Laws and Customs

Laws and Customs of the peoples living in the Seven Kingdoms are based on their feudal system of government.

The King’s Peace
Lords have judicial power over cases that occur on their lands. A lord will hear petitions at his local castle-court, sit in judgment at trials, and pass sentence based on the evidence. In theory, justice derives from the authority of the King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, who sits on the Iron Throne in the capital city of King’s Landing. The King’s power is delegated out to other great lords of the realm. This extends in a hierarchy from the king, to the rulers of the Great Houses (such as House Lannister), to major Houses (such as House Tarth), to minor Houses (such as House Cassel).

The King’s Peace is supposed to extend over the whole realm, and though small scale feuds or succession wars happen now and again, the constant wars between the independent Seven Kingdoms were put to an end when they were unified in the Targaryen Conquest three hundred years ago. The King’s peace also extends to protection from outlaws and pirates. The Targaryen Conquest specifically forced the ironborn to abandon their Old Way of preying on the commercial shipping of Westeros itself (though it is tacitly acknowledged that they instead raid the shipping and shores of other lands in Essos for plunder).

The Seven Kingdoms do have a “Master of Laws”, suggesting some sort of statutory written laws exist, but their legal system still appears to be primarily based on customary laws, prior precedent, and the wisdom of the lord presiding over a decision.

Individual lords are supposed to enforce the laws and carry out punishment on their own lands. Only the major cities (and possibly a few of the large towns) have dedicated “police forces”, such as the City Watch of King’s Landing.

Lordship
Gaining the title of knighthood does not make a man a lord, though many lords become knights. Knighthood is a middle-step between noble-born lords and commoners. A commoner can be knighted for valorous service in battle, but the title is not hereditary. A commoner who is knighted usually starts out as a “hedge knight”, a poor freelance knight not bound in allegiance to a specific lord (considered to be so poor that they sleep under hedges by the roadside while searching for employment). The next step up for a prospective knight is to become a “sworn sword”, sworn to the service of a particular lord. Beyond this step, a sworn sworn may become a “landed knight” if his lord rewards him with land for his service, typically a smallholding, large farm or small manor with servants. Successful landed knights who expand their holdings or continue to perform exemplary service for their liege may be raised to the rank of "Lord" in time, leading a minor noble House. Sometimes a knight may skip some of these steps, and while rare it is not unheard of for a lord to reward a commoner for valorous service by granting him both land and the title of knighthood, as when Stannis Baratheon rewarded Davos Seaworth for his rescue of the garrison during the Siege of Storm’s End.

The difference between a “landed knight” and a “minor lord” is often very subtle, as some landed knights may actually be wealthier and more powerful than minor lords whose families have fallen on hard times. However, the vital distinction is that only a “lord” legally possesses the power of justice, which a landed knight does not. For example, House Clegane is a House of landed knights in service of House Lannister, but it is not a lordly House. Thus the head of the House, Gregor Clegane, does not possess the legal right to hear trials and pass judgment.

Social structure: Highborn nobles and lowborn commoners
The society and legal system of the Seven Kingdoms recognizes a hereditary noble class set above a class of commoners, who are officially known as “smallfolk” (the very name indicates their lower social standing). Members of the nobility are also known as “’’’highborn’’’”, while commoners are known as “’’’lowborn’’’”. Nobles officially possess more legal rights than the commoners do. Many crimes for which a lowborn peasant would be punished by having their hand cut off a noble will only be punished for by paying a fine. The noble-born also have the right to demand a Trial by combat.

There are a number of wealthy merchants in the few cities and towns, but on the whole, the Seven Kingdoms’ society is feudal and agricultural. While there is a small merchant class, it does not extend far beyond the five major cities (King’s Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, Gulltown, and White Harbor). Even a wealthy merchant in King’s Landing is still legally considered to be a “commoner”.

Women, even noble-born women, do not have the same legal standing as men. Inheritance only falls on a woman if there are no males in her family ahead of her in line of succession. However, women can rule in their own right if they have no surviving brothers (and their brothers left no surviving heirs). If the noble-born heir to a lordship is underaged (or otherwise infirm and unfit to carry out their duties), a regent may be appointed to rule in their name.

Members of religious organizations are a different section of society, technically not nobles but possessing special privileges that commoners do not possess. This of course primarily applies to the clergy of the Faith of the Seven, the dominant religion in the Seven Kingdoms. The religion of the Old Gods of the Forest, which is the dominant religion in the North, has no organized clergy at all. In the Iron Islands, the Drowned Men who serve as the priests for their local religion devoted to the Drowned God are also held in high social esteem. In past centuries, the Faith of the Seven had the power to conduct its own trials in ecclesiastical courts, however they lost the right to hold trials after the Targaryen Conquest, when such public powers were brought under the exclusive control of the king on the Iron Throne.

Bastard children of a noble, who have been acknowledged by their noble parent, are allowed to take a special bastard surname which signifies their status. These bastard surnames are based on the region a child was born in, thus bastards from the North use the special surname “Snow” (e.g. Jon Snow, Ramsay Snow), bastards from the Riverlands use the special surname “Rivers”, etc. Bastards are not allowed to inherit their parents’ lands and have no place in the line of succession (unless they are legitimized by specia order of the king and allowed take their parent’s surname, which rarely happens). Even so, the acknowledged bastard children of a noble are still technically “highborn”, and enjoy legal rights which commoners do not possess. Unacknowledged bastards, of course, cannot confirm that they are indeed the bastard child of a noble, and thus are legally considered commoners (such as Gendry, who is secretly the unacknowledged bastard son of King Robert Baratheon. There is no outright law punishing noble men or women for having bastard children, instead it is considered a social and religious disgrace.

Inheritance and Age of Majority
The legal age of majority in the Seven Kingdoms is considered to be sixteen years of age (this may have been changed to eighteen years in the TV series). Their society does not possess a concept of “adolescence” as an intervening life-stage between childhood and adulthood. As soon as a boy reaches his sixteenth nameday, he suddenly becomes “a man grown”, and is legally considered to be an adult. Legally, girls are also considered adults at sixteen, though culturally they are often seen as suddenly becoming “a woman” as soon as they have menstruated. A girl who has had her first blood is often seen as now capable of being married.

Inheritance practices usually follow primogeniture, a male-preference winner-take-all system.

The local laws in Dorne are somewhat different from the rest of the realm, as it joined the realm not through conquest but through peaceful marriage-alliance only a century ago, and was thus allowed to retain several local customs. In particular, Dorne practices equal primogeniture, in which the eldest child inherits regardless of whether they are male or female.

Punishment and Sentencing
As a feudal society, the Seven Kingdoms do not maintain long-standing dedicated prisons. There are dungeons in the major cities and castles, but these are not meant for long-term confinement of a prison population: they are more along the lines of holding pens used until sentencing through corporal or capital punishment. Valuable military or political prisoners may be confined for an extended period, i.e. in the black cells under the Red Keep, but this is exceptional.

Certain serious offenses such as rape are punishable by amputation, though in some cases even petty theft may be punishable by amputation. Treason and oathbreaking are punishable by death. Those sentenced to execution or amputation, noble or commoner, have the option of joining the Night’s Watch instead, as a form of exile (this has caused some to look down on the present-day Night’s Watch as a glorified penal colony). Only men can join the Night’s Watch, so women do not have this option. Once a man has sworn the oath to join the Night’s Watch, the penalty for desertion is death.