Why Books Were Chained In The Citadel's Maester Library

While other Game of Thrones characters are plotting empires and ordering troops about, Samwell Tarly is stuck cleaning chamber pots in the Citadel in Oldtown, the HQ for the Order of Maesters. While there’s much to be learned, including, in one gruesome scene, the weight of various organs, Sam’s initiate status mostly leaves him with a great deal of grunt work, including feeding and cleaning up after the sick quarantined in the maester’s hospital (where he stumbles upon Jorah Mormont). This leaves little time for his true task: learning the weaknesses of the White Walkers and how the armies of Jon Snow can find more dragonglass: volcanic obsidian that can kill a White Walker. As he reads pilfered books at night and gags while scrubbing shit all day, Sam is learning some of the unfortunate limitations to the maester mindset, symbolized in part by the literal chains binding their books to the library shelves.

As when it was introduced in Season 6, the library of the Citadel is first seen in the Season 7 premiere from the soaring heights of its central chamber, dominated by a metallic orrery (similar, if not identical, to the revolving rings of the opening credits) that doubles as a chandelier, with mirrors beaming light down into the fantastical room.

But as the camera pulls down in this awe-inspiring establishing shot the truth is revealed: Sam is re-sorting books in narrow stacks, laid out in a shadow-laden labyrinth. The very next shot shows a peculiar sight: library shelves bound by hundreds of hanging chains.

Already, various chain theories have spread online. For example, maybe the chains are in place to organize the library by subject; the Westerosi equivalent to the Dewey Decimal system. The maesters love chains, right?

While it’s a good guess, the real answer doesn’t come from the mythology of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, but from Earth’s own architectural and academic history. The maester’s library at the Citadel is what’s known as a “chained library.”

In chained libraries, more valuable books are attached to a metal ringlet by their covers and chained to a metal runner above or below the bookshelf. Books could only be removed from the chain by unbolting the metal rod with a key and removing the books chained to it until the desired book had been reached. As such, it was not common practice to ever unhook books. Instead, the expectation was that people would use the book as a reference work and searched out their information while standing at the shelf.

Though chained libraries were once the common practice, only five remain intact today, mostly in England. Even a small collection of chained books, such as in Chelsea Old Church , are a focus of preservation efforts today. More spectacular examples, like the library at Hereford Cathedral, have become national treasures.

Though chained libraries look draconian and restrictive, they’re actually evidence of a remarkable democratization of knowledge. The oldest public library in England, the Francis Trigge Chained Library (founded in 1598), was funded by its namesake only with the promise that local, non-clergy members would be allowed use of its books. Thus, the chained library was evidence of inclusiveness — that a library was opening itself up to the public, rather than restricting knowledge to a trusted priest class.

But despite the historical rationale for chained libraries, Game of Thrones is more likely going for a different metaphorical resonance. As Time points out, the chained books are symbols of the maester’s power in Westeros. They hold and guard knowledge. And while Samwell Tarly might have gotten away with reading books from the restricted section in the Game of Thrones Season 7 premiere, the chains suggest that the maesters are unlikely to indulge any actions that reduce their authority and power in Westeros society. Will they hold too tightly, to the doom of Westeros in the coming winter, or can Sam convince them to share? If only there were a character nicknamed Breaker of Chains…