The answers to this question have got me thinking. I can't find all the textual references, but in the time of the Dunk and Egg stories, it seems clear that any knight can knight someone else, with no religious requirements.
From The Hedge Knight:
“Any knight can make a knight, it is true, though it is more customary to stand a vigil and be anointed by a septon before taking your vows."
But by the time of the events of A Song of Ice and Fire, there seems to be no alternative to a religious ceremony, including being anointed by a Septon.
See for example this quote from an answer to the linked question:
Illyrio whispered to them. "Those three are Drogo’s bloodriders, there", he said. "By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont". The last name caught Daenerys. "A knight?". "No less". Illyrio smiled through his beard. "Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself".
And this quote from Maester Luwin talking to Bran in A Game of Thrones:
“Few enough,” the maester said with a touch of impatience. “To be a knight, you must stand your vigil in a sept, and be anointed with the seven oils to consecrate your vows. In the north, only a few of the great houses worship the Seven. The rest honor the old gods, and name no knights . . . but those lords and their sons and sworn swords are no less fierce or loyal or honorable. A man’s worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before.”
Have the rules actually changed over that period (I believe it's about 85 years), and does that suggest a more widespread increase in the influence of the Faith of the Seven even before Cersei gave them the keys to the kingdom?
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