2.4.1. Knighthood
- Knighthood is a religious matter open only to those who profess to follow the Seven, involving anointing. Being anointed by the High Septon is a great honor (I: 30. SSM: 1)
- Ser is the title given to knights (I: 30, etc.)
- A knight may be as young as 15 or 16 (I: 249. II: 292.)
- To be a knight one customarily stands vigil in a sept and is anointed with the seven oils by a septon before taking the vows, although any knight can make a knight (I: 476. HK: 472, 473)
- Hedge knights spend their lives riding from keep to keep, taking service with different lords and eating in their halls until the lords saw no more need for them and sent them off (THK: 458)
- Some hedge knights turn robber in lean times (THK: 458)
- Most hedge knights tie up most of their worldly wealth in their arms and horses (THK: 458, 459)
- True knights are supposed to be cleanly as well as godly, but some take cleanly to mean a bath once every few weeks (THK: 464)
- Merchants are notoriously mistrustful of hedge knights (THK: 467)
- Part of becoming a knight is a dubbing with a sword, the blade touching each shoulder in turn as words are spoken (THK: 472)
- Knights practice their jousting against quintains (THK: 478)
- Wealthier knights wear gilded spurs (THK: 492)
- Knights may carry badges that have no connection to their house's arms (THK: 493)
- Part of the knighting ceremony: "<Person and House, if he has one>," a touch on the right shoulder with the blade. "In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave." The sword moves from right shoulder to left. "In the name of the Father I charge you to be just." Right shoulder. "In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent." The left. "In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women...." (THK: 518)
- A more formal knighting ceremony involves a night's vigil, followed by walking barefoot from the sept to the knighting place to prove their humble hearts. They wear shifts of undyed wool to receive their knighthood, which is marked by the putting on of the swordbelt after dubbing (II: 667)
- Three hundred dragons is a fair ransom for a knight (III: 503)
- Pages and squires might practice by riding at rings (III: 493)
- Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
- Some knights never name their horses, so as to lessen the grief when they die in battle (TSS: 93)
- Once, one in every ten members of the Night's Watch had been a knight, but now the figure is more like one in every hundred (IV: 74)
- The vigil prior to receiving the vows of knighthood are carried out before the figure of the Warrior. The squire might lay his sword before or upon the figure, and their armor may be piled at its base (IV: 124)
- There are knights who refuse to name their horses, for fear of feeling attached to them when they are likely to be killed in battle or in mishap (IV: 394)
- In a duel, it seems the challenger may be able to determine the weapons used (IV: 482)
- Hedge knights are nearer to common servants than noble knights in the eyes of most lords, and are rarely invited to ride beside them (TMK: 656)
- It's claimed that Glendon Ball, the Knight of Pussywillows, bargained for his knighthood. Ser Morgan Dunstable knighted him in return for a night with Ball's maiden sister (TMK: 704)
- There are tales of knights winning their knighthoods with favors, threats, and coin (TMK: 704)
- Social pressure keeps knighthood from being exploited by unscrupulous knights who might give the accolade for money (SSM: 1)
- Knighthood is seen as primarily a martial position, so even the sons of powerful lords are not necessarily knighted if they are incapable of fulfilling the requirements. Doing otherwise would lose honor rather than gain it, and would make a lord and his family be held up to ridicule (SSM: 1)
- Any man can be knighted, even a bastard (SSM: 1)
- Squires can be men of any age, even into their 40's. They are men who either had too little money and thus were unable to keep themselves equipped, or they were men who didn't have the inclination to become knights for any number of reasons (SSM: 1)
- The difference between a landed knight and a small lord is the title. A lord has greater powers over his domain than a landed knight, and the title is seen as more prestigious than knighthood. On the other hand, a knight is a fighting man and the title has its own martial and religious meanings with its own special prestige. Not all lords are knights, and it is concievable that a landed knight would have more lands and wealth than a small lord (SSM: 1)
- Some knightly families have strong castles, extensive lands, and great wealth -- lords in all but name, and often much more powerful than lesser lords or petty lords. They lack only in certain privileges that only lords hold in the Seven Kingdoms, such as the rights of pit and gallows (SSM: 1)
Last revised March 09, 2013
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2.4.1.1. Tournaments and Heraldry
- The high lords and ladies sit apart and watch the events (I: 246)
- In one sort of tilt, if three passes are ridden without result, the king can grant the victory to one or another according to such things as who sat the better horse or had the steadier lance (I: 247)
- Knights all wear cloaks (I: 247)
- The jousters are separated in the lists (I: 247)
- Killing someone's horse is seen as a disgrace, and forfeits a match (I: 249)
- Pageantry is spectacular at tourneys. Knights wear the finest plate, and cloaks and horse caparisons are sometimes sewn with flowers. Lances are painted or made of rare woods to suit the knight who uses it, and sometimes the points are gilded (I: 246, 249, 261. HK: 491, 493, 497)
- If a resultless tilt is even enough that the king cannot judge between them, both competitors may move on to new opponents (I: 249)
- Knights in tournaments display their shields outside of their tents. Particularly ostentatious shields might be enormous and made of iron (I: 257)
- Tourney lances are made to break (I: 263)
- Melees are fought with blunted weapons and are chaotic. Alliances form and break by turns, until one man is left standing. A tournament of forty men, knights and freeriders and squires, can last three hours. The number of injuries to both men and horse are many (I: 265)
- Knightly pavilions may be small or large, round or square, and made of sailcloth, linen, or silk according to wealth (THK: 463)
- According to the whims of the host, a tourney may be open only to knights (THK: 472)
- In many tournaments, defeated competitors must either pay a ransom or forfeit their armor and horse (THK: 472. II: 146)
- Tourney barriers might be whitewashed (THK: 478)
- Some tourneys have several men tilt at once, so lists with several lanes are not uncommon (THK: 478)
- In a typical tournament, the nobles and particularly wealthy townsfolk would sit in multi-tiered stands with a canopy to shield them from the sun. Most would sit on benches, but the hosting lord and other particular nobles would have seats for themselves (THK: 478, 490)
- One kind of tournament is called a hastilude (THK: 485)
- There are a dozen different forms of tourney. Some are mock battles between teams, others wild melees. Where single combats are the rule, pairs might be chosen by lot or perhaps by the master of the games (THK: 480)
- One form of tourney is thrown in honor of a noble lady, who reigns as Queen of Love and Beauty. Five champions wearing her favors would defend her, and all others would be challengers. If any man defeats a champion by making him yield or incapacitating him after tilting and then single combat, he takes his place until he himself is unseated. After three days of jousting the five remaining would determine who would wear the crown of Queen of Love and Beauty (THK: 480, 481, 492)
- In a tournament where challengers may choose their opponent, the right of first challenge goes to knights of high birth or great renown, lords and their heirs, and champions of past tourneys (THK: 489)
- Tourney lances 12 feet long, longer than war lances (THK: 491)
- Knights tend to wear elaborate crests on their helms for tournaments. They are made of carved wood or shaped leather, sometimes gilded and enamelled or made of pure silver (THK: 491, 495)
- The organization of tournaments to mark important occasions (such as namedays) might be handled by someone appointed as master of revels (II: 34)
- The High Septon may be involved in confirming the propriety of a marriage contract being broken if the parties are sufficiently important enough (II: 664)
- The Knight of the Laughing Tree was a mystery knight who appeared at the great tournament at Harrenhal, fighting for the honor a young Howland Reed of Greywater Watch (and may well have been Lord Howland himself). He won King Aerys's enmity (III: 279, 283)
- The great tourney at Harrenhal had five days of jousting planned, a great seven-sided melee in the old style fought between seven teams of knights, archery, axe-throwing, a horse race, a tourney of singers, a mummer show, and many feasts and frolics (III: 282, 485)
- Mystery knights often appear at tourneys, with helms concealing their faces and shields that were blank or bore some strange device. Sometimes they were famous champions in disguise (III: 282)
- In a tourney at Storm's End when he was young, Prince Rhaegar defeated Lord Steffon Baratheon, Lord Jason Mallister, the Red Viper of Dorne. He broke twelve lances against Ser Arthur Dayne that day, but lost to Ser Barristan of the Kingsguard in the final tilt (III: 485, 752. SSM: 1)
- It had been long years since King Aerys had last left the Red Keep when he went to Harrenhal for Lord Whent's tourney (III: 485)
- Tournaments might have contests for pages and squires, such as riding at rings (III: 493)
- The heraldic drawings and illuminations in the White Book are done by septons sent from the Great Sept of Baelor three times a year (III: 751)
- Barristan Selmy won the name of "the Bold" in his 10th year when he donned borrowed armor to appear as a mystery knight at a tourney in Blackhaven, where he was defeated and unmasked by Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies (III: 752)
- Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
- Ser Barristan the Bold defended the passage against all challengers in the tourney of the Silver Bridge, won a melee at Maidenpool, defeated and unmasked the mystery knight Blackshield, revealed as the Bastard of Uplands, at the Oldtown tourney, wa sole champion of Lord Steffon Baratheon's tourney at Storm's End where he unhorsed Robert Baratheon, Prince Oberyn Martell, Lord Leyton Hightower, Lord Jon Connington, Lord Jason Mallister, and Prince Rhaegar, and was champion at the tourney in King's Landing in his 57th year (III: 752)
- In a tourney tilt, one's opponent is always on the left side (IV: 230)
- Three knights travelling in a company for a tournament might have two dozen servants, grooms, men-at-arms, and mounted crossbowmen with them, as well as a dozen heavily-laden drays carrying armor, tents, and provisions (TMK: 653)
- It is not customary to hold a melee to celebrate a wedding, and the suggestion of having one is shocking (TMK: 659, 672)
- A small tourney thrown by Lord Butterwell has a very rich grand prize of a dragon's egg, but the other prizes are much smaller, being 30 dragons for the knight who came second and 10 dragons to each of the knights defeated the previous round (TMK: 672)
- If a knight hates his foe enough, he may refuse to give over his horse for ransom, and could go so far as to ruin his armor before sending it to his enemy (TMK: 707)
- Knights often light candles to the Warrior while attending tourneys, praying for strength and courage (TMK: 720)
- The rules of heraldry are unregulated and rather freeform in the Seven Kingdoms, with individuals able to choose personal arms to their own taste (SSM: 1)
- The rules for tourneys are many and diverse, and are up to each hosting lord or king to choose for their own particular event. There are wild team melees over acres of land, exhibitions of jousting, free-for-all-last-man-standing melees, and so on (SSM: 1)
- There exists an ancient melee format which uses seven teams (SSM: 1)
- The Reach is the chivalric heart of the Seven Kingdoms and the place where stringent requirements to entry in tournaments are most likely to be placed. Other areas are more likely to be a little looser, and in the North where knighthood is rare tournament rules are likely to be made up as they go along rather than follow set tradition (SSM: 1)
- Heraldry in the North is significantly simpler and more basic than that in the South, showing the differing amounts of influence that chivalry has had there (SSM: 1)
- The quartering of arms is not the usual practice in Westeros, and there are no set rules as to how it's to be done (SSM: 1)
Last revised March 09, 2013
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