Is Martin's bare bones Winterfell at all realistic as the capital of a million square mile land?

[Boxman]

I just assumed there were at least a couple hundred people living in Winterfell, it's never stated that there's only the exact amount of people as are given a specific name in the series. Ned had a bunch of household guards with him that he brought to King's Landing, so between those and the ones left at Winterfell, there were probably 2x-5x that amount as those guys' families, who likely lived there too. Then there's manual labor jobs like cleaning, cooking, etc., for those families to attend to, or add more people to the equation to fill them

[jet199]

After Bran's attempted assassination it is said that the assassin wouldn't have stood out from the rest of the people at Winterfell. Even in a small town a new face stands out a lot so there must be a fair number of people there.

The north is probably closer to Siberia in population and climate than western Europe. I don't suppose there are any Russian historians out there who could tell us the population and administrative structure of mediaeval Siberia?

It should also be noted that as the northern religion does not have a clergy the number of couriers and hangers on should probably be half that of a mediaeval European court.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

In Arya's chapters, she describes going to White Harbor a couple of times with Ned. Jon knew the layouts of Deepwood Motte and the Dreadfort when he was giving Stannis advice about his campaign, so apparently he'd seen some of the North as well. I think I even remember Theon giving descriptions of Deepwood and Torrhen's Square and how he went on trips to them with Ned.

Ned also told Jon that he never ate as well as he did when he was visiting the mountain clans, so apparently he did travel around in the North conducting business and visiting his vassals.

Oops, teaches me to not go on memory too much. Knowing the layouts of a castle doesn't necessarily mean having been there though, in Jon's case. Luwin may well have had maps on those laying around for the education of the kids.

But much of the ruling of the North does seem to take place in Winterfell regardless, at least that's the general impression I got. High lords coming to visit the Starks during important holidays and so on rather than them taking turns acting as hosts etc.

[Wise Fool]

Why is it hard to believe Maester Luwin did all the administrative work? We know he studied magic at the Citadels, so really the answer to your question is....

...A Wizard did it!

[jobmartell]

It is not a modern state. Does The Ned issue any decrees? We don't see much sign of it except in the ACOK scene when Luwin and Rodrik discuss problems in Bran's presence and then reach agreement. Presumably if necessary ravenmail messages would be sent to relevant lords. It is very decentralised and highly personalised.

Likewise what tax collectors? Does Winterfell collect taxes? We know that there are tax collectors in ports but they seem to be crown appointees.

Even big feudal kingdoms in the early middle ages didn't produce that much paperwork judging by records of the amount of wax used to seal documents administration was not for a long time a literate, written undertaking.

Besides which ASOIAF is a novel and not an encyclopedia. We don't find out about a lot of things because they aren't relevant to the story. I mean think of all the luxury southern goods that get consumed, there should be constant wagons and barges coming and going!

This. And, yes, this.

[Constantinople]

The north does not have a population of 5 million, considering Robb had an army of 20-25,000 men and a good number of them not even real soldiers its safe to say that the north may have a total population of around 500,000-600,000.

Hence you don't need a massive household

That's some shaky reasoning.

It's estimated that a pre-industrial society can support about 1% of the population being militarily active at any one time, maximum. Now, given the North is openly described as being barren and infertile, I think that if you extrapolate out from Robb's army, a total population of 5 million for the entire North is probably reasonable.

[C0bR]

It's clear from the show that Maester Luwin is a superhuman administrator, as he managed to dispatch 200 ravens in a minute.

For real though: I always imagined Winterfell as a pretty empty place. The size description of it is insane, but the amount of people living in it and it the Wintertown and the business happening around sounds weirdly minimal.

GRRM simply made some things too big and some too small.

[sleath56]

England's administration was certainly more advanced than that of most contemporary states.

England was a feudal backwater compared to their comtemporaries.

[MeadMaster]

The Starks have vassals. They have lesser houses and lordlings and landed knights and bannermen who administer their areas, they all pay taxes, tribute, and upkeep to Winterfell. From the books I gathered that Winterfell is a large keep with Wintertown being mostly empty during the summers. But in the winter a great many smallfolk as well as some lords/knights gather there to survive the winter together, thier storehouses and greenhouses are described as truly massive with which to feed so many people during the long winters.

makes alot of sense.

[The Human Abstract]

No. It's not realistic.

This is the first time I bothered to think about that, though.

I think the one that causes me to chuckle most is the idea of a winter lasting several years.

[Constantinople]

England was a feudal backwater compared to their comtemporaries.

England certainly was a feudal backwater, but that didn't stop it from being an unusually well organised, prosperous and centralised medieval state.

Compared to the Arab and Byzantine empires then it was a dump, sure, but to its neighbours, England was surprisingly well organised. There's a reason the Vikings loved raiding England so much: it was an extremely rich kingdom with a near-unique system (for Western Europe) of organised taxation.

[Fanless Mace]

All the admin is outsourced to a contractor on Skagos, who uses cloud-based technology to collect taxes via Bitcoin. Duh.

[Lointain]

The Lord of Winterfell decides about:

Coining new silver coins,

Building an war fleet,

Restoring, reinforcing or building any construction considered essential for the North,

Command and organization of the northern armed forces,

Diplomatic negotiations,

Justice,

Planning the food reserves for the Winter, overruling what other lords may have decided,

Receive the pleas from his vassals and smallfolk and decide what to do.

Maester Luwin is the "Chancellor": take care of all the correspondence and is paramount in dealing with the archives, receiving the utmost confidence of the Starks when we talk about state documents.

Ser Rodrik Cassel is the "Armour-Bearer": leads the Stark military forces when the lord isn't there, being the responsible for the organization of the Stark men-at-arms.

Jory Cassel is the "Marshal": have a very important role in protecting his lord, being the chief of the personal security force of his lord.

Vayon Poole is the "Mayor of the Palace": manages all things related with the day-to-day of the Stark house-hold, being the administrator of all the land directly controled by the Stark.

I think that Winterfell have all that is need to rule an decentralized, and sparsely populated, medieval-type of state.

[GrimTidings]

Three Victories and a Defeat

[Ramsay Gimp]

Because it would be even more implausible for Theon to take that type of Capital with 20 men. It's already hard to swallow in the books as it is

[Draco_Dracul]

I agree totally. I have wondered about this too. Winterfell seems like the castle of a middle ranking noble, not the capital of a whole province/kingdom.

Casterly Rock, on the other hand, will be the real deal. :laugh:

Winterfell as a castle seems like it would be fine for capital, the problem is the lack of a large city around it.

[sleath56]

It seems the North is a extremely decentralized state. All of the lords have basically free autonomy and seem to ignore Winterfell unless military/inter-realm disputes occur. It doesn't even seem that the lords pay taxes to Winterfell, either.

For example, when Bran is left in charge of Winterfell instead of a regent being appointed in his stead. If Winterfell was a busy administration capital, a regent would have been in charge, and not Bran.

[Tywin Manderly]

It seems the North is a extremely decentralized state. All of the lords have basically free autonomy and seem to ignore Winterfell unless military/inter-realm disputes occur. It doesn't even seem that the lords pay taxes to Winterfell, either.

For example, when Bran is left in charge of Winterfell instead of a regent being appointed in his stead. If Winterfell was a busy administration capital, a regent would have been in charge, and not Bran.

Bran is as the senior Stark in Winterfell the regent/steward of the North, but in name only since Maester Luwin and Rodrik Cassel take the real decisions or defer them until Robb can decide.

[Skagosi High Chef]

Ned just didn't worry about all that boring stuff. Each lord handled all of that in their respective areas. The north is remote and has a small population density. Winterfell operated like the rest of the northern areas, all the lord just gave fealty to the Starks. Also, the North isn't as involved with outside trade, they are modest in their possessions. Nobody tried to cheat Ned because he would come to your house and cut your head off. Taking all of this into account it wouldn't require as many extras like other cities, especially port cities.

[Pecan]

This thread is similar to the recent one about the size of the northern army. The criticism is valid, though I would point out that we don't really know what the population of the north is. 5 million seems a bit high, but at the same time it's a huge amount of land. I think the answer, ultimately, is that these sorts of details simply don't fit into the story that GRRM is telling. If he were to spend more time on the details of economic life in Westeros, the story would be very different.