MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Reality in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire

Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2015

Supervisor: Author:

Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph. D. Lucia Sladiková

Abstract:

This bachelor’s thesis deals with the comparison of a series of books A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin and the chosen aspects from the history of the British Isles. It attempts to prove that the author was inspired by the real history and used it in his books. The studied aspects are namely the territory, the walls, people, knights, heraldry, heritability, customs and events. The thesis also attempts to classify the books in terms of genre and suggests a possible use in education.

Anotácia:

Táto bakalárska práca sa zaoberá porovnaním série kníh s názvom Pieseň ohňa a ľadu od George R. R. Martin a vybraných aspektov z histórie Britských ostrovov. Práca sa usiluje dokázať, že autor bol inšpirovaný reálnou históriou a použil ju vo svojich knihách. Skúmanými aspektmi sú teritórium, steny, ľudia, rytieri, heraldika, dedičstvo, zvyky a udalosti. Ďalším zámerom tejto práce je klasifikovať knihy v zmysle žánra a navrhnúť ich možné využitie v edukačnom procese.

Key words:

George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, postmodernism, historiographic metafiction, high fantasy, taboo, British Isles, territory, highland zone, lowland zone, The Wall, Hadrian’s Wall, Antonine Wall, Offa’s Dyke, barbarians, wildlings, southerners, northerners, knights, heraldry, heritability, feudalism

Kľúčové slová:

George R. R. Martin, Pieseň ohňa a ľadu, Hra o tróny, Súboj kráľov, Búrka mečov, Hostina pre vrany, Tanec s drakmi, postmodernizmus, historiografická metafikcia, vysoká fantasy, tabu, Britské ostrovy, teritórium, zóna vysočiny, zóna nížiny, stena, Hadriánov val, Antoninov val, Offov val, barbari, divosi, južania, severania, rytieri, dedičstvo, heraldika, feudalizmus

Declaration

Hereby I declare that I worked on this thesis on my own and used only the sources listed in the bibliography. I agree that the thesis be placed in the library of the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno and made accessible for study purposes.

Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů“. Souhlasím, aby práce byla uložena na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně Pedagogické fakulty a zpřístupněna ke studijním účelům.

Brno, March 30, 2015 ......

Lucia Sladiková

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, PhD. for her help, patience and guidance. I would also like to thank my consultant Mgr. Jan Plocek for his help and invaluable advice.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 6

1. ABOUT THE BOOKS ...... 8

1.1 Assigning the genre ...... 8

1.2 The plot and the main conflicts ...... 11

1.3 Reception of the books ...... 12

1.4 Challenging the taboos ...... 13

2 TERRITORY ...... 15

3 THE FICTIONAL WALL VERSUS MONUMENTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES ...... 20

4 PEOPLE ...... 24

4.1 Barbarians ...... 27

5 KNIGHTS ...... 32

6 HERALDRY AND HERITABILITY ...... 35

6.1 Succession ...... 35

6.2 Heraldic symbols ...... 35

7 CUSTOMS AND EVENTS ...... 37

CONCLUSION ...... 50

WORKS CITED ...... 55

INTRODUCTION

This thesis is based on a description of the most prominent aspects from the series of books A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. These are then compared with very similar aspects from the history of the British Isles. Since the series of books is set in a world resembling medieval times with kings, knights and constant wars, the sources about history for the comparison were chosen mostly from the medieval times.

The aim of the thesis is to prove that George R. R. Martin was inspired by real history of the British Isles using geography, people, customs, names or even conflicts from the history to make the story more believable and more real. The thesis also attempts to categorize the books as a possible additional reading to enrich the studies of history in ways of drawing parallels between well known stories and the real history.

The books from the series A Song of Ice and Fire are used as means of comparison and analysis. Since these include stories with only occasional additional description of customs or history, individual ways of solving conflicts or behaviour are used as representative. Only the most prominent aspects are used since in many instances, there is no description as to why something is done in that specific way.

The thesis begins with some theoretical information about the books. The first chapter includes descriptions of genres that the books could belong to. Since the series is a contemporary work, it is not so clear which genre it is related to and similarities with different types can be found. These are described in detail because the chosen genres themselves are those that are inspired by the history, using it in the works of fiction. The opening chapter also includes a brief summary of the plot with the most important conflicts of the story. Then the critical reception of the books follows together with description of the impact the books have had on readers. The last part of the chapter analyzes the challenge of taboos that is portrayed in the series and makes the books very unique, since it creates the view of a grey world – not just black and white – and gives great value to the reading by presenting the things as they happened.

The second chapter compares the territories both of Martin’s fictional land and the British Isles. The comparison includes geography, political organization and settlements.

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Cities and countryside are described together, including their mutual relationships. The chapter concludes in the portrayal of roads and their use.

The third chapter describes and compares the fictional Wall from Martin’s books with three constructions in the British Isles, namely: Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall. The explored aspects are the use and the construction. The chapter also includes author’s confession about his inspiration for the Wall.

The following chapter deals with the dividing of people in the British Isles, as well as in A Song of Ice ad Fire. It begins with the explanation of the religions in the novels, drawing parallels with the religions in reality. Connections between the geography and the religion are made using consensus from the British Isles made in 2011, including also distribution of religion on the Isles from the Roman period. Then a table comparing nicknames given to characters in the books and those given to historical figures follows. The last part of the chapter describes barbarians in terms of how they are perceived by people who have never seen them, by those who spent some time with them, the rumours spread about them and their own self-apprehension. The attempts to define the barbarians were made on multiple occasions in the books and the historical sources connected with the British Isles also include these.

The fifth chapter compares the knights in Martin’s books with those from the history. Their status, duties and armour are briefly described and compared. The sixth chapter deals with the heraldry in terms of rules and laws of succession. As a way of comparison the fictional royal family is used. This chapter also includes a brief description of displaying of heraldic symbols with the comparison of those used in Martin’s books and those appearing in the British Isles.

The last chapter describes customs and events that are similar in A Song of Ice and Fire and in the history of the British Isles. These include behaviour around kings, food and drinks usually served, great halls, singers, trials, castles and marriages. There are also descriptions of specific people with certain traits or actions that can be seen both in the books and in the reality. Even similar marriages, revolts and massacres are discussed. The chapter closes with a concise comparison of feudal system used in Medieval Britain and the system in use in the novels.

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1. ABOUT THE BOOKS

The series contains five books (one of them separated into two books in some editions). The table below shows the individual titles of the books, which were used in this thesis, and the years of their first publishing. The author’s plan is to write two more books of this series (Flood, 2014, June 6).

Table 1: Years of the first publishing

Name of the book Year of the first publishing A Game of Thrones 1996 A Clash of Kings 1998 A Storm of Swords1: Steel and Snow 2000 A Storm of Swords2: Blood and Gold 2000 A Feast for Crows 2005 A Dance with Dragons 2011

The books themselves begin with maps showing the places where the storyline takes place, then the prologue and chapters called by the names of the characters follow. Individual chapters are told from the point of view of the character after whom they are named. At the end of each book there are detailed family trees, depictions of the family sigils, short explanations of histories of the families and relationships between individual people in the family. With major characters, there is also a note about their whereabouts at the timeline of the specific book.

1.1 Assigning the genre

For the series of books which are contemporary, it is very difficult to assign them to a specific genre. There has not been enough time to study the symbols in the books and connect them with other symbols of other books, maybe even create a new genre for them. As Bridle states genres “shift all the time” (2013, March 3). Therefore the opinions of different people on the genre of Martin’s books also vary. Although mostly, the specialists in the field of literature who are describing some genres did not assign Martin’s books to it even though

8 there are many similarities. The reason is probably the contemporariness of the series. For the purposes of this thesis, the following analysis has been made.

The whole story of the novels is fragmented by using different points of view, disrupting the linear and sometimes even jumping a little back in time. In this way the books show signs of postmodernism, since as Lewis claims: “the postmodernist writer distrusts the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories, and prefers to deal with other ways of structuring narrative” (Lewis, 2011, p. 126).

Martin’s books are set in a world which is not identical with our real world on the planet Earth. It is a brand new world made up by the author. In this aspect it is consistent with Cipera’s description of three categories of settings in the high fantasy genre. The one she herself assigns to Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is portrayed as “a world separate unto our world, one where our world for all intents and purposes doesn’t even exist” (2011, May 11). This aspect is also described by J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay (more closely described in the following paragraphs) as an aspect of high fantasy, the “unreality” – “unlikeness to the Primary World” (n. d., p. 16). This new world is made even more original by aspects like creating a new language for the purposes of the novels – High Valyrian, adding brand new songs as folk songs into the story, providing detailed maps of the land and family trees and constantly mentioning past events, giving the story its own history. All of these aspects can be also found in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which explains why Martin’s books are often compared to or categorized together with Tolkien’s trilogy.

Kuznets claims that Tolkien in his essay On Fairy Stories, which was also delivered as a lecture, established “contemporary standards for what is known in Great Britain and the United States as “high fantasy” (although Tolkien did not call it that)”(1985, p. 19). Tolkien called it fairy stories and he was trying to distinguish what is and what is not a fairy story, to add Kuznets’ terminology, what is high fantasy and what is low fantasy. The individual aspects which Tolkien describes and which are consistent with A Song of Ice and Fire are described below.

Firstly, Tolkien describes the realm of a fairy story, which is “wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there” (n. d., p. 2). The land in Martin’s books has detailed descriptions of land, nature and animals, which shows the very aspect of high fantasy – a thought-through environment – that Tolkien praises.

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Secondly, Tolkien considers it to be essential for a high fantasy book that “it should be presented as “true”” (n. d., p. 5). Martin’s books are presented as reality. There is no mention of someone only dreaming the story, creating it by magic or any other way of undermining the plot as an unreal one.

Tolkien even discusses the possibility of history and myth often resembling each other since “they are both ultimately of the same stuff” (n. d., p. 10). This statement supports the aim of this thesis, showing that there can be many things in Martin’s novels resembling historical facts, even though it is just a work of fiction.

Another very important aspect of high fantasy described by Tolkien is aiming it at adults instead of children as readers. According to him, these books can be read by adults without any kind of pretence “neither playing at being children, nor pretending to be choosing for children, nor being boys who would not grow up” (n. d., p. 15). Also when these high fantasy books are written with art, their prime value “will simply be that value which, as literature, they share with other literary forms. But fairy stories offer also, in a peculiar degree or mode, these things: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation, all things of which children have, as a rule, less need than older people” (n. d., p. 15). A Song of Ice and Fire itself is more suitable for adults than children, due to its portrayal and detailed descriptions of things as rape, murder or incest.

The books also exhibit some signs of historiographic metafiction, a genre described by Linda Hutcheon: “Historiographic metafiction works to situate itself within historical discourse without surrendering its autonomy as fiction” (n. d., p. 4). Hutcheon further argues, that people know the history itself only from the texts that were preserved and historiographic metafiction brings attempt to write history “as narrativization (rather than representation) of the past” (n. d., p. 8). In this way the history itself is kind of fiction, because we cannot be sure how it really was. This is something that can be found in the series. It is true that the story is not directly set at some specific time and place in the history, but besides using history as an inspiration, it shows how the history of the timeline of the story is recorded. This is demonstrated through the way knights behave in the reality of the books – raping, killing, beating innocent people and how they are portrayed in songs – brave, gallant, protecting the weak.

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1.2 The plot and the main conflicts

Martin’s story takes place in a fictional land called Westeros or The Seven Kingdoms. King Robert of the House Baratheon dies and his good friend lord Eddard Stark finds out, that his alleged children are in true the result of incest of the king’s wife and her brother. Lord Eddard Stark is put to prison and publicly confesses to treason under the threat of hurting his children, and consequently he is beheaded. As a result, Eddard’s oldest son Robb is proclaimed as the King in the North, brothers of the deceased king Robert proclaim themselves to be the kings of Westeros (separately) and rebellions arise throughout the kingdom. Daenerys, surviving daughter of a king who ruled before King Robert, is in exile in a land separated from Westeros by sea. She gains her own army, plans to conquer Westeros and manages to bring to live the first three dragons after 150 years.

Characters in the books vary from simple people growing up and living in the worst conditions, through servants and wealthy families to royal families and people closest to them. The characters are shown not as black and white – just good and just bad, but as grey – every good person does something bad and vice versa. The author achieves a very interesting effect by continuously adding the points of view of different characters. For example, the character of Jamie Lannister is presented in the first two books only from the viewpoints of other people and he is portrayed quite negatively, but his viewpoint begins to be added from the third book and presents his motivations and thoughts behind his actions. This way the character is made more human, a complex personality with positive and negative traits is presented.

The main conflicts of the series are about the power in the kingdom. Different people claim the right to sit on the throne and rule. This divides the kingdom, brings wars and cruel conditions for common people. The coming of a winter signals that the situation will get even more difficult, because the winter in this fictional land can last for many years, and it is never known for how many, so the fear of people is very strong.

Another aspect of the conflict is brought by attacks from the north. The kingdom itself is separated from the not very well known part of the country in the north by the Wall. Beyond it, there are no laws and people living there are referred to as the wildlings or the free folk. As far as the legends go, the purpose of the Wall was not originally to prevent barbarian raids as it came to function, but to protect the realm from the dark creatures – the cold- blooded monsters hating all the living beings with warm blood, killing them and turning them

11 into their own. As the story goes so far, most of the people do not believe these monsters even exist, but men of the Night’s Watch (a group of men protecting the Wall) have encountered them and they are getting ready to fight and protect the realm.

1.3 Reception of the books

The books are widely popular, which can be proved by the number of sold copies mentioned by Lisa Richwine – 24 million copies “including print, digital and audio versions” (2013, September 20). The story itself is being turned into a TV series by HBO named after the first book of the series – A Game of Thrones, which is also very popular, as mentioned by Richwine, and creates a whole new market for people who want to have some kind of series merchandise from T-shirts to infantry shields (2013, September 20). There is also a huge group of people playing computer or board games based on these books or meeting together dressed up in costumes. Apart from being widely popular amongst the viewers, the show has also significantly good reception by the experts, which can be demonstrated by the number of nominations – 214 and the number of wins – 114, including EMMY awards and many others, as stated by the website IMDb (Game of Thrones Awards, n. d.).

One of the aspects that make these books very unique is strong female characters. The author in an interview states that slightly more than a half of his fans are, in fact, women. He further says: “I’m lucky that I’ve got such a big project; it means I can have lots of different types of female characters and so avoid stereotypes, which is what fantasy writers can end up doing.” (Salter & Martin, 2013, March 25). If we take into consideration for example The Lord of the Rings trilogy and look at the main characters, there are basically just men encountering women from time to time in the story. On the other hand, Martin has many female characters amongst the main characters and does not avoid telling the story from their points of view.

Another aspect that sets A Song of Ice and Fire apart from other fantasy books is, that “there is no battle between good and evil” (Salter & Martin, 2013, March 25). Good characters are not perfect, their flaws are also portrayed in the story, and likewise, the bad characters have some good traits and perform good actions.

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1.4 Challenging the taboos

George R. R. Martin tries to present his world in its true reality, with good and bad alike. This sometimes concludes into portraying incest, rape or cold-blooded murders. Detailed descriptions of human bodies, feelings, sexual arousals or even sexual acts, heterosexual as well as homosexual are not avoided. Some of these things are considered immoral and taboo even by characters in the books, some are just a public secret. This poses some questions. Are there taboos in these books? Is it intentional? Are these books suitable for everyone?

Francis Prose presents his opinion on the existence of taboos in literature nowadays: “there will always be taboos as long as the powerful are allowed to define what writers are forbidden to write” (2014, July 15). This suggests that even though many daring books are written and sold, there will always remain some things considered as taboos.

Tariq Moosa describes literature as a means to “safely test our moral fibres against the grain of hardened anathemas: killing, adultery, incest, pornography, theft, anarchy have all been explored in various forms of literature”. He further discusses that “the ethical importance then of literature and fictional story-telling – in the form of novels, comics, even video games, films and television – is that of the safe space we’re allotted to test our and other kinds of morality” (n. d.). These arguments are in favour of the novels and suggest new possible applications – to use the challenge of taboos for good, to consider both sides of the coin, to see not just the bad deeds and recognize which are good and which are bad, but to also look for the motivation behind them. Consequently, the book series can be perceived not as a demoralizing instrument but just the opposite, as a means to set one’s own moral standards.

The author of the books himself stated in an interview:

Rape and sexual violence have been a part of every war ever fought, from the ancient Sumerians to our present day. To omit them from a narrative centered on war and power would have been fundamentally false and dishonest, and would have undermined one of the themes of the books: that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil. (Itzkoff & Martin, 2014, May 2)

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Another argument Martin states as a reason for including so many details of sex is that: “sex is an important part of life; it’s something that gives our lives meaning, for good or for ill, so I think it should be there and should be shown” (Salter & Martin, 2013, March 25). Apart from sex, there are also detailed descriptions of food at feasts but even food of simple people. Some people might argue that this is boring and unnecessary, but food is also a part of life and gives the books more realistic value.

These are not the only taboos Martin challenges. He includes brothels, whores and portraying of noble men visiting these places, having whores brought to them or even abusing their servants for these purposes. With wars, there are also tortures, whores following the army, brutal murders and rapes. All of these are not avoided and not ignored. Even the mostly negative attitude of the public towards bastards is included.

Martin does not only challenge some of the taboos of literature and society, he also challenges common stereotypes. By including several woman characters as the main characters he sets himself apart from other fantasy writers, but he also makes these characters extraordinarily complex and diverse. He is not stopped by common notions about a woman’s place of contemporary times nor the medieval times and includes a woman warrior – Brienne of Tarth – who is even knighted and chosen as a king’s guard. She prefers wearing armour and has trained all her life so she can beat almost any man that stands against her. Furthermore, she is mentally very strong, since she is able to deal with the mockery drawn to her by her appearance. The stereotypical perception of women in the society portrayed in the books is emphasized by the direct confrontation this character gets by one man of strong principles, who tells her: “You never should have donned mail, nor buckled on a sword. You never should have left your father’s hall. This is war, not a harvest ball” (Martin, 2011c, p. 234).

By portraying the inner states of women characters, Martin managed to achieve a very effective contrast with one character called Sansa Stark. She is quite naive in the beginning of the story, believing that all the knights are gallant and protect weaker people, as it is sung in the songs. Later she is confronted by the reality, when a prince, who she is betrothed to, lies and kills her father. It is clearly demonstrated on this example how songs are different from reality, idealizing everyone. This adds to the value of the series, since the life is not the way it is portrayed in songs, in stories or on TV and even the historical records could be inaccurate and this is important to realize.

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2 TERRITORY

Picture 1: Westeros geography (Gellatly, 2014)

As can be seen from the picture number 1 above, Westeros is not very clearly divided in terms of highland and lowland zones. There are lowland parts and highland parts scattered in different parts of country. However, the deeper into the north people go, the fewer farms they see (Martin 2011d, p. 113-114). In this way Martin concentrates more on the differences between life in the north and life in the south than describing lowland and highland zones. He describes the rain as soft and warm in the south and northern rain as cold and hard and sometimes turning into ice at night (2011d, p. 275).

Collingwood describes country of the British Isles as divided into two parts by nature, with a very specific character. North and west are formed by mountain-chain creating hard- rock plateaus. East and south-east have a character of plain made of newer and softer rocks

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(Collingwood, Myres, & Clark, 1937, p. 1). Lowland parts of the Isles have fertile soils and highland zone has very poor soils (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 2). This way agriculture and stock-farming were very successful in lowland zone but extremely difficult in the highland zone (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 3). The logical conclusion is that there is a big difference of life between these two parts of the Isles: “richer, more comfortable, and more prosperous life of the lowland zone and the harder and poorer life of the highland” (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 3). “The vagaries of geography and history set the North apart from their southron neighbours” (Martin, García, & Antonsson, 2014, p. 135). This description of the north in the fiction explains that even though there is not as clear geographical division as with the British Isles, there is a significant distinction between the south and the north in the same terms as the distinction between highland and lowland zones in the Isles. This way the lowland zone in the Isles corresponds with the south in Westeros and the highland zone in the Isles corresponds with the north in Westeros.

As a consequence of these rapid differences between the two parts of land in Westeros, the north has stayed unconquered the longest (Martin et al., 2014, p. 135). The same applies to the British Isles, as Collingwood et al. describes it: “the highland zone is unattractive to invaders, hard to invade, and hard to conquer” (1937, p. 3). The thing both of these countries have in common is, that they have regions with natural forest as can be seen in case of Westeros in the picture number one above, and in case of Britain this is described by Salway (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 4).

Martin mentions a time before the story in his books begins, some 300 years before that, when the Seven Kingdoms were separate kingdoms, and only later these became provinces (2011d, p. 117). This extract explains how the name of the land came to be what it is:

For centuries it has been the custom to speak of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. This familiar usage derives from the seven great kingdoms that held sway over most of Westeros below the Wall during years immediately preceding Aegon’s Conquest. Yet even then, the term was far from exact, for one of those “kingdoms” was ruled by a princess rather than a king (Dorne), and Aegon Targaryen’s own “kingdom” of Dragonstone was never included in the count. (Martin et al., 2014, p. 135)

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This explains the number seven in the name since the official number of parts is eight, namely The North, The Riverlands, The Vale, The Iron Islands, The Westerlands, The Reach, The Stormlands and The Dorne (Martin et al., 2014).

In A Song of Ice and Fire the Seven Kingdoms undergo some changes, when people in different parts rebel and create their own kingdoms demanding separation and independence (Martin, 2011a, p. 100). As stated by Blair, Cnut divided his kingdom into four earldoms – Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia and Wessex (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 109-110). Celtic Britain had five territorial kingdoms (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 439) and even today the British Isles are separated into the UK and Ireland. Even the full title, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, together with recent election for the independence of Scotland, point to somehow divided people.

In the novels many forts are built on top of hills, one example is the Eyrie (Martin, 2011d, p. 278). And logically there are also farming villages and holdfasts (Martin, 2011d, 749). According to Salway from about 1300 BC there was a pattern beginning to be made in the British Isles: “hill-forts, isolated farms or groups of farms sometimes amounting to villages” were built (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 4).

Martin describes King’s Landing having walls around (2011d, p. 162) and with another castle – Casterly Rock – the impossibility of storming it without siege engines (2011a, p. 504). Towns in the British Isles were also surrounded by walls (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 201). These provided reliable protection, where only “armies with sophisticated siege machinery and logistic support necessary to sustain a prolonged siege, or where the attackers had friends within the town” could break through the walls, as Salway claims (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 29).

The situation during a war in King’s Landing is depicted as only a little amount of food coming from the country-side and most of it going to the castle (Martin, 2011a, p. 242). Later in the story, as the war goes on, the prices of fish grow ten times and children fight over a rotten fish (Martin, 2011a, p. 642). This clearly demonstrates that the city was not able to sustain itself and feed its residents without food from the country-side. Collingwood et al. describes towns from the economical point of view as “parasitic on the country-side. They had to be fed by it, and the goods they produced, together with the service they rendered as markets and trading-centres, were no adequate return for the food they consumed and the expenditure which they demanded for the upkeep of their public services” (1937, p. 198).

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In the novels there is a description of a terrible stink of the King’s Landing on various occasions (Martin, 2011a, 576), (Martin, 2011f, p. 270). This is quite consistent with the occurrence known as the Great Stink. As Professor Daunton describes in his article, the sewer system in London was insufficient and until 1858 escalated to such “overpowering smell from the Thames, that the curtains of the Commons were soaked in chloride of lime in a vain attempt to protect the sensitivities of MPs” (2004).

Picture 2: The North (Martin, 2011d, p. VI) Picture 3: The South (Martin, 2011d, p. VII)

As portrayed in the pictures above, the road system in Westeros (the dashed lines) was built to connect the administrative centres, as well as was the purpose of Roman roads in the British Isles (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 240). Roads in the pictures are surrounded by smaller villages and inns, which were probably built because of the roads, but the Roman roads were constructed mainly just to connect specific points (Collingwood et al., 1937, p.

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240). As a conclusion, the roads were in both cases similar in terms of connecting important places. The difference lies in roads of Westeros being surrounded by other settlements and Roman roads cutting the shortest distance and therefore going through uninhabited land. On the other hand, there were also older roads in the British Isles and these were going through villages and other settlements and consequently became more used (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 240-241).

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3 THE FICTIONAL WALL VERSUS MONUMENTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES

The Wall in A Song of Ice and Fire is in many aspects similar to three constructions of the British Isles – Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall. This chapter closely compares these monuments.

The Wall separates Seven Kingdoms from the northern part, where people live without laws (Martin, 2011e, p. 446). In this aspect, it is not similar to 150 miles long Offa’s Dyke, which served as boundary ditch between Offa’s kingdom and Welsh kingdom (Snyder, 2003, p. 178-179). In the same way, Hadrian’s Wall “did not represent the physical limit of Roman control in Britain, separating Roman from barbarian in the province” (Snyder, 2003, p. 46). However, the similarity is their use to prevent barbarian raids. Martin describes wildlings (people living beyond the Wall) as coming over the Wall to steal women, food, beer, wine, food, weapons and other things (2011e, p. 558). Blair describes Offa as raiding Wales and the Dyke was “built to stop a Welsh counterattack” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 86-87). Collingwood et al. claims that Hadrian’s Wall “was meant as an obstacle to raiding and plundering, and doubtless also to smuggling” (1937, p. 132).

Even though the Wall is much bigger – 700 feet (Martin, 2011d, p. 257) and longer – 300 miles (Martin, 2011f, p. 69) than Hadrian’s Wall with its 20 feet height (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 131) and 73 miles length (Snyder, 2003, p. 46), both of these constructions have similar traits. The Wall has 19 forts (Martin, 2011d, p. 180) and wide walkways on the top (Martin, 2011d, p. 204-205). Hadrian’s Wall has 16 forts and a rampart walk on the top (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 131). “A wooden stair ascended the south face, anchored on huge rough-hewn beams sunk deep into the ice and frozen in place” provided access to the Wall together with an iron cage (Martin, 2011d, p. 203). The only way to get on the top of Hadrian’s Wall was by the means of ladders and narrow stairways (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 132). Antonine Wall was also “Roman frontier barrier in Britain, extending about 36.5 miles” (Breeze, 2013, June 18). It was 10 feet high and had 16 forts (Breeze, 2013, June 18) and as Rohl mentions a rampart was part of the structure (2013, January 14).

The Wall in the novels was built of ice (Martin, 2011d, p. 178) and there is no mention about a ditch from any side of it. Hadrian’s Wall was protected by a 30-foot ditch (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 131), as well as Antonine Wall – 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep

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(Breeze, 2013, June 18). Offa’s Dyke itself was a ditch at some places 22 feet deep and 65 feet wide (Snyder, 2003, p. 178-179). Hadrian’s Wall was a “turf-work, or made of clay where turf was not ready to hand” (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 131) and stones were also used (Breeze, n. d.). Romans used the materials that were available and the same they used when building Antonine Wall (Breeze, 2013, June 18).

Picture 4: The Wall (Roberts, 2014)

Picture 5: Offa’s Dyke (Snyder, 2003, p. 177)

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Picture 6: Hadrian’s Wall & Antonine Wall (Einstein, 2005)

Pictures number 4, 5 and 6 above show the Wall, Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall on the maps. The significant feature all of these have in common is that they are not straight lines. They go their direction a little curvilinear adapting to the land.

Below is a table comparing mentioned features of these monuments, which was compiled for the purposes of this thesis.

Table 2: Features of boundaries constructions

The Wall Hadrian’s Wall Antonine Wall Offa’s Dyke Barrier for barbarians √ √ √ √

Rampart √ √ √ - Number of forts 19 16 16 - Length (in miles) 300 73 36.5 150 Height (in feet) 700 20 10 - Ditch - √ √ √ Material ice turf, clay, stone turf, stone - Shape curvilinear curvilinear curvilinear curvilinear

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As demonstrated in the table number 2 above, all of these constructions served to prevent barbarians from raiding and all were curvilinear in their shape. All the walls had ramparts and forts build along them. Material and size differ but that can be because of the country where the individual constructions were built and materials, that were on hand. As a conclusion, the Wall in A Song of Ice and Fire was inspired by Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall in many aspects - shape, forts, rampart and barrier for barbarians. Even the author George R. R. Martin in an interview with Wayne MacLaurin admits, that:

Well some of it will be revealed later so I won't talk about that aspect of it, but certainly the Wall comes from Hadrian's Wall, which I saw while visiting Scotland. I stood on Hadrian's Wall and tried to imagine what it would be like to be a Roman soldier sent here from Italy or Antioch. To stand here, to gaze off into the distance, not knowing what might emerge from the forest. Of course fantasy is the stuff of bright colours and being larger than real life, so my Wall is bigger and considerably longer and more magical. And, of course, what lies beyond it has to be more than just Scots. (MacLaurin & Martin, 2000, November)

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4 PEOPLE

In A Song of Ice and Fire, people of Westeros are described mainly in terms of being southerners, northerners or barbarians. Southerners are not so distinctly described, there are mostly just references in terms of showing in what way northerners are different from them.

The biggest difference is the religion. For northerners the place where people go to pray is the godswood. It is usually a group of trees or only one tree called weirwood (Martin, 2011d, p. 19-20). “The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree” (Martin, 2011d, p. 20). On the other hand, “in the south, the last weirwoods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago” (Martin, 2011d, p. 20). Southern religion is centred around the Seven. People go to sing to their gods to the sept (Martin, 2011d, p. 20) and there is also a septon to tell the people “the gods’ will and help sort out right from wrong” (Martin, 2011d, p. 748-749). The Seven have names (Martin, 2011d, p. 19), while northern gods are nameless (Martin, 2011d, p. 749). However, a few people in the north also worship the Seven (Martin, 2011d, p. 551), but beyond the Wall old gods “are the only gods” (Martin, 2011d, p. 558). A wildling woman even believes that “the old gods have no power in the south” (Martin, 2011d, p. 558), because the weirwood was destroyed there (as described in this paragraph above). To sum it up, most of the northerners, including the wildlings, worship the old gods while most of the southerners worship the Seven.

As for the people of the British Isles, Collingwood et al. describes the highland zone and its people as “conservative in temperament, stubborn to resist any kind of change” (1937, p. 3). This is consistent with the description of the distribution of religion in Westeros, since northerners mostly worship the old gods, as described above.

Southern religion in the novels is basically about the seven faces of the same god (Martin, 2011c, p. 109). In this aspect it is very similar to the Christian principle of the Holy Trinity. The number seven, however, is also very important in Jewish religion, since it is the number of days in which the world was built. This is represented even during a wedding ceremony, where the groom circles the bride seven times “figuratively building the walls of the couple’s new world together. The number seven also symbolizes the wholeness and completeness that they cannot attain separately” (Shulman, 2011, June 30).

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As can be seen in picture number 8 below, most of the people in Wales and England are Christians – 59%. This chart is a result of 2011 census. Scotland’s census from the same year shows that 54% of the population is Christian (Census 2011: Release 2A, 2013, September 26). Results for Northern Ireland were 41% Catholics (Census 2011: Key Statistics, 2012, December 11) and for The Republic of Ireland it was 84.16% of Roman Catholics (Irish Census (2011), n. d.). This actually shows that there are differences but not the kind that could be connected with the distribution of religion in the novels. This is probably due to the fact that nowadays people travel much more and settle down at different places. This way they bring their religion to different parts of the world. The British Isles are not an exception to this tendency.

Picture 8: Religion in England and Wales 2011 (Religious affiliation, England and Wales, 2011, 2012, December 11, p. 2)

Because of the tendency mentioned in the previous paragraph, it will be more productive to look at the distribution of religion in the British Isles during the Roman times. During the Roman times it was natural, that Romanization had some influence on religion. Snyder claims that “Romanization as a whole was most successful in south and eastern Britain, with native ‘Celtic’ patterns continuing much stronger and longer in northern Britain, Wales and the southwest” (2003, p. 53). This is consistent with the description of religion distribution in A Song of Ice and Fire, and also with the description of people beyond the

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Wall. Snyder also mentions Miranda Green stating in her book A Corpus of Religious Material from the Civilian Areas of Roman Britain from 1997 “the presence of ‘Druid’s Egg’ amulets and ritually deposited cauldrons in Scotland during the Roman period” (2003, p. 52). This also shows that the older religion (meaning longer existent in the British Isles) was present mostly in the north, notwithstanding the position of any wall.

In the series there is a description of people living “west of the kingsroad and south of the Gift” (Martin, 2011b, p. 266). From the Picture number 9 below, it is obvious that this is the very north of the land, very close to the Wall and still inhabited by people of Westeros. These people are depicted as fighting “with huge two-handed greatswords” (Martin, 2011d, p. 266). In the same way, Britons during the Roman conquest fought against Romans, who sailed to Britain in 43AD, with long slashing swords (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 14-15).

Picture 9: The Land Beyond the Wall (Martin, 2011d, p. VIII)

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In the books many people have nicknames they earned by their behaviour or deeds. This can be also found in the history of the British Isles. Table number 3 below shows similarities in nicknames from Martin’s books and from the reality (information compiled for the purposes of this thesis).

Table 3: Nicknames

A Song of Ice and Fire History of the British Isles Barristan the Bold Charles the Bold Goghor the Giant William Bradley – The Yorkshire Giant Cleon the Great Alfred the Great Aegon the Conqueror William the Conqueror Jaehaerys the Old King Edward the Elder Baelor the Blessed Edward the Confessor Aegon the Unworthy Aethelred the Unready Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Robert Walpole, the Man Mountain Rides

4.1 Barbarians

The biggest problems of the fictional northerners “were winter and the wildlings beyond the Wall” (Martin, 2011d, p. 311). The Wall itself is described in the previous chapter, including its size and purpose. Wildlings are described in the books from various viewpoints:

1) Stories told on the other side of the Wall – cruel “slavers and slayers and thieves”, who steal girl children in the dead of night, and” drink “blood from polished horns” (Martin, 2011d, p. 11). “Wildlings come over the Wall or through the mountains, to raid and steal and carry off women. If they catch you, they make your skull into a cup to drink blood” (Martin, 2011e, p. 546). 2) Worries of people going beyond the Wall – “A man needed his sword beyond the Wall” (Martin, 2011a, p. 189). “They are cold and afraid; we all are” (Martin, 2011a, p. 568). “I thought it was wildlings creeping in to slit my throat. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, I might never open them again” (Martin, 2011a, p. 190).

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3) Observations of a man who spent some time with them – “They have no laws, no honor, not even simple decency. They steal endlessly from each other, breed like beasts, prefer rape to marriage, and fill the world with baseborn children” (Martin, 2011e, p. 208). “They steal swords and axes. Spices, silks, and furs. They grab every coin and ring and jewelled cup they can find, casks of wine in summer and casks of beer in winter, and they take women in any season and carry them off beyond the Wall” (Martin, 2011e, p. 558). “The courage of the wildling who reached first for his horn instead of this blade” (Martin, 2011a, p. 670), “whatever else these wildlings are, they’re brave” (Martin, 2011e, p. 410). 4) Their own observations of themselves – “Free folk don’t follow names, or little cloth animal sewn on a tunic” (Martin, 2011b, p. 319) - reference to heraldic insignia shown on clothes of highborn people, “They won’t dance for coins, they don’t care how much you style yourself or what that chain of office means or who your grandsire was. They follow strength. They follow the man” (Martin, 2011b, p. 319).

However, it is not so clear to decide who is a wildling and who is not. Even wildlings themselves see the similarities with people from the other side of the Wall: “Free folk and kneelers1 are more alike than not, Jon Snow. Men are men and women are women, no matter which side of the Wall we were born on. Good men and bad, heroes and villains, men of honor, liars, cravens, brutes ... we have plenty, as do you” (Martin, 2011b, p. 315). They even feel oppressed by the Wall separating them from the rest of the world:

The gods made the earth for all men t’ share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was theirs. My trees, they said, you can’t eat them apples. My stream, you can’t fish here. My wood, you’re not t’ hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I’ll chop ‘em off, but maybe if you kneel t’ me I’ll let you have a sniff. You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t’ be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t’ kneel. (Martin, 2011e, p. 558)

From this citation it is obvious, that the wildlings see the lines separating them from other people very blurred. But even people from outside of Westeros have their opinion about all the people from Westeros (not only wildings): “Some in the Free Cities think that we’re all savages on our side of the Narrow Sea” (Martin, 2011b, p. 421).

1 People with a monarch whom they obey and kneel before 28

In the British Isles the distinction between civilized people and barbarians was also strongly dependent on the point of view and on the time in history. During Caesar’s first landing in Britain and his first fights there, the Britons were described as a “barbarian and comparatively undisciplined enemy” (Cavendish, 2005, August 8). Snyder mentions a description of some Briton made by Ausonius of Bordeaux, in which he states that “no good man is a Briton” (2003, p. 71). Another person Snyder mentions is “the medieval etymologist Isidore of Seville”, who “perhaps influenced by the negative portrayal of Britons in Latin sources, wrote that Britto (an alternate form of Britanni) derived from brutus” – “unwieldy or dull” (2003, p. 12).

Britons themselves described the process of Romanization as a part of the civilization (Faulkner, 2011, January 2). Southerners in the British Isles considered people beyond the Antonine Wall to be barbarians, which comes from the use of the word Picti, which, according to Snyder, was used to describe a group of “hostile northern tribes” (2003, p. 68). The functions of Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall – to prevent raids are consistent with barbarians stealing mentioned above and therefore with the function of the Wall in A Song of Ice and Fire (as discussed in the previous chapter). The trait of wildlings described above in the point number 4 is very similar to Blair’s description of the politics in the seventh century in the British Isles, when people did not support a king because of the strength of his claim to the throne, but because of the power he had (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 72).

As for the religion, wildlings in the story believe in the old gods (Martin, 2011d, p. 558), represented by “weirwood”, which grows in the centre of every wildling village (Martin, 2011f). This religion is further described above in this chapter.

A battle between wildlings and knights in A Song of Ice and Fire is described by one wildling in these words: “The battle was lost. The knights had come, invincible in their steel, killing everyone who stayed to fight. It was run or die” (Martin, 2011e, p. 5). This is similar to Collingwood’s description of Saxons in Britain fighting with elementary tactical discipline: “though their individual valour and strength were considerable. Against such an enemy, a small force of ordinary Roman cavalry, resolutely led, must prove invincible” (Collingwood et al., 1937, p. 323). This is also consistent with courage of wildlings mentioned above.

In the novels, there was a big wildling attack on the Wall. “Beneath the trees were all wildlings in the world; raiders and giants, wargs and skinchangers, mountain men, salt sea

29 sailors, ice river cannibals, cave dwellers with dyed faces, dog chariots from the Frozen Shore, Hornfoot men with their soles like boiled leather, all the queer wild folk Mance had gathered to break the Wall” (Martin, 2011f, p. 301). This was a coordinated attack, similar to the one described by Salway, which happened in the British Isles in the year 367 and is referred to as “the great barbarian invasion” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 50). Salway describes it further as simultaneous attacks happening in Britain and in Gaul:

What convinces one of inspired barbarian leadership is the fact of simultaneous attacks by distant peoples with very different cultures, from homelands relatively distant from one another, with a very clever division of targets – and, perhaps most of all, with the maintenance of complete secrecy. The Romans certainly called it a conspiracy, and it is difficult not to agree with them. (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 51)

Picture 10: Bear Island (Martin, 2011d, p. VI)

As can be seen from the picture number 10 above, Bear Island is close to the Frozen Shore, which is beyond the Wall and therefore occupied by wildlings. Logically this island must be a target of wildling raids. This is also described in the books by a lady from this island: “The men would be off fishing, like as not. The wives they left behind had to defend themselves and their children, or else be carried off” (Martin, 2011f, p. 60). Snyder mentions a similar situation: “written accounts portray an island suffering from constant attacks by the

30 most savage of peoples, who foray unhindered into the British countryside and terrorize the vulnerable cities” (2003, p. 66).

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5 KNIGHTS

In A Song of Ice and Fire a smuggler named Davos Seaworth was given knighthood after supplying Storm’s End, which was under a siege (Martin, 2011a, p. 10). Boutel and Fox- Davies provide this definition of knighthood:

In feudal times the qualifications for knighthood were military exploits of a distinguished character, and eminent services, of whatever kind, rendered to the king and the realm: also, the holding a certain property in land ... whether directly from the king, or under some noble, by the feudal tenure of personal service to be rendered under certain established conditions. (1914, p. 273- 274)

Considering this definition, Davos’s accomplishments most definitely can be defined as “military exploits of a distinguished character”. As a result of his actions “Lord Stannis had rewarded Davos with choice lands on Cape Wrath, a small keep, and a knight’s honors” (Martin, 2011a, p. 11).

Davos Seaworth was a smuggler before he became a knight (Martin, 2011a, p. 884). This fact demonstrates that knighthood was given to him notwithstanding his birth. Boutel and Fox-Davies further illustrate knighthood as “a distinction of rank amongst freemen, depending not upon birth or property, but simply upon the admission of the person so distinguished, by the girding of a sword or other similar solemnity, into an order of men having by law or usage certain social or political privileges” (1914, p. 273).

In the novels “high lords and fabled champions had come from all over the realm to compete and the whole city turned out to watch” the tourney (Martin, 2011a, p. 35). A tourney can be defined as chivalrous exercise and that makes it similar to the following description: “knights were required to make such a provision for rendering military service as was held to be consistent with their position and their property; it was expected from them that they should take dignified part in the chivalrous exercises and celebrations of their times” (Boutel & Fox-Davies, 1914, p. 274). This also briefly describes responsibilities of a knight.

In A Clash of Kings Ser Hobber is announced by a herald with these words: “Ser Hobber of House Redwyne, of the Arbor,” (Martin, 2011a, p.38). Boutel and Fox-Davies also provide similar description of knights at tourneys. According to them, knights were announced by a sound of a trumpet or a horn and then the official heralds described their

32 armorial insignia (1914, p. 32-33). Even though there is no trumpet, horn or describing of armorial insignia in A Song of Ice and Fire, in both cases knights are announced by a herald.

Martin depicts armoured knights riding “to battle beneath the banners of their lords” (Martin, 2011d, p. 26). Gillingham similarly describes armies from Norman period as feudal hosts “made up of quotas of knights which tenants-in-chief mustered when summoned to perform their military service to the Crown” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 160).

In A Game of Thrones just a badly fastened gorget causes death of a young knight during jousting at a tournament (Martin, 2011d, p. 286, 290). Martin also describes armour of this young knight as “worth a fair piece of silver ... the boy had it forged special for the tourney” (2011d, p. 296). Furthermore, there is a portrayal of a destrier ridden by another knight at the same tournament, which “wore a blanket of gilded ringmail” (Martin, 2011d, p. 301). One of the knights, Ser Vardis Egen, is decribed as:

steel from head to heel, encased in heavy plate armor over mail and padded surcoat. Large circular rondels ... protected the vulnerable juncture of arm and breast. A skirt of lobstered metal covered him from waist to midthigh, while a solid gorget encircled his throat. Falcon’s wings sprouted from the temples of his helm, and his visor was a pointed metal beak with a narrow slit for vision. (Martin, 2011d, p. 422)

These descriptions are very similar to Alchin’s portrayal of armour and weapons of medieval knights:

The knights role in Medieval Times centered around enhancing their knightly skills in the use of weapons, horsemanship and medieval warfare. The Medieval knight’s armor was extremely expensive to produce. It had to be tailor-made to fit the knight exactly or the knight ran the risk of an ill- fitting suit of armor hampering him in battle. A Medieval knight’s armor was a complex series of garments, chain mail and iron plate. The warhorse, often a destrier, was favored by the knight on a horse. The warhorses also wore armor. (2014, June)

Analysing these descriptions there are similarities in armour, its price, use of a warhorse and the importance of well-fitted armour.

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In Steel and Snow King Renly has an exact number of knights in his Guard – seven. Boutel and Fox-Davies describe The Most Noble Order of a Carter as consisting of a sovereign and twenty-five knight companions, who were elected as vacancies occurred (1914, p. 278). This demonstrates that in both reality and fiction it was normal for prestige groups of knights to always maintain the same number of members.

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6 HERALDRY AND HERITABILITY

6.1 Succession

The ruling house in the novels got to the throne through a rebellion against a king of another house and claimed the throne based on some blood ties between the two families long time ago (Martin, 2011a, p. 219). Succession of kings did not follow universal rules in all parts of British Isles during Celtic period. “In Wales succession was patrilinear, but not necessarily following primogeniture. In all the Celtic countries tribal kingship was in theory open to every adult male member of the royal line whose great-grandfather or nearer ascendant had been king” (Chadwick, 1963, p. 81).

In the books after king’s death his oldest son Joffrey succeeds him on the throne and after Joffrey’s death, his younger brother is the heir (Martin, 2011d, p. 768). Chadwick mentions this principle: “for both Welsh and the North British patrilinear succession from father to son was almost universal” (1963, p. 82). However, there were also different customs connected to succession in British Isles, which are not found in Martin’s story like a custom known as tanistry applied in Dalriada. Following this custom “kings were succeeded, not by their sons directly, but by their brothers in first instance and then by their nephews” (Chadwick, 1963, p. 82).

In Martin’s novels not only kings but also lords passes their possessions and titles to the oldest son (Martin, 2011d, p. 259). This is consistent with Chadwick’s statement about the universality of this law described in the previous paragraph.

In the Seven Kingdoms there is one place, where a different law for succession is applied – Dorne. According to Dronish succession law, older sister comes before her younger brother in the line of succession (Martin, 2011c, p. 48). In the same way the Pictish law of succession was very different from the laws applied in other kingdoms in the British Isles – they used succession through the female line whenever some doubt arose (Chadwick, 1963, p. 82).

6.2 Heraldic symbols

In Martin’s books highborn men have their sigils displayed on shields (2011a, p. 38), they have standard-bearers to carry their banners (2011d, p. 355) and also embroidery with their sigils on clothes (2011d, p. 69). Boutel and Fox-Davies describe men wearing their

35 heraldic symbols embroidered on their clothes which covered part of their armour (Coats-of- Arms), on shields (Shields-of-Arms) and on their armorial banners, which were flying over their heads (Boutel & Fox-Davies, 1914, p. 2-3).

In all the appendixes of books from the series A Song of Ice and Fire the author describes sigils shared by the whole houses. According to Boutel and Fox-Davies, each heraldic sigil is a legal possession and is hereditary as any other possessions (1914, p. 3) applying the rules as mentioned above in this chapter. There is a wide range of sigils mentioned by Martin as well as Boutel and Fox-Davies, but there is usually some kind of connection between the sigils and people who bear them. Martin for example assigned a leaping trout as a sigil to the house Tully, which resides in river-lands around the river Trident (Martin, 2011f, p. 592). Similarly, Boutel and Fox-Davies describe fish as a sigil of people who are connected with sea, lakes or rivers (1914, p. 121).

Sigils are sometimes adapted to an individual person as happens in the story, but it is not because the person is of a different generation, but he wishes to somehow separate himself from the rest of the family (Martin, 2011d, p. 353). Boutel and Fox-Davies also mention that there is a possibility of augmentation of heraldic composition (1914, p. 3). Martin describes some kind of adjustment of shields of two boys from the same house to include sigils of both their parents’ houses: “Little Walder quartered the twin towers of Frey with the brindled boar of his grandmother’s House and the plowman of his mother’s; Crakehall and Darry, respectively. Big Walder’s quarterings were the tree-and-ravens of House Blackwood and the twining snakes of the Paeges” (Martin, 2011a, p. 223). However, this is just a possibility, as Martin further mentions: “A Stark needs only the direwolf” (2011a, p. 223). Boutel and Fox- Davies also claim the possibility of adjusting the shields in each generation to include sigils of both parents (1914, p. 170).

Martin describes use of seals with sigils to verify who wrote or sent the document (2011d, p. 493). Seals were very important also in the British Isles after the Norman Conquest to give validity to legal documents and they took on a heraldic insignia to distinguish one from the other (Boutel & Fox-Davies, 1914, p. 4).

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7 CUSTOMS AND EVENTS

In A Song of Ice and Fire it is customary to bend the knee when approaching a king (Martin, 2011d, p. 509) and the smallfolk do this also in the presence of a person that appears to be from a higher social class (Martin, 2011a, p. 272). Similarly, Griffiths describes: “Richard II insisted that those who approached him should bend the knee,” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 237).

Picture 11: Wardens 1 (Martin, 2011d, p. VI) Picture 12: Wardens 2 (Martin, 2011d, p. VII)

Table 4: Legend

Warden of the North Warden of the South Warden of the East The capital of Westeros Warden of the West The capital of Dorne

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Martin describes 4 wardens of the land in his books: Warden of the North (2011d, p. 785), Warden of the West (2011d, p. 787), Warden of the East (2011d, p. 789) and Warden of the South (2011d, 793). These have been marked for the purposes of this thesis on Martin’s maps (shown above). These demonstrate a very efficient occupancy of each warden, since they covered the land evenly and this way the locations of administrative centres are positioned equally.

Wardens as representatives of the king should ensure the king’s will throughout the whole country. The only small exception in this system is representation in Dorne. This part of the Seven Kingdoms was joined to the realm peacefully “by marriage and treaty” so Dorne managed to achieve some kind of independence within the Westeros. The ruler there is called Prince (Martin, 2011d, p. 797) and they also have different law of inheritance (closer described in chapter Heraldry and Heritability). This whole system system of governing through wardens strongly coincides with that of the British Isles described by Blair: “The king’s will operated through a much-improved system of local government ... framework of ‘shires’ ... The shires were entrusted to a group of leading magnates” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 101). Wardens were also expected to carry out the king’s justice (Martin, 2011d, p. 11) and to provide military service in times of war (Martin, 2011d, p. 43). Gillingham describes the same kind of duties in the British Isles (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 163). Loyal people serving the crown would be rewarded in A Song of Ice and Fire (Martin, 2011a, p. 822), as well as in the British Isles (Chadwick, 1963, p. 79).

In the series one of the lords expects the king as a visitor. He estimates the group surrounding the king as “a hundred knights, at the least, with all their retainers, and half again as many freeriders” (Martin, 2011d, p. 23). The lord’s wife eloquently sums it up as “Where the king goes, the realm follows” (Martin, 2011d, p. 24). The number of people coming to visit poses a huge problem of feeding and housing them (Martin, 2011d, p. 24). As Gillingham mentions, very similar situation was happening in the British Isles: “But the presence of the king impose a near-intolerable burden on any district through which he passed. The demands made by the household had a dramatic effect on local foodstocks and prices” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 161).

The novels contain several references to a deceased king Aerys who was nicknamed the Mad King (Martin, 2011d, p. 800). This king was considered mad and cruel by all the people (Martin, 2011e, p. 157). He earned this reputation by his brutal actions. One of the

38 most violent one mentioned in the books was his treatment of lords that in his eyes committed treason. He held them as hostages and called their fathers to answer for the accusations. He murdered them all, fathers and sons. One of the fathers demanded a trial by battle:

they took him to the throne room and suspended him from the rafters while two of Aery’s pyromancers kindled a blaze beneath him. The king told him that fire was the champion of House Targaryen. So all Lord Rickard needed to do to prove himself innocent of treason was ... well, not burn. When the fire was blazing, Brandon2 was brought in. His hands were chained behind his back, and around his neck was a wet leathern cord attached to a device the king had brought from Tyrosh. His legs were left free, though, and his longsword was set down just beyond his reach. The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning that the fire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then his surcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start to cook, Aerys promised ... unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but the more he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In the end he strangled himself. (Martin, 2011a, p. 721)

As described on the web page biography.com, Queen Mary I enforced strict religious persecutions, resulting “in the burning of over 300 Protestants”. This earned her a nickname Bloody Mary (Mary Tudor, n. d.). The king Aerys mentioned above was overthrown by Robert Baratheon, whose “claim to the crown derived from his grandmother” (Martin, 2011b, p. 1138). Blair describes a similar system in which “when a king grew sick, poor, or mean his retinue would collapse” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 72). In both cases discussed here, the kings were replaced because of their illness.

The exchange of kings in the books described in the previous paragraph was carried out through a rebellion of Robert Baratheon (Martin, 2011d, p. 342). Gillingham also describes one Robert, the eldest son of William I, who also raised a rebellion (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 126-127). King Robert Baratheon in Martin’s fiction is described as a person who “loves tournaments and feasts” (Martin, 2011d, p. 188). He also likes to hunt, as will be described later in this chapter. In these rather festive occupations he prefers, he is similar to Henry VIII who liked “hunting, dancing, dallying, and playing the lute” as mentioned by Guy (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 275).

2 Son of Lord Rickard Stark 39

Another very characteristic trait of King Robert is that he likes women. Even he himself declares that “warring and whoring, that’s what I was made for” (Martin, 2011d, p. 300). His betrothed said about him that he would “never keep to one bed” (Martin, 2011d, p. 367). As a consequence of this behaviour, he has “baseborn children scattered throughout the Seven Kingdoms” (Martin, 2011d, p. 308). One of the characters from the story even claims, that Robert has altogether eight bastards (Martin, 2011a, p. 219). Morrill describes King Charles II as a man with very similar affection. He had “many mistresses and seventeen acknowledged bastards” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 380).

Fictional King Robert loved hunting very much (Martin, 2011d, 462-643). When “he heard of monstrous boar deeper in the forest” ... “nothing would do but he must have it” (Martin, 2011d, p. 465). Unfortunately, the boar “had ripped the king from groin to nipple with its tusks” (Martin, 2011d, p. 486) and the king died (Martin, 2011d, p. 506). This affection for hunting of king Robert is something he has in common with Henry VIII (as mentioned above in this chapter). However, this is not such an unusual trait since “It is the life of an aristocracy of the open air; a life, in peace-time, of hunting, fishing and cattle-keeping” (Chadwick, 1963, p. 91). As well as Robert, William II died due to a hunting accident as claimed by Gillingham (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 131).

After the death of king Robert in A Song of Ice and Fire, there are soon five men claiming to be kings in the realm (Martin, 2011c, p. 187) and since they are fighting to prove their claims, the war is called “the War of the Five Kings” (Martin, 2011b, p. 146). Salway describes Roman Empire in AD 69 in the outbreak of Civil War. This year is called “The Year of the Four Emperors” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 20). Since the British Isles were under the supervision of the Roman governor, the Civil War had direct effect there. Salway describes the result for Britain as “provincial renewal and the expansion of Roman power” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 20).

The principle of a patrilinear succession described in the chapter Heraldry and Heretability sometimes caused that the men or boys who became kings were not ready for it. In the novels King Robert is afraid of the thought of his son Joffrey on the throne (Martin, 2011d, p. 300). Griffiths mentions principle from 1216: “the Crown should pass to the eldest son of the dead monarch”. This “reduced the likelihood of royal kinsmen squabbling over the Crown” but at the same time “made it more likely that unsuitable kings (by their youth, character, or incapacity) would sometimes wear it” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 194).

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The royal wedding in Westeros has “seventy-seven bloody courses, a thousand guests, a pie full of doves, singers, jugglers...” (Martin, 2011e, p. 437). As one of the characters states, the power and wealth must be demonstrated “for all the realm to see” (Martin, 2011e, p. 437). According to Griffiths, “coronations, royal progresses, and the formal entries of kings and queens into York, Bristol and Gloucester (as well as London) were occasions for lavish displays of official propaganda” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 239). Furthermore, the wearer of the English crown “was not as other men. The coronation ceremony stressed his semi-spiritual quality” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 237).

As for the meals and drinks served at the wedding feast mentioned in the previous paragraph, the food is very varied. There is creamy soup with mushrooms and snails, pastry filled with pork, sweetcorn, oathbread, dates, apples, oranges, boar, trout, pies, heron, crabs, mutton, carrots, raisins, onions, peacocks, peas, nuts, peaches, blood sausages, elk, cheese (Martin, 2011f, p. 246 – 251) and many others. The meat is usually cut by fork and dagger (Martin, 2011d, p. 172) and wine and ale are served (Martin, 2011f, p. 248). Dogs are at great halls during meals and people give them scraps from the tables (Martin, 2011d, p. 48-49). This is very similar to Ross’s description of typical food at a lord’s table as “meat, fish, pastries, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, beans, and peas were common, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. At a feast spitted boar, roast swan, or peacock might be added”. He also adds that “wine or ale were drunk” and “meat was cut with daggers”. “Scraps were thrown on the floor for the dogs to finish” (n.d.).

Life of simple people and their food are not so rich in Westeros. Food at one inn is described as “trenchers of bread” filled “with chunks of browned meat”. “Another skewer held tiny onions, fire peppers, and fat mushrooms” (Martin, 2011d, p. 280). Prisoners are served oiled beans (Martin, 2011d, p. 396), people living in the streets of the capital could catch a pigeon and trade half of it for a piece of an old bread and a bowl of stew, while the other half of pigeon would be cooked for them (Martin, 2011d, p. 694). Comparing these it is obvious that poor people have much more simple food. However, with the war ranging in the land, their food gets worse and worse. This is similar to Ross’ description of peasants’ food which was in British Isles also much simpler than that of noble and rich families. He also mentions serving of food on trenchers (n. d.).

Great Halls are mentioned in the story on various instances. Their use is for example for feasts (Martin, 2011d, p. 46), lords eating together with their servants (Martin, 2011d, p.

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211), welcoming of guests (Martin, 2011d, p. 620) and war councils (Martin, 2011d, p. 767). Morrill’s description of a great hall is very similar. He presents it as a place “in which the household and a wider community gathered to do business and to eat together” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 395). In both cases – fiction and reality, the mead is drunk in great halls (Martin, 2011f, p. 123), (Snyder, 2003, p. 222).

Singers travel through Westeros trying to earn money at bigger events (Martin, 2011d, p. 280) or even hoping they would find favour at some court (Martin, 2011c, p. 657). Chadwick mentions poets at smaller courts “where their songs could be heard by all and were well paid for” (1963, p. 79). However, Martin describes how these songs are not always the absolute truths (2011d, p. 379). Chadwick even goes as far as saying that a singer singing about politics would soon starve to death. This is the reason why old songs present society as “occupied in warfare and hunting, fond of display and horses, fine clothes, fine showy weapons; a society proud, boastful and honourable” (1963, p. 79). Chadwick also describes the occurrence of bards: “it seem to have been usual in both Ireland and Britain for a single official bard to have been attached to each court, though we occasionally hear of bards visiting more than one court” (1963, p. 101).

In the timeline of Martin’s story, there are terrible problems with money that the kingdom owns or better said does not own. The treasury is empty and the kingdom is in deep debts, borrowing money from wealthy people within the kingdom as well as from foreigners (Martin, 2011d, p. 188). Collingwood et al. identifies the same problem in the British Isles during the Roman period: “there was a heavy and rapid drainage of money into the pockets of traders, especially foreign traders; debt, principally incurred by the highest classes of society, whose need of imported goods was the greatest” (1937, p. 226).

In disputable legal cases in the books, there is a possibility to demand a “trial by combat” calling to gods to determine whether the accused is guilty of the crimes (Martin, 2011d, p. 407). Gillingham describes similar practise used in the British Isles, together with a trial by ordeal (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 175).

In Westeros, keeping of oaths is very important. A man from a respectable family, who killed King Aegon, is called Kingslayer because of it, especially because he was sworn to protect the king and no one really cared the king was mad (Martin, 2011d, p. 109). This is similar to Blair’s description: “Anglo-Saxon society always set great store by faithfulness and the keeping of oaths” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 64).

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People in the novels have assurance, that if anything happens to them, they will be avenged. This gives them kind of security in certain situations (Martin, 2011d, p. 371). Blair mentions the same custom: “Safety lay in knowing that relatives would avenge one’s death” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 63).

In case of treason in Westeros, the convicted person is executed (Martin, 2011d, p. 702-703), and lands and castles of this person would be in disposal of the crown, most likely to give as a reward to a more loyal person (Martin, 2011e, p. 262). Guy describes consequences of convicted treason as “declaring the victim’s property forfeit to the king” ... “method almost always involved execution of the victim” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 271-272). Lord executed in A Song of Ice and Fire for treason is publicly beheaded (Martin, 2011d, p. 702-703). The same happened to Charles I as mentioned by Morrill (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 327).

In the story, there is a description of one man as “a great man, an extraordinary man” (Martin, 2011c, p. 119). This man’s corpse smells very badly during his funeral service (Martin, 2011c, p. 116). Gillingham provides a description of similarly unsuitable end of King William I, who filled “the church with a foul smell. It was an unfortunate ending to the career of an unusually fortunate and competent king” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 127).

Martin’s fiction includes also groups of sellswords – mercenaries, who fight for different countries (Martin, 2011b, p. 89). Snyder describes similar group as a solution of a “serious barbarian threat to Britain in the fourth and early fifth centuries” (2003, p. 67). Britons were so scared that they hired “Germanic mercenaries to beat back the Picts and the Scots” (Snyder, 2003, p. 67).

Throughout the story of A Song of Ice and Fire, there are many deaths of kings: King Robert (Martin, 2011d, p. 56), King Renly (Martin, 2011a, p. 455), King Robb (Martin, 2011f, p. 133) and King Joffrey (Martin, 2011f, p. 257-258). Furthermore, most of them are murdered. There are also references to murdered kings that happened before the story, for example the murder of King Aegon (mentioned above in this chapter), or his son prince Rhaegar together with his wife princess Ellia and two of their children, who were also killed (Martin, 2011d, p. 801). Unfortunately, there was a similar inclination in the British Isles: “French statesmen were noting with disapproval Englishmen’s habbit of deposing and murdering their kings and the children of kings (as happened in 1327, 1399, 1461, 1471, 1483, and 1485)” is what Griffiths mentions about it (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 192).

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Two children of prince Rhaegar and princess Ellia mentioned in the previous paragraph, Daenerys and Viserys, managed to escape (Martin, 2011d, p. 27). They spent their “childhood in exile, impoverished, living on dreams and schemes, running from one city to the next, always fearful, never safe” (Martin, 2011b, p. 326). Because of the squabble over the English and Scottish crowns, Mary Stuart as a possible heir of the throne was sent to France when she was only five years old, as described at the biography.com website (Mary, Queen of Scots, n. d.).

In case of exiled lives of people from noble families, they needed some kind of help. In the novels, two children that escaped (mentioned in the previous paragraph) get their help from certain Magister Illyrio (Martin, 2011e, p. 116). Kings from British Isles sought refuge in different countries. Blair mentions King Oswin of Deira, living in the seventh century, described by Bede as a person who accepted exiled noblemen from almost any kingdom into his service (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 72).

The war in Westeros makes situation with food supplies difficult even in the capital city – King’s Landing. In one year the prices have tripled (Martin, 2011a, p. 57). Griffiths talks about similar situation in the British Isles, where war also affected lives of people, concerning the supplies. These were used with a priority aimed at warring (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 201).

In the series Winterfell, a castle where two princes of the North resides, is taken by a prince of Iron Islands Theon (Martin, 2011a, p. 603). Everyone thinks that the princes tried to escape and were killed (Martin, 2011a, p. 709). But Theon put on the spikes atop the gate bodies of miller’s sons (Martin, 2011a, p. 732). This way everyone thinks the two princes are dead. This is very similar to the story of Princes in the Tower described by Griffiths. Richard of Gloucester “imprisoned (and probably murdered) Edward V and his brother” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 236). Alan Travis describes this as “one of the great mysteries of English history. Did Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, really murder the princes in the Tower”? DNA testing of the bodies in Westminster Abbey, who allegedly are the princes has been refused, so this still remains a mystery (2013, January 5).

Martin describes one castle, Eyrie, as “high and impregnable” (Martin, 2011d, p. 278), it “had never been taken” (Martin, 2011d, p. 400). It is the residence of the Warden of the East (Martin, 2011d, p. 350), but it is “a small castle by the standards of the great houses” (Martin, 2011d, p. 363). This part of the Westeros stays out of the war throughout the

44 storyline of the books. They do not respond even to calls from family to help in the war (Martin, 2011e, p. 279). The name Eyrie itself is very similar to the word Éire, which is according to webpage dictionary.reference.com “the Irish Gealic name for Ireland” and “a former official name (1937-49) for Republic of Ireland” (Éire, n. d.). Gavin Stamp briefly sums up history of Anglo-Irish relationships on web page bbc.com, in which a long process of gaining independence and creating the Republic of Ireland can be seen (2014, April 4). This shows parallel in Eyrie’s attempts to stay out of war and Éire’s attempts to become independent. Stamp also describes how relationships between the UK and the Republic are now intertwined in different aspects of life (2014, April 4), which is not happening in Martin’s story yet, but since neither the story nor the war are over, this can still happen.

Apart from the similarity between the names of Eyrie and Éire, there is also another parallel based on similar names of places. It is between Casterly Rock, the residence of the House Lannister (Martin, 2011d, p. 787), and Castle Rock, one of the probable royal seats of the Gododdin kingdom (Snyder, 2003, p. 217).

During the war in Westeros mentioned above, one man is said to be “marching north toward Harrenhal, burning as he goes” (Martin, 2011d, p. 583). He is not the only one who does this and the realm is facing starvation (Martin, 2011b, p. 327). In the history of the British Isles there are many instances of burning land and cities as someone moved with an army through the country, for example Boudica’s burning of London (Snyder, 2003, p. 42), or Paullinus’s responds to Boudica’s revolt: “he began a ferocious campaign of extermination in the territories of the rebel tribes and adjacent land”. “Paullinus marched through southeastern Britain burning all farms and crops in his path, creating famine conditions which led to the deaths of untold numbers of Britons” (Snyder, 2003, p. 43).

In the capital city of Westeros, the King’s Landing, there is a marble plaza with a statue of King Baelor the Blessed (Martin, 2011f, p. 240). In the Roman period and in the process of Romanization, Romans also built “public monuments honouring imperial figures and local worthies” (Snyder, 2003, p. 21).

In Martin’s story, young lady Sansa, only twelve years old, is made to marry against her will (Martin, 2011e, p. 383-387). It is explained to her, that she is “a ward of the crown. The king stands in” her “father’s place, since” her “brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of” her hand (Martin, 2011e, p. 383). Gillingham mentions Daughter of Henry I “Matilda, somewhat against her will, was married to the fourteen-year-

45 old youth” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 137). As Gillingham further describes “the laws governing inheritance, wardship, and marriage could still be manipulated to suit a king’s personal predilections” (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 164). This is most likely the motive behind both marriages.

In the novels the family of “Targaryens had married brother to sister for centuries”. “Theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men” (Martin, 2011d, p. 29). It is said about this family that “Targaryens have always danced too close to madness”. “Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born,”... “the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land” (Martin, 2011f, p. 413). One example of a Targaryen being mad is Aerys Targaryen mentioned above. As Kindree Cushing describes, “queen Victoria and her husband Albert were first cousins. Along with their descendants marrying among themselves, this is most likely how the affliction of haemophilia spread”. “Five grandchildren and one child of Victoria’s died due to complications of haemophilia”. Queen Victoria “believed that intermarriage between European royalty could guarantee peace” (2014, November 24).

Martin adds to his storyline a wedding that ends in a massacre. Robb Stark, proclaimed as the king in the North and fighting in the war of five kings, is “betrayed and murdered by the Freys and Boltons at the Twins during his uncle’s wedding” (Martin, 2011b, p. 1151). This incident becomes known as “the Red Wedding” and there are rumours about beheading Robb and sewing the head of his direwolf to his body for a mockery (Martin, 2011, p. 151). This is all the more shocking because once a person has eaten at someone’s place, he is protected by the guest right. “The laws of hospitality are old” and sacred (Martin, 2011e, p. 102). This is very similar to the incident in the history of Scotland known as the Black Dinner. Following is the description of what hapened from web page bbc.co.uk.:

In 1440 the two main fractions fighting for control of the boy king turned to slaughter. William Crichton and Alexander Livingston arranged a meeting with their rivals, the powerful Douglases, at Edinburgh Castle. With the young king present, Crichton and Livingston murdered the 6th Earl of Douglas and his younger brother in a notorious evening that would become known as the Black Dinner. (James II, King of Scots 1437-1460, 2014)

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Another incident similar to the Red Wedding described above is the Massacre of Glencoe, which also happened in Scotland, in 1691-1692. As described on the web page educationscotland.gov.uk, the Highland clans were offered pardon by the king. They accepted troops at their homes, and provided them with “food, drink and lodgings” for 10 days. Then, the troops were ordered to kill the clans. This resulted in the death of 38 people (men, women and children), but “many more died of exposure as they tried to escape across the mountains in the dead of winter” (The Massacre of Glencoe, n. d.).

Many characters in the books mention certain Aegon Conqueror on multiple occasions. This person decided to unify the Seven Kingdoms and succeeded (Martin et al., 2014, p. 31-45). He strongly resembles William the Conqueror, by his actions, as well as the nickname. Gillingham describes William as a man who came to England also with an intention to conquer and unify the land under his rule (Morgan et al., 1993, p. 120).

Dragons are a strong symbol in A Song of Ice and Fire, since dragon is the sigil of a family that used to rule the Seven Kingdoms (Martin, 2011d, p. 799). The last dragons in the timeline of the story died about 150 years ago (Martin, 2011d, p. 116). They were once used to conquer Westeros (Martin, 2011d, p. 117) and the unexpected hatching of three dragons in the story could change everything (Martin, 2011d, p. 780). Dragons appear also in the British mythology. For example in Beowulf - the longest epic poem in Old English, which can be dated to 11th century, Beowulf himself was mortally wounded by a dragon (Flood, 2014, March 19).

In Martin’s story, there is an appearance of a red comet (Martin, 2011d, p. 777) and some people take it as a bad omen (Martin, 2011a, p. 64). However, the opinions about it and what it symbolized differed. Mike Ibeji describes tapestry of Harold, who became the king after Edward the Confessor:

On the tapestry, the members of the congregation shown as witnessing the event are facing Harold, but their eyes are turned towards Halley’s Comet, which is depicted in the sky as a portent of the doom to come. Harold is seen receiving news of the Comet with fear in his eyes. (2011, February 17)

A certain character in the novels Lord Varys is described as “the king’s master of whisperers” (Martin, 2011d, p. 106). He is basically a person who gathers intelligence from various spies and gives information to the king (Martin, 2011d, p. 106-107). He is nicknamed the Spider (Martin, 2011d, 784). Elizabeth I also had her own spymaster – Francis

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Walsingham. Freer describes him as “a black spider at the centre of a great web” (2006, June 12). This draws a clear parallel with Varys’s nickname.

The whole system of governing the fictional land strongly resembles feudalism. The table below compares governing of land in Martin’s books with the aspects of feudalism in British Isles during medieval times (information about feudalism taken from David Ross’ article Feudalism and Medieval Life, n. d.).

Table 5: Feudalism

Westeros Medieval British Isles Lords administering their estates √ √ Lords enforcing the law at their estates √ √ Lords collecting taxes at their estates √ √ Lords demanding military service from their vassals √ √ Fealty sworn to renew allegiance (homage) √ √ Vassal’s duties Answer summons to battle + bring fighting men √ √ Provide food and housing for lord travelling across his land √ √ Lord’s duties Protect vassals √ √ Provide military help √ √ Guard vassal’s children – arranging marriages if the vassal died and disposing of his land √ √ Manors Not mentioned √ Serfs Not mentioned √ Peasants √ √

As can be seen from the table number 5 above, the governing system in Westeros is almost identical with the feudal system which was used in medieval British Isles. Manors and serf are not mentioned in Martin’s books, but the story is planned to continue in 2 more books, so these maybe will appear there. Other aspects of feudalism are described in different

48 parts of this thesis. Naturally, there are more features of feudal system than just those listed in this table, but for the purpose of this comparison only the most significant ones were chosen.

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CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, this thesis has demonstrated that the series of books A Song of Ice and Fire was inspired by many different historical events from the history of the British Isles. Specific fields used to make the story more real and believable were descriptions of knights, customs of people, legal procedures, lives of certain people, constructions in the British Isles and even names of places and people. It has been proved that there is a very tight relationship between fiction and reality.

The claim of this thesis is supported by the genres with which the books share similar traits, since many of these implement history to make the story more realistic. The analysis also proved that there is a clear parallel between the north-south division in the books and highland zone-lowland zone division in the British Isles.

The author himself admits to drawing inspiration from the history. As he says in an interview with Dave Itzkoff: “an artist has an obligation to tell the truth. My novels are epic fantasy, but they are inspired by and grounded in history” (2014, May 2). Direct inspiration for the Wall in the books by Hadrian’s Wall was proved in the chapter of this thesis The Wall. In the end of this chapter is a statement of George R. R. Martin admitting to using Hadrian’s Wall for this purpose, which supports the claim of this thesis. Another strong source of inspiration for the books was the War of Roses, with resemblance of the story of Princes in the Tower, as discussed in the chapter Customs and Events.

The chapter People of this thesis analyzes distribution of religion in Westeros and in the British Isles nowadays and during the Roman period. Since presently travelling is quite easy and usual, the religion is distributed approximately equally so there is no similarity with how the religion is spread in the books. However, when we take a look at the Roman period, there are clear similarities and a distinction between the older religion of the north and the newer one of the south, in case of both fiction and reality. Another similarity examined is the nicknames of people, which are demonstrated on several examples.

The chapter also describes the barbarians in the novels. The opinion about them however, varies with different points of view, so it is very difficult to say who exactly the barbarians are and what they are like. The chapter proves that the same was true of the British during the Roman period. Barbarians were for the world all the people in the British Isles while British themselves always talked about barbarian northern tribes. The similarities were

50 also found between barbarian attacks and invasion in the series and in the British Isles. This chapter demonstrates one of the messages of the novels – the necessity to look at the world from a broader perspective and not to judge people before we really know them.

The following chapter called Knights successfully proves that the knights and knighthood in general are identical in the compared aspects both in A Song of Ice and Fire and in the medieval British Isles. The comparison is made using the qualifications of knights, their responsibilities, privileges and armour.

The sixth chapter of this thesis called Heraldry and Heritability provides evidence for the similarities in the laws of succession and inheritance. Heraldic symbols together with their displaying are analyzed proving the claim of this thesis.

The last chapter examines customs and events. The similarities were found in behaviour in the presence of kings, at weddings and feasts. As it was demonstrated in both studied cases, the visit of a king has devastating effects on house of a visited lord, who has to house the king and his companions and a death of a king causes instability in the realm. Moreover, many characters from the books have their counterparts in behaviour as a whole or just by actions in the history of the Isles. These are for example King Aerys II and Queen Mary I, King Robert and King Henry VIII/ King Charles II / King William II, Daenerys Targaryen and Queen Mary I, Magister Illyrio and King Oswin of Deira, Aegon the Conqueror and William the Conqueror, Lord Varys and Francis Walsingham.

The similarities were also found in eating habits of simple people, role of great halls and even singers. The war had the same impact on the prices of food, which increased rapidly in both studied cases. Legal cases were solved in similar ways: treason was punishable by death and people could demand a trial by battle. Possessions of a convicted person would be confiscated by the crown and disposed of as the king would please. Other parallels were proved between a land with a castle called Eyrie and Ireland. Even the government system used in the series is very similar to the feudal system applied in the medieval British Isles.

The claim of this thesis is also supported by several researchers and bloggers. The website History behind Game of Thrones is in itself based on finding the possible parallels between the series and the real historical facts. Contributors to this webpage range from university graduates and book-shop-owners to historians (Contributors, n. d.). The articles offer similar comparisons as this thesis coming to some of the conclusions that are also stated

51 in this thesis and even some others. This fact justifies the basis of this thesis and suggests that there is even more space to explore the topic further.

The realistic portrayal of fights and wars not avoiding rape and sexual scenes makes the series an extremely valid tool for the demonstration of lives of people in the past. Its value lies in including the life of simple people with its good and bad aspects alike and in the same way the life of rich people, even the life of the royal family and those living at the court. Since the chapters present the storyline through the eyes of individual characters, it gives the readers a unique opportunity to see the circumstances around and motivation for the actions of the characters. The author does not limit the books only to writing about the male characters, but includes many strong female characters. This makes the books more approachable and universal for a wider group of readers.

Not only are the female characters included in the books as main characters, they are also portrayed in a way that fights the common gender stereotypes. There is a character of a woman warrior, another one a small child learning to fight, travelling across half the world and killing to survive. There are also worries and problems of mothers and their pain of losing their children. Since the psychology itself is not a very old science, it is only possible to assume what kinds of feelings women in medieval British Isles experienced. These things are however more easily comparable to current situations and people. From this point of view, the portrayal of inner psychological states of women in Martin’s books (as well as men) gives yet another step closer to reality and most definitely adds to the overall value of the novels. It also supports the claim of this thesis since this shows another inspiration and parallel with the real world.

Detailed descriptions of food in the text, not just the tasty and splendid dishes at feasts but also simple food of poor people, again moves the story closer to the believable description of something that could be perceived as real. The story is strongly supported by detailed maps and family trees, also in-text references to the past give solid background to the storyline and the whole world described in the books.

As described in the first chapter of this thesis, the author does not avoid even the themes often labelled as taboos like sexual violence, homosexual relationships, murder, incest and others. This adds to the objectivity of the books and clearly separates them from the traditional fairy tales, moving the story closer to the real life. Apart from these things, there are also themes like brothels, whores and adultery, among common men as well as noble men.

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The books portray also various kinds of people and different points of view at them. Especially the opinions about wildlings are important, since there are many rumours about these people and they are considered to be the outlaws. This is something that can be found in almost any time and in almost any society. The way the opinion of one character about these people changes as he gets to know them, can be applied and used as an example, how not to judge people before trying to understand them and know them. This aspect adds another way how to use these books in education, by adding cultural studies as an additional aim. This is justified by the fact that recent studies in education recommend to include cultural aspects in teaching. This can be proved by recent tendency to include cultural studies as a separate subject at teacher training programmes at universities, as well as introducing it at didactics classes.

The popularity of the TV series based on the books can be also used to give more motivation to students. History as a school subject is perceived as not very interesting by most students but by using connections between the history and the books, the classes can be made more compelling to students. As described by Megan Conner, a teacher in Belgium writes on the board name of one character that is going to die when the students are too noisy or not following instructions. Since the students are familiar with the TV series but not the books, he has more knowledge about the plot (2014). This clearly demonstrates that the popularity of the story itself can be used in different and interesting ways.

Popularity of the books can be also demonstrated by the fact that not only different merchandise is being made, but also additional books are written, apart from the books moving the storyline further. One of these books called The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones, directly explaining the history and customs of the fantasy land in A Song of Ice and Fire, was just recently published – in autumn 2014. Considering the date of the publishing of this book, it was only possible to include facts from it in this thesis briefly. However, the book itself leaves space for possible diploma thesis comparing this book to the history of the British Isles or even history as a whole.

With the consideration of all the discussed aspects of the series, the books could be used for high school students (over 18 years old) or university students as an additive source of information to supplement the history learning. The use for younger groups of students is not advisable due to the sexual and violent scenes contained in the books. Since the text contains many archaic words, the level of English of the reader should be at least upper-

53 intermediate. As an additional value the books provide thrilling plot with unexpected turns and this way are widely popular and easily likeable. Consequently, the readers remember the story of the books well and can connect it to the historical events.

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