post-war governance of the Temple Lands

n7axw wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:In the Temple Lands, there has been direct rule by Vicars of the CoGA, and virtually zero secular government. There is no practical way to change that state of affairs by fiat/conquest, so the best that can be accomplished is to force a choice: Vicar or Knight, one or the other, but not both. Take an oath of fealty from the succeeding Knight and monitor events for treachery.

Actually, this is about as close as I've seen so far to an answer to the question we have been discussing.

What the rest of you guys seem to be coming up with seems to me like saying that since the chickens seem to be accustomed to the fox in the coop, once we've cornered and neutralized the fox, we should very politely put the fox in the coop and apologize to the chickens for disturbing the foxes normal routine of devouring chickens!

Randomizer, you keep comparing the situation with European churches who no matter how powerful they were at one time never had the reins of power to themselves. Ever at the very height of her secular power, the church always had a rival seat of power to deal with in the state, expressed in its various levels and forms That's very different situation from Safehold where the church reigned supreme with no check on her power.

I don't think that you can consider the COGA's political power broken as long as she is allowed anywhere near the reins of secular power. I recognize the difficulties you guys are stating. But assuming it turns out your way, where are the checks and balances that prevent the COGA from arranging a repeat act up the road?

Don

Don, you've grown up in a tradition that's comfortable with powerful government - or at least where whatever power that's about that isn't rounded up by government is left wild among private individuals. But that's not the sole orientation of actual terrestrial governments that DO still respect individual rights pretty well, and it's certainly not something that Safehold is used to or ready for. It's stepping down, carefully, slowly, from a world government with ultimate (and largely immediate) authority over everything people do, say, or think, said authority coming right from an unquestioned God the Creator by an unquestioned descent, with the only historic dissension from that authority identified with a demon-goddess of evil. (If you're not going to quibble with the spirit of that description, please allow me an adequately flowery statement of it.)

Charis is only now loosening up the national Church's grip on the state and the ties between conscience and social services, with a much stronger rejection of the central church authority. And those steps are enough to spark a war of annihilation.

Whatever is going to work out for the area of Safehold with no distinct secular government so far and the most powerful, consistent, overwhelming presence of central power is going to have that sort of small step as a giant leap - in no small part because the entire secular government will have to be created and imposed (if at all) and the tradition of looser ties among service authorities is both non-existent and the sort of thing they will have just been made tolerant of torturing children to death in rejection of.

It could really be that the best practical government to set up, or accept, in the Temple Lands may be a chastened, somewhat reformed CoGA - just because anything "better" would be too hopeless for acceptance by the people there. And that may not make for any real checks or balances inside the constitutional law or tradition they will have. They'll be left with the old standbys: revolution, re-invasion, or reform motivated by conscience and/or fear of revolution or re-invasion.

For constitutional suggestions for a Temple Lands government following an occupation, aim as conservatively as you can while maintaining some hope that what results isn't going to need a bloody revolution or re-invasion to improve, and won't go in for more torturing people to death. Maybe aim for a lot more distinction between the governing, preaching, and supportive parts of the Church, and allow them to be run independently. See what can be done so that traditions of checks and balances and separation of powers can develop, if it is a step too far to put them in place immediately. One grace the Temple Lands have at least is no landed aristocracy, so it can go from a Church republic to a different Church republic without having to deal with hereditary government. If you can set up a government so that officials are responsible to the people, and throw out the Book of Schuler (or put it back on a shelf and make it gather dust), you're doing both not badly and maybe as well as you can hope for now.

Hi Jeff,


You are right that I don't like the church with political power period. Look at my signature line.

But my real issue in the context of this discussion is that we are talking about the COGA. You may well be right that the best that can be done is something like what you guys have described. I, for one, don't want allied troops committed to a long term occupation in a hostile environment.

Maybe we can at least keep the COGA from running everybody elses affairs. That would at least be progress.

Don

Don,

What you say here would come as a major surprise to the Prince-Bishop of Durham, or the Abbot of Fulda, or any number of other church princes in various times and places. Most particularly would it surprise the three Princes-Elector of the Empire who were also Archbishops [Cologne, Mainz and Trier, for those who are wondering. There's a reason why those 3, but that's a whole 'nother screed. Suffice it to say that RFC knows his Europe]. Those gentlemen and their ilk _were_ the State, and if anybody's power was checked, they had the doing of it - the number of Emperors who could effectively check anything outside their personal duchy can be counted on the fingers of one foot.

In passing, I think that Jeff may be wrong about the Temple Lands not having a hereditary aristocracy. Much of the Vicarate has become effectively hereditary - in fact, we're seeing the process by which the hereditary aristocrats of Europe made their positions hereditary playing out in the Temple Lands, and it's clear than many Church families have their family holdings to draw on already.

Finally, as you say up thread, we don't have the text of the Writ, but you are completely ignoring the possibility - likelihood, even - that much of what you object to is carved in stone. Or would have been, had Langhorne gone the stone-tablet route. To the extent that it is, that's a circle that's going to have to be squared before _any_ significant changes to the Church's position in the world can be contemplated.

n7axw wrote:
Randomizer, you keep comparing the situation with European churches who no matter how powerful they were at one time never had the reins of power to themselves. Ever at the very height of her secular power, the church always had a rival seat of power to deal with in the state, expressed in its various levels and forms That's very different situation from Safehold where the church reigned supreme with no check on her power.

I don't think that you can consider the COGA's political power broken as long as she is allowed anywhere near the reins of secular power. I recognize the difficulties you guys are stating. But assuming it turns out your way, where are the checks and balances that prevent the COGA from arranging a repeat act up the road?

Don

Louis R wrote:In passing, I think that Jeff may be wrong about the Temple Lands not having a hereditary aristocracy. Much of the Vicarate has become effectively hereditary - in fact, we're seeing the process by which the hereditary aristocrats of Europe made their positions hereditary playing out in the Temple Lands, and it's clear than many Church families have their family holdings to draw on already.

They're something like a hereditary aristocracy. They've got power as a matter of tradition as members of Church dynasties, and they own considerable amounts of land in an area where landowners have a whole scary lot of power over the people resident on those lands. But their status in the Church is a matter of tradition, not strict inheritance, and their positions in the Church (if any) have no strict relationship with their powers as landowners.

One way of making the Temple Lands a more secular state could (arrgh) be making those land holdings the formal basis of actual hereditary aristocratic power, and set up a hereditary or elective central authority over them. But I doubt Siddarmark or even Charis is really eager to advance the cause of hereditary aristocracy, and in the Temple Lands, going to a somewhat more secular republic is not the large step it would be in places with an actual formal aristocracy. (That, incidentally, is one obstacle I see for Silkiah joining Siddarmark outright - at least from the name of the place, it does seem to have an aristocracy and while they may be willing to convert to "mere" wealthy landowners, I'd not count on it.)

The large step in the Temple Lands is the "somewhat more secular" part, rather than the "republic" one. And it is a doozy.

Louis R wrote:Don,

What you say here would come as a major surprise to the Prince-Bishop of Durham, or the Abbot of Fulda, or any number of other church princes in various times and places. Most particularly would it surprise the three Princes-Elector of the Empire who were also Archbishops [Cologne, Mainz and Trier, for those who are wondering. There's a reason why those 3, but that's a whole 'nother screed. Suffice it to say that RFC knows his Europe]. Those gentlemen and their ilk _were_ the State, and if anybody's power was checked, they had the doing of it - the number of Emperors who could effectively check anything outside their personal duchy can be counted on the fingers of one foot.

In passing, I think that Jeff may be wrong about the Temple Lands not having a hereditary aristocracy. Much of the Vicarate has become effectively hereditary - in fact, we're seeing the process by which the hereditary aristocrats of Europe made their positions hereditary playing out in the Temple Lands, and it's clear than many Church families have their family holdings to draw on already.

Finally, as you say up thread, we don't have the text of the Writ, but you are completely ignoring the possibility - likelihood, even - that much of what you object to is carved in stone. Or would have been, had Langhorne gone the stone-tablet route. To the extent that it is, that's a circle that's going to have to be squared before _any_ significant changes to the Church's position in the world can be contemplated.

Hi Louie R,

You are right, of course, about some of the bishop princes. But the point is that while they may well have been lords of creation in their own back yards, that was never truly universal without any checks. They were always surrounded by other fish in the pond at least as big and powerful as they and their reach was only to their own borders.

Even during the incident between Pope Gregory and Henry, the Holy Roman emperor which is sometimes portrayed as the height of church power when Gregory had put Henry's lands under interdict, had Henry begging as a barefoot penitant outside the walls where Gregory was forted up, Gregory's advantage turned out to be a fleeting thing. Henry over run Rome and drove Gregory fron the papacy into exile two years later...

Or think of that devout ruler Charles V whose catholicism was unswerving who after the Peace of Augsburg, resigned from the position of being the Holy Roman emperor and spent the last 7 years of his life in a monastery. Well, he also over run Rome at one point, IIRC, 1529....

Or, rambling on to an earlier time to when in the year 800 the pope crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman emperor, it turns out that he was looking for protection against the Lombards...

The point is that while church power was real and often backed by the secular powers, it was never completely unchallenged or unlimited. There were always reasons that the various popes and other bishops, etc. had to be cautious. There was always a ruler around who could ask, "can't anyone rid me of this priest?" if said priest became too uppity or inconvenient.

Safehold, as RFC tells his story, has nothing that was comparable to this. Prior to Charis' revolt, the COGA ruled what was for all practical intents and purposes, a universal world state without any open challenges to its legitimacy or power.

Don

n7axw wrote:Safehold, as RFC tells his story, has nothing that was comparable to this. Prior to Charis' revolt, the COGA ruled what was for all practical intents and purposes, a universal world state without any open challenges to its legitimacy or power.

Don

Well - and this still leaves your point essentially intact - the Church's power over secular states had as one element being their creditors too. Siddarmark and Charis weren't under that bind and that did irk the Church. They were still effectively allowed to rule only by the Church's permission, and still had a huge amount of their people's income going to the Church in tithes, with much of those tithes spent in other realms and/or under the direction of the central Church rather than local elements of it.

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:Safehold, as RFC tells his story, has nothing that was comparable to this. Prior to Charis' revolt, the COGA ruled what was for all practical intents and purposes, a universal world state without any open challenges to its legitimacy or power.

Don

Well - and this still leaves your point essentially intact - the Church's power over secular states had as one element being their creditors too. Siddarmark and Charis weren't under that bind and that did irk the Church. They were still effectively allowed to rule only by the Church's permission, and still had a huge amount of their people's income going to the Church in tithes, with much of those tithes spent in other realms and/or under the direction of the central Church rather than local elements of it.

It sort of reminds me of one of the Reformation era's complaints: German money flies unnaturally over the Alps! (Not an exact quote).

Don

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Well - and this still leaves your point essentially intact - the Church's power over secular states had as one element being their creditors too. Siddarmark and Charis weren't under that bind and that did irk the Church. They were still effectively allowed to rule only by the Church's permission, and still had a huge amount of their people's income going to the Church in tithes, with much of those tithes spent in other realms and/or under the direction of the central Church rather than local elements of it.

It sort of reminds me of one of the Reformation era's complaints: German money flies unnaturally over the Alps! (Not an exact quote).

Don

Or the squabbling among the various states here in the USA which pay more to the Federal government than they get back...

Actually, whenever you hear that sort of squabbling, it's a good sign that some central authority has more power than it probably ought to...

Let's not forget that the Temple Lands practice a particularly onerous form of serfdom, where the serfs are tied to the land where they live. There really isn't much difference between that and outright slavery, although it doesn't sound as if those serfs are considered property that can be sold. It's probable that the Temple Lands have a "Runaway Serf" policy where serfs who flee the estates they're tied to are captured and returned to their "owners," who also happen to have the power of both low and high justice on their estates. (They can pass judgment on the serf with no oversight and have him/her killed or otherwise punished.)

To paraphrase the movie History of the World, "It's good to be the vicar!"

Look for a serious serf rebellion in the Temple Lands when the war is lost and the perversions of the vicars with estates there are widely published.

McGuiness wrote: quote="n7axw" quote="JeffEngel"
Well - and this still leaves your point essentially intact - the Church's power over secular states had as one element being their creditors too. Siddarmark and Charis weren't under that bind and that did irk the Church. They were still effectively allowed to rule only by the Church's permission, and still had a huge amount of their people's income going to the Church in tithes, with much of those tithes spent in other realms and/or under the direction of the central Church rather than local elements of it. /quote

It sort of reminds me of one of the Reformation era's complaints: German money flies unnaturally over the Alps! (Not an exact quote).

Don
/quote
Or the squabbling among the various states here in the USA which pay more to the Federal government than they get back...

Actually, whenever you hear that sort of squabbling, it's a good sign that some central authority has more power than it probably ought to...

It's probably a sign that some whiny ass thinks that they are badly done to. You see it where property values in one area are higher than another and the property owners whine about paying more property taxes than some other area and not getting the same number of dollars (or whatever currency) back into the area, without recognizing that the dollars they contribute to the common wealth helps them in less obvious ways such as clean streets, good local public schools, police and fire services etc. You see it at all level of taxation as well.