Social class in Urcea: Difference between revisions

The [[Estates of Urcea]] had proved to be a major source of opposition and division during the [[Saint's War]] and [[Great Confessional War]]. As part of a general effort by [[Emperor Leo III of the Holy Levantine Empire|King Leo II]] to curb the influence of the Estates, the distinction of High Optimate was abolished. Custóirs and their families, weakened politically and economically, were now on the same level as other optimates. The property requirement for optimates was lowered in 1580 by King Leo in order to refill the depleted noble ranks, as many optimates were killed in the fighting of the 16th century, but the requirement was radically raised in 1680 to make the class somewhat more exclusive so as to imbue it with more meaning. The requirement for one's father to be a vested freeman was abolished in King Leo's reforms as well. As the state centralized on the power of the [[Apostolic King of Urcea]] combined with the gradual development of the [[Constitution of Urcea]], the optimates had lost most of their political power by the time of the [[War of the Caroline Succession]]. Leo’s initial reforms provided for a key source of Optimate weakness; Urcea’s good fortune in expansion lead to the creation of the [[Ómestaderoi]], or homesteaders, in newly acquired territory. Optimates were not allowed to take part I. The program and were forbidden from purchasing ‘’Ómestads’’, dramatically strengthening agricultural smallholds at the expense of the nobility, whose estates were shrinking and could not compete. Reduced to an urban socialite class, the optimate class nonetheless persisted at the upper crust of society until its abolition in 1902.