Faith of the Seven

The Faith of the Seven is both a religious institution and a source of political legitimacy in Westeros: its High Septon could crown a king, its teachings could challenge royal policy, and its conflict with the Iron Throne could mobilize armed resistance. Across successive reigns, the relationship between the Faith and the crown shifted from public consecration to open confrontation and, under Jaehaerys, an effort to reconcile religious authority with Targaryen custom.

Religious Authority and Royal Consecration

The Faith’s public standing was visible in Aegon’s coronations. At his first crowning, at the mouth of the Blackwater, Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet set with rubies on his head, and Queen Rhaenys proclaimed his kingship. The red three-headed dragon on Aegon’s battle standard also marked his entry into Westerosi heraldic tradition. Yet it was the later ceremony at Oldtown that gave his rule its enduring religious and institutional form: the High Septon anointed him with the seven oils in the Starry Sept and proclaimed him king and protector of the realm.

The Oldtown ceremony was witnessed by hundreds of lords and by the maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel. Tens of thousands later cheered Aegon as he rode through the city on Balerion. The contrast with his first crowning, attended by only a handful of lords, helps explain why the Oldtown coronation—not the ceremony at the Aegonfort—became fixed as the start of his reign. The Faith’s blessing did not itself win the realm, but it gave conquest a recognised religious and public face.

The Faith as a Realm-Wide Institution

Royal policy also sought to make the conquered kingdoms into a shared political community, and the Faith’s presence formed part of the world in which that project operated. Aegon’s court welcomed children from formerly hostile houses, where they could witness the king’s justice and be encouraged to regard themselves as subjects of one realm. The queens also arranged marriages between distant noble houses, using family ties to reinforce political unity. These measures were not described as religious programmes, but they show the crown working to integrate different regions within a realm where the Faith offered a common religious institution.

The Faith’s authority was not confined to ceremonies. Its teachings about marriage could become a political issue when Targaryen sibling unions met resistance. The crown’s response under Jaehaerys was not simply to demand obedience: it sought to persuade religious audiences that the dynasty’s customs could be accepted without abandoning the Faith’s principles. In this way, religious argument became part of the work of governing a diverse realm, rather than merely an endorsement delivered after power had been secured.

Conflict with Maegor and the Faith Militant

The strain between the crown and the Faith became acute after Maegor’s marriage to a second wife defied both the High Septon and King Aenys. The dispute helped provoke denunciation and armed resistance by the Faith Militant, including the Warrior’s Sons and the Poor Fellows. Their cause drew support from pious lords, and the conflict became part of the wider opposition to Maegor’s rule.

By the time Jaehaerys claimed the throne, the consequences of that conflict remained visible. Septon Moon led thousands of the Faithful toward Oldtown, demanding that the High Septon condemn Maegor’s successor as the Abomination on the Iron Throne and lift the ban on the military orders. Lord Hightower closed Oldtown’s gates to Moon’s followers but resisted calls to fight them, in part because Lords Oakheart and Rowan had given them protection. The standoff showed how religious protest could draw on both popular devotion and the support of great houses, while leaving the crown’s allies wary of turning a dispute among the faithful into further bloodshed.

Jaehaerys’s Settlement with the Faith

Jaehaerys’s coronation in the Starry Sept in the waning days of the forty-eighth year After the Conquest restored the High Septon to a central role in royal ceremony. The High Septon anointed the young king and placed his father Aenys’s crown on his head. After seven days of feasting, lords from across the realm came to swear their swords to him. Among those present was Ser Joffrey Doggett, a leader of the outlawed Warrior’s Sons, who arrived under the king’s safe conduct rather than in chains.

Doggett and Lady Lucinda Tully urged Jaehaerys to reverse Maegor’s decrees and restore the religious military orders. Jaehaerys refused. He promised the Faith the protection of the Iron Throne, rescinded the bounties on members of the Warrior’s Sons and Poor Fellows, but would not tolerate treason or rebellion. The settlement drew a boundary between protection of religious worship and permission to maintain armed orders: the king would not wage war against his own people, but neither would he restore the Faith Militant.

A later royal marriage posed a different challenge. Jaehaerys understood that the violent opposition to his brother Aegon’s marriage had grown from the breach between the Iron Throne and the Starry Sept, as well as from the Faith Militant’s ability to act on religious outrage. He judged that the circumstances had changed: the military orders had been broken and outlawed, the High Septon was cautious, and Jaehaerys and Alysanne intended to travel with their dragons. Rather than trust that the realm would accept their marriage without question, he sent seven speakers—three men and four women—to make the case for the queen and answer religious objections.

Their argument, later known as the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, affirmed the Faith’s general prohibition on incest while claiming that the Targaryens were an exception because of their Valyrian origins and their unique bond with dragons. Jaehaerys developed the doctrine in King’s Landing with help from Septon Oswyck and especially Septon Barth. The Seven Speakers brought that argument into communities across the realm, where septons, begging brothers, knights, and lords could challenge it by appealing to scripture and earlier sermons. The campaign treated persuasion as a means of preventing another religious crisis, not as a substitute for the Faith’s authority.

Consecration in a Contested Succession

The Faith’s ceremonial role remained important in later contests for the Iron Throne. When Aegon II was crowned in the Dragonpit, Criston Cole placed Aegon the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown on his head, while Septon Eustace anointed him with holy oils and blessed him in the names of the Seven. With the High Septon too old and frail to travel from Oldtown, the ceremony still depended on a cleric’s blessing. Alicent also crowned her daughter Helaena, then knelt before her and acknowledged her as queen.

Rhaenyra’s rival coronation on Dragonstone used another royal relic: the crown associated with Jaehaerys the Conciliator, brought by Ser Steffon Darklyn after he left King’s Landing. Daemon placed it on Rhaenyra’s head, and she named Jacaerys heir. The competing ceremonies reveal the continuing importance of visible rites, crowns, and public declarations to rival claims. The accounts establish a contrast in religious participation: Aegon’s anointing was performed by Septon Eustace, whereas the described Dragonstone ceremony centred on Daemon’s crowning of Rhaenyra. The Faith remained part of the political landscape even when rival claimants relied on different forms of ceremony and allegiance.

Institutional Significance

The Faith’s history under the Targaryens is marked by a recurring tension: royal power sought religious recognition, while religious teaching and organisation could constrain, resist, or negotiate with that power. The High Septon’s anointing gave kingship a public sacred sanction; the Faith Militant turned opposition into an armed challenge; and Jaehaerys’s settlement preserved royal protection for the Faith while refusing to restore its military orders. The Doctrine of Exceptionalism extended that settlement into the realm of doctrine, supplying an argument intended to reconcile dynastic practice with religious belief. Together, these episodes show the Faith not as a passive ornament of monarchy, but as an institution whose consent, protest, and public ceremonies helped shape how rule was claimed and understood.