The Sept of the Stars, also known as the Starry Sept, is the center of the Faith in Oldtown and a place where religious authority becomes political power. It is the site of Aegon I’s formal coronation in Oldtown and, later, of a High Septon’s death and the election of his successor. Across these episodes, the sept is more than a setting for worship: its leaders and rituals can confer legitimacy, challenge royal decisions, and become objects of political negotiation.

The Faith’s Center in Oldtown

Oldtown is described as the greatest city in Westeros, enclosed by massive walls and ruled by the Hightowers, among the oldest, richest, and most powerful noble houses in the Reach. The Sept of the Stars stands at the center of the city’s religious life. The High Septon resides there as the Father of the Faithful, regarded as the voice of the new gods on earth and commanding the devotion of millions throughout the realms, apart from the North, where the old gods hold sway. The Faith Militant also has its blades in Oldtown; the smallfolk call its fighting order the Stars and Swords.

This concentration of religious office and armed authority gives the sept a reach beyond the city. Its judgments can be carried across the Seven Kingdoms by septons, while its High Septon can speak with a voice that competes with royal power. The institution’s influence is especially visible when the Targaryen dynasty’s actions touch the Faith’s understanding of marriage and religious law.

Aegon I’s Coronation

When Aegon I and his host approached Oldtown, they found its gates open and Lord Hightower waiting to submit. The High Septon had spent seven days and nights enclosed within the Sept of the Stars, taking only bread and water and praying for divine guidance. On the seventh day, he understood a vision of the Crone’s golden lamp as a warning: if Oldtown fought Aegon, the city, the Hightower, the Citadel, and the sept itself would be destroyed.

Lord Hightower accepted the High Septon’s warning and chose not to oppose the Conqueror by force. As a result, Oldtown’s men did not burn on the Field of Fire, despite the Hightowers’ position as bannermen to the Gardeners of Highgarden. Lord Hightower rode out to offer Aegon his sword, city, and oath. Three days later, the High Septon anointed Aegon with the seven oils in the Sept of the Stars, crowned him, and proclaimed him king and Protector of the Realm.

The Oldtown ceremony differed markedly in scale from Aegon’s first coronation at the mouth of the Blackwater, attended by only a handful of lords. Hundreds of lords came to the second, and tens of thousands of people cheered Aegon as he rode through the city on Balerion. Maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel were among those present. The ceremony’s audience and religious authority helped make it the coronation later treated as the beginning of Aegon’s reign, rather than the earlier crowning at the Aegonfort. The sept’s ritual thus gave public and institutional force to a kingship established by conquest, even though Dorne had not submitted and would remain outside the realm for more than a century.

The Faith’s Challenge to the Dynasty

The sept also served as a platform for opposition to Targaryen marriage customs. When King Aenys arranged a marriage between his eldest children, the Faith did not accept the precedent of the Conqueror’s marriages to his sisters as a basis for extending the practice to their descendants. From the Sept of the Stars came a condemnation of brother-sister marriage, declaring that children of such a union would be abominations in the sight of gods and men. The declaration was read by ten thousand septons throughout the Seven Kingdoms, carrying the sept’s position far beyond Oldtown.

Aenys neither abandoned the planned marriage nor sent his dragon to destroy the sept. He simply persisted in his decision, leaving the religious condemnation in place as a direct challenge to royal authority. This dispute made clear that the sept’s influence did not depend on an army taking the field: its network of septons could turn a judgment issued in Oldtown into a realm-wide declaration.

The High Septon’s Death and Succession

Years later, the High Septon collapsed while climbing a flight of steps to his bedchamber in the Sept of the Stars and died before reaching the bottom. Bells rang in septs throughout the realm. His death set off an election by the Most Devout, whose choice mattered to King Jaehaerys because he believed the peace of the realm depended on the next High Septon continuing his predecessor’s policies.

Jaehaerys wanted Septon Barth, one of his trusted advisers, to become High Septon, but Barth persuaded him that he was too young, too little known, and too unorthodox to have a realistic chance. The king and his council instead agreed that Septon Mattheus must not be elected, in part because his earlier conduct had left mistrust behind. Jaehaerys and Alysanne travelled to Oldtown. Their dragons’ unexpected arrival drew thousands into the streets; the king landed outside the sept, and he addressed a large crowd of septons, maesters, and smallfolk there. Although the High Septon’s funeral rites were the stated reason for the visit, the burial had already taken place by the time the royal party arrived. Jaehaerys announced that he and the queen would remain until a successor had been chosen.

The election unfolded alongside private negotiations with Lord Donnel Hightower. Jaehaerys did not care whether the next High Septon came from a noble house or a humble one; he wanted an adherent of Exceptionalism who would make it an official doctrine of the Faith, so that the Targaryen tradition of sibling marriage would no longer be questioned by the sept. Lord Donnel, meanwhile, hoped a member of his large family would gain the office. After an understanding was reached, agents of the king and Lord Hightower worked among the electors. Mattheus led the first ballot but fell further behind in subsequent votes. On the fourth ballot, the Most Devout chose Septon Alfyn, who was not one of their own number, and who strongly supported Exceptionalism. Jaehaerys assured Lord Donnel that a Hightower would succeed Alfyn if his kin aligned themselves with the doctrine.

The account of this bargain is attributed to Septon Barth, who deplored how readily the Most Devout could be manipulated while judging Alfyn and his Hightower successor more worthy than Mattheus. The episode leaves the Sept of the Stars at the intersection of faith, dynastic policy, and lordly influence: the election takes place within a sacred institution, but the outcome is shaped by the same alliances and bargains that govern the realm.