[SPOILERS] Military matters and population development (including cities)

[Bernie Mac]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

What we do know, is that the North had a higher population at the end of Jahaerys’s rule than it had in Torrhen’s time.

That is true, but the Winter at the end of the book, during the regency, comes across as brutal for the North. With the famine, the winter fever, the loss of soldiers to Essos and the Riverlands the North would have been set back considerably. 

[Ran]

And then you get to the D

2 hours ago, Jaak said:

 

What are the officially assessed units of taxable capacity? "Hides"? "Knight´s fees"? Something else? Do we get a specific clue?

 

AFfC:

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Ser Bonifer raised a gloved hand. "Any man who remains with me shall have a hide of land to work, a second hide when he takes a wife, a third at the birth of his first child."

 

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

And then you get to the D

AFfC:

 

 

This as well, sorry for not quoting

Brown Ben's note was the last. That one had been inscribed upon a sheepskin scroll. One hundred thousand golden dragons, fifty hides of fertile land, a castle, and a lordship. Well and well. This Plumm does not come cheaply. Tyrion plucked at his scar and wondered if he ought to make a show of indignation. When you bugger a man you expect a squeal or two. He could curse and swear and rant of robbery, refuse to sign for a time, then give in reluctantly, protesting all the while. But he was sick of mummery, so instead he grimaced, signed, and handed the scroll back to Brown Ben. "Your cock is as big as in the stories," he said. "Consider me well and truly fucked, Lord Plumm."

 

since a hide is land enough to support a single family, even LF must have several hides of farming land.

[Bernie Mac]

Woo hoo! I've long argued that the Vances are powerful, due to only them and the Freys having vassal Lords in the Riverlands, as well as logically all the strongest houses can't be in the North or central Riverlands, there must be a Southern equivalent  and finally F & B confirms it. 

House Tully was unique amongst the great houses of Westeros. Aegon the Conqueror had made them the Lords Paramount of the Trident, yet in many ways they continued to be overshadowed by many of their own bannermen. The Brackens, the Blackwoods, and the Vances all ruled wider domains and could field much larger armies, as could the upstart Freys of the Twins.

 

[Lord Varys]

20 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Woo hoo! I've long argued that the Vances are powerful, due to only them and the Freys having vassal Lords in the Riverlands, as well as logically all the strongest houses can't be in the North or central Riverlands, there must be a Southern equivalent  and finally F & B confirms it. 

House Tully was unique amongst the great houses of Westeros. Aegon the Conqueror had made them the Lords Paramount of the Trident, yet in many ways they continued to be overshadowed by many of their own bannermen. The Brackens, the Blackwoods, and the Vances all ruled wider domains and could field much larger armies, as could the upstart Freys of the Twins.

You should continue the lines - what they reveal about the Mootons is not uninteresting, either.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

My point is: We don’t know how the growth of the different regions compared. And until we do, it is only reasonable to assume a fairly even growth, until told otherwise.

No, the former is actually my point. I said that we don't know how the population of the individual regions increased. All we can say is that the population north of Dorne supposedly increased. That is all we can say. And that doesn't mean it doubled everywhere, just that it doubled in total.

We have no reason to be fair here. If I said this means that this were effective confirmation that the population of the Vale doubled then you had every right to call me out on that one.

And quite frankly, I'd actually think that the Vale and the North would be the regions with the least growth - the North for obvious reasons, and the Vale because its remoteness and isolation (due to the clansmen in the mountains) would have not caused it to profit all that much from overland trade.

The regions really profiting from this thing would be the Crownlands (which were basically backwater wilderness before the Conquest), the Reach, the Stormlands, the Riverlands (especially those), the West, and also the Iron Islands to some degree.

[Bernie Mac]

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

You should continue the lines - what they reveal about the Mootons is not uninteresting, either.

 

But we already knew the Mootons were notably wealthy before Bobby's 'bellion.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, Bernie Mac said:

But we already knew the Mootons were notably wealthy before Bobby's 'bellion.

Not sure if everybody knew that ;-).

[Free Northman Reborn]

So Cregan’s host is stated to be twice the size of that of the “Lads” of the Riverlands. I couldn’t find a reference to the size of the Lads’ army in my first skim through. Other than that they fought an earlier battle with 6000 men at the start, with presumably heavy losses before the end.

Did their host grow again before marching on King’s Landing?

[Bernie Mac]

57 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So Cregan’s host is stated to be twice the size of that of the “Lads” of the Riverlands. I couldn’t find a reference to the size of the Lads’ army in my first skim through. Other than that they fought an earlier battle with 6000 men at the start, with presumably heavy losses before the end.

Did their host grow again before marching on King’s Landing?

Cregan's host is 8 to 20k, 

 

Meanwhile, his enemies were on the march. Down the Neck came Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, with a great host at his back (Septon Eustace speaks of “twenty thousand howling savages in shaggy pelts,” though Munkun lowers that to eight thousand in his True Telling)

[Ran]

The "double" figure suggests that the Lads lost about a third of their host at the Muddy Mess, so 8k Northmen, 4k riverlords.

[Lord Varys]

Not sure it makes much sense guessing when there are conflicting sources ;-).

[Ran]

The only conflict is Eustace, whose language is quite clearly heavily biased against the northmen, being savage followers of the old gods, and so he obviously inflated their numbers.

[Lord Varys]

18 minutes ago, Ran said:

The only conflict is Eustace, whose language is quite clearly heavily biased against the northmen, being savage followers of the old gods, and so he obviously inflated their numbers.

Perhaps. I take a break and watch you experts figure it out... ;-).

Another thing:

Aegon establishing the King's Peace makes a bunch of things clear:

1. The Seven Kingdoms were constantly at war before the Conquest.

2. There was no King's Peace before Aegon preventing lords to use violence and war to settle differences with their neighbors. The Targaryens ended that, for the most part (as Webber and Osgrey show, there are exceptions here and there). Before the Conquest, even kingdoms who didn't war with an outside enemy where never really at peace within. That shows the relative weakness of the kings before the Conquest.

3. Lords had tax autonomy before the Conquest, too, which is also a huge deal implying that many a lord was effectively still king on his lands, never mind that he bent the knee to some other guy who resided very far away in some castle and never showed up or messed with him on his lands.

4. With Jaehaerys' taxes on crenelations and such in mind the fact that the Starks have a ruined tower they do not rebuild (and even another tower later on, the library tower) lends a lot of credence to the idea that there are no hidden fortunes hidden in Winterfell. The Starks are not rich. If you want to rebuild, enlarge, or strengthen your castle you have no only to pay the builders but also pay a lot of gold to the Iron Throne. And apparently the Starks either don't want to do that - or they can't, at this point at least.

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Perhaps. I take a break and watch you experts figure it out... ;-).

If you can't be civil, don't comment on something you take issue with.

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1. The Seven Kingdoms were constantly at war before the Conquest.

That was already known from the novels, however. I would have liked it if Gyldayn talked about this in relation to the Watch, but he has no particular interest in it ... and neither, it seems, did Aegon. The Watch just did its thing.

 

 

[Lord Varys]

45 minutes ago, Ran said:

If you can't be civil, don't comment on something you take issue with.

Man, that was supposed to be a joke. I honestly am not very interested in sifting through numbers where any source might be right. For me, it would be like trying out what part (if any) of A Caution for Young Girls was actually written by Coryanne Wylde ;-). Yeah, perhaps Eustace's bias made him increase the numbers, but what if he actually investigated the matter because of that? And if he were exaggerating, how much? One can make guesses, but is this really going to lead us anywhere=

45 minutes ago, Ran said:

That was already known from the novels, however. I would have liked it if Gyldayn talked about this in relation to the Watch, but he has no particular interest in it ... and neither, it seems, did Aegon. The Watch just did its thing.

One assumes the guys up there knew how to follow those vows, no? Lord Commander Hoare shows how taking no part goes.

Aside from that, though, I expect that for many a century the Watch must have had the largest standing military force in Westeros, especially back in the days when it wasn't seven kingdoms yet, but more a couple of dozen. Back then the Watch must have been a noble calling indeed - being part of the largest army on the continent should be something better than just doing your thing at home.

And if the Watch is not just a place where you are dumped but where you are numbered among 'the chosen', the chances are that the business back home is less and less important. But we would have to know exactly how high the standing of the NW was around the Conquest - and we don't.

Around 50 AC there was a severe decline already, with two castles closed down and the reopened, so one assumes the decline had set in long before Aegon's Conquest (in a sense Nymeria dispatching her kings to the Wall in golden fetters is already a sign of a decline).

[Ran]

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And if he were exaggerating, how much? One can make guesses, but is this really going to lead us anywhere=

About 12,000 too much. Of all the sources Gyldayn cites in the work, Munkun is certainly the one with the most detailed explanation for why he is authoritative: his work is "exhaustive" and draws from contemporary chronicles, memoirs, and records, and -- most impressively -- interviews with 147 witnesses to the events. His key fault is in how he deals with matters based primarily on Orwyle's biased history regarding the inner-workings on the court, as Orwyle had reason for bias on one hand, and occasionally to be out in the woods on others.

He's basically Jean Froissart, which is fitting, as other aspects of Froissart's Chronique inspired how we approached Yandel's views of what he was working on.

 

 

[Lord Varys]

I recall the stuff about Munkun. That certainly might indicate his numbers are better, but overall it would depend whether his sources - especially the witnesses he interviewed years later, presumably, after the Regency - could actually recall those more or less accurately after all the time that had passed (assuming they were knew them).

Overall, do you have any explanation why the numbers are so low during this most devastating of wars? If take the population increase into account, and take the numbers from the Conquest seriously - and the time certain players had to raise their armies (Cregan Stark, Jeyne Arryn, Borros Baratheon) - it is not exactly satisfying that very few armies are larger than 10,000 men.

In part, this the complicated situation in the Reach and the Riverlands helps explain that, but the West should have been able to marshal more than 8,000 men - considering that they seem to be utterly defenseless against the Ironborn later attack this is very odd? Where are all the men? Or are we to believe that Jason's thousand knights robbed the West of its entire leadership, crippling their ability to strike back?

[Ran]

He's only writing a generation later, and again, he's drawing from a lot of contemporary sources. Hell, Munkun was practically a contemporary.. and he was in King's Landing before Cregan and his army left, so yeah, even more reason to trust his numbers. We also know Lord Blackwood, one of the great military leaders of the era, was one of their number.

The only other source Gyldayn mentions as approvingly is Benifer, whom he considers among the very best Grand Maesters for having kept a lot of records of what was going on at court.

The numbers are low presumably because there was a lot of uncertainty about the sides in the conflict, and about the amount of trust one could have that one's own vassals wouldn't flip sides, so you'd hold back a lot of trusted men and forces they could lead to try and keep everyone in line while your expeditionary force was away. The season is also an issue. The West seems to have suffered a devastating loss of leadership even though it did not send the greater part of its host.

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

He's only writing a generation later, and again, he's drawing from a lot of contemporary sources. Hell, Munkun was practically a contemporary.. and he was in King's Landing before Cregan and his army left, so yeah, even more reason to trust his numbers. We also know Lord Blackwood, one of the great military leaders of the era, was one of their number.

Makes sense. I'm still somewhat skeptical to just give Munkun a complete pass on all the military issues, but essentially I agree with you. That can be a way to get closer to *the truth* than we are if we take my approach ;-).

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

The only other source Gyldayn mentions as approvingly is Benifer, whom he considers among the very best Grand Maesters for having kept a lot of records of what was going on at court.

Yeah, I imagine Benifer's thoroughness compared to Elysar is part of the rationale why we get such a detailed account on Jaehaerys' early reign and less on the latter. Or at least that's my rationale. But the fact that things get less detailed in THotD makes the book unpleasantly imbalanced. It could have helped if that chapter would have been reworked/expanded to not just be a prologue to the Dance - which it basically is.

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

The numbers are low presumably because there was a lot of uncertainty about the sides in the conflict, and about the amount of trust one could have that one's own vassals wouldn't flip sides, so you'd hold back a lot of trusted men and forces they could lead to try and keep everyone in line while your expeditionary force was away. The season is also an issue. The West seems to have suffered a devastating loss of leadership even though it did not send the greater part of its host.

Yeah, but we get phrases like Lord Jason 'descending with all his power on the Red Fork' which creates very strange impression if you think of Tywin. And, frankly, how sure could Tywin be that his men don't favor Stannis over Joffrey, say?

If we consider the numbers in the main series, then the order in the West should have been kept even if Lord Jason had marched with 18,000 men instead of 8,000.

In the end, though, it is the lack of ships that makes the West vulnerable, not so much a lack of men. And it is certainly the case that the Westermen don't really have a real stake in this nonsensical succession squabble among siblings they are not related to.

But it would have been great to get more of this 'neighbor fought neighbor' and 'father fought son' thing. That's more or less only hinted at. And a man like Borros surely could have come with all his strength, anyway - he had dealt with the Vulture King, the dragons were mostly dead, as was Rhaenyra. There was nothing to fear but other armies. And the full power of the Stormlands could have made more than a difference on the Kingsroad. A little bit of local infighting in the West and especially in the Vale could have been fun. The Royces could have remembered Daemon not all that fondly, for instance.

By the way - would it make sense to assume that the numbers Gyldayn cites are lower because he actually tries to restrict himself to proper warriors (i.e. armored/mounted lords/knights, men-at-arms, and archers) rather than just essentially everybody who marches with the army. It is the proper soldiers who mostly win the battle, not the numbers as such.

Renly's army at Bitterbridge is blown up vastly if one actually uses the camp fires to guess at the amount of proper soldiers he has.

If we were to go by Gyldayn trying to use a more *professional* approach whenever possible in relation to army numbers then one can, perhaps, reconcile such discrepancies better.

[Ran]

Gyldayn mentions levies, so the numbers really are of what people are mustering.