Sevromark
Kingdom of the Sevromark Sevrostag | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 238 years | |||||||||
 Flag | |||||||||
| Religion | Orthodox Iconoclasm | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| Sevr Korran | |||||||||
• 1022 - 1042 | Karro I | ||||||||
• 1247 - 1256 | Kzvar III | ||||||||
• 1256 - 1260 (last) | Abran | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Coronation of Karro I | 1022 | ||||||||
• Abdication of Abran | 1260 | ||||||||
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The Sevromark, also known as the Kingdom the Sevr, or the Sevrostag, was one of the two major kingdoms fighting during the Long Ikonkivoyra. The state was established by the Margrave Karro through military might and the support of the Iconoclast faction within the Kingdom of the Drev elite. Its kingship was never recognized by the Duchy of Yugstran, which itself was seen from Sevromark as a rebel territory.
The kingdom was famed for its well-organized military and for its very original and specific culture, with artists and artisans inspired by Iconoclasts or even Idoloclasts ideas. Sevromark expanded greatly under its successive monarchs, until it was defeated by the combined forces of Yugstran and [another christian kingdom]]. Iconoclasts theologians and scholars fled Sevromark for the Lushyodorstag where their writings were preserved from the destruction ordered by the Orthodox monarchs against the Heretics. The kingdom ended when the nine years old Abran was forced to renounce his title and convert to Orthodoxy. He died four years later without heir as a captive of the Yugstranese court.
History
Founding
The Sevromark was originaly the name given to the plateau that mark the northern boundary of the Drev Valley. It was a rather savage region, with low density of populations, except around the banks of the Sevr River, the main waterway that linked the plateaux directly to the core regions of the Kingdom of the Drev. It's there that the Elod clan, of Lushyod origin, settled after Worsak I established the Drevstag. At first, the Elod clan took the title of "Counts of the Sevr", ruling over the "Sevrogrev" before they were granted greater liberties by their monarchs, such as the ability to raise troops and maintain soldiers without requiring the direct consent of the king, so they could better respond against northern threats to the kingdom. They then became known as "Marquis of the Sevr" and their lands as the "Sevromark".
Toward the end of the Drevstag, the political fragmentation provoked by the weakening of the monarchy and the Ikonkivoyra left the Sevromark as the de-facto sole authority over most of the northern regions, but it was still a minor influence over the court. After Duke Havar of Vizstran takeover of the capital, many Iconoclasts found refuge in the Sevromark, as the Marquis Karro had sympathy toward their cause and agreed to protect them. After he refused an order from Havar, now the Mervoret and chief of the central court, to purge the Iconoclasts from his lands, Karro became their de-facto figurehead and leader. Despite being urged by parts of the court to punish the "unruly marquis", Havar was in no position to do so. He died in 1020, with Marquis Karro still a distant threat to the Iconodulists government. It's only when Havar's son, who had inherited his position as Mervoret, was murdered in 1022 that Karro finally made his move and marched on the capital, forcing the King Worsak V to grant him the position of Mervoret.
Worsak V died without an heir in 1024. But rather than take over the mantle of Drevkorran, Karro ended up preferring to "upgrade" his own title from "Marquis of the Sevr" to "King of the Sevr" (Lush: Sevrokorran). Despite its official name being "Sevrostag", the Karro's realm would continue to be referred by all chroniclers, especially the Iconodulists ones, as the Sevromark.
Government
Karro's rule was a period of great reforms which would lay the foundations and the principles of the Sevromark state for the next two centuries. He greatly expanded the "royal domain" which had been divided among many branches of the previous ruling dynasty, by reconquering through various means all the lands that had been lost by the crown and merging them with his own northern possessions. This gave him a source of wealth no ruler of the Drev had before him. He upgraded the titles of all of his direct vassals, his Pad, to "Princes", but granted no additional land to any of his partisans. Instead, he reinforced the central government through a system of legation: royal inspectors sent to perform various missions for the king, generally evaluating the gestion of a province or ensuring the correct application of an edict. He also divided the royal domain into Barony (county division), un-inheritable fief where the Barons would administer only public affairs, while Military Legates would be sent when there was a need to organize levies of troops. This system ensured the central government remained the sole auhtority over the royal domain, even if it allowed the Princes to be quasi-autonomous. Constant warfare against the Iconodulists and then the Duchy of Yugstran also allowed permanent taxes to enter the customs of the people of the Sevrodomark, giving the King the ability to actually sustain this level of bureaucracy. Legates, Barons, and Princes would remain in place until the end of the kingdom and its replacement by the Duchy of Drevstran.
Military
The Sevromark military had kept almost all of the Lush traditions, being centered around heavy cavalry and mounted archers. But the constant warfare the kingdom faced forced its rulers to constantly improve the system. Military preparedness was a top priority for them. Guards who fled during their watch were to be killed, and soldiers found unprepared before a battle were to be subjected to corporal punishments if they were not immediately executed. During peace time, Military Legates were to supervise the training of the able-bodied men in their conscription by organizing archery tournaments, annual inspections, and coming-of-age drillings. When levied, members of a village would fight in the same formation, under the supervision and leadership of Gyalovagok, "Pedestrians Knights". The king himself maintained a permanent retinue of 6000 heavy cavalry whom generally served as reserves and elite shock-troops during battles.
But the real strength of the Sevromark military was to be found in its logistic. Royal Inspectors first mission in a province was to confirm the good maintenance of the roads and other infrastructures, and that the various granaries and warehouses maintained by the king were well supplied. They were allowed to order corporal punishments and even pronounce the death penalty if they judged the maintenance to be lacking. Sevromark's military engineers were also famous, greatly reinforcing the Kingdom's defenses despite its poor geographic situation and improving the army's mobility through the many rivers and marshlands of the region.
Culture
Karro himself was a great patron of the arts and a known musician. Under his protection, Iconoclast arts became the norm, replacing the detailed and minutious religious representations of the previous era with paintings and sculpture representing natural scenes or geometric patterns. Various "iconoclasts" currents thus appeared, with wide differences in their subjects and the manners they use to represent them. This display of creative freedom also took place at the same time as many destruction of icons and other pieces of arts denigrated by the political and religious spheres of the kingdom. It was, ultimately, a contrasted period for the arts, but it ultimately gave birth to two majors currents that would be inherited by the Lushyodorstag: a "Natural" school, interested in simplicity and the representation of natural scenes where the presence of the Divine can be felt, and a "geometrical" school with artists seeking to create grandioses and extremely detailed paintings and sculptures while not breaking the rule of not representing religious figures or even any human shape at all.
Religion
Despite remaining Orthodox Christians, the Sevromark had to establish its own clergy committed to the Iconoclast cause. Lushs and Ludz scholars under the Drevstag had already established the great lines of this movement: that they condemned the making of any lifeless image that was intended to represent Jesus or one of the saints, and that Icons used for religious purposes was an inappropriate innovation in the Church, and a return to pagan practice.
Despite this, cults to the saints and to the Virgin Mary was never actually put into question and continued as it did in other Orthodox countries. Similarily, the Sevromark remained deeply Trinitarian and considering Jesus had both a human and a divine essences that were not separate but not merged either. They also continued to practice the Eucharist, considering it to be the true Body and Blood of the Christ.
List of kings
There were eleven kings of the Sevromark ruling for a total of 238 years.