A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is much more historically accurate than you think – here's why

Some works of fiction feel startlingly close to reality. Perhaps surprisingly, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – HBO’s latest Game of Thrones spin-off series – might be one such example.

“I was astonished. I had never seen anything like it,” says Dr Hugh Doherty, the show’s historical consultant, in an interview with HistoryExtra.

Doherty is a medievalist and lecturer in medieval history at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a historical consultant on – among other projects – Netflix’s robust historical drama The King, a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henriad starring Timothée Chalamet as Hal (seen more recently in Marty Supreme).

Based on author George RR Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows the adventures of the titular knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his strange squire, Egg.

Unlike Thrones and its other spin-off, House of the Dragon, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms largely eschews its fantasy trappings to instead zero in on the trials of a lowly, aspiring knight wandering the fictional land of Westeros in search of prestige.

It’s a less ‘epic’ story in its scope and scale – without a dragon or White Walker to be seen. It focusses on a smaller stage, rooted in hard landscapes and their even harder inhabitants.

However, much like its progenitor series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is defiantly enmeshed in medieval history. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series took significant inspiration from the late medieval Wars of the Roses of the 15th century, a series of real conflicts saw England ripped apart by the distended ambitions of dynasties that grappled for the crown.

The real history that inspired A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Being a prequel to Game of Thrones, it makes sense that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms draws from slightly earlier inspirations. That’s where Doherty came in. He was tasked with ensuring that the series’ depiction of the daily cut-and-thrust of chivalric knighthood, and making sure that the “gripping, compelling nature of 14th-century tournaments” retained some basis in reality.

“What period was George RR Martin thinking of here? He’s thinking the 1360s, 1370s. And I thought: wonderful. That is the apogee of the tournament in the late Middle Ages,” says Doherty.

In other words: the series had the perfect canvas to explore knighthood at its peak.

But while it’s flashy tournaments that take much of the centre stage in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Doherty wanted to ensure that the on-screen knights who perform at them also felt real.

What medieval knighthood was really like

“Knights like Ser Duncan the Tall were much more common than we tend to think.”

Knighthood in the later Middle Ages was an active profession rather than a static title. A knight needed equipment, horses, servants, and money – all of which required steady income and the right connections. He needed patrons to recommend him, and opportunities to prove that he was worth keeping.

Tournaments were one way to demonstrate that worth. They were arenas of reputation and networking where knights could demonstrate their skill before powerful patrons, win money, and secure connections that might lead to their employment.

But they weren’t the most important way for a knight to show his worth. The real engine of advancement was war. Prolonged conflicts including the Crusades and the Hundred Years’ War created constant demand for experienced military men, and gave ambitious knights a chance to distinguish themselves in real campaigns.

That’s why “figures like Henry V want good soldiers first and foremost,” Doherty explains.

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“Tournaments are important, but the emphasis here must be on the business of warfare. And not just soldiering, but organising money and logistics. That’s what makes or breaks men.”

So, successful knights were often effective administrators as much as fierce fighters. They had to raise men, secure supplies, manage pay, and keep companies together under extreme stress. Kings and princes might have valued knights who could joust well, but they almost certainly valued well-organised competence, and battlefield nous, much more.

That presents something of a paradox, says Doherty.

“At one level, this society is so hierarchical and aristocratic. But it also values and rewards military talent, courage, and ambition. The Middle Ages was a very complex world.”

This tension between inherited status and earned reputation was central to medieval knighthood. This was a society that celebrated lineage, but still made room for men who could prove their capability.

One of the sources Doherty used to underline this culture was The Life of the Black Prince by Chandos Herald, a medieval poetic biographical chronicle composed c1385. The chronicle celebrated the life and military career of Edward of Woodstock, the English heir to the throne, also known as the Black Prince.

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Herald’s work is “very detailed, and evokes knightly culture so powerfully,” says Doherty. “It is so moving. You get a sense of a brotherhood. It’s this celebration of martial values; of derring-do and courage. And the Black Prince’s household was staffed with men who had risen through the ranks. They were achieving huge amounts of success and enrichment through the application of warfare.”

Nevertheless, tournaments still remained a vivid and important part of this social landscape.

What were medieval tournaments really like?

Much of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is centred around a great tournament – and the accompanying feasts, side-performances, and merriment – as Dunk heads to the tournament at the fictional Ashford Meadow in the hope of making a name for himself.

Tournaments were part of what sustained and maintained knightly culture. But they’re often misrepresented.

“Tournaments were not gladiatorial combat. There’s a tournament in the very first episode of House of the Dragon, and it’s too violent,” Doherty says.

“This was an incredibly violent world. Violence is always just under the surface. That’s true not just of the later Middle Ages; it’s true of antiquity, the early Middle Ages, and the early modern period. Violence can break out at any moment.

“But the violence of the tournament was different. It was contained, most of the time. In fact, tournaments shunned violence. Violent death, murder, and mutilation do happen, of course – but they’re rare.”

These were spaces where rivalries could be decided without the threat of death. It was a form of catharsis, where knights could display their skills without intending to kill one another. And, in some cases, they even coexisted with active diplomacy, as was the case with the tournament at Saint-Inglevert in France in 1390.

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“This was one of the great tournaments of the late 14th century, drawing knights from across Europe,” says Doherty.

“It took place at the very same moment when teams of negotiators from the courts of Charles VI of France and Richard II of England were negotiating a peace [during a stage of the conflict known as the Hundred Years’ War] just up the road. They were tourneying during the day, and then politicking at night.”

This duality of ritualised violence by day, and political negotiation by night, evokes the reality of knighthood. Knights were professional soldiers and masters of the arts of war. And, when the time came, they were also performers of spectacle for cheering crowds.

For Doherty, this is the authentic historical reality that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms taps into without having to pull from ‘real’ history. A wandering, working knight was a familiar figure of the later Middle Ages: a man in search of reputation, and all of its bountiful rewards.

“This is what they’ve done brilliantly,” he says. “They’ve recreated that world; they’ve given it a texture that is absorbing, compelling, and believable. And it makes it so much more enjoyable than many very broad medieval films.”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is streaming now. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV shows and films to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week.