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Where are all of the cadet branches?


FylkirKarl

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14 hours ago, falcotron said:

Most of these are not titles, but positions—jobs you can be given that aren't hereditary, don't give you a corresponding style or honors, and can be taken away at a whim.

 

 

 hey falcotron, would some of these appointed positions be similar to Life Peers in the UK maybe? You get the style and the honors, but it isn't hereditary, and doesn't come with lands, vassals, or incomes. 

 Unless they  do come with a stipend or honorarium or something, idk if they do IRL or in Westeros.

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48 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

 hey falcotron, would some of these appointed positions be similar to Life Peers in the UK maybe? You get the style and the honors, but it isn't hereditary, and doesn't come with lands, vassals, or incomes. 

 Unless they  do come with a stipend or honorarium or something, idk if they do IRL or in Westeros.

I think at least some of them are like Life Peers, although it doesn't seem to be as regular a system as in modern England.

The Lords Commander of the NW and KG are usually called Lord. We're told that Varys has the style and title Lord as a courtesy because the Small Council is normally made up of Lords, but Qyburn doesn't seem to get the same courtesy title later for the same job. Helman Tallhart isn't called Lord as Master of Torrhen Square, but when his daughter has the same job she is called Lady. Galbart Glover is sometimes called Lord after he becomes part of Robb's inner council and leader of a portion of Robb's army.

For that matter, a lot of the masters, castellans, and stewards seem to be de facto hereditary even though technically they aren't—the Glovers and Tallharts, and the Tyrells as stewards of Highgarden before Aegon, etc. And GRRM told Elio and Linda that the bigger knightly houses are like hereditary noble houses in everything but the title.

So, it seems like things aren't completely clear-cut in either direction.

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I was looking at some of the genealogies, and it struck me as odd that the region that has the 'widest' confirmed cadet branches, the Iron Islands, is also the region with the least amount of land.  Harlaw and Goodbrother are particularly prolific, and others are confirmed to have cadet branches that don't appear on page (like Farwynd).

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On 9/25/2017 at 5:06 PM, DigUpHerBones said:

Gulltown Arryn's are very, very formidable.

and wealthy.

Wealthy, yes.  Formidable... Up in the air.  Their allegiance was unknown at the Battle of Gulltown, when Jon Arryn and Robert smashed the Gulltown lords to consolidate their control of the Vale.

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5 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

I was looking at some of the genealogies, and it struck me as odd that the region that has the 'widest' confirmed cadet branches, the Iron Islands, is also the region with the least amount of land.  Harlaw and Goodbrother are particularly prolific, and others are confirmed to have cadet branches that don't appear on page (like Farwynd).

I get the feeling that most Ironborn don't care about the formalities of lordship the same way the greenlanders do. Sure, being granted some land and a title is nice in its own right, but I'd bet it's also one of the things that qualifies you to build a ship and make yourself or one of your sons a captain. And that's, at least traditionally, the big deal for them. For example, it's captains, not lords, who count as electors at a kingsmoot.

Also, I'm not sure all the cadet houses listed on the wiki actually are cadet houses.

The Goodbrothers definitely seem to have some cadet houses, like Lord Nome Goodbrother of Shatterstone. But that doesn't mean the "cousins at Downdelving, Crow Spike Keep, and Corpse Lake" are three more of them. They could just be members of the main Goodbrother family who don't have a house of their own, like the Starks in White Harbor, or like Bran would have been if he'd been master of a castle for Robb as Ned said he might.

Also, all of the Harlaws we see except Ser Harras are masters, not lords, so they're technically not cadet houses. But then it's possible that they are cadet houses in all but name. We know that at least the North passes down some master (Tallhart, Glover) and castellan (Cassel) positions as if they were hereditary. And, although we don't know these masterships were passed down, it does seem likely they have been, at least once, given that some of these masters are cousins rather than brothers. Also, the fact that they all seem to be descended from Sigfryd, who's Master of Harlaw Hall even though his grandson is Lord of Harlaw… that's just confusing.

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5 hours ago, falcotron said:

We know that at least the North passes down some master (Tallhart, Glover) and castellan (Cassel) positions as if they were hereditary.

Um, I think that "masters" are landed gentry, the equivalent of landed knights in  Faith-worshipping regions. Unlike the lords they only have the right of "low justice". Nor was Cassel a hereditary castellan, he was only named to the office because the Starks trusted him and needed somebody to rule and defend the North in the absence of an adult family member.

There were a couple of hereditary stewards/castellans in the South, though -  Tyrells in the Reach under the Gardeners, of course, and IIRC the junior branch of Royces in the Vale, though this one is likely a relatively recent developement, - Lord Nestor being the current office-holder. It is pretty rare, though.

Warden is ostensibly a military title, which in practice usually goes along with the respective paramount lordship. However if the current incumbent is a woman or, sometimes, a young boy, it can go to somebody (perceived as) more warlike. As seen with Robert's appointment of Jaime as Warden of the East and Tommen's/Cersei's  appointment of Daven Lannister as Warden of the West once Cersei became the ruling Lady.

 

 

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15 hours ago, Maia said:

Um, I think that "masters" are landed gentry, the equivalent of landed knights in  Faith-worshipping regions. Unlike the lords they only have the right of "low justice".

Well, it can't be an exact divide, just based on the fact that the Ironborn seem to have both masters and landed knights. But yeah, the two things are obviously similar in some ways, especially in that they're both things near the fuzzy edge of the peerage.

I think that "fuzzy edge" is the key thing, and it gets back to the OP's question. Besides the handful of actual cadet branches in the peerage, and the cadets whose families end up outside the aristocracy but still presumably well off (like the Starks in White Harbor), there are some who are able to parlay masterships, knighthoods, stewardships, etc. into something they can pass down for at least a generation, sometimes even for centuries, and some of them even get heraldry to go with it, and whether you want to call those "cadet houses" or not is really a matter of definition that doesn't have a clear answer.

Of course that wouldn't be true in parliamentary Britain, or even in medieval France, but Westeros's system is less formalized than even Norman England, so it shouldn't be too surprising.

15 hours ago, Maia said:

Warden is ostensibly a military title, which in practice usually goes along with the respective paramount lordship. However if the current incumbent is a woman or, sometimes, a young boy, it can go to somebody (perceived as) more warlike. As seen with Robert's appointment of Jaime as Warden of the East and Tommen's/Cersei's  appointment of Daven Lannister as Warden of the West once Cersei became the ruling Lady.

Also remember all the smaller wardenships. We don't actually know that all of those are the same kind of usually-but-not-always-hereditary positions as the big ones; IIRC, only one of them is said to be "per the tradition of his house" or something like that.

And think about the precedent Robb might have set if he'd won. He'd appointed the Blackfish his Warden of the Southern Marches, but Brynden obviously wasn't, and wasn't ever going to be, Lord Paramount. In fact, they never really settled on whether Hoster and Edmure were Lords Paramount of half of Robb's kingdom, or Stewards of one of Robb's two separate kingdoms, or something else, or nothing beyond lords who happened to have a lot of powerful vassals. That's something they would have worked out in time after winning, which would have created a new tradition if it had been followed for a few generations, and it's hard to guess whether, if all of that had happened, the Blackfish would have been succeeded by the same Tully who ended up with Edmure's title, or the second Tully in line, or someone completely different, or nobody.

---

* I've been told there's an RPG sourcebook that says they are, I don't have the RPG to check, and I don't know how much GRRM vetted the contents anyway.

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7 hours ago, falcotron said:

Well, it can't be an exact divide, just based on the fact that the Ironborn seem to have both masters and landed knights.

You mean Ser Harras Harlaw, whose mother was a westerwoman? IMHO, the Ironborn just have one  master who happens to be a knight. Like Ser Helman Tallhart in the North.

Landed knighthoods and masterships are supposed to be hereditary, though. A couple of stewardships, which are not normally hereditary, have been somehow "parlayed" into such, yes.

Do "smaller wardenships" even exist anymore? IIRC, they were  the relics of divided kingdoms. But yes, Robb's nomination of Brynden was probably supposed to be temporary. Though, if the united kingdom of the North and the Riverlands continued, it likely would have eventually become a hereditary Tully title.

Anyway, I don't see any particular dearth of cadet branches among Westerosi nobility as compared to iRL Middle Ages/Renaissance. Some families happen to have more, some less. Some have landed off-shoots, some don't.  Flints, for instance, have managed to establish branches of themselves in 2 lordships (masterships?) in addition to their mountain clan roots. But it isn't like patrilineal descent is particularly important to Westerosi - proximity is more important. And, of course, the 2 can be combined if the circumstances call for it - i.e. like in the case of Ser Denys Arryn, who married Jon Arryn's eldest niece and had been considered his heir after Elbert's death.

Both chance and choices produced the situation re: seeming lack of collateral lines that Starks and Tullys found themselves in during ASOIAF. Oddly, despite having been raised in the Vale, Ned hadn't been close with any of his second cousins there and we have no idea what the deal was with Artos's descendants. In any case, Stark problem was more the lack of some noble whom they could have trusted to rule the North in the absence of an adult family member. 

After all, as Karstark issues show, having robust and closely related collateral branches can be problematic too, even with the much, much stronger than historically iRL kinslaying taboo of Westeros and the North in particular, where it is ingrained that internecine struggles mean that families indulging in such die out during hard winters. Of course, Lord Rickard having been a prize idiot who thought that taking all of his sons to war, but leaving all of his adult, able-bodied male cousins at home was a good idea, didn't help.

 

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I think it's because when our story begins in 298ac, a lot of influential Lord's have begun playing 'The Game'. Marrying into other influential families across the realm and not their own vassals. That was Barbery Dustin's gripe anyway. 

This combined with the fact that apart from Walder Frey, a lot of Lord's struggle to create an heir at all, such is the times. Miscarriages and still births were far more common than IRL. That and war/famine. These people fight a lot. Just take a look what happens to the Starks. In the space of three years the Starks go from a very strong position to teetering on the edge of existence. And the cadet branch they had actually caused them a few problems in their case. Also, a cadet branch can easily become a rival for future succession. 

Feudalism, eh? 

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12 hours ago, Maia said:

Do "smaller wardenships" even exist anymore? IIRC, they were  the relics of divided kingdoms. But yes, Robb's nomination of Brynden was probably supposed to be temporary. Though, if the united kingdom of the North and the Riverlands continued, it likely would have eventually become a hereditary Tully title.

The Maderlys are "Wardens of the White Knife" and some of the more prominent Dornish lords have "wardenships" in their packet of titles, Warden of the Stone Way -  Lord Yronwood, Warden oft he Prince's Pass - Lord Fowler. The fact that both of those are probably means of entry to into Dorne is obviously a relic of the fact that both had a vital role in maintaining the Dornish borders.... which dovetails neatly into an observation you made earlier that the "warden" position is assigned to a military man on the occasions when the incumbent is a woman or a child. Since the odds are fairly high that there have been a regnant Lady Fowler or Lady Yronwood because, well, Dorne, does the warden position automatically accrue to the ruling lady, or is she still expected to assign her husband orbrother, I wonder. 

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Cadet branches in westeros seem to have married back into the main line at times, as well. You also have the chance of sending younger, less likely to inherit sons off to become septons, maesters or Night's Watch, which would diminish the chances of cadet branches.

You see what happens with Lord Royces three sons, one joins the Night's watch, another joins the Rainbow Guard, leaving only the heir.

The other possibility is that they have married heiresses and taken thier names. So there might be branches of the ruling houses around, in a direct male line... but are known by another name.

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7 minutes ago, 1000th Lord Commander said:

The other possibility is that they have married heiresses and taken thier names. So there might be branches of the ruling houses around, in a direct male line... but are known by another name.

Yes, this makes a huge difference. In Westeros, it seems like titles are very tightly associated with names, while in medieval Europe—and especially England—the opposite was true. For comparison, William's crown went through four houses—Normandy, Blois, Angevin, and Plantagenet—in 150 years, while Brandon's crown is still in House Stark after 8000 years. So, intuitions about noble surnames borrowed from English history are going to lead us astray when applied to Westeros.

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On 9/7/2017 at 3:35 PM, Nihlus said:

It's really quite ridiculous. The Arryns have ruled a country with similar land and population to the entirety of medieval Britain for over a thousand years, yet when the series begins there's literally just one Arryn: Jon. Similarly, in the North, a legacy of Bolton kings going back thousands of years has somehow managed to scrape by with only one current Bolton surviving: Roose. How is that even possible?

What's quite ridiculous is how bad your reading comprehension is.  Seriously, talk about throwing rocks while living in glass houses.  There are tons of Arryn's running around, and this is pointed to in the text.  There is only one main-branch Arryn, and this isn't unusual - branches of noble houses die out all the time in the real world.

Moreover, after a while a lot of these Boltons and Arryns will stop being considered Boltons and Arryns and join the faceless mass of the populace.  Also GRRM is telling a story, not a genealogical exploration of the various Houses - what narrative purpose does it serve to take us to White Harbor and have Wyman Manderly parade all the various Stark descendants he can find?

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House Stark already died out patrilineally at least once. I think it's the Bael the bard story. Lord Stark had no sons only a daughter and Bael got her pregnant and that child eventually became the new Lord Stark. Which is why I've always questioned why people put so much stock in the "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell" line. As the Starks all descended from that Lord Stark would not be carrying the Stark Y chromosome and only the female line would have the chance of carrying the Stark X chromosome. So essentially the original Stark genetics can only be surviving in the Karstarks and any Starks alive in the story would not be related to the Starks of ancient history like Bran the Builder et al (at least in the patrilineal line). Sorry if that went a bit off topic with the genetics but I've seen so many theories based on that line and so many theories about the power of blood and stuff like that. Of course it's also said somewhere that the Houses of the North have been so intermarried that there's a bit of Stark in all of them.

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