Patraja: Difference between revisions

At age 40, in 24 BC, King Avinnic passed what was officially called the Religious Enforcement Articles. As Representative to the Gods, Avinnic had essentially reformed the previously-ceremonial institution to a genuine enforcement and regulatory force in charge of religion within Patraja. With representatives sent to each Konsal, even the Minor Konsals, the influence of the new office could not be understated. This de-facto change in religious enforcement was made de-jure in 24 BC with the articles. Within the year, severe punishment, even burnings at stakes, occurred in the name of a centralizing Patrajan religion. Though some Konsals notably wrote in uncovered private journals of their disdain for the practice, from the "peak years" of the articles, from 24 BC to 14 BC, the religion of Patraja had been strengthened in its loyalty to the monarchy and to the king. A new Royal Cult of Kennonia was emerging, seeing the Second Kingdom as the essential, perfected incarnation of Patraja as a nation. Compared to the state of the Republic of Peoples, this wasn't essentially hard to see as being believable, but crucial errors were made in the isolationist policy of Avinnic's severe zealousness, and the country's stalwart attitude; it had become unfathomably unpopular. Moreso with the nations influenced by the newly-forming proto-religion of Jesus Christ.

In 0 BC/0 AC, the death and reported rebirth of Christ had a massive impact on the world. The aging King Avinnic, aged 64, first heard of the news of the formation of several organized sects around the man weeks after it became known. According to reports captured even by servants of the man, the king was flown into a blind rage. Whether or not King Avinnic knew the potential impact of a new, uniform, international religion on his religiously-centralized and defined governance was unknown, but his actions after seemed to be ones of a man in a rage to keep the crown. Hours after the reports of an essentially-united religious front of Christians, King Avinnic drafted the Second Articles of Religion, banning Christianity from the state and populace to degree unknown even to the first Articles' enforcement. Hundreds were killed until the death of King Avinnic at age 70, in the year 6 AC. Continuing with the supposed tradition of the House of Kennonia, Avinnic gave the Second Kingdom of Patarija to his zealous grandson over his own, son. The new King Valerijin is known as the final king of a pagan Kingdom of Patarija. Despite the infrastructure set up by his grandfather and his own continued zealous fights against Christianity, King Valerijin received continued reports of spreading Christian thought from the years of 6-16 AC. Punishments were doled out, but all that was done was to force Christians underground.

The most particular spread of Christianity occurred in Western port-towns across the Pelian Channel, where word from neighboring continents and nations spread quickly. Things escalated in 18 AC as a public and unafraid Church of Patrajan Christians was declared in the same western regions. Though officially a collection of believers, the armament and clearly-defined boundaries of the CPC made it more of a proto-statist entity in direct opposition to the pagan Second Kingdom. In 19 AC, as the CPC spread in both number and territory across the western coasts, King Valerijin declared unofficial war against what he notably described as "a pretended-area of spineless heretics." The CPC's organization and near-statehood, meanwhile, made it more of a proto-crusader state than a defensive commission of churches. Led by several local theological rulers, it can perhaps also be described as one of the first Christian theologically-based governments. The Christianization of Patraja, taking place between 0 AC and 92 AC, therefore almost directly correlated with the Churchhood-Royalist War, taking place from 19 AC to 32 AC. Patraja's Christianization, as described by foreign historical specialist Matthew Welling, was "a religious war of total conversion and total victory, rather than a spread of ideas...Patraja's origins as a nation of Latinic religiosity and Slavic toughness perhaps even started out...after the total war for religion so early in its history."

The war between the semi-organized confederacy of Churches, self-interested and believing Konsals, and minor unloyal leaders, against the Second Kingdom, took place between 19 AC and 32 AC, and enveloped all of Patraja. However, at the end of it all, and through heroic and villainous actions on both sides, Christian proto-crusaders had won against the Second Kingdom, through a combination of early guerilla tactics, infighting and indecision within the Second Kingdom, along with foreign support from Christians of more peaceful and converted areas. In 32 AC, Christian forced made their way into Karinnja and declared the city theirs. King Valerijin fought on for a reported two more months, even adopting a guerilla leaders' tactics of constant movement and lack of centralized force for a while, but was soon captured on a route to the North - presumably on his way to escape to the more pagan-friendly Greek areas against which his great-great grandfather had fought years ago. The plan of the king is unknown; whether he simply sought to go into exile or to summon up support didn't matter to the newly-consolidating Christian forces.

From the 2nd century until the 3rd, the Kingdom of Patraja stood at a slow consolidation and improvement; according to many historians, it marks the start of the Silver Age of Patraja, a period of continued reconciliation with the nation's place in international relations, along with coping with the realities of a changing world and quickly-developing technologies. The one thing of note within Patraja were developing court politics from the 100s to the 200s. As the nation grew at a steady territorial rate of about 1.2% a year on average, administration became a difficult reality of divisions within divisions within divisions. Minor fiefdoms were either legally abolished, or de-facto eliminated from relevance, unless they swore bounds to a local ruler. That local ruler, too, swore bounds to a Duke, who in turn swore bounds to the King. The old practices of the more direct Konsalar system and the new medieval system would rub against one another on multiple occasions, though the latter would always be more favored by the king, barring the more traditionalist and offhanded King Amanirin.

Christianizing from an equally-violent and smooth revolution shortly after the death of Christ wasn't just unusual at the time - it was improbable, particularly in the region of Sarpedonia, which stayed largely pagan for centuries after Patraja had become a de-jure Christian state. Not only did this quick revolution ensure that pagan impact stayed a minor-but-long-lasting covert, rural affair in Patraja, it also ensured that the Christian-ruled state would remain generally isolated nation in the continent of Sarpedonia. In general, this period of politico-religious isolation from Patraja is thought to have lasted from the official formation of the Third Kingdom of Patraja in 33 AC to about 850 AC, when it was estimated Christianity gained an official and complete upper hand in Sarpedonia. This isolation in Patraja has also often been divided once more into two sub-periods, known as the Rural and International Isolation of 33 AC - 525 AC and the International Isolation of 525 AC - 850 AC, corresponding to Patraja's era of urban and suburban Christian life compared to pagan rural life, and Patraja's full Christianization at around the beginning of the 6th century, respectively.

In 212 AC, one of the most vital periods of Patrajan history began, which was the beginning of the defense and attack against, and eventual failure to, the Northern Latin Imperial States. This conflict is currently referred to as the Latinic Wars. Though not unified in anything but language, the Northern Latins of Sarpedon, descendants of a shared ancestor with Patrajans, Early Northern Sarpedonian Latins, held a claim to what was, in essence, Latin-conquered and mixed lands, formerly belonging to Slavs. Though the division between Slav and Latin had been irrelevant for centuries within Patraja, northern war chiefs and ironically-named Consules were more than happy to find relations between the peoples as justification of annexation. This pattern began in 212 AC, with the attack from the Consulate of Tibernis, a neighboring Latin nation to northwest of Patraja. This war, fought between the Consul Augustin and the Saint King Paul V, found the smaller Tibernis utilizing hit-and-run tactics to flank the then-heavy and costly-equipped Patrajan armored troops from all angles. The war was an inevitable victory for Patraja, and a suicidal rush by the Consulate, but revealed a major strategic disaster for Patrajan troops. Soon after the end of the war in 215 AC, the larger Duchy of Amarkon, a Greek state, also attacked Patraja, perfecting Tibernis' tactics against the now-exhausted heavy Patrajan infantry. Though not officially involved in the Latinic Wars, the Greeks contributed greatly to a general retreat which the wounded Consulate quickly joined in with, grabbing up a number of lands. Changing his strategy, Paul V essentially disbanded a number of armored units and reserved the metal plating to be re-adapted onto horses. Accompanying these horses and the small armored units was a selection of previously-armored men and peasant conscripts, all trained to a speedy and quick defense and movement strategy. Amarkon and Tibernis didn't get far within Patraja before needing to await supply lines to arrive, giving them time to prepare for an expected armored attack. In 216 AC, after the dawn of the new year, King Paul V himself approached with an army supposedly number over five thousand men in the described organizations, catching both enemies off-guard.

Despite the combined attack of Greeks and Latins, the two groups never held strict communication, and during the carnage-filled battles that ensued, that weakness was exploited; Paul V notably ran the enemies into one another, forcing a fight with Patrajan troops arriving head-on at a third angle towards the two armies, catching them at a side-angle with nowhere to run. According to reports from the modern-day Archeological Society of Volonia, wherein the battle took place, the number of skeletal remnants from the rumored field of battle is consistent to an enemy casualty rate of about 72%. The invading forces were routed, and Patraja overran the entirety of the Consulate of Tibernis, annexing the whole region and notably taking in several hundred Latin slaves. The Duchy of Amarkon formed a separate peace with Patraja, retaining all territory but being forced to pay a yearly sum to Patraja for continued peace.

Paul V was given sainthood by the Patrajan Church after the conclusion of the war against the pagan Latins and the Greeks. Ironically, it was the Latins that were destroyed in the area, and the Greeks that were kept independent, but the extent of political affairs was made so that this was more of a relations victory for the Church, rather than a literal one. Saint King Paul V spent the rest of his life essentially consolidating the quickly-acquired Latin area and attempting to calm the populace into subjugation, even allowing them the keeping of a Consular system, though under a new leader loyal to him. With several Konsalar territories shrinking, the lone Consulate structure found itself with quick friends among the more antiquity-minded states within Patraja.