingly unlikely that anybody aside from the really wealthy noblemen and their immediate family members (not even men in their service!) would be able to afford good armor and horses.

Knighthood as a class historically developed because being an armored horseman was so bloody expensive. It was only something people who actually owned (or held) land could afford. You need weapons, armor, horses, squires, servants, and so on.

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So it seems the size of the horse is not that important in terms of the effectiveness or power of a lance strike. Instead, the size of the rider is of greater importance.

So it may be that this entire debate regarding the comparative size of northern and southron horses is moot. It is the size of the riders that is more important.

The size of the horses is a question that wasn't all that important. It was basically the quality of the armor the Northern horsemen have on average.

But the size of the horses is nevertheless a question raised by George R. R. Martin himself. He established that the Northmen and Watchmen preferably ride those garrons rather than larger horses. If he believes that large horses are necessary to carry heavily armored knights in this series then this is the case.

In addition we have the whole thing about chargers and war horses dying in autumn in the North. Unless that can be explained by the Northmen having another breed of powerful war horses than can survive a Northern winter (for which we have as of yet no evidence) that makes it pretty unlikely that the Northmen have many such horses. 

Nobody says the North doesn't have any cavalry. But there is simply no evidence that the cavalry the North has is on average as well-equipped as the average mounted knight in the South.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

Nobody says the North doesn't have any cavalry. But there is simply no evidence that the cavalry the North has is on average as well-equipped as the average mounted knight in the South.

I think that is implied by how many southern knights have started transitioning to plate armor whereas the Northmen are still wearing mail. Even King Robb.