the "Law" in Westeros

[SirArthur]

3 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

I think it's more accurate to look at "law" in Westeros through the prism of how it existed in real medieval history.  Yes, there are "laws" but just as important are traditional rights and privileges.

Hmm. Much hmm. I have serious problems to distinct between the books and fanfiction, how it has to be, because medieval. Take the Iron Islands, the mountain tribes of the North and Oldtown. The entire law "feeling" is different and it is hard to imagine they form a kingdom under a common law. 

We have literally a couple of kindoms in a personal union and not the united kingdom of westeros. But that is not how westerosi rule and coronation works. 

Historically states with different languages always required a strict law system, even for the ruler, to keep the realm together. This can best be studied in the Habsburg territory. 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, argonak said:

Yeah, my head canon is that the "dragonfear" was kept alive even after the dragons had passed on.  The Targeryens had a long period where they essentially rode around on WMDs and didn't have to care paticularly much for the feelings of their vassals, (but did so anyway, which was probably due to Aegon's political savy).  So they were able to build up a long tradition of authoritarian rule when they were actually able to enforce it, and it has taken several generations for it to fade away.  This is similiar to what the ancient Deified monarchs had, but on a greater level because they serious could come burn your castle down if you pissed them off. 

There is certainly a lot to that, yes. The power of the monarch is very much the personal power of the semi-divine special dynasty that wields it - especially with the dragons, but still without them because people are just trained and accustomed to defer to those very special people.

That's why Robert is not just not a like a Targaryen king.

But the limits of royal power are still not really defined. In a proper feudal monarchy the king is surrounded by very powerful non-royal institutions and noblemen, people he cannot turn against both out of common sense or by rule of law. 

The Targaryen kings never fought wars against their own lords - like King John had to - they were never imprisoned by their lords and had to make concessions like Richard II, or were replaced by their own wives (like Edward II) to be replaced by their sons.

There is no indication that the aristocracy as a whole were fighting as a class to restrict the powers of the king, or making any attempts to do so. When Lord Darklyn imprisoned Aerys II he stood completely alone.

2 hours ago, argonak said:

There's some other pecularities as well, as it seems that taxes are being kicked up to the King from all over rather than only collecting rents from his personal properties that he hasn't let out to vassals.

He gets taxes from everywhere, yes, but I doubt he taxes everything. One would assume he limits himself to the profitable things. And lords do pay taxes to the Crown, too. But they also seem to act in some capacity as royal tax collectors (although not in the large cities where the Crown has its own tax collectors).

2 hours ago, argonak said:

The King also directly rules an improbably large capital city which would represent a signficant source of labor and power.  King's Landing is said to be somewhere near half a million people, the local militia alone of such a metropolis ought to be able to compare well to many of the armies we see the Lords Paramount raising.  Even with a 5% participation rate, thats 25,000 men who can be called up relatively quickly.  And that ignores the rest of the crown lords who owe direct feality to the iron throne.

Yeah, KL, Oldtown, and Lannisport are places where large armies could be raised and trained. George seemed to sort of overlooked that in the first three books, but the riots against Rhaenyra and the Storming of the Dragonpit put that into perspective.

Something similar might happen when Aegon comes to KL - against the Lannister/Tyrell regime in the city. And even if Mace still had 10,000-20,000 men in the city - if a 100,000 or 200,000 people rise against Tommen and his cronies to welcome the true king then he could just as well have no men at all.

2 hours ago, argonak said:

If the whole seven kingdoms are kicking up signficant tax revenues, any Targeryen King ought to be able to muster a major force to put down any potential rivals just with the demesne we see.  There's probably almost as many people in King's Landing as there are in the whole North.

That would be an exaggeration, but it is clear that if you count KL then the Crownlands are capable of mustering a very large force.

It might not be wise to do that because conscripting too many Kingslanders would cripple trade, but we see that they are willing to fight for their king when Bean stepped forth to stand with Maegor.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, SirArthur said:

Hmm. Much hmm. I have serious problems to distinct between the books and fanfiction, how it has to be, because medieval. Take the Iron Islands, the mountain tribes of the North and Oldtown. The entire law "feeling" is different and it is hard to imagine they form a kingdom under a common law. 

We have literally a couple of kindoms in a personal union and not the united kingdom of westeros. But that is not how westerosi rule and coronation works. 

Historically states with different languages always required a strict law system, even for the ruler, to keep the realm together. This can best be studied in the Habsburg territory. 

We just have to go with the laws being unified because that's what apparently happened. Cultures didn't unify the same way, with Dorne, the Iron Islands, and Dorne remaining apart from the rest which is (perhaps with the Vale somewhat aside) is more or less completely unified by now. There are no significant cultural differences between those places.

[dmfn]

12 hours ago, argonak said:

Yeah, my head canon is that the "dragonfear" was kept alive even after the dragons had passed on.  The Targeryens had a long period where they essentially rode around on WMDs and didn't have to care paticularly much for the feelings of their vassals, (but did so anyway, which was probably due to Aegon's political savy).  So they were able to build up a long tradition of authoritarian rule when they were actually able to enforce it, and it has taken several generations for it to fade away.  This is similiar to what the ancient Deified monarchs had, but on a greater level because they serious could come burn your castle down if you pissed them off. 

There's some other pecularities as well, as it seems that taxes are being kicked up to the King from all over rather than only collecting rents from his personal properties that he hasn't let out to vassals.  The King also directly rules an improbably large capital city which would represent a signficant source of labor and power.  King's Landing is said to be somewhere near half a million people, the local militia alone of such a metropolis ought to be able to compare well to many of the armies we see the Lords Paramount raising.  Even with a 5% participation rate, thats 25,000 men who can be called up relatively quickly.  And that ignores the rest of the crown lords who owe direct feality to the iron throne.

If the whole seven kingdoms are kicking up signficant tax revenues, any Targeryen King ought to be able to muster a major force to put down any potential rivals just with the demesne we see.  There's probably almost as many people in King's Landing as there are in the whole North.

What do you think the Five Forts were all about if not the Others? 

I can't undo the quote

[HallowedMarcus]

On 9/27/2018 at 4:33 PM, Lord Varys said:

Whatever 'the feudal contract' is, is not well-defined in Westeros, nor is there an indication if/what are the limits of the king's powers, or what rights the lords have the king cannot take from them.

   In GRRM's book The World of Ice and Fire it says that Aegon V (the Egg) enacted many reforms and enacted and granted rights and protections to the smallfolk that curtailed many rights their Lords had over them. He loved the smallfolk because he lived as them and with them for many years with Ducan the Tall. In other means, he took away many rights their lords had over them. Maybe even allowing them to officially appeal to the King against them in KL before the King. Many Lords complained that the King had taken away their god giving rights.

   Aegon V complained that if he had Dragons his "lords "would not object with his interference into their "god giving rights".  That means there were limits to the King's authority. Many Lords disregarded parts of the smallfolk's right in defiance against his reforms. Lord Tywin Lannister, later on, removed those rights giving back the Lord's authority over them.

   As you see there was/is limits to the King's authority over his Lords in Westeros.

[cpg2016]

On 9/27/2018 at 6:27 PM, SirArthur said:

Hmm. Much hmm. I have serious problems to distinct between the books and fanfiction, how it has to be, because medieval. Take the Iron Islands, the mountain tribes of the North and Oldtown. The entire law "feeling" is different and it is hard to imagine they form a kingdom under a common law. 

We have literally a couple of kindoms in a personal union and not the united kingdom of westeros. But that is not how westerosi rule and coronation works. 

Historically states with different languages always required a strict law system, even for the ruler, to keep the realm together. This can best be studied in the Habsburg territory. 

First off, you're right, it's obviously a fictional world so there aren't going to be 1-1 parallels.  Now, I'm no expert, but I do know that Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland all have nominally different justice systems.  This feels similar to how law in Westeros works; Aegon I needed to bind together 6 or 7 fundamentally distinct kingdoms with their own judicial systems.  So he allowed each to keep their own laws in order to cut down on friction, since as we see in the Dragon's Wroth, while draconic power is superior to traditional Westerosi levies, it isn't a game over button.  So getting buy in from all the kingdoms was important.  Only under Jaehaerys is there an attempt to make a common legal system across all the kingdoms, but it stands to reason that thousands of years of tradition will have a powerful cultural memory; Roose Bolton may be an asshole, but I think his attitudes towards First Night and all that stuff can be seen as a microcosm for how the constituent kingdoms view their traditional legal rights and privileges, even if many of them no longer actively pursue those rights.

And for what it's worth, empires like Austria-Hungary had limits on the monarch, but those differed in each constituent kingdom.  And, mind you, those kinds of later amalgamations of territories are part of a different and distinct historical paradigm.  Increasing centralization of the state made implementing a codified, written law much easier to enforce, whereas in earlier polities a great deal of "law" was basically time-hallowed tradition.

[Lord Varys]

On 10/3/2018 at 9:59 PM, cpg2016 said:

Only under Jaehaerys is there an attempt to make a common legal system across all the kingdoms, but it stands to reason that thousands of years of tradition will have a powerful cultural memory; Roose Bolton may be an asshole, but I think his attitudes towards First Night and all that stuff can be seen as a microcosm for how the constituent kingdoms view their traditional legal rights and privileges, even if many of them no longer actively pursue those rights.

It seems to be clear what the law is, even in the North. The fact that criminal lords get away with breaking the law when nobody is looking (or when they ensure nobody learns of them breaking the laws) doesn't mean people don't know or see them.

A unification of laws means a unification of laws. One law for all. The only exception is Dorne which married the Iron Throne rather than bending the knee. Daeron II made it clear that Dornish law would always hold sway in Dorne. There is no indication that Northern or Western law still holds sway in the North or West. We have no clue what laws Jaehaerys I kept and which had to go and how many new/changed laws were introduced in regions where they didn't hold sway in earlier times, but considering that the laws were unified (and not all the same before that) it is clear that there must have been (considerable) changes.

On 10/3/2018 at 9:59 PM, cpg2016 said:

And for what it's worth, empires like Austria-Hungary had limits on the monarch, but those differed in each constituent kingdom.  And, mind you, those kinds of later amalgamations of territories are part of a different and distinct historical paradigm.  Increasing centralization of the state made implementing a codified, written law much easier to enforce, whereas in earlier polities a great deal of "law" was basically time-hallowed tradition.

The comparison there seems to be way off. There is no indication that, say, Dragonstone and adjacent holdings had more privileges or a different kind of relationship with the Iron Throne than houses that were conquered later. Nor is there an indication that the Baratheons (as a Targaryen cadet branch) were granted more liberties than other great houses.

The only exception is Dorne. And there one can see a version of the Hapsburg game, considering that they only became part of the Realm due to a marriage contract (although the Hapsburgs marriage policy greatly profited from them from marrying heiresses and thus absorbing more and more territories and holdings into their house). That is something that basically never happens in Westeros - which is actually one of the most unrealistic traits in the entire series.

In an feudal/aristocratic setting power and wealth will always be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer families. There wouldn't be a ridiculous stability where the same family only holds a single big castle and more or less the same lands for thousands and thousands of years.