Winter is coming: the medieval world of Game of Thrones

228 Pages·2019·14.883 MB·English

by  Larrington, Carolyne

‘Much has been written about the historical resonances of Game of Thrones, but never quite
like this. There is deep scholarship at work here, paired with an immersive understanding of
the strange and yet strangely familiar lands of Westeros and Essos. Carolyne Larrington is the
perfect guide: in luscious prose, she leads us through the Seven Kingdoms and on across the
Narrow Sea, at each step exploring the echoes and parallels to be found in our own medieval
past. Beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking, this is at once a celebration and an enrichment
of George R. R. Martin’s world. What more could a fan want?’
Helen Castor, Bye-Fellow of Sidney Sussex
College, Cambridge and bestselling author of
Blood and Roses (2004), She-Wolves: The
Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth
(2010) and Joan of Arc: A History (2014)

Published in 2016 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2016 Carolyne Larrington
The right of Carolyne Larrington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may
not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any
omissions will be rectified in future editions.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 256 7
eISBN: 978 0 85772 931 6
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
For John
C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Preface
introduction
Chapter 1: The Centre
Chapter 2: The North
Chapter 3: The West
Chapter 4: Across the Narrow Sea
Chapter 5: The East
epilogue
Notes
Further Reading
L I S T O F I L L US T RAT I O N S
Fig. 1. The Princes in the Tower. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 2. Queen Margaret of Anjou, detail. British Library, public domain.
Fig. 3. A Panotii couple, a thirteenth-century relief in the Basilica at Vézelay, France.
Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 4. The Hereford Cathedral mappamundi (map of the world). Wikimedia Commons, public
domain.
Fig. 5. The Iron Throne. © David Desbois.
Fig. 6. Shields showing heraldic devices. British Library, public domain.
Fig. 7. A scene in a bathhouse doubling as a brothel. Staatsbibliothek Berlin – Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, public domain.
Fig. 8. Bradamante, in an early woodcut. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 9. The Black Wedding, an early twentieth-century illustration. Wikimedia Commons,
public domain.
Fig. 10. Trial by combat, in a German manuscript. Dresdner Bilderhandschrift des
Sachsenspiegels, public domain.
Fig. 11. A modern Viking-style pattern-welded sword, made by Jesus Hernandez. © Jesus
Hernandez of JHbladesmith.com.
Fig. 12. A dragon from a medieval bestiary. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 13. Jon Snow and Ghost. © David Desbois.
Fig. 14. Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd, North Wales. Photo by Petrusbarbygere, CC-AS licence.
Fig. 15. A werewolf gargoyle, Moulins Cathedral, France. Photo from http://federation-
francaise-medievale.fr, public domain.
Fig. 16. Odin and his ravens, from an eighteenth-century Icelandic manuscript. Wikimedia
Commons, public domain.
Fig. 17. The Oseberg Viking ship in the Viking Ship Museum, Oslo. Image from
irisharchaeology.ie, public domain.
Fig. 18. Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland. Image by Andrew Smith, geograph.org, CC-AS
licence.
Fig. 19. ‘The Three Dead’, medieval corpses who remind the living of their fate. © British
Library Board, Yates Thompson Manuscript 13, f. 180r.
Fig. 20. Jaime – Uncut. © David Desbois.
Fig. 21. The Tower of London, Traitor’s Gate. Photo by Viki Male, CC-AS licence.
Fig. 22. Freyja encounters the dwarfs forging the Brisingamen necklace. Wikimedia Commons,
public domain.
Fig. 23. Griselda removes her rich clothes and returns to her father’s house. © The National
Gallery, London, public domain.
Fig. 24. Greek fire being used in a naval battle. Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, public
domain.
Fig. 25. Two knights joust, watched by noblemen and ladies. Wikimedia Commons, public
domain.
Fig. 26. A leper with his clapper and beggar’s staff. British Library, public domain.
Fig. 27. A boys’ game of hitting one another enables William of Tyre to discover Baldwin’s
leprosy. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 28. Arya, Star of Winterfell. © David Desbois.
Fig. 29. A view of the Piazza San Marco, Venice, by Canaletto. Canalettogallery.org, public
domain.
Fig. 30. A woman’s head in a fifteenth-century headdress on a pew end in King’s Lynn Minster.
http://www.stmargaretskingslynn.org.uk, public domain.
Fig. 31. The Moneylender and his Wife. Louvre Museum, public domain.
Fig. 32. Sir John Hawkwood’s funerary monument in Florence. Wikimedia Commons, public
domain.
Fig. 33. Matthew Paris’s sketch of King Henry III’s elephant. Wikimedia Commons, public
domain.
Fig. 34 Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. British Library, public domain.
Fig. 35. Daenerys Stormborn. © David Desbois.
Fig. 36. A sculpture of Genghis Khan. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 37. Saint Adalbertus liberates Slavic slaves. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Fig. 38. Mamluks and Mongols at the Third Battle of Homs, 1299. Yale Center for British Art,
public domain.
Fig. 39. ‘Kisler Aga’, Chief of the Black Eunuchs and First Keeper of the Serraglio (c.1763–
79), by Francis Smith. Bibliothèque National de France, public domain.
Fig. 40. The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Tate Britain, public domain.
L I S T O F A B B RE V I AT I O N S
b
ooks in
GT: A Game of Thrones
CK: A Clash of Kings
SS: A Storm of Swords
FC: A Feast for Crows
DD: A Dance with Dragons
g t tv
ame of hrones show
c s e
( ited by season and episode, e.g. (1.1) = eason 1, pisode 1)
s o
eason ne
1. ‘Winter is Coming’
2. ‘The Kingsroad’
3. ‘Lord Snow’
4. ‘Cripples, Bastards,
and Broken Things’
5. ‘The Wolf and the Lion’
6. ‘A Golden Crown’
7. ‘You Win or You Die’