Kingdom of Crotona

Kingdom of Crotona
1660–1892
Flag (1850)
Kingdom of Crotona located within modern Urcea
Status	Dissolved
Capital and largest city	Toulonium
Official languages	Latin, Julian Ænglish
Religion	Catholicism
Government	Crownland of Urcea
History
• Kingdom organized	1660
• Administrative Reorganization Act of 1892	1892 1892
Currency	Taler

The Kingdom of Crotona was a crownland of the Apostolic Kingdom of Urcea established out of Urcean territories on Crotona in 1660. It was dissolved during the Crown Regency of Gréagóir FitzRex and divided into four provinces - North Crotona, South Crotona, Tromarine, and Halfway - as part of the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1892. The Kingdom also included a small amount of territory belonging to the current province of the Cape. It is largely coterminous with the modern cultural region known as the Islands.

The Kingdom was created from a constellation of minor territories, vassals, and dependent free cities on the island of Crotona which had been acquired piecemeal by Urcea since the 13th century. The Principality of Halfway, Urcea's key possession in the Sea of Canete and previously a mostly autonomous holding, was also incorporated. Tromarine was intended to be added to the Kingdom upon its foundation, but the complete envelopment of the island by Urcea did not occur until 1676, when it was incorporated into the Kingdom.

The establishment of the Kingdom had the effect of centralizing control over the island and improving its economic condition due to the removal of internal tariffs and trade barriers. It also led to the concentration of industrial and mercantile interests around Toulonium, its cathedral city, leading to the development of that city into one of Urcea's largest metropolitan areas.

History

Main article: History of Crotona

Establishment

The Kingdom of Crotona was established as part of a general reorganization of Urcea's possessions in the Sea of Canete with the consent of both the Emperor of the Levantines and Pope in 1660. Previously, the territories of the Kingdom consisted of the Principality of Halfway, roughly twenty city-states established as formal tributaries of the Apostolic King of Urcea, three counties established during earlier Urcean conquests of the island, and one duchy which comprised nearly a third of the current province of South Crotona. While these arrangements had allowed the Urcean King to effectively dominate the island, it left uneven administration of the island as well as a degree of autonomy to the tributaries which had become problematic in time. The island also contained around a dozen small city-states which were not formally under tributary agreements but largely under its greater geopolitical sway. As part of the establishment of the Kingdom, the Emperor and Pope recognized the claim to all of Crotona including lands not under direct formal agreements with the Apostolic King. Accordingly, the establishment was followed by a brief military campaign in the summer of 1661 to depose the governments of those city-states not directly already administered.

Seventy-two entrenched

In 1665, the island's feudal and urban governments were deposed en masse and replaced with a rationalized system of eighteen subrectories, though the powerful mercantile families and local landowners continued to be extremely influential, and for the remainder of the Kingdom's existence the majority of subrectors came from the ranks of these families. The most influential families of Crotona and Tromarine, known as "the seventy-two", began to form a unified upper economic and political stratum of Crotonan society during the Kingdom period. These families largely put aside their original agrarian and mercantile distinctions to form a kind of high society with social mores unique to the island. Crotonan high society typically viewed continental traditions as somewhat rustic, viewing themselves as the true heirs and descendants of ancient Adonerum. The seventy-two families lobbied for the establishment of a General Estates of the Kingdom of Crotona, which was established in 1702 and was mostly made up of the seventy-two. The growing infuence of the families was limited on Halfway, which retained significant autonomy from the court in Toulonium through its Great Court. Similarly, the seventy-two were unable to leverage their political and social power to break establish economic dominance on Halfway, and by 1750 the families were largely content to allow Halfway to remain autonomous.

While the Kingdom's streamlined administrative structure remained in place, the seventy-two families successfully managed to gradually reestablish political control over the Kingdom by the end of the 18th century. Meritocratic appointees from mainland Levantia intended to be dependable servants of the Apostolic King of Urcea were largely either subsumed into Crotonan high society or marginalized by it, and accordingly the ranks of the seventy-two were bolstered by many continental subrectors during this period, ensuring that their influence spread to the highest level of Urcean authority. The seventy-two's influence was such both on the island and in Urceopolis that in 1790 its leading members were all guaranteed the status of optimate in perpetuity, a nearly unheard of grant in the history of the Urcean class system. As a result of intermarrying with subrectors and efforts made to include them within the Estates of Urcea, all seventy-two families were incorporated directly into the Valerii estate by an act of the Apostolic King of Urcea in 1805. The seventy-two subsequently launched what could best be referred to as a coup d'état within the Valerian Estate, elevating one of their own - Marius Gendel - to the rank of Custóir of the Estate in 1812. The "Valerian coup" marked the high point of the power and influence of the seventy-two, and by using their privileges within the Estate system the Kingdom had largely become self-governing by 1820.

Reform efforts and Valerian Rebellion

The Reform Period in Urcea led to several attempts to curtail the power of the seventy-two in the Kingdom of Crotona. Many contemporary observers had noted that, by 1830, the island had largely returned to a state of pseudo-feudalism as the families divided most agrarian and mercantile economic activity among their own ranks. In 1834, King Niall V tried to remove the Gendel family from the Custóirship of the Valerian Estate but was forced to back down. King Aedanicus VIII, upon his coronation, made reform in Crotona among one of his top priorities, instituting a new administrative system of absentee subrectors who could not be easily influenced by the seventy-two. Aedanicus compelled the Concilium Daoni to dissolve all existing Grants of Monopoly on the island in 1866, dramatically weakening the economic hold on the island held by the seventy-two and inviting wealthy external capitalists to enter the island's economy. With their political and economic position weakened, Aedanicus proclaimed in 1870 that the Gendel family was to be removed from the Custóirship of the Valerian Estate. The General Estates of the Kingdom of Crotona, in response, declared independence from Urcea, though only portions of the Kingdom firmly associated with the seventy-two complied, including none of Halfway. A two year rebellion, known as the Valerian Rebellion, broke out, which necessitated an invasion of the Kingdom by the Urcean Royal Army.

Military rule

Following the defeat of the Valerian Rebellion, the Royal Army was given military control over the Kingdom of Crotona and was directed to assist in the process of opening economic markets to external investors and reallocating ownership of lands and properties previously held by the seventy-two, who were stripped of all status and rank. Halfway was excluded from this process and continued to be governed as normal, while Tromarine and Crotona were governed under martial law. The period of occupation first took on the character of instilling pro-Monarchist loyalties and installing pro-Monarchist politicians locally through about 1880, after which time the military rule took on its own inertia with the Kingdom serving as a quasi-fief of the Royal Army, which was beginning to exert significant influence over Urcea itself during this time period. Historians have marked at least a dozen atrocities committed against members of the former seventy-two in the process of economic reallocation, and reallocation began to specifically benefit high ranking officers of the Army. The process continued until the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1892, where the largely reconstructed Kingdom was reorganized into provinces. The two-decade period of martial law had a practical political effect during the '97 Rising, uniting those loyal to House de Weluta with the former seventy-two and their descendants, who continued their opposition to centralized authority and the extremely militaristic Crown Regency.

Government

The government of the Kingdom of Crotona varied over the course of its two and a quarter centuries of existence, but up until the Valerian Rebellion it exerted a significant degree of independence from the Government of Urcea, being instead similar to a real union state in its relation to the Urcean center.