This is a really interesting question to me because being a knight isn't just being an armored, mounted lance; it confers legal and social privileges even without the land. The only reason Ser Duncan is able to insist on a trial by combat, for example, is because he is a knight and not just some common scum; knights have rights the commoners do not.
There's a lot of philosophy built around that, of course, and people believe it, but the ultimate practical reality of it is "this is a society ruled by the warrior aristocracy, who want being a member of said warrior aristocracy to convey special rights and privileges."
So in the absence of knighthood, the question of "how WOULD the north convey those special rights and privileges to the lower echelons of that class" is interesting.
Masterly Houses manage that for the middle ranks of the warrior aristocracy, people who hold land, but not for the lower ranks. In the south, if you are the household knight of a lord, or even a hedge knight, you still carry the rights and privileges of knighthood with you wherever you go without holding land. How would those privileges be conveyed to the equivalent of a household knight serving, say, House Karstark? You worship the Old Gods. You are not a knight and will never be one. But you have a horse and armor and a sword, and probably want special rights that the peasant scum laboring in the fields don't get. Your heavily armed and armored buddies also probably want that. In the south, you'd be a knight, and that's how you get those rights. What does the north provide for you instead?
Martin seems to sort of punt on this topic whenever it comes up. Rodrik Cassel, for example, isn't just some armed guy on retainer to the Starks; he is SER Rodrik Cassel, an anointed knight, like you'd have in the south.
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