Prince-Bishopric of Ro'ekha

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Prince-Bishopric of Ro'ekha

Lamir-Airazkaur ti'Rohakha
534–1552
Coat of arms of Bishopric of Ro'ekha
Coat of arms
CapitalRo'ekha
Religion
Roman Catholicism
GovernmentPrincipality
Prince-Bishop 
• 534-556
Jerig I
• 1533-1552
Maransi
Historical eraMiddle Ages
• Established
534
• Disestablished
1552
Succeeded by
Cadenza
Today part of Cadenza

The Prince-Bishopric of Ro'ekha (Khadenz: Lamir-Airazkaur ti'Rohakha) was a Prince-Bishopric on the island of Cadenza that existed as a sovereign state for over a thousand years, from the early 6th to mid-16th centuries. Its territories included part of the city of Ro'ekha and much of its hinterland, and it was one of the most powerful lordships on the island until its eventual unification as an ecclesiastical polity of the Cadenzan Republic.

The Prince-Bishop included in his patrimony the Great Monastery of Ro'ekha, and in the early eleventh century bishop Qirnos was a driving force behind the establishment of the Knights of Saint Misrav. This knightly monastic order was conceived of for the protection of the Siresian Order from rival temporal lords in the north of Cadenza, though in reality it served as the bishop's private army until its focus shifted to crusading in Kur'zhet and Azmir.

Coat of arms

The Historia Episcoporum Roeccensis, written by bishop Edund (fl. 1120—1141) c. 1134, recorded a tradition explaining the stag on the coat of arms employed by the Prince-Bishopric. According to Edund, in about 920 a Nikolian prince named Rasatla sent his son, Tafarad, to become a Siresian monk in Ro'ekha. Tafarad brought with him a large male deer as a gift from his father for the abbot. Unsure what to do with it, the abbot passed the gift on to the bishop. The bishop, wrote Edund, greatly enjoyed this gift, showing it to all his friends and visitors, and even attempted to ride the stag on one occasion. Deciding that this was too undignified, he instead kept the stag in his gardens until its death, when it was buried beside the river Osia. The truth of this story was doubted in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writing, but Rasatla has been identified with Rastislav, Prince of Mur, and Tafarad with his son Tvrtko, leading modern historians to regard Edund's account more favourably.