Cornicae
Cathartic Empire of Cornicae | |||||||||||||
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 Flag
 Coat of arms
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| Anthem: Hymn of the Wood | |||||||||||||
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| Capital | Cambra | ||||||||||||
| Religion | Cathartic Ditanery | ||||||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Cornice | ||||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||
| High King | |||||||||||||
• 1605-1665 | Marius I | ||||||||||||
• | ... | ||||||||||||
• 1905-1943 | Peter X | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• 1700 | 22,011,803 | ||||||||||||
• 1800 | 31,183,388 | ||||||||||||
• 1900 | 59,615,301 | ||||||||||||
• 1940 | 76,124,153 | ||||||||||||
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The Cathartic Empire of Cornicae, later called the Lavarian Empire, was a large imperial state in western Gaia that was active from the early 17th century to shortly after the conclusion of the Continental War. Prior to the Piloro's endorsement of the reigning monarch Marius I, the House of Cambra ruled a parallel state called the Kingdom of Cardeale and Bracelon. In 1605, the Piloro recognized Marius I as the paramount physical authority of Ditanery and legitimized his annexation of Brilliania, during which he deposed the Marist Princes who had previously denied the religious authority of the Piloro. Throughout its development, the Cathartic Empire was closely linked to the authority of the Piloro and the enforcement of Ditanist world views.
History
Marmor Dynasty
Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the First Reformation and the Lesser Reformation, was a period of political and economic reform under the reign of the Queen Mother Sibyl, who was regent for High King Aspidistra I until her death in 1698. Most of the work of the Reformation was done at the beginning of Aspidistra I's reign and mainly involved the removal of the Queen Mother's political opponents and the centralization of authority under the monarch.
War of 1740
The War of 1740 was a civil war fought between the supports of Aspidistra I's cousin Maganza (the Magazines) and the supporters of Barnabé, a distant relation of Marius I who represented the interests of the Ditanist clergy. Ultimately, the Magazines were victorious and secured the rule of the Marmor Dynasty until 1800.
Tordo Dynasty
The Tordo Dynasty was established in 1800 when Patrícia married Maximo de Tordo who reigned as Vencedor. Vencedor's rule was disastrous and fraught with violence. The Torporine Orders were nominally chivalric orders established by Vencedor to suppress dissent in the empire, which was typical of Vencedor's and also why he managed to maintain power over the course of his forty year rule. Vencedor's son and grandson attempted to rein in the power of the Torporine Orders and were deposed as a result.
Sarga Dynasty
The Sargas initially ruled under the control of the Torporine Orders, but Alfonso, an ennobled member of the family quickly usurped the throne with the support of a peasant rebellion only three years after the first Sarga monarch was crowned in 1840.
War of 1843
The War of 1843 was fought between Luis o Sarga and and Alfonso o Sarga. Alfonso's faction, which had the support of the commoners, was victorious, but did not entirely eliminate the Torporine Orders from government.
Treason of the Burguês
The Treason of the Burguês, which is also called the Treason of the Burghers, was a political movement of the urban professional class in the early 1880s that involved industrial sabotage and civil disobedience. The movement was focused on the large trading city of Antiarro and eventually turned into a violent rebellion when the government cracked down on political dissent. This period saw a return of the Torporine Orders, which had been pushed to the periphery of the state forty years earlier.
War of 1850
The War of 1850 was an attempted palace coup by the Torporine Orders. While they managed to arrest and execute the monarch Alfonso II, they were not able to maintain control of the capital. An army raised by the Duke of Rodriguy (modern Rodenia) came to the rescue of the Sargas. Alfonso II's nephew was crowned in the aftermath as Alfonso III with the Duke of Rodriguy as regent for the first few years of his reign.
Great Reformation
The Great Reformation, also called the Second Reformation, was a period of political changes instigated by Alfonso IV's prime minister, Marcelino de Zaragoza, in 1890. This shifted the empire towards absolutism, rejected some of the customs of Anxship, and also pushed the Adelthon to the periphery of society by granting more rights to Ditanist citizens.
Continental War
Post-War
Great Recession
Proclamation of Duress
The Proclamation of Duress, which was officially known as the Proclamation to Address the Duresses of the Empire, was a statement made by Peter X after the palace was seized by Marshal Alexio dos Bordos and members of the secret military society, the Blue Column. It was later later called the Proclamation of Duress because the High King's life was threatened if he did not accept the demands of Marshal Alexio. The contents of the Proclamation were actually very light and only promises an investigation into corruption and a laid out a plan for mass employment. In reality, however, it marked a major constitutional change, with the republican and militarist factions promoting their economic plan for the empire over the wishes of the High King and prominent Adelthon.
Government
Anx
The initial form of government under Marius I and the Marmors was a semi-divine status that was aided by the endorsement of the Piloro, he carried the title "nomos empsykhos" or "living law" in addition to his status as Basileus or King of Cardeale. Marius I's immediate successor, Marius II, maintained the status of living law and exercised it liberally to revoke titles given to his father's generals and give them to his own supporters. The reign of Marius II was tumultuous in its early years as a result. Upon the death of Marius II in July 1681, his son was initially going to immediately succeed him, despite being only 10 years old. The coronation was planned for September 1981 and the regnal name Marius III was chosen. In August, however, the Queen Mother Sibyl discovered a conspiracy among the veterancy to overthrow her son and replace him with the son of Marius I's daughter, who had been married to his favorite general Knidos. To avert this crisis, the Queen Mother exercised her authority as caretaker to ameliorate several of the disputes behind the brewing rebellion. Specifically, Sibyl accepted several of the demands of the insurgents including the restoration of many of their estates, the formation of an official body of nobles, and perhaps most importantly the abandonment of the nomos empsykhos. To signify this change, the name Marius III was changed to Aspidistra. For this point on, the primary title of the high kings was "Anx," which was based on the early Settentrian tradition of Anax. Later Sibyl would enact the Reformation, which included the removal of many of the nobles who had threatened Aspidistra, but this was all undertaken through the office of Anx, not nomos empsykhos.
Nomos empsykhos was not, however, abandoned. Instead it was reserved to the reign of Marius I, a kind of constitutional form through which lower nobles and even commoners could petition the monarch. Marius I's writing and rulings were preserved in collections of letters called, ironically, the nomos apolutos or the law of the departed. Even with this change, however, the Anx remained a defacto absolute monarch, since the laws of Marius I were not functionally a check on the monarch's authority, merely a grounds for judicial challenge to be judged by the reigning monarch.
Adelthon
The Adelthon were a ubiquitous social and political organization that predate the Marmors, but were greatly empowered by Sibyl to give her opportunities to revoke the titles of her opponents at court. A balance was established between the monarchy and the nobility through the Adelthon, since the petitions of the Adelthon could be raised in court to censure nobles, but at the same time, the nobles themselves insisted that the monarch answer their own petitions. Sibyl especially was known for bribing peasants to accuse high nobles of stealing their crops or, occasionally, more horrific crimes such as poisoning a Schierning Day potion. Vindictively, the nobles would bring complaints against the crown that had to be answered in the same fashion. While it was relatively rare that real petitions were satisfactorily answered, the Adelthon petitions formed an essential part of court life and also was one of the most important channels that information reached the monarch.
Petitioner Councils
The proliferation of the Adelthon quickly made the answering of petitions an essential part of the government's role in society. Even responding with rejections was substantially more work than any individual could undertake. In response to this, Maganza, who became Anx in 1745, established several government offices to administrate these affairs. These councils were essentially extensions of the court and were not part of the regular administration of government. Different bodies heard different petitions and had different levels of discretion in answering them. For example, the Royal Council of Debts had a great deal of freedom in the payment of the state's many liabilities and to fulfill other promises made in court, but the Royal Council of the Pharmacists had very little authority to address complaints against the clergy and was famous for long-winded rejections. These councils also quickly became unsustainable and so, in 1752, Maganza established another council composed of his favored administrators to oversee the overseeing of petitions. Most importantly, this new Superior Council of the Petitioners, was tasked with assigning petitions to the various other councils. In this way, Maganza and his successors were often able to steer troublesome petitions to councils without the authority to accept them.
Military Orders & Torpors
The Torporine Orders were military units with judicial authority that were mostly created during the Tordo Dynasty to suppress dissent. In this way, they acted more as law enforcement officials, but were considered soldiers to avoid problems posed by Adelthon and other branches of the government. They were also not part of the regular army, with all members receiving a knighthood for their service and swearing personal loyalty to the person of the monarch. The most famous examples include the Didone Knights and the Knights of Mavros. Although they were called knights, they were effectively a mix of dragoon and cuirassier units.
These units had the power to hear petitions and, since they were typically more mobile than other government offices, they could almost always hear and decide on a petition before the central government could. They were, in this regard, used by Vencedor to eliminate public complaints against his rule. Even though Vencedor's line was extinguished in the death of his grandson, the Torpors remained a part of public life in Cornicae. They were often used as judges in cases that the monarch wished to be kept quiet or to issue rulings that would draw public ire. They were also a check on the authority of the Petitioner Councils.
After the fall of the Tordo dynasty, their powers were greatly reduced through financial attrition which forced their military units to be disbanded in many cases. Some Torpors, however, found alternative funding through the Cathartic Temple, private companies, and even protection money schemes as in the case of the Knights of Brachlon.