Mokykla

This article contains information that has been retconned by more recent development, and will be updated in future.

In Vaestism, a School or mokykla (pl. mokyklos; High Secote: ⰏⰑⰍⰫⰍⰟⰎⰀ, mokụkŭla, from Classical Argote μοκιικλα, mokykla) is an institution created and maintained with the aim of pursuing Knowledge and disseminating it to the wider community. Schools range in size from small local foundations serving the populations of rural villages to vast metropolitan centres of learning, sometimes specialising in particular fields of Knowledge. A School is presided over by a Vocation Scholar, but in larger Schools a great number of other Scholars may be resident, all of whom will in fact be responsible for small mokyklos elsewhere. In smaller local communities the Scholar typically visits less frequently and many of his day-to-day ritual duties are on effectively devolved to a local Acolyte.

Types and function

Schools are the hub of the local community. Although the exact organisation of the hierarchy of Schools varies from country to country, the most typical model is of a pyramid of larger and larger establishments stretching up from the small village or neighbourhood institution to central town, city, and provincial Schools, with all of the Schools in a given Banner-State ultimately subordinate to the Banner-Shrine and ultimately the Prysostaia. The smallest Schools are centres for both religious practice – primarily apportations, held at least once a week in a dedicated apportation hall; the Scholar's Meal, held every Kalandy; as well as feasts – and broader community activity. In many places for example the School complex includes a Piklish. Schools also have various governmental functions. The further up the hierarchy a School is, the further-reaching these powers will be – while the local decision-making power devolved to the smallest Schools is often limited to overseeing landholding, second-tier Schools generally include courts, while those on the provincial level may have far-reaching autonomy in taxation, regulatory law and budgeting. Great Schools are also the incubator for most of the intellectual and scientific activity in Vaestdom, as well as providing higher education.

Although most Schools stand within the conventional administrative hierarchy, the needs of contemporary governments have led to the emergence of various specialist kinds of School with limited or non-existent geographical extent standing outside the normal hierarchy. The most frequent examples by far are military regiments (often termed columns in Outer Joriscian parlance following Neritsovid usage, c.f. New Columns, Pièche Columns), which in most Vaestic states are headed by specialist military Vocation Scholars responsible for their men's spiritual and physical well-being as well as their governance in much the same way as normal Scholars but are not responsible to local government structures, and Melmenes, banking institutions. Other similar special Schools include the Mesmaa Special Observatory, embassies, or representatives of the Office of the Custodians in Azophin.

History

Schools first emerged as the basic unit of the Vesnite community during the earliest period of the faith, drawing on the pre-existing Argote institutions of the gyvenvietė and the Sirian House. In Vaestic tradition, the first School to be founded was the Prysostaia (c. 1428), although other proto-Schools certainly existed during the lifetime of the Prophet. In the Vesnite heartland of the Joriscian Lowlands, the original Schools were typically fortified buildings serving as the ritual and military centre of newly-founded or newly-converted settlements. This model was copied to a greater or lesser extent as Vaestism expanded into new territories, depending on the ability of the Vesnites to assume military and political autonomy there. In the Rasheem towns of the Tirfatsevid Empire, for example, Vesnites were able to rapidly establish new centres of independent authority.

Until the Neritsovid period (1490-1701) Schools were generally fairly disorganised and only loosely associated with specific territorial units. Although often smaller Schools were subordinate to a specific Great School, this was often more related to doctrinal tendencies than geographical spheres of influence, and the development of this hierarchy varied from region to region. In some cases branches of different Great Schools overlapped in border areas or even coexisted in specific towns. In 1497, however, an Imperial Utterance abolished the system of Kunentsydoms and transferred all of their powers and responsibilities to the Great Schools. The subsequent bitter legal battles between the High Nobility and the Schools on the one hand and specific Schools on the other resulted in the partial codification of Schools' jurisdictions. The early years of Neritsovid rule saw Schools emerge as the centre of a nascent state bureaucracy.

The huge responsibilities given to the Vocation scholar of the specific School - which included ritual provision for the local flock, resolution of disputes and Zaconic cases, distribution of land and other administrative duties - as well as the intellectual and cultural pull of the Great Schools for the highly educated - led to the development of associated local government offices filled by semi-qualified Scholars known as Acolytes. This development continued in the immediate post-Neritsovid period. The post-Neritsovid states, under the influence of Radiance ideas, further rationalised the geographical scope and hierarchy of different Schools. Regional differences in hierarchy had already existed under the Neritsovid order, particularly in regions in the Starroz Krai, and these were further solidified by the fragmentation of the universal empire. The Radiance also saw the spread of the Neritsovid School-State model to peripheral areas such as Agamar (where until 1822 Schools were almost exclusively ritual and intellectual establishments outstripped in political importance by the Auditors).