post-war governance of the Temple Lands

I'm not sure how it should be handled, but I think the Council of Vicars should be abolished or restricted to dealing with managing church affairs. Rather than a compulsory tithe, the church should survive on the voluntary giving of its members.

Let the secular side of things be handled by a separate structure developed for the purpose. What would be practical there, I'm not sure. But perhaps Siddarmark with its example of a written constitution and a republic might be a useful place to start.

Don

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure how it should be handled, but I think the Council of Vicars should be abolished or restricted to dealing with managing church affairs. Rather than a compulsory tithe, the church should survive on the voluntary giving of its members.

Wouldn't that contradict the freedom of religion/conscience the CoC preaches? Once the inquisition and grand inquisitor are tried and executed, leave the administration of the CoGA to the Temple loyalists and Temple reformers.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure how it should be handled, but I think the Council of Vicars should be abolished or restricted to dealing with managing church affairs. Rather than a compulsory tithe, the church should survive on the voluntary giving of its members.

Wouldn't that contradict the freedom of religion/conscience the CoC preaches? Once the inquisition and grand inquisitor are tried and executed, leave the administration of the CoGA to the Temple loyalists and Temple reformers.

I fully understand that my view here is informed by my biases in real life. Certainly leave the administration of the COGA to the Temple loyalists and the Temple reformers.

But no one should be coerced into anything. If the rank and file membership wants to give to the church, fine. But is should be a voluntary contribution, not a tax that is bilked out of people.

Freedom of religion/conscience is a wonderful thing. I'm all in favor of it. But in all things there are limits. If, for example, my religion required me to offer children as a human sacrifice to my god, society would step in and say, now wait a minute here. And rightly so.

So also with the COGA. Bottom line here is that they should no longer be able to bilk money forcibly out of people or coerce people into thinking their way. The only power any church should have is persuasion.

Don

n7axw wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure how it should be handled, but I think the Council of Vicars should be abolished or restricted to dealing with managing church affairs. Rather than a compulsory tithe, the church should survive on the voluntary giving of its members.

Weird Harold wrote:Wouldn't that contradict the freedom of religion/conscience the CoC preaches? Once the inquisition and grand inquisitor are tried and executed, leave the administration of the CoGA to the Temple loyalists and Temple reformers.

But no one should be coerced into anything. If the rank and file membership wants to give to the church, fine. But is should be a voluntary contribution, not a tax that is bilked out of people.

I probably should have snipped the last sentence from the excerpt from your post.

Still, what a feudal lord does with the portion tendered by his vassals/villains should be a matter of his conscience -- I doubt that the Knights of the Temple Lands turn over anything near the full portion taken as feudal taxes as the "tithe" to the Temple. On the other hand, I'm also pretty sure that they pass on the increased "tithes" to their vassals; much the same as businesses don't pay taxes, their customers do.

On the original topic, reforming the Vicarate will probably either replace the KoTL or reduce them to simple feudal lords without (official) religious powers. In that respect, they're no different than any other feudal lord but without the cohesion of owing fealty to a larger polity -- eg they're just petty kings with postage stamp kingdoms and no overlord.

It wouldn't surprise me to find the "Temple Lands" Balkanized

I presume each with ts own little army.... That would be a prescription for constant petty warfare. You could be right, but I hope they avoid it. They would almost be better off under the inquisition.

Don

I'm thinking the politics might end up looking a lot like Italy between the Renaissance and Italian unification. The Papal States, and all that.

Kytheros wrote:I'm thinking the politics might end up looking a lot like Italy between the Renaissance and Italian unification. The Papal States, and all that.

After just a quick review on wikipedia, I'd say that the Papal States are closer to the current version of the Temple Lands -- i.e. "The Papal States were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope..."

The current Knights are also vicars and owe fealty to the Grand Vicar and the CoGA. The question is, "What will happen when that direct connection to the vicarate is broken by reform/defeat of the CoGA?"

Kytheros wrote:I'm thinking the politics might end up looking a lot like Italy between the Renaissance and Italian unification. The Papal States, and all that.

The Papal States pre-dated the Renaissance by centuries.

Italian unification lasted only between 1870 and 1929 in a strict sense, to say nothing of San Marino, or not getting the Trentino and Tyrol back until after 1918 and then losing Fiume after 1945.

But yes, the delightful mosaic of Italy before the 19th century was so much more interesting ... (and a juicy portion of my history degree )

Don, 'no one should be coerced into anything,' is of course a silly statement with which you disagree. As evidenced by your later comments on child sacrifice where you are very happy for the government to coerce anyone so inclined. Governments coerce people all the time, certainly into paying taxes. Which they need to provide for all kinds of essential social and welfare schemes. Many things we regard as functions of government are exclusively handled by the Church on Safehold and there is no other mechanism for dealing with them. (Education, healthcare, welfare, 'industrial safety', international mediation, etc.) These things will have to continue to be run by the church and they will need a secure funding base to do so in the short to medium term at least. So continued tithes in some form. After all there are practically no atheists, yet, on Safehold so everyone will want to be part of some church.

'No one should be coerced into anything by a church' seems much nearer your viewpoint. Although I do wonder why you think governments can be so much more safely entrusted with that power than churches. I suspect you really envisage a government limited in what it can enforce by an enforceable Bill of Rights.

As for the Temple Lands, it seems that election as a Vicar automatically makes one the Knight and ruler of some part of the Temple Lands. The Vicars don't actually need a princely income to be Vicars, it only fosters the kind of delusions of entitlement which got us here in the first place. So in an ideal world that connection would be broken.

I don't really see the Allies conquering and garrisoning the whole of the Temple Lands so it won't happen that way. Perhaps the new vicarate will pass a self-denying ordinance, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Since Cayleb is not going to end up Emperor of Safehold I think there will be lots of messy bits around the edges of any settlement and the Temple Lands may well be one of them

Randomiser wrote:Don, 'no one should be coerced into anything,' is of course a silly statement with which you disagree. As evidenced by your later comments on child sacrifice where you are very happy for the government to coerce anyone so inclined. Governments coerce people all the time, certainly into paying taxes. Which they need to provide for all kinds of essential social and welfare schemes. Many things we regard as functions of government are exclusively handled by the Church on Safehold and there is no other mechanism for dealing with them. (Education, healthcare, welfare, 'industrial safety', international mediation, etc.) These things will have to continue to be run by the church and they will need a secure funding base to do so in the short to medium term at least. So continued tithes in some form. After all there are practically no atheists, yet, on Safehold so everyone will want to be part of some church.

'No one should be coerced into anything by a church' seems much nearer your viewpoint. Although I do wonder why you think governments can be so much more safely entrusted with that power than churches. I suspect you really envisage a government limited in what it can enforce by an enforceable Bill of Rights.

As for the Temple Lands, it seems that election as a Vicar automatically makes one the Knight and ruler of some part of the Temple Lands. The Vicars don't actually need a princely income to be Vicars, it only fosters the kind of delusions of entitlement which got us here in the first place. So in an ideal world that connection would be broken.

I don't really see the Allies conquering and garrisoning the whole of the Temple Lands so it won't happen that way. Perhaps the new vicarate will pass a self-denying ordinance, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Since Cayleb is not going to end up Emperor of Safehold I think there will be lots of messy bits around the edges of any settlement and the Temple Lands may well be one of them

Nice post, Randomizer. Yeah, my statement was a bit broad, wasn't it... I was referring to religious belief and practice. And you're right. This is going to be messy. For one thing, the division betweeen sacred and secular is alien to Safehold which means that separating beauty and the beast could get complicated.

Don