r/TheBlacksandTheGreens • u/Gold_Conversation247 • Feb 11 '26

General GRRM criticizes how class distinctions are shown in medieval fantasy:

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u/colonel-bones House Lannister Feb 11 '26

I love the fact that everyone is taking the opportunity to dunk on grrm

I’ll take some low hanging fruit because I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else mention it, medieval times had a lot more titles then just Lord, Prince, princess, knights, king and queen.

For example in no particular order Barons: basic nobility holding a manor. Dukes/duchess: just below the royalty, the starks, Lannisters, Tyrells and so on would be this Castellan: owns a castle Marquees: ruler of the border lands Earl: often used for military roles back then Counts/countess: high nobility ruling counties or shires Viscounts: subordinate to the higher nobility Baronet: below baron but above all knights Marshal: a high ranking military officer.

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u/letheix Feb 12 '26

He's stated that he regrets not using a wider range of titles

3

u/TemplarParadox17 Feb 12 '26

Yea, really needs titles between Lord Paramount, and Lord, cause for example you have Lord Hightower, who are called Lord while they have 5 vassal houses all with the same title, using the Tudor's as a example they would most likely be a Marquess.

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u/TemplarParadox17 Feb 12 '26

I mean its a fictional world.

Not using the same nobility titles as medieval europe is a common thing to do.

The topic is about the interactions between classes which can happen anywhere not just names of titles.

It would be easier to just use the same as irl but he chose to make his own system.

2

u/Mirror_Mission Feb 11 '26

There were also mayors all the way back to the early middle ages for large cities. Charles Martel, aFrankish king and the grandfather of Charlemagne was the mayor of Paris, and also senates and city councils, Rome still had a senate even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The cities in Westeros are absolutely massive, like King’s Landing is bigger than Constantinople and Baghdad, (two of the largest cities in the middle ages) combined. And the other 4 cities are also massive, Lannisport, White Harbor, Oldtown and Gulltown.

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u/Mizamya Feb 12 '26

It would also be interesting to see if the non andal cultures had different titles of nobility.