The dubious habits of Rokari monks

From: Barry Blatt <bblatt_at_ntlworld.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:11:33 -0000


>
> There's a lament "Eleven Generations Late" in Drastic: Chaos about
> the horrors that the Pithdarans encountered on their voyage.
>
> --Peter Metcalfe

Ta! How do I get a copy, it being out of print...

> >The old wizardly orders operate more like guilds for freelance wizards,
with
> >the more clerical types being trained and educated in magic through
> >Cathedral Schools under the close supervision of the Bishops (they also
> >train liturgists for the lower castes).
>
> I'd really say that the wizard orders are a mixture of guilds and holy
> orders. No order is totally freelance (or else its members will be
> impious sorcerers) but some might be viewed as unreliable by
> royal or ecclessiastical authorities.

Fair enough, I could see wizard orders being subject to the odd inquisition to make sure they are not veering off into hertical practices, but what I meant was that it would be nice if there was some way of being a wizard that did not require you to be a liturgist as well and chained to a parish or cathedral heirarchy

> >Clerics of the wizard caste have
> >limited sorcery, but of a broad type drawn from several saint's lives.
>
> According to HQ, these are orderlies and most stick with one saint.

Orderlies? All in an order of some kind? Could be fun, with much politicking between orders as to whose chief magi/abbot whatever gets the Bishopric. But I was thinking of a category of cleric who could fulfil some of the roles occupied by RW medieval clergy, such as most of the senior civil service positions, ambassadors, chancellors and court hangers on etc.

> AFAIK Rokari clergy are celibate and do not marry. There has been
> speculation in the past about baby wizards being made at the nunneries
> through the strenuous activities of the Father Superiors.

Nice idea, but seriously there is a conflict between the lack of caste mobility and the celibacy of the Rokari clergy.

> >A well connected preist
> >can hold several parishes and their incomes, and pays a curate a pittance
> >out of this to do the actual daily praying. These proles of the
priesthood
> >ofetn end up leading peasant rebellions.
>
> Money and corruption is better suited to the Church of Nolos rather than
> Seshnela.

Fair enough, but I feel this kind of arrangment would not be out of place in Seshnela proper as one of the abuses the Whyte Wyzards would like to end, and as a reason as to why the peasantry might find flagellants and perfecti (and maybe the equivalent of the mendicant Franciscans) more attractive than the established church.

> >Monasticism developed out of stricter rules for wizards who pursue yet
more
> >spiritual/magical power. They take serious vows of chastity and obedience
> >and spend a lot of time grovelling to the Great Invisible and meditating.
>
> I prefer to think of Monasticism as a form of magic practice
distinguishable
> from wizardry and liturgy. Monasticism is ceaseless devotion to the
Godhead
> and renunciation of wordly magics and powers. Monks shun spells and
> blessings (and even Joy) because they are pallid derivatives of the One
True
> Being.

> >Monastic orders also exist for peasant and
> >soldier castes, and a few blur the caste boundaries by taking all comers
>
> I don't think there's any separate order for peasants and soldiers. Caste
> is primarily for social life - Monks, by retreating from society, should
be
> above such matters.

Sounds a lot like Perfectism. Maybe such orders do exist within the hurch, but surely skating the far edge of heresy - these folk are caste breaking in the same way as Hrestol did when he invented the Knight caste surely? Perhaps we have a new caste emerging here, the Monk.

There may be communities that reject Joy where the caste rules are rigidly exercised in the old Brithini style, the ultimate in the getting back to basics vein of Rokarism.

My idea for orders of peasants was for peasant monks to fill the role of the orders of RW lay brothers and sisters who eventually gave rise to such heresies as The Free Spirit, the Fraticelli and some of the veins of protestantism such as Anabaptism and very ultimately the Levellers and Ranters. Initially welcomed by the church as workers in charitable enterprises such as almshouses and hospitals they eventually started asking awkward questions about the established social order and being relatively uneducated and undoctrinated they got into some very free thinking.

And monastic knight orders would of course be the Templars and Hospitallers.

I would not see all monastic orders rejecting engagement with society either, but a spectrum of views, ranging from the classic Benedictine style of owning vast tracts of land and using the proceeds to run libraries and schools, to the poverty and preaching of the more radical Franciscans. And lets not forget the role of the Celtic monks, such as St Columba, who took engagement with the world so seriously he started a war.

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