Knighthood by any knight

Knighthood by any knight is the practice that permits a knight to dub another person a knight. In the turmoil following the fall of royal order in King’s Landing, Perkin the Flea used this authority to enlarge the following of his squire, Trystane Truefyre, showing how the conferral of status could serve a political cause outside the royal court.

The Practice in Use

During the city’s upheaval, Perkin crowned Trystane, a sixteen-year-old squire, as a supposed natural son of the late King Viserys. As sellswords, thieves, and butcher’s boys gathered under Trystane’s banner, Perkin began dubbing them knights. The account explicitly presents the practice as open to any knight; here, it enabled Perkin to offer an honor and a place in the cause to the men flocking to his claimant.

Political Significance

The mass dubbings accompanied the growth of Trystane’s ragged following, whose adherents appeared by the hundreds to pledge themselves to his cause. The episode shows the practice operating as a means of recruitment during a breakdown of civic authority: Perkin could confer knighthood without royal involvement, but that act alone did not establish Trystane’s claim to the throne. Its significance in this account lies in how readily a knightly privilege could be turned toward the making of a rival political faction.