The Holy Writ.

Julia Minor wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:I should point out that the Writ is not a single volume. It occurred to me that I may never have explicitly stated that anywhere. What I've referred to as the central Writ and most Safeholdians mean when they simply say "the Writ," without any qualifications --- the volume which is used in services and is normally most quoted --- consists of the "Big Four" books: Langhorne, Bedard, Chihro, and Scheuler, and The Letters. These can be thought of very roughly (and in terms of analogy only) as the four Gospels and the Epistles.

Thank you -- it never made sense to me that anyone could lift, much less put in a pocket (which IIRC one minor character does in At the Sign of Triumph a copy of the Writ considering everything that's in there. Multiple volumes, with the central Writ as the primary book that most people refer to, makes much more sense.

runsforcelery wrote:

Randomiser wrote:So, are the Prohibitions all gathered together somewhere or are they scattered through the dozens of books of instructions? I'm thinking of how difficult it is to be an Intendant and make comprehensive rulings on what is or isn't OK.

There are actually two "sets" of Proscriptions.

The really important, central Proscription --- the limitation to wind, water, or muscle power --- is in the central Writ in multiple places. "This is the first and great Prohibition; upon it stand all the laws and commands."

There are also secondary Proscriptions, which are equally authoritative but govern other aspects of life, and those are stated within the "books" (of however many volumes) of the Archangels into whose spheres the behavior in question would fall. Those proscriptions (like Pasquale's absolute ban on certain types of asbestos or phosphorous) are contained in the text where their subjects are discussed and also in a master index volume for each multi-volume book. And the indexes of Proscriptions for all the Writ's books are then compiled in the master index volumes which serve the intendants as their primary reference work when ruling on a process or a potential innovation. In particularly thorny rulings, it may be necessary to go back to the original text and read the exact context of the Proscription rather than relying upon the summaries in the indexes proper, but the appropriate chapter and verse is always listed in the index entry.

Being an honest intendant was never a walk in the park, but it wasn't exactly impossible, either.