Gullöld
| Part of the series on the |
| History of Siurskeyti |
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 Jukka af Essingi |
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Old Faith period (c. 1500 BCE–50 CE) |
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Digull (c. 50–1150 CE) |
| Siurskeyti · Messenia |
The Gullöld or “Golden Age” is the name usually given in Siursk historical studies to the period between the unification of most of the Siur commonholds in 1623 and the secession of five of them in the wake of the Summer War in 1812. The period saw a dramatic expansion of Siursk power and influence across western Messenia and the Median rim as the new Siurskeyti assumed the stature appropriate to the status of great power which it holds in the present day.
Beginnings
The historically fractured nature of the Siur commonholds in the later Trying Times period had seen the development of a wide range of generally small polities, few of which exerted real economic and political strength as individuals, and which had historically been more inclined towards feuding with each other than in looking outward towards the wider world. The sentiment that “the world [began] in the Aphrasians and [ended] in the sea” summed up much of this feeling.
There were, of course, exceptions. The position of commonholds like Sarevi, Skjóll and Vonskil had often given to their people opportunities which were lacking in the further interior; and all three had well-developed sea-borne strengths by the later 16th century. In the case of Skjóll, in particular, this went back markedly further, with the commonhold’s capital Reylatur having been a focal point for interordinate trade for centuries, stretching back at least as far as the beginning of the Common Era at a time when the Siur themselves were only just becoming defined as a people. For all that, though, the perception of the Siur as a stiff-necked, stubborn and rule-bound people given to “fighting like cats in a sack” was widespread and, quite often, denigrated in other parts of the Messenian continent.
The late 16th and early 17th centuries had brought forth some serious challenges to that parochial worldview. The War of the Teþar (1584–90) had been more wide-ranging than any conflict in the Siur country since the dark days of the Vinadeila two centuries earlier; and it had been the more devastating for the extent to which Skjóll and Vonskil had drawn into the war, as associates or outright allies, most of the region’s other commonholds. In the first decade of the 17th century the Siur lands were ravaged by Seranian fever, and as much as a third of the population died from the fever or associated causes. As the country recovered, it saw an influx of refugees from the islands of modern Tassedar as a resurgent Odann flexed its military muscles to sweep to conquest of the islands and, in the aftermath, drive out a sizeable number of their resident Siur population, many of whom sought shelter in the homeland.
It was perhaps not surprising that, in the face of such endemic weaknesses, some minds in the Siur country began to seek ways by which those weaknesses could be turned into strengths. Among these thinkers was the thein of Vonskil, Sterkur Fálk, who was then recently risen into his position after the death of his father from the fever. Unlike many who could only theorise and talk, though, Fálk was in a position to take action; over several years he determinedly pursued a course through which the fractious Siur country could be brought under a common rulership to the benefit of all – a long and, at times, tortuous route through which was created the unified polity of Siurskeyti in 1623.
As originally constituted, Siurskeyti covered roughly three-quarters by land area of the Siur commonholds then in existence, with the main holdouts from the arrangement being the north-western territory of Vernland and the economic powerhouse of Skjóll. The last of these was a serious concern to Fálk and his unionists, but as Reylatur trade began to bleed away to Ostari and other parts of the Siursk union, Fálk was able to convince Skjóll’s thein Valur Stuttsöla of his sincerity in believing that Siurskeyti was not, and would never be, merely his own Vonskil writ large. Skjóll consented to join the union in 1632, with Stuttsöla becoming the country’s thár on Fálk’s death two years later.
Born in fire
The negotiations over the union had taken place in the shadow of a threat from Odann, which had continued its expansive attitudes since its successes in Tassedar and which now actively menaced several of the states along the southern Arcedian Sea coast – including some influence over Arakan and northern Sarevi, both now part of the new union – and forcing trade and other concessions from them. With the ink barely dry on the Sáttmáli, the document of unification, Fálk used his new authority as thár to turn aside any further thought of concessions to the Odannach and to declare war on the Blessed Kingdom. The War of the Charter, as it became known – somewhat in error, given that its main battlegrounds in Vernland and Mattänge were not part of the new Siurskeyti – was cast from the outset as a final response by force where reasoned argument had failed, in best Arlaturi tradition since the resolution of the Vinadeila almost two hundred years earlier. However, it is entirely reasonable to assume that Fálk anticipated their accession to the new union as a quid pro quo if the Odannach threat was lifted.
As a test of Fálk’s hypothesis – that the Siur commonholds would be together formidable where they had been separately weak – the War of the Charter proved admirable. Over the course of some five years the Odannach were slowly forced out of the coastal regions, retreating back towards Stranda, which they held more conclusively, and their home territories. A more conclusive victory may have been achieved had not Ráth been pulled away from the war by the need to commit forces in what would be a mainly naval conflict against Quènie, beginning in 1628; as it was, the final resolution of the war four years later may have been dressed by the Odannach as a concession based on old allegiances – pursuant to the Agreement of Sléain earlier in that year – but was in practical terms a clear Siursk victory. More importantly, in view of later history, it was so recognised in Ráth, and appropriate grievances were duly borne.
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Siurskeyti’s claims to dominance in the Medius were challenged soon enough. Odann, strong as a sea power in its own right and bolstered by its satellite kingdom in Tassedar, drove south from the Arcedian Sea to become a regular challenge to the Siursk over several discrete periods between 1640 and 1690. The so-called “Median Wars” rarely reached the level where they were a genuine threat to Siurskeyti’s security, but they did prompt stern responses from Ostari, even to the point where it actually deputised former pirate crews under letters of marque as a form of naval auxiliary. The intermittent involvement of corsair vessels from Quènie and Dordanie – operating under similar flags of convenience – created an unwanted second front in the dispute.
The concentration of its efforts in the south and west of the Median rim did not preclude interest by the Siursk in other areas. They responded positively to a request for aid from the breakaway state of Eichenhain, helping it to secure the independence which it had claimed from Alcasia (itself a relatively new creation out of the collapsing Palthic Empire). Success in the Drunkards’ War of 1734–36 gave Siurskeyti a welcome access to port facilities in Emmel, Eichenhain’s capital, as it sought to secure routes into the Messenic Sea and lands beyond. South of the Strait of Calcar, Siursk inroads, and those of other Messenian states, were challenged – sometimes forcibly – by the Tionastrian Empire, which ruled across most of southern Serrinea in the period. Matters reached such a head that the Messenians were forced to negotiate terms with the Empire in the Tirene Covenant of 1733, the first such agreement made by Messenian powers with an Ascesian native state.
Although bilateral agreements with other Messenian states served to stabilise the recognised boundaries of Siurskeyti’s Seranian holdings, the position as regards Joriscian territories was still fluid. A particular issue arose for the Siursk over its borders with Terophatic Serania in the area around the Mirsky Isthmus; skirmishing in the region and low-level casualties continued until a negotiated agreement was reached in 1802. The Agreement at Mudry, while technically a non-aggression agreement rather than a pact of alliance, has since become the foundation of much of Siurskeyti’s relations with Terophan, the first Joriscian power to treat with the Siursk to any significant extent.
Social pressures
Alongside the explosive growth of Siursk power and influence came an increasing exposure to foreign practices and patterns of thought – and with these a developing strand of sentiment that Siur culture was being adversely affected by these outlander influences. From this belief was born the Endurtendrandi movement, which, at its height, aspired to being a root-and-branch examination of contemporary society, and, indeed, a redefinition of what it meant to be Siur. From a certain standpoint, a belief in the exceptional nature of the Siur people has always been an element of the Siur mindset; but the Endurtendrandi probably brought this to the forefront in a way which has rarely manifested since then.
While this showed itself initially in minor and cosmetic cultural matters – almost literally in the case of tathyn, a code of formalised tattooing which had vanished from Siur culture during the Secote occupation of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries – some thinkers delved further, tying this search for Siur authenticity to the then still largely abstract concept of a Siur union. Fálk’s vision of a unified Siurskeyti had not progressed greatly beyond the idea of it as a security system and support mechanism for the activities of individual commonholds and far-faring merchant traders; and voices such as Guðvarður Bani argued that the natural extension of that role would be a single and wholly unified Siur state that would function as the defender of a single Siur vision. Against this position – in an argument that would gradually achieve dominance – was the position held by the philosopher Heiður Áll, among others, that the Arlaturi mission to speak truth to the world demanded the creation of a strong state to support that noble endeavour. Both arguments fed into what became a growing impetus towards a genuine union, in which the needs of the individual commonholds would be sublimated to those of the Siur people as a whole.
Tarnished gold: an age ends
The seeds of the break-up began to germinate in the first years of the 19th century. While Siurskeyti had indeed prospered since Fálk’s unification – very much as he had anticipated – the fruits of that prosperity had been very unevenly distributed; and inland commonholds like Ærlasse and Vinhaxa were economic backwaters compared to Reylatur and Ostari, or even middle-range locations such as Virkið. A sentiment was developing among governments and opinion-formers in the coastal commonholds that they, as engines of the Siursk economy, were being unfairly hindered by the needs of their smaller and weaker brethren in the interior. The Sáttmáli, the unification accords which Fálk had striven so hard and for so long to create, was now increasingly seen as unfit for purpose.