Lamneary

In Siriash, a lamneary is an institution and sometimes an organisational unit that primarily instructs a community in Sirian doctrine through hosting religious services and providing education by its lamneant staff. It also more generally regulates, or provides an authoritative voice on, life in its jurisdiction, according to doctrinal mores. A lamneary is headed by a protolamneant, and several lamnearies may be grouped under a High Lamneary led by a High Lamneant.

History

The first lamnearies were established some time after the Sundering, under the early Neokos Empire, as literate learning and contemplation emerged in competition with the ecstatic and violent practices of the Nevarane Compact; they were austere, self-governing monastic communities, admitting initiates and conferring the title of lamneant on the basis of collective approval. With the conversion of the Neokos elite the lamnearies became centres of a 'public' and 'official' Siriash in contrast to the closed Nevarane and Protosirian cult of the Antissan aristocracy. After the Convocation of Boeos in 313 BCE, a clerical hierarchy was established, the operation of lamnearies was standardised, and through official support, lamnearies superseded the aristocratic cults that were now forced to accept lamneants as instructors.

The lamnearies became an all-powerful institution as lamneants were hired as administrators and presented with other privileges, the public teaching of doctrines (particularly by charismatic lamneants) earned them devoted followers among commoners, and noble patronage gave them disposal of immense wealth. However, lay dissatisfaction with this privilege also led to considerable violence at the turn of the Cairan Era, the Mathetomachy, that caused the First Neokos' collapse. In the Second Neokos, lamnearies became more closely organised ordered under a more autonomous Coseptran Compact, but most regular Sirian services and community functions had moved over to houses, the more urban patriciate that dominated the new empire devoted most of their effort to their houses and had little to support lamnearies with, and rarefied learning was considered inferior to the zealous missions taken to expand Siriandom and test character. The Messenian lamnearies thus lost most of their social importance, becoming merely providers of education for leaders that mainly preached in the houses, and a truly ascetic path of life for those that did commit to them. Even then, the intellectual qualifications of house officiants became less drawn from lamnearies, and to the extent they had any at all it was more of a token of prestige, with nominally junior titles like hallegeant or even just purportedly studying under a teacher conferring immense respectability as a house elder. Other lamnearies became associated with particular houses, providing their learning on a closed or favoritist basis.

After the Hallegeants' War the gradual re-establishment of a centralised Neokos government, keenly interested in orthodoxy no less, saw a revitalisation of the lamnearies' influence. Major bequeathals of power and property were made to make lamnearies a reliable ally if not exactly instrument of imperial will, although socially they were still often overshadowed by houses, and the process was always patchwork because emperors were limited in their agency by selship. Nevertheless, even though the compact and lamneant hierarchy was dealt a crippling blow by the Sack of Coseptra, under the Secote Dominion lamnearies enjoyed continued prominence as conveyors of now-fashionable esoteric spiritual traditions. In newly Sirianised lands such as northern Lestria or Petty-Lestria, lamnearies came to possess even more extensive powers as Sirian conquerors generously endowed them, and an endorsement by a lamneant and his institution became a vital part of ruler legitimation among the Qundi generals. Furthermore, the autonomous houses of the Neokos were nowhere to be found in Petty-Lestria, where the Kingdom of Inabo instead pioneered the constitution of houses as administrative subordinates of lamnearies in taparates. Only in Carcharia did the lamnearies exist in only a subdued manner.

The system of lamnearies leading houses was put into full maturity under the Empire of Qund, and this arrangement was soon exported at the turn of the 2nd millennium as intellectual currents inspired by the fall of the Secote Empire called for a return to rigorous learning in Siriash. The Qundi-style ecclesiastical organisation was introduced to Messenia by Decairanisers with the Coseptran Restoration in the 12th century, although its full establishment took until 15th century. Political realities meant that this form was more of obligating laymen to donate and provide for a lamneary in their area for their own enlightenment, rather than lamnearies claiming leadership by virtue of disseminating doctrines, placing more power in the hands of houses. Overall this created a sense of lamnearies, houses, and other orders all making up an 'ordinal sphere' in Sirian politics opposed to a 'cardinal' government that only served to protect them. But it also meant the independent influence of lamnearies was again eroded by basically becoming beholden to their houses, and later, since the 19th century, by rationalising reforms under deictism and aphypnism.

Although the Coseptran model has become taken as the modern and essential Sirian structure, lamnearies outside of Messenia have managed to preserve independent agency in their respective societies and politics, and other quirks. In Lestria's more diverse political environment, it took longer for lamnearies (that weren't spectacularly powerful like Tisceron) to secure superior, regulating relationships with respective houses instead of just acting in contingent roles, and the process was only nominally completed by the Nekhseri in the 20th century.

Function

In the sense that a lamneant is meant to be a teacher in Sirian truths to his community, a lamneary likewise serves as a school to it. Doctrines are communicated to the laity through regular services, chiefly the reading of scriptures and related lecturing (contrasted with house-level practice, which are more laden with mystical rituals), while towards young initiates into a Sirian society, Sirian education is usually directly provided by the 'lamneary-schools', in which its resident officials formally teach Sirian doctrines and morals. Schools can be expansive, with many different departments and faculties for different fields, and the involvement of actual cathedants may be limited where instruction is not explicitly religious; on the other hand, in other regions cathedants proved to be the only source of any academic knowledge available to those that they served. The most important departments are seminaries for training new lamneants, and in the modern era deigmations for transmitting a generalised, sublime knowledge. The lamneary additionally makes moral interventions in the life of the laity, regulating their conduct to conform with doctrine. The sheer gravity of even opinions voiced in such a capacity provides the main channel for official political influence on part of lamnearies. Finally, lamnearies engage in charity of various sorts; donations aside, they usually run hospitals and other public services, and in regions where they wield more power governance can be assumed by the lamneary on this basis.

The governance of a lamneary, and the relation of its staff with the laity, are variable, between as much as within rites and compacts. Lamneants may regard each other as equals and make decisions based on selship, or more finely define an order of precedence between them based on tenure and accomplishments. Protolamneants may be appointed by higher officials or be elected by the body of attendant lamneants. Lamnearies may also be distinguished by monasticism, with some being generally secluded from wider society (though they may still involve themselves extensively with charitable matters), and the officials of others being active and regular participants in other parts of local life.

Affiliation

Lamnearies are typically defined by affiliations to the lay community they serve (often formalised into divisions called taparates), and with other lamnearies in a high lamneary, compact, or other administrative polity. These are not to be conflated with formal taxals in relation with a government. Beyond the bare minimum of providing services and maintenance, what these affiliations obligate or imply are highly variable, and in many cases never defined, with the two parties intricately balancing favours on the basis of selship and other customs. In the Coseptran Compact, the reduction of lamnearies into institutions beholden to their taparates, and the enforcement of a strong ecclesiastical hierarchy, has mostly eliminated such conflicts. Affiliation with a compact, probably the most uncontroversial of such relations, means practicing rites and teaching doctrines according to the conventions established by that compact, and in the Coseptran case participation in affairs of the higher ecclesiastical hierarchy.

While an individual lamneary is usually associated with a specific town, city or geographical area – and almost always carries a name to match – association by houses with a particular lamneary is very largely voluntary, and governed by customary recognition of the lamneary's worthiness. It is therefore far from unusual for an individual house to be affiliated with a lamneary outside its own local area – or indeed, for a lamneary to be grouped under a high lamneary outside its geographical region; these bodies are termed arahzepa (from Liturgical Antissan arahza, “outside”) or, in the mainly Zepnish-speaking Coseptran Compact, Αυσσερστεἑνδε / Ausserstehende, given that they “stand outside” the usual arrangements.

Processes exist for a house to vary its affiliation, although in modern times such shifts tend to be much less grounded in theological differences and more in personal dispute or pecuniary advantage; in recent years this has been a particular issue in relations between the Coseptran and Nemourean Compacts in Neyet, where the local compact claims the use of financial inducements to local lamnearies and houses to switch their affiliation. This has been firmly denied in Coseptra.