Wars of Heresy

The Wars of Heresy were a period of conflict and strife in the history of Vaestism and Outer Joriscia, lasting from the assassination of Viswald II in 1474 to Nerits's acclamation as Emperor of the Vesnites in 1490. This period saw the first great schisms among the Savants themselves, who had previously been held together by the Prophetic Marshals, and the authority of the Prysostaic School was to all but collapse; for this reason it is remembered as a dark episode in the religion's early history. Nonetheless, it also saw the rapid diffusion of Vaestic belief across much of the continent, and laid the groundwork for the rise of a Vaestic world-empire in the form of Great Neritsia.

Background and causes

The immediate cause of the Wars of Heresy was the succession crisis brought about by the death of the last of the Prophetic Marshals, and in one sense the conflict represented the long-deferred resolution of the struggle over leadership begun during the Conciliar War nearly sixty years earlier. None of the Marshals was elected by Debates, as subsequent Universal Prophets were to be; they simply agreed that the Prophecy would pass from one to the other in order of seniority, and no formal succession mechanism was put in place for the next generation of leaders. Although the well-established practice of the Argote Susurinkima provided a template for election, there was no uncontroversial method of deciding who could or should serve as an elector. Under such circumstances any candidate, no matter how strong, was likely to be contested. And with Vaestdom in the east at least very much a religion in arms, this contest was almost certain to escalate quickly into violence.

But there were also other issues at stake and other sources of disunity than those to do with the succession. The Vaestism of 1472 was remarkably heterogeneous. In part this was due to a period of remarkable intellectual vigour and imagination made possible by the printing press, but it was largely the inevitable outcome of its method of diffusion. Vaestism had begun its life as just one of the many Neo-Ishtinist movements and cults that alongside Siriash made up the religious landscape of southern Outer Joriscia. The spectacular pace of its expansion in the century was in large part attributable to its relaxed approach to doctrine and its ability to absorb these other groups without them necessarily repudiating their existing beliefs, with 'Savanthood' defined more as a matter of recognition of the Prophet himself as the most important and greatest teacher – a concept which was not incompatible with continuing respect for other neo-Ishtinist teachers, the adoption of Sirian organisational characteristics or devotion to Menrot, for example – and of the ostensible authority of his successors in the Prysostaia. 'Heresy', defined in classically Ishtinist terms as 'antagonistic errancy' in the accounts of the schism of Sirputis against the Prophet, was conceived primarily in terms of direct rebellion and not mere doctrinal differences of opinion. Perhaps an absolute majority of all those who called themselves Vesnites in Argotea and Lacre were still theists of the Ishtinist kind, while other metaphysical questions like the absolute number of souls in existence (equilibrianism) or the exact relationship of Light and Dark (Monism) were the subject of both civil debate and furious pamphleteering wars. Most of these doctrinal differences had remained hidden during the first years of the Sacred Prophecy, but the steady withdrawal of the venerable Marshals even under Cirran I had brought them out of the woodwork over the course of the late 1460s and 1470s.

So long as heterodoxy and heteropraxy remained the province of small groups of believers or simple intellectual speculation and posed no immediate political challenge, Vaestism might have been able to go on containing multitudes. This was to be the attitude adopted by the Neritsovid-era religious establishment, who were to generally adopt a fairly tolerant policy towards apolitical heresy despite having uncontested jurisdiction over almost all of Vaestdom. But the distance of many of the Vesnite communities from the Prysostaia and the considerable individual authority enjoyed by Standard-Bearers and prominent preachers meant that some forms of heteropraxy or heterodoxy had considerable military and political weight behind them. What was by now probably the largest and most disciplined of the Banner organisations, Movar's Banner of the Greater West, had adopted many of the institutional and liturgical trappings of Siriash while remaining stoutly agnostic with regard to the doctrinal questions posed by equilibrianism. The First Censor of Aranmezo, Mag Vend, passed an ordinance in 1471 distinguishing two orders of believers, the second of which, the 'Temple Maintenants', were obliged to keep a complex dietary regimen almost identical to that of the neo-Ishtinist priestly class. Although every group naturally claimed to be orthodox, it was not lost on the Savants that there was a real proliferation of creeds and practices. In fact, a group of Standard-Bearers led by Movar insisted that a certain degree of heteropraxy was as natural 'as the variation between climes and peoples' and that discipline was a matter for those on the ground (by which Movar naturally meant himself). Others maintained, in a view derisively branded Agnosticism by their opponents, that there were many metaphysical issues on which it was impossible to determine truth.

Against this more relaxed faction, however, was set the implacable dogmatism of the Orthodoxists. This relatively small group, loosely organised around Pelmin Izhikus, were very influential within the Prysostaia itself, and had been working since the 1460s to push Viswald into moving against some of the more outrageous heresies. By the 1470s they had been engaged for several years in a furious war of words with Movar and were ominously calling for the 'bludgeoning-out' of heresiarchs. Although Viswald was not himself a prominent Orthodoxist, he was apparently sympathetic to their views, and in 1472 they engineered his election by those Scholars currently present 'at the School itself', on the grounds that the unity of the community was vested in its leader and the Prophecy could not be allowed to lapse for even a second longer than necessary. Outraged by the Orthodoxists' attempts to steal a march on their opponents, the Standard-Bearers made an unprecedented call for a general congress, and in late 1472 senior Vesnites from across Outer Joriscia set off for Argotea at the head of armed delegations. Movar, the de facto leader of this party, was assassinated in Nollonger on his way across the Varudine mountains. The outraged Standard-Bearers then laid siege to the Prysostaia, where Viswald refused to negotiate with them. Six months later, however, Viswald was poisoned. This set off the first great confrontation of the war.

Events

Argotea

Main articles: Rending of the Banners and Dagomism

The shock of Viswald's death led to an immediate breakdown in the alliance of different Standard-Bearers and Marshals massed outside the gates of the School, who quickly began accusing one another of murder and heresy as they made desperate attempts to manoeuvre into position for a great struggle. Within the Citadel, meanwhile, the Orthodoxists elected one of their own, Parupietis. Parupietis himself was soon assassinated just like his predecessor and replaced by another Orthodoxist, Siluve II, who conducted a bloody purge of those within the Prysostaia, but the main focus of the violence quickly shifted beyond the walls. Andaros and Miluvis (Standard-Bearer of the Far South and the Gergote Frontier respectively) threw their weight behind a granddaughter of the Prophetic Marshal Dana, Kazama of Narrad, who proclaimed himself Universal Prophet and (according to tradition) 'King of Argotea'. Havuzuprorka, Movar's deputy and now self-proclaimed Standard-Bearer of the Greater West, now threw his lot in with Siluve; the alternative of a woman was intolerable to the proto-Misogynist Rasheem). A third bid by Aramita, the daughter of Siluve I, was proclaimed in 1478, although her attempt to present herself as a compromise candidate failed disastrously and she was forced into exile in Lacre. By 1479 Kazama controlled much of the north, where her forces had been bolstered by Gergote reinforcements, but Siluve controlled the Citadel and the lowlands. Siluve marched north in spring of that year, inflicting a serious blow on Kazama's forces and sending her fleeing into permanent exile.

As he was on his way northward, however, Aramita arrived at the Prysostaia at the head of a newly raised Lacrean army, entering apparently by treachery and re-proclaiming herself Prophet. At this point, concerned by reports of intensifying persecution in the Tirfatsevid Empire, Havuzuprorka made the momentous decision to abandon Siluve and return to the West. Siluve's other forces now began to melt away, and he fled north to Gergotea, where he was briefly imprisoned by Mindaug IV of Laukuna. Aramita seemed to have won the war, albeit without the support of the Standard-Bearers. But in fact the general atmosphere of crisis had stirred up deep-seated millenarian feeling among the people of the Argote borderlands. Already in 1477 and 1478 peasant unrest under so-called Pseudoprophets had swept across the lowland areas. Dozens of bands of 'Soldiers for the God', alarmed by reports of persecution throughout Vaestdom, had begun to appear in gyvenvietes across the country, proclaiming divine communes. These 'lookers-to-heaven' or Dagomites (High Secote: dęgomel'i) played on the well-known neo-Ishtinist belief that Ishtin, the God-Empress of Chotar, would one day return to take back her throne, and were initially willing to coexist uneasily with the Prophetess. In the summer of 1485, however - against the background of devastating crop failure - one of them proclaimed himself to be a Prophet and the embodiment of Ishtin on earth. This man, the Third Pseudoprophet, began assembling a peasant army around Aranpils. Other towns now declared themselves for the God, and soon Aramita was faced with a fully-fledged rebellion. Although her forces initially saw some success, a series of dramatic reverses in 1486 saw her besieged in the Prysostaia. A Lacrean attempt to push through to the Citadel in the same year collapsed ignominiously.

While all of this had been going on, Siluve II - now free but still in exile - had been casting about for political support. Most of his interlocutors had remained cautious and noncommittal until 1487, when after the defeat of their expedition to support Aramita the Lacrean League decided to switch their allegiance to the Orthodoxist candidate. In the same year, the Pseudolacrean lord of Umarad, Nerits Bytigilev, who had already succeeded in ousting the Sirians from Kish and Starigrad, agreed to take to the field directly against the heretics. At the head of the Army of Salvation, he crossed into Argotea from the Lacrean borderland and marched on the Prysostaia, where he broke the siege before arresting and putting to death Aramita. He then proceeded to inflict a series of spectacular defeats on the Dagomite armies, driving them out of most of their strongholds and ultimately killing the Third Pseudoprophet on the battlefield at the Battle of Aranpils. In 1490 Siluve II returned to the Prysostaia, where he crowned Nerits Emperor of the Vesnites.

Lacre

Main articles: War of Knowledge and Purge of the Bīrōk

Contemporary with but initially largely separate from the Wars of Heresy themselves were developments in neighbouring Lacre, where conversions to Vaestism both among the commoners and particularly among the Bīrō class had produced a substantial pro-Vesnite faction that constituted, if not a majority, then a very significant faction within the Astals of the various city-states of the Combination of Lacre. By 1469 a fragile accord had been established between the pro-Sirian and pro-Vesnite factions of the Combination at the Peace of Aranmezo, which had been brokered with Prysostaic backing under Viswald I. The Prysostaia's involvement represented at the time both a military guarantee of protection for the Vesnite community and also a strong restraining influence on the more radical Granary Faction, who had wanted to continue the war. With the Prysostaia collapsing into civil war, the Lacrean Vesnites panicked and made the fateful decision to strike first, beginning the War of Knowledge. By 1477, the five Sirian cities had been roundly defeated; two of them, Kish and Starigrad in Littorea, did not participate in the fighting and announced their withdrawal from the Combination, while the others were forced to accept Vaestism. After their capitulation, and despite promises of safe conduct and toleration, the Sirian population of the other cities was massacred in a sustained and bloody purge.

With Vesnite control thus firmly consolidated, the new leadership of the League turned their attention to Vaestdom itself. Aramita had already fled to the Combination's territories - perhaps the most egalitarian of all the major Vesnite areas in gender terms - in 1476; she had played a not-insignificant role in developments there, although the delicacy of the situation in Lacre and an overestimation of the support enjoyed by her rival had kept the local notables from openly recognising her claim to the Prophecy. Their own position now reinforced, they saw the opportunity to intervene decisively and set up their own Prophet in the Prysostaia; by the end of 1479 Aramita was in the Citadel. Although she was to remain in the Prophetic seat for over a decade, however - a decade in which the bannerless Combination of Lacre was practically the only foreign Vesnite community to recognise her legitimacy - by 1486 she was besieged there by a Dagomist force, and her inability to maintain order even in the limited region of Argotea itself was becoming something of an embarrassment. One final intervention was made by the Lacreans that year, which ended in total disaster. Thereafter, encouraged by the Pseudolacrean lord Nerits, they came out in favour of the exiled Orthodoxist Siluve II. League troops formed a part of the army that Nerits put together to liberate the Prysostaia in 1487, the Army of Salvation.

The West

Main article: Persecution of the West

Events in the far west largely remained separate from those in the east, although their intensity did prevent the westerners from playing more of a prominent role in developments in the Prysostaia. While Movar's successor Havuzuprorka was involving himself in the succession dispute directly, in 1478 another Rasheem Vesnite, Sedikprorka the Equilibrianist, proclaimed himself Universal Prophet close to the Anabbine border. Immediately threatened and keen to secure privileges for himself, Ostromir II of Tirfatsia wrote to Siluve offering to 'wipe clean the smear of heresy' if he was granted the exclusive right to appoint the Standard-Bearer within his own domains, a right that he had long been trying to assert independently of the Prysostaia. Siluve reluctantly agreed, and Ostromir - who had already begun to run the equilibrianists to ground - announced the appointment of Ihuvuprorka, who was to be the third Standard-Bearer of the West. There was a great deal of resistance to this announcement, and Ostromir's purge quickly broadened into general attacks on Vesnites who refused to recognise his rights of appointment, the so-called Persecution of the West. By the time that Havuzuprorka returned to Tirfatsevid territory in 1480, Sedikprorka had fled to Thawar, and he was able to negotiate a truce between the Vesnites and the Emperor.

Aftermath

Before the Wars of Heresy began, Vaestdom had been a loose federation of Banners and communities under a single Universal Prophet, doctrinally extremely heterogenous at the grassroots level and only a little less so at the institutional level. The idea of heresy or error certainly existed, but eccentric beliefs carried at worst local social sanction and at best Banner-level approval. The Wars changed this forever. Heterogeneity was to continue, but some positions - such as equilibrianism and (strong) theism - had now acquired an irreversibly political cast and were absolutely proscribed for this reason. A precedent of violently persecuting heresy had been set, a precedent which was to underpin the efforts of later Neritsovid Emperors to articulate a set of limits on shared orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Moreover, the hierarchy at the heart of Vaestism had been shattered into pieces: by 1490 many of the Banners no longer recognised the incumbent in the Prysostaia, and some had appointed their own Prophetic candidates (giving rise to another heretical charge, that of Pluralism). At least one heretic community, rather than being expunged, had fled with its pseudoprophet far beyond the reach of any central Vesnite power. And although all the non-heretical Banners would be brought back under the Prophet during the Neritsovid period, there would from now on always be communities of heretics who refused to recognise the Prophet in the Prysostaia.

Perhaps more fatefully still, the price of Siluve's victory in the Wars of Heresy had been to invest an unprecedented power in a non-Scholar and a non-Argote: the new Emperor of the Vesnites, Nerits. In the process he had, wittingly or unwittingly, created a serious threat to the dignity of the Prophetic office. The Prophet, of course, did not bear the title of 'emperor', but his authority rested on the implicit and sometimes explicit equivalence between him and the Chotarian and Secote Emperors of old. Now, for the first time, there was another Vesnite office that could lay claim - even more straightforwardly - to that heritage. Siluve was to take great pains over the next few years to clarify the exact significance of the imperial position, casting Nerits as a mere generalissimo, he was unable to resolve this contradiction. And the accusation that he had 'sold for rusted metal [i.e. nothing] the powers of the Prophecy', whether by granting the Tirfatsevids appointing powers or by creating Nerits emperor, would dog him until his death in 1499. Many of his former supporters in the Orthodoxist faction rejected the grant of imperial power on principle, and eventually coalesced into the New Orthodoxists. Conflicts between this group and the pro-imperial candidates were to sustain the murderous conflict over the Prysostaic seat until well into the 1500s, culminated in the so-called Bloody Vacancy.