Military Strengths-2 and More!

[wendelsnatch]

19 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_banneret

 

Somewhat relevant to the thread; Knight banneret fights under his own banner, with other knights, knights bachelor, under him.

Also a reminder, we see Manderly raising ~25 knights for Robb, near 300 men for Rodrick which includes many knights (barges packed with knights, horse and siege engines) 100 knights going with him to Winterfell, who knows how many that died during hornwood campaign and still more heavy horse than any other lord of north and he has just the 100 landed knights.

 

Yes, knights of a certain level of prestige can be given a banner and have knights under them, that was never questioned.  I dispute that every landed knight would have a banner.  A pennon or pennant certainly, but not a banner.

When dealing with then numbers of Lords to Knight and other Cavalry, the North is a bad example.  It was clearly stated in the first book that the North had a tiny number of Knights in relation to the southern kingdoms, but had heavy cavalry that were every bit as competent as a southern knight (or in their words 10x better).  Manderly would have more knights than other Northern Lords without a doubt, and he would likely have landed non-knightly vassals trained in arms in an analogy to a knight.  Manderly is quoted as saying he has More heavy cavalry than any Lord north of the Neck, has a dozen petty lords, and 100 landed knights.  Lets break this down.

-First remember that any number of Knights, landed or otherwise, as well as any other Heavy Horse he could have raised have been diminished by the WoT5K, to what degree is anyones guess

-He says he has more heavy horse than any other Northern Lord, but no figure is provided.  Remember that heavy horse that are not Knights are more common in the North.  In the first book, the ratio for the North was about 1 Knight to 10 heavy horse.  This ratio would obviously be smaller in Manderly lands.  To what degree we are not certain.

-He has 12 petty lords sworn to him.  These petty lords would also have their own landed and possibly household Knights and heavy horse sworn to them.  This is a feudal system, and thats how feudalism works.

-He has 100 landed knights.  These are the knights that are sworn personally to him and have no intervening petty lord between their feudal relationship.  It is possible that some of these landed knights may even have landed knights under them, however this should be the exception instead of the rule.

-No mention is given as to how many household knights he may have, however by now, my belief should be painfully clear that it would not be many.

So how many Knights and heavy horse can Manderly actually put to field, I don't have a blessed idea.  I can Guess, but it would be just that.

19 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I really don't get the insistance on landed knights outnumbering non landed ones.

With evidence given from DS and Coldmoat examples as well, obviously non-landed knights number far more than landed ones.

 

The insistence on landed knights outnumbering non-landed knights is based out of historic precedent and common sense.  Westeros is tremendously huge.  Like the 7 kingdoms are 3 million square miles huge.  You don't have a Lord managed a 1000 square mile tract of land by himself with thousands of serfs and peasants.  He had Knights under him to supervise a much smaller and manageable chunk of land.  This created the relationship between vassal and lord that defines feudalism.  If the Lords have huge bodies of household knights that are in a state of permanent retainer then we are post-feudalism and we have the beginnings of standing armies.  The author has said this is a feudal setting.  To believe the majority of Knights are not of the landed variety would be anachronistic to the setting.  

To the evidence presented by DS and Coldmoat, I ask what evidence exactly are you referring to?  Longinch appears to be a household knight, however what grounds do you have for claiming that every other soldier that Lady Webber brought to the field was a household knight?  Consider this, Osgrey is a landed Knight who holds Standfast.  Coldmoat is described as supporting 20 times as many small folk as Standfast.  Wouldn't it then stand to reason Coldmoat could have up to 20 Landed Knights as vassals of its own?  Dragonstone: again where is it explicitly stated that the 30 Knights at Dragonstone are Household Knights?  Maybe all 30 are household knights based on the size of the castle of Dragonstone, the history, the status afforded Stannis, etc.  That would not be entirely unreasonable for one of the preeminent Castles of the 7 kingdoms.  Speaking of the island of Dragonstone, you do realize it is an island of about 400 square miles.  Historical comparison would suggest that Dragonstone could support about 50 knights fees even considering its marginal land.

[Lord Varys]

19 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Somewhat relevant to the thread; Knight banneret fights under his own banner, with other knights, knights bachelor, under him.

This references as well as the question about what's a banner is pretty much pointless. In George's Westeros even hedge knights have banners. And there are no heraldic codes and details differentiating lords and knights and heads of houses and heirs and all that.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

-He has 12 petty lords sworn to him.  These petty lords would also have their own landed and possibly household Knights and heavy horse sworn to them.  This is a feudal system, and thats how feudalism works.

That is the be kept in mind. 

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

-He has 100 landed knights.  These are the knights that are sworn personally to him and have no intervening petty lord between their feudal relationship.  It is possible that some of these landed knights may even have landed knights under them, however this should be the exception instead of the rule.

Yeah, Manderly here is likely talking about his own landed knights, not the landed knights of his lords.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

-No mention is given as to how many household knights he may have, however by now, my belief should be painfully clear that it would not be many.

Manderly rules a city. It is very likely that a considerable number of knights live not only at his court and serve in various offices there but also in the city at large.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

The insistence on landed knights outnumbering non-landed knights is based out of historic precedent and common sense. 

I'd agree in relation to household knights, but not necessarily on knights at large. There may be more hedge knights and tourney knights and the like than there are landed knights.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

Westeros is tremendously huge.  Like the 7 kingdoms are 3 million square miles huge.  You don't have a Lord managed a 1000 square mile tract of land by himself with thousands of serfs and peasants.  He had Knights under him to supervise a much smaller and manageable chunk of land.  This created the relationship between vassal and lord that defines feudalism.  If the Lords have huge bodies of household knights that are in a state of permanent retainer then we are post-feudalism and we have the beginnings of standing armies.  The author has said this is a feudal setting.  To believe the majority of Knights are not of the landed variety would be anachronistic to the setting.

There may be exceptions - places in the Reach or the Riverlands where yeomen actually own land and are directly sworn to the lord paramount of the regions - but overall this should be the case. We have no clue how large the lands of the individual lords are (not even the lands the great houses directly manage via their own landed knights and peasants) but it seems clear that in light of the vastness of Westeros and the fact that the holdings of a landed knight could be very small, that holding land is basically the way most knights who actually do have property make their living.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

To the evidence presented by DS and Coldmoat, I ask what evidence exactly are you referring to?  Longinch appears to be a household knight, however what grounds do you have for claiming that every other soldier that Lady Webber brought to the field was a household knight? 

Inchfield is Lady Rohanne's castellan, but he could also be head of his house and a landed knight himself. Due to the way knights are styled there is no way to recognize a knightly head of house and a younger son of the same house. Just because you act in this or that capacity in a castle doesn't mean you don't have your keep or a tract of land of your own. Only when we know that such men are younger sons - like Kevan Lannister, Axell Florent, or Brynden Tully - can we be reasonably sure that they do not hold any land (but even that's not certain - Jon/Lysa may have given Brynden some land in the Vale, Stannis may have given his wife's uncle some land on Dragonstone, etc.).

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

Consider this, Osgrey is a landed Knight who holds Standfast.  Coldmoat is described as supporting 20 times as many small folk as Standfast.  Wouldn't it then stand to reason Coldmoat could have up to 20 Landed Knights as vassals of its own?

That is actually not unlikely.

48 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

Dragonstone: again where is it explicitly stated that the 30 Knights at Dragonstone are Household Knights?  Maybe all 30 are household knights based on the size of the castle of Dragonstone, the history, the status afforded Stannis, etc.  That would not be entirely unreasonable for one of the preeminent Castles of the 7 kingdoms.  Speaking of the island of Dragonstone, you do realize it is an island of about 400 square miles.  Historical comparison would suggest that Dragonstone could support about 50 knights fees even considering its marginal land.

Rhaenyra also has thirty knights on Dragonstone in 129 AC, indicating that this number may be an institution - which implies that there may have been about thirty towers, keeps, whatever for landed knights on Dragonstone.

One has to keep in mind that the Dragonmount makes up a huge chunk of the island, causing most of the people living there along the coastlines. Still, considering this is a volcanic islands chances are pretty good that there are some fertile places on the island where there are also some knights. Even if Dragonstone were mostly an empty place it is the ancestral seat of House Targaryen and traditionally also the seat of the Heir Apparent. That means it is a place where knights would gravitate in any case.

We hear that Visenya Targaryen made one Gawen Corbray Maegor's first master-at-arms, implying that knights from pretty big houses did not only gravitate to Dragonstone but also find service there.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Wendelsnatch. If what you suggest is true, then it dramatically changes the number of Landed Knights and Masterly Houses in Westeros, and dramatically reduces the number of landless heavy cavalry who are only warriors in service to a liege lord.

I don’t discount your real world refernces, I just don’t know if that’s the picture Martin has presented of Westeros.

It would devalue the power of House Osgrey at their peak strength, and would make references to having “a hundred landed knights” rather unimpressive. And yet, having a “hundred landed knights” has been portrayed as being quite meaningful.

I personally agree that the size of Westeros requires thousands of Landed Knights to properly manage. As I have shown before, if the North has only 4 million people, and the average village has say 40-50 people in it, that means there are close to 100,000 villages in the North. Even if the average Landed Knight (Masterly House in Northern language) rules 10 villages (that’s 3 times House Osgrey’s strength at the time of tSS), you would need around 10,000 landed knights to rule them all. And, sure, maybe in the North the ratio is higher, as more villages are required to support a Landed Knight. Let’s say it is 20 villages per Landed Knight. That still requires maybe 5,000 Landed Knights. Given that the North’s heavy cavary strength appears to sit around 7000-8000 heavy horse in total, that would indeed make Landed Knights the majority of your heavy cavalry.

So that would support your position, I guess. 

But is that how Martin has portrayed it? It does not come across in that way. 

One thing that might redress this balance slightly, is applying House Webber’s scenario to armies as a whole. Lady Webber arrives with 6 knights and 6 accompanying squires on horseback, giving her a dozen heavy cavalry in total when she confronts Dunk.

If the same applies to the 1000 Frey heavy cavalry, a more realistic situation could be that say 300 of them are knights, 300 are their squires, and say 400 are assorted household knights, sworn swords and freeriders. Giving them a more realistic 300 Landed Knights, rather than 1000 or some such extravagant number.

If they then also have say a dozen petty lords, each with maybe a dozen Landed Knights of their own, that would further reduce the Landed Knights directly sworn to House Frey to something like 150. 

Bringing them more in line with House Osgrey as Marshalls of the Northmarch.

[wendelsnatch]

37 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 

I'd agree in relation to household knights, but not necessarily on knights at large. There may be more hedge knights and tourney knights and the like than there are landed knights.

 

tourney knights are an interesting case.  If I had to guess a tourney knight would not be a specific class of knight.  In my opinion a tourney is a game for those rich enough to afford to loose, or desperate enough that a win is their only hope.  For most common landed Knights riding in tourney would be a poor financial decision and likely avoided.  If anyone deserves the term tourney knight, it would probably be lordlings with dad's money and nothing better to do while waiting to inherit their lordship, or the younger siblings that will not inherit (Loras Tyrell).  For a near destitute hedge knight, loosing in round one basically strips you of everything you need to be a knight, but on the other hand as long as you make it successfully past round one you have atleast broken even.  Quite the gamble, but for many it may seem to be the only option.

As far as actual hedge knights, if they actually outnumbered landed knights Westeros would be swimming in nomadic homeless knights.  If present in that number, the likely hood of groups banding together and forming free companies that would turn to outright brigandry when not actively employed (like in 1500s continental europe) would be too great.  A hedge knight already doesn't have a good reputation, and are often called "robber knights".  If they outnumbered the landed knights they could upset the whole feudal balance.  Now to the average peasant, it would likely appear that there were more hedge knights than landed knights.  An average peasant would see the landed knight who held the land and would likely see the knights children grow and become knights themselves.  He may see a neighboring landed knight or two, and the Knights overlord.  That peasant may only see a couple Lords and a half dozen real knights in his entire life, but because of the hedge knights itinerant nature the peasant may see a different hedge knight pass through every few turns of the moon.  As an ignorant peasant, I would think that these damn guys must be everywhere.

[wendelsnatch]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Wendelsnatch. If what you suggest is true, then it dramatically changes the number of Landed Knights and Masterly Houses in Westeros, and dramatically reduces the number of landless heavy cavalry who are only warriors in service to a liege lord.

I don’t discount your real world refernces, I just don’t know if that’s the picture Martin has presented of Westeros.

It would devalue the power of House Osgrey at their peak strength, and would make references to having “a hundred landed knights” rather unimpressive. And yet, having a “hundred landed knights” has been portrayed as being quite meaningful.

I personally agree that the size of Westeros requires thousands of Landed Knights to properly manage. As I have shown before, if the North has only 4 million people, and the average village has say 40-50 people in it, that means there are close to 100,000 villages in the North. Even if the average Landed Knight (Masterly House in Northern language) rules 10 villages (that’s 3 times House Osgrey’s strength at the time of tSS), you would need around 10,000 landed knights to rule them all. And, sure, maybe in the North the ratio is higher, as more villages are required to support a Landed Knight. Let’s say it is 20 villages per Landed Knight. That still requires maybe 5,000 Landed Knights. Given that the North’s heavy cavary strength appears to sit around 7000-8000 heavy horse in total, that would indeed make Landed Knights the majority of your heavy cavalry.

So that would support your position, I guess. 

But is that how Martin has portrayed it? It does not come across in that way. 

One thing that might redress this balance slightly, is applying House Webber’s scenario to armies as a whole. Lady Webber arrives with 6 knights and 6 accompanying squires on horseback, giving her a dozen heavy cavalry in total when she confronts Dunk.

If the same applies to the 1000 Frey heavy cavalry, a more realistic situation could be that say 300 of them are knights, 300 are their squires, and say 400 are assorted household knights, sworn swords and freeriders. Giving them a more realistic 300 Landed Knights, rather than 1000 or some such extravagant number.

If they then also have say a dozen petty lords, each with maybe a dozen Landed Knights of their own, that would further reduce the Landed Knights directly sworn to House Frey to something like 150. 

Bringing them more in line with House Osgrey as Marshalls of the Northmarch.

It's a challenge really, but when given incomplete data in a fantasy setting I feel that the best solution is to fall back on the most relevant real world analogy and go from there.  To me vast numbers of non-landed knights does not fit the feudal mold.  There is enough ambiguity in the text that Martin has put to paper that it can work with classical European feudalism as I have argued.  Believe me, I do see where you are coming from and that it is entirely possible to read about the number of knights marching under a lords banner and assume they are personal household forces.  Hell, if asked Martin may say "of course they are household knights, household knights are more common then landed knights" if that's what he want his world to be like.  If that were the case, it would seriously scratch my head and would have to think why would this be?  Perhaps the Faith of the 7 doesn't take young highborn men into its ranks with the prevalence of the Catholic Church in Europe, and without the "pressure relief valve" of men going away on crusade in Westeros there is an overabundance of young highborn 2nd and 3rd sons and Westerose developed a culture of having abnormily large numbers of household knights.  Plausible, but unlikely.  I just go for the most plausible of possible solutions

[Free Northman Reborn]

43 minutes ago, wendelsnatch said:

It's a challenge really, but when given incomplete data in a fantasy setting I feel that the best solution is to fall back on the most relevant real world analogy and go from there.  To me vast numbers of non-landed knights does not fit the feudal mold.  There is enough ambiguity in the text that Martin has put to paper that it can work with classical European feudalism as I have argued.  Believe me, I do see where you are coming from and that it is entirely possible to read about the number of knights marching under a lords banner and assume they are personal household forces.  Hell, if asked Martin may say "of course they are household knights, household knights are more common then landed knights" if that's what he want his world to be like.  If that were the case, it would seriously scratch my head and would have to think why would this be?  Perhaps the Faith of the 7 doesn't take young highborn men into its ranks with the prevalence of the Catholic Church in Europe, and without the "pressure relief valve" of men going away on crusade in Westeros there is an overabundance of young highborn 2nd and 3rd sons and Westerose developed a culture of having abnormily large numbers of household knights.  Plausible, but unlikely.  I just go for the most plausible of possible solutions

 Upon further thought, a couple of points come to mind.

First, imagine that an average major lord (Ryswell, Mallister, Tarly level for example) has perhaps 20 household knights, maybe 10 petty lords, and maybe 50 Landed Knights sworn to him.

Each of his petty lords then has say half a dozen household knights and maybe 10 Landed Knights sworn to him. And each Landed knight in turn has on average 2 household knights or sworn swords in his service.

For that Great Lord, that would then equate to:

20 direct household knights

50x2 = 100 household knights serving his Landed Knights

10x6 = 60 household knights serving his petty lords

100x2 = 200  household knights serving the Landed Knights of the petty lords.

Total = 380 Household knights/ sworn swords 

Add to that the 50 Landed Knights of the Great Lord and the 100 Landed Knights of the petty lords and that gives you 150 Landed Knights vs the 380 Non-Landed Knights.

Giving you 530 knights in total.

The second question then becomes, are squires counted as heavy cavalry too? They also ride horses and are armored. And there seems to be one for every knight, going by the Lady Webber example (and the example of the Manderly knights with Robb, accompanied by an equal number of mounted squires.)

That could account for lords like the Freys having up 1000 cavalry or more.

[wendelsnatch]

2 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 Upon further thought, a couple of points come to mind.

First, imagine that an average major lord (Karstark, Mallister, Tarly level for example) has perhaps 20 household knights, maybe 10 petty lords, and maybe 50 Landed Knights sworn to him.

Each of his petty lords then has say half a dozen household knights and maybe 10 Landed Knights sworn to him. And each Landed knight in turn has on average 3 household knights or sworn swords in his service.

For that Great Lord, that would then equate to:

20 direct household knights

50x2 = 100 household knights serving his Landed Knights

10x6 = 60 household knights serving his petty lords

100x2 = 200  household knights serving the Landed Knights of the petty lords.

Total = 380 Household knights/ sworn swords 

Add to that the 50 Landed Knights of the Great Lord and the 100 Landed Knights of the petty lords and that gives you 150 Landsd Knights vs the 380 Non-Landed Knights.

Giving you 530 knights in total.

The second question then becomes, are squires counted as heavy cavalry too? They also ride horses and are armored. And there seems to be one for every knight at least, going by the Lady Webber example.

That could account for lords like the Freys having up 1000 cavalry or more.

I honestly feel that the landed knights having household knights would be rare.  Osgrey being the exception rather than the rule having 2 hedge knights as sworn swords.  Petty Lords may have 6 household knights but 2-3 may be more reasonable.  A great lord having 20 household knights is not out of the realm of possibility.

To throw in some real feudal realism, your example above is too pretty.  Lets say a Great Lord> Lord> petty Lord > Major Landed Knight> Landed Knight

Said Great Lord has sworn directly to him 3 Lords (A,B,C), 3 petty Lords(D,E,F), 1 Major Landed Knight (G), and 50 Landed Knights

Lord A Has 2 petty lords sworn to him as well as a dozen Landed Knights, one Major.  His petty lords have 6 and 8 Landed Knights respectively. His Major landed knight has 12 knights under him

Lord B has 3 petty lords and 20 landed knights, Petty lords with 6,6,9

Lord C has no petty lords, but a large body of 50 landed knights

petty lord D has a dozen Landed Knights, Petty lord E and F each have 9

Major landed Knight G has 20 landed knights under him

-all told you have a Great Lord, 3 Lords, 8 Petty Lords, 2 Major Landed Knights and 229 Landed Knights.  There probably are another 30-40 household knights sprinkled about.  Call it 280 Lordly/Knighted cavalry.  Granted only about half this number would go to war, the other half staying back to guard and manage the land.  This doesn't even get into the problem that some lords may owe feudal obligations to multiple greater lords who may be at war with one another.  Imagine a petty lord who was was a vassal to bolt the Blackwoods and the Brackens.  He may have to serve in person with the Blackwood host with a dozen of his Kinghts but would also send half a dozen to fight with the Bracken host.  There is  historical precedent. 

To your second question, a Knights obligation was generally to include a second mounted non-knight warrior as part of his "lance".  This second warrior was either his squire, or a mounted "dagger man".  In the cavalry charge, the Knights would lead with lances, and the other soldier essentially had their back and would generally fight wit axe or mace.  Later in the middle ages the second man became incrementally better equipped behaved more like a Knight in practice but not principal.  Would the squires be counted as heavy cavalry... its possible.

[Corvo the Crow]

@wendelsnatch

 

Thirty knights, a hundred crossbowmen, and three hundred men-at-arms made up the rest of Dragonstone’s garrison. That had always been deemed sufficient for a fortress of such strength. 

 

 

The slap she gave him had all her strength behind it, and she was stronger than she looked. His cheek burned, and he could taste blood in his mouth from a broken lip, but she hadn't truly hurt him. For a moment all Dunk could think of was grabbing her by that long red braid and pulling her across his lap to slap her arse, as you would a spoiled child. If I do, she'll scream, though, and twenty knights will come bursting in to kill me.

 

Inchfield may be a landed knight as I said once in the other thread and Lord Varys has pointed here.

As for knights being all/mostly landed in real life, well that may be true but apparently not the case in Westeros. With twenty times Ser Eustace's smallfolk, this means Rohanne keeps all his landed knights garrisoning his castle at all times, which doedn't sound too realistic to me.

Since you are so insistent on real life comparison;

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-at-arms

A men-at-arms is a professional soldier serving as heavy cavalry and a knight is also a men-at-arms while not all men at arms are knights. Clearly this is not the case in Westeros where the distinction between a knight and men-at-arms is generally more than just the title with a knight still being a knight but a men-at-arms, while still being a professional, is usually a foot soldier or else DS alone has over 300 heavy cavalry. And again since a knight can't support himself without any land, a men-at-arms with the same equipment that only lacks the title shouldn't be either. Sorry but I am having a really hard time picturing DS having 300+ towers, or even tiny villages, sprawled around supporting these guys.

 let's inform Stannis about this in ACOK's start anyway and he will be overjoyed having more than tripled his heavy cavalry.

In the link you can also see men-at-arms could serve for wages as well as land and though it was not an attractive work, there were still knights doing as garrison.

Also there it says knights formed %20-30 of men-at-arms (not armies) between 1280 and 1360 and this later dropped to %6.5 around 1380 and then as low as 1.3. This does not necessarily mean these knights were all landed as well, as we are told of garrison knights.

Now, I want to remind, since we(I mean you) are clearly expecting westeros to be an exact copy of our world, Westeros has PLATE ARMOR, which came in the late middle ages. You can see the figures for that in the above pharagraph.

[wendelsnatch]

38 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

@wendelsnatch

 

Thirty knights, a hundred crossbowmen, and three hundred men-at-arms made up the rest of Dragonstone’s garrison. That had always been deemed sufficient for a fortress of such strength. 

 

 

The slap she gave him had all her strength behind it, and she was stronger than she looked. His cheek burned, and he could taste blood in his mouth from a broken lip, but she hadn't truly hurt him. For a moment all Dunk could think of was grabbing her by that long red braid and pulling her across his lap to slap her arse, as you would a spoiled child. If I do, she'll scream, though, and twenty knights will come bursting in to kill me.

 

Inchfield may be a landed knight as I said once in the other thread and Lord Varys has pointed here.

As for knights being all/mostly landed in real life, well that may be true but apparently not the case in Westeros. With twenty times Ser Eustace's smallfolk, this means Rohanne keeps all his landed knights garrisoning his castle at all times, which doedn't sound too realistic to me.

Since you are so insistent on real life comparison;

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-at-arms

A men-at-arms is a professional soldier serving as heavy cavalry and a knight is also a men-at-arms while not all men at arms are knights. Clearly this is not the case in Westeros where the distinction between a knight and men-at-arms is generally more than just the title with a knight still being a knight but a men-at-arms, while still being a professional, is usually a foot soldier or else DS alone has over 300 heavy cavalry. And again since a knight can't support himself without any land, a men-at-arms with the same equipment that only lacks the title shouldn't be either. Sorry but I am having a really hard time picturing DS having 300+ towers, or even tiny villages, sprawled around supporting these guys.

 let's inform Stannis about this in ACOK's start anyway and he will be overjoyed having more than tripled his heavy cavalry.

In the link you can also see men-at-arms could serve for wages as well as land and though it was not an attractive work, there were still knights doing as garrison.

Also there it says knights formed %20-30 of men-at-arms (not armies) between 1280 and 1360 and this later dropped to %6.5 around 1380 and then as low as 1.3. This does not necessarily mean these knights were all landed as well, as we are told of garrison knights.

Now, I want to remind, since we(I mean you) are clearly expecting westeros to be an exact copy of our world, Westeros has PLATE ARMOR, which came in the late middle ages. You can see the figures for that in the above pharagraph.

 

For whatever reason, yes it seems like Martin has deviated from men-at-arms being cavalry to instead being foot soldiers.  This is routinely done in novels and film in error and through ignorance.  What Martins reasons were, I have no clue.  In Westerose, Men-at=arms are foot soldiers, in Europe they were Cavalry.  In Westerose there are Turkeys, in Europe that animal was not present.  Obviously there are differences between his world and ours, however he has stated pretty clearly that Westeros is a feudal society.

Regarding DS, if you are having a hard time picturing DS with dozens of small villages that could support Landed Knights then I think you are having a hard time picturing what 400 square miles looks like.  Dragonstone is about 2/3 the area of Oahu, about 3/4 the size of Rhodes.  Having visited these places and looked over the countryside from the side of a mountain or volcano you can get an appreciation about just how much land there really is.

Regarding the % of knights to men-at-arms that number kept going down because the Knights in England preferred to stay on their manors instead of going to war.  Their lord didn't particularly care if the Knight showed up himself, just so long as the prescribed amount of heavy cavalry showed up.

[Corvo the Crow]

5 hours ago, wendelsnatch said:

 

For whatever reason, yes it seems like Martin has deviated from men-at-arms being cavalry to instead being foot soldiers.  This is routinely done in novels and film in error and through ignorance.  What Martins reasons were, I have no clue.  In Westerose, Men-at=arms are foot soldiers, in Europe they were Cavalry.  In Westerose there are Turkeys, in Europe that animal was not present.  Obviously there are differences between his world and ours, however he has stated pretty clearly that Westeros is a feudal society.

Regarding DS, if you are having a hard time picturing DS with dozens of small villages that could support Landed Knights then I think you are having a hard time picturing what 400 square miles looks like.  Dragonstone is about 2/3 the area of Oahu, about 3/4 the size of Rhodes.  Having visited these places and looked over the countryside from the side of a mountain or volcano you can get an appreciation about just how much land there really is.

Regarding the % of knights to men-at-arms that number kept going down because the Knights in England preferred to stay on their manors instead of going to war.  Their lord didn't particularly care if the Knight showed up himself, just so long as the prescribed amount of heavy cavalry showed up.

And where is it written that DS is 400 square miles? Just in case there is actually a source stating that, The Wall is near 700 feet high, which makes 210 meters and then some if you are using metric like me. Derpwood to WF is 100 leagues which is 555 km and just 15 days march, 37 kms per day. An average person with no heavy burden walks at a speed near 6km/h. This is 6 hours of walking with no burden. Not to mention armor slowing you down and sluggish carts and wayns Westerosi as well.

It should be apparent by now GRRM is (quite) bad with numbers.

Also dozens of villages are not enough, you'll need hundreds for the men-at-arms on DS alone.

[Lord Varys]

18 hours ago, wendelsnatch said:

I honestly feel that the landed knights having household knights would be rare.  Osgrey being the exception rather than the rule having 2 hedge knights as sworn swords.  Petty Lords may have 6 household knights but 2-3 may be more reasonable.  A great lord having 20 household knights is not out of the realm of possibility.

Dunk and Bennis definitely do not qualify as proper 'heavy cavalry'. Dunk never fought in any battle, and Bennis' equipment is a joke.

21 hours ago, wendelsnatch said:

tourney knights are an interesting case.  If I had to guess a tourney knight would not be a specific class of knight. 

TMK introduces us to this profession in detail, and Uthor Underleaf indicates that his type of knight is not exactly rare. They make a career out of tourneys, and Uthor explicitly doesn't have a castle/tower/keep. He prefers inns.

The implication given is that tourney knights such as Uthor rank between hedge knight/sworn swords and actual knights with land and keeps.

Obviously there would also be proper household knights, landed knights, lords, etc. who routinely attend tourneys. But men like Uthor make a business and way of life out of attending tourneys and wagering on the outcome.

Quote

In my opinion a tourney is a game for those rich enough to afford to loose, or desperate enough that a win is their only hope.  For most common landed Knights riding in tourney would be a poor financial decision and likely avoided.  If anyone deserves the term tourney knight, it would probably be lordlings with dad's money and nothing better to do while waiting to inherit their lordship, or the younger siblings that will not inherit (Loras Tyrell).  For a near destitute hedge knight, loosing in round one basically strips you of everything you need to be a knight, but on the other hand as long as you make it successfully past round one you have atleast broken even.  Quite the gamble, but for many it may seem to be the only option.

See above. Tourney is also not tourney. The tourney of Ashford Meadow is grand and great, but there are smaller tourneys, too, like, in a sense, the one at Whitewalls. There we are also introduced to the term 'village hero' (also a title for a planned Dunk & Egg story) which refers to backwater warriors/knights.

Quote

As far as actual hedge knights, if they actually outnumbered landed knights Westeros would be swimming in nomadic homeless knights.  If present in that number, the likely hood of groups banding together and forming free companies that would turn to outright brigandry when not actively employed (like in 1500s continental europe) would be too great.  A hedge knight already doesn't have a good reputation, and are often called "robber knights".  If they outnumbered the landed knights they could upset the whole feudal balance.  Now to the average peasant, it would likely appear that there were more hedge knights than landed knights.  An average peasant would see the landed knight who held the land and would likely see the knights children grow and become knights themselves.  He may see a neighboring landed knight or two, and the Knights overlord.  That peasant may only see a couple Lords and a half dozen real knights in his entire life, but because of the hedge knights itinerant nature the peasant may see a different hedge knight pass through every few turns of the moon.  As an ignorant peasant, I would think that these damn guys must be everywhere.

Oh, it would depend on the era and region - the thing just is that any knight can make a knight, which means there would be places and eras when there would be a lot of knights. After the Blackwater a lot of men get knighted, hundreds if I'm not mistaken, and they all do not receive any land as far as I know.

[Ran]

45 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

An average person with no heavy burden walks at a speed near 6km/h. This is 6 hours of walking with no burden. Not to mention armor slowing you down and sluggish carts and wayns Westerosi as well.

Roman legionarries trained to march 35km a day with 20.5kg of equipment and then building a fortified camp at the end of that march, before repeating it the next day. A lot of impossible marches, I guess!

In fact, 20 miles per day is a perfectly reasonable pace for an army provided good conditions and provisioning, and seems to be George's go-to estimate when calculating movements.  It's a bit on the optimistic side that you can manage that as a sustained average over long stretches, but it's not unknown, and may make sense when fitted with George's view that commander like Stannis are particularly good at organizing and managing orderly and speedy marches with a minimum of muss and fuss. Alexander the Great's entire army, tens of thousands strong, covered about 140 miles in 7 days (that was the Gaza-Pelusium march) as the immediate example that comes to mind, but I imagine you can find others.

[Lord Varys]

The marching issue is somewhat more complex with bad/few Westerosi roads and the like. There is a reason why the Romans built roads wherever they went.

An army marching on the Kingsroad or an equally good road should make much more way than the same army crossing the Mountains of the Moon or marching through the wilderness of the Riverlands or the North in the middle of lasting autumn storms. Arya and Sandor do not travel lightly in ASoS.

In relation to islands:

Driftmark was the home of the richest house of the Realm, for a time - and even afterwards the Velaryons were still wealthy as hell.

This would also make a huge impact on the number of men they could feed.

In general, though, one can look at the numbers of the Great Council of 101 AC. Tymond Lannister showed up with 300 men in his personal retinue, Matthos Tyrell outdid him by bringing 500.

This is considered to be huge. Nobody brought thousands of men. That gives us an indication how large the retinue of a great lord usually is. All the Lords of the West and the Reach and their retainers attending the Great Council would have numbered in the thousands or even tens of thousands, of course.

[Corvo the Crow]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Roman legionarries trained to march 35km a day with 20.5kg of equipment and then building a fortified camp at the end of that march, before repeating it the next day. A lot of impossible marches, I guess!

In fact, 20 miles per day is a perfectly reasonable pace for an army provided good conditions and provisioning, and seems to be George's go-to estimate when calculating movements.  It's a bit on the optimistic side that you can manage that as a sustained average over long stretches, but it's not unknown, and may make sense when fitted with George's view that commander like Stannis are particularly good at organizing and managing orderly and speedy marches with a minimum of muss and fuss. Alexander the Great's entire army, tens of thousands strong, covered about 140 miles in 7 days (that was the Gaza-Pelusium march) as the immediate example that comes to mind, but I imagine you can find others.

Impossible indeed, with a medieval army.

I know this 35km but from memory, Roman Legionnaries carried all of their stuff on themselves; no wayns or carts moving slowly through the mud.

Romans also had better infrastructure and logistics than the dark age states. I don't know about it but those record marches of 35 km were most likely done in home territory but since you remind Alexander the great did the same as well, how did he handle the logistics? Also his can be an extraordinary  case as well since, from memory, they were short on food so perhaps it can be something like Robert's forced marches or close to what Roose pulled on Tywin, marching through the night.

 

Mongols were fast movers as well, changing horses and covering impossible distances for their time.

[Ran]

Henry V had an expedition of 8000 men cover 20 miles a day for five days, IIRC, a chevauchee that set out from Harfleur. And Alexander did not have Roman roads.

Again, 20 miles a day is a reasonable figure for an army on the march. This notion that an unburdened person can barely manage 20 miles is simply wrong.

[AlaskanSandman]

 

Quote

 

While the average U.S. adult walks 2.5 to 3 miles per day, the maximum an adult can walk per day is much more than that. An average adult can walk 3 to 4 miles per hour at a comfortable pace or 96 miles in 24 hours.Jul 28, 2013

The Average Miles a Person Can Walk Per Day | LIVESTRONG.COM

 

https://www.livestrong.com/article/1006250-average-miles-person-can-walk-per-day/

 

 

 

Shmoogle

[Corvo the Crow]

Not to deviate from the current discussion but since you are here, @Ran Is it Mr. Martin's intention that the normal ratio(a lord of average standing in lands and wealth if you will) of knights to other soldiers is around 1:10? By knight I mean heavy lancers, not horse to foot.

We see:

Rhaegar's 40000 has 1 in 10

Gardeners and Lannisters 55000 having 1 to 10

Reynes 2000 having 1 in 10

Jon pointing out NW of old had 1 in 10

Maegor's 4000 Crownlanders having 1 in 10

What Karstarks seem to have raised to date is near 1 in 10

Renly's 90000(which I assume was growing everyday) seems to have close to 1 in 10 ( he has freeriders, light horse etc and Cat saying 10000 lances)

Bloodraven's 5500 at Butterwell having 1 to 10 

If GC's squires perform as heavy horse, they have 1 in 10 as well.

 

Oh and also, does 600 banners or 600 lords great and small mean any landed ruler or just the ones with the title of lord?

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Not to deviate from the current discussion but since you are here, @Ran Is it Mr. Martin's intention that the normal ratio(a lord of average standing in lands and wealth if you will) of knights to other soldiers is around 1:10? By knight I mean heavy lancers, not horse to foot.

We see:

Rhaegar's 40000 has 1 in 10

Gardeners and Lannisters 55000 having 1 to 10

Reynes 2000 having 1 in 10

Jon pointing out NW of old had 1 in 10

Maegor's 4000 Crownlanders having 1 in 10

What Karstarks seem to have raised to date is near 1 in 10

Renly's 90000(which I assume was growing everyday) seems to have close to 1 in 10 ( he has freeriders, light horse etc and Cat saying 10000 lances)

Bloodraven's 5500 at Butterwell having 1 to 10 

If GC's squires perform as heavy horse, they have 1 in 10 as well.

 

Oh and also, does 600 banners or 600 lords great and small mean any landed ruler or just the ones with the title of lord?

Robb’s 12000: 1 to 3. 

Frey’s 4000: 1 to 3

Robb’s 20000: 1 to 3

Tywin’s 35000 : 1 to 2.5.

Those are for primary forces. But even if you add reserve forces which will mostly be infantry, it is hard to see it dropping much beyond 1 to 5.

1 to 10 doesn’t seem right.

[Corvo the Crow]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Robb’s 12000: 1 to 3. 

Frey’s 4000: 1 to 3

Robb’s 20000: 1 to 3

Tywin’s 35000 : 1 to 2.5.

Those are for primary forces. But even if you add reserve forces which will mostly be infantry, it is hard to see it dropping much beyond 1 to 5.

1 to 10 doesn’t seem right.

Foot to horse is not foot to heavy cavalry though. Of the above only Robb's 12000 and Freys 4000 are 1:3 for certain. Tywin had plenty of light horse such as in Gregor's flank, Robb's 20000 includrd light cavalry as seen in Manderly's contingent.

Remember, Renly's 80000 host was 1:3 horse as well but had light horse, free riders...

Also remember Barristan says Rhaegar had 1 in 10 knights but the rest wasn't entirely foot. There were free riders and such as well.

We also see forces starting with 1:5 as well such as Caron-Dondarrion force of 4800 or even one that may have been Near 1:1, Florents starting with 2000 men having 700-800 cavalry(not specified if all were knights) survive even after the losses the Van survived.

That's why I explicitly stated I meant knights/lancers and not just horse to foot.

[Lord Varys]

Guys, where are Stannis' 10,000+ horse? Where is the largest cavalry force in the War of the Five Kings? It disappeared without a trace.

If plot-relevant details like that - and not just numbers tossed around by this or that fellow - can be changed on a whim (or quietly disappear) then there is really no reason to expect the author's works behind the scenes to paint a coherent picture of the military capabilities in his world.

It would have been easy as hell for Yandel to give a brief overview of the military capabilities of each of the Seven Kingdoms - historically and in their present state - so that we would actually get canonical information on that. But this wasn't done - and there was likely a reason for that.

As for the walking thing - I learned as a child that people can walk 80-100 km per day if they are healthy and in good shape, so that's no big deal. How quickly they can advance with a lot of gear under less than ideal conditions - no proper roads, bad weather, shitty terrain (thick forests, swamps, deep rivers without bridges and only very few fords, etc.) - is another question.

But it is quite clear that under ideal conditions an army could march pretty far each day. But it would be walking speed unless we talk about an exclusive cavalry force like Renly's men at Storm's End who later magically lost all their horses.

The term 'knight' as term of significance in military matters seems to me to mean 'proper knight', which would be a knight properly armored and equipped. There are hedge knights and the like who are 'knights', too, but they would never count as proper heavy horse in any battle.

And by the way - Tywin's reserve in the battle of the Green Fork was mostly heavy horse, were they not?

In that sense one should not assume all of the (heavy) horse of the Two Kings were part of 'the iron fist'. A good percentage would have been, but there would have been additional heavy horse in the reserve, and there would have been a lot of light horse in the flanks.