Rome?

[Goscamber]

Is there a Rome, is there a pope? Is there any Cardinals in Gwenydd?  Has there ever been a papal legate?

If so, do they know Deryni?  What would they make of the Laws of Ramos?

"Rome" wouldn't seem to be in frequent communication. "Byzantium" with Torenth?

Is there a "Mecca" for Muslims? A hajj?

Questions just multiply!

[Aerlys]

Welcome to the forum, Goscamber! Hopefully you can join us for chat tomorrow.

Not an expert on the Codex, due to lack of time, but instead of "Rome" the Codex refers to "Rume" as its counterpart, IIRC.

As far as a pope...I believe there is not, but would welcome correction if I am wrong. I do remember something in the Codex about Dhassa, but time, and the fact that my Codex is AWOL at the moment, prevents me from further investigation.

Following the lines of another current thread's discussion of Alternate Universe, or "What If" fanfic, in my mind, a sovereign pontiff would easily have cleared up the entire Deryni question, nullified the Statutes of Ramos, and probably caused a schism in the process.  (And yes, I have a theological argument in mind as the basis for this statement.) Had there been a pope, the Deryni from Gwynedd could have sent a delegation when the persecutions began to request review of the situation and make a formal pronouncement.

(Also following that same thread, my autocorrect wants to call you "Gas Chamber." )

And if I am not making sense, it's because I am nursing a migraine and really shouldn't be anywhere a computer right now...

[DesertRose]

KK has said that the church in Gwynedd owes more to the Anglican model than the Roman Catholic, so the schism from wherever the center of western Christianity is in the Eleven Kingdoms and surrounds must have occurred significantly earlier than the real world split under Henry VIII of England, seeing as KK has not covered up to that time frame in the Deryni canon.  My personal opinion is that it occurred around the same time as the split between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches did in the real world, which was a good deal earlier than any Reformation-type movement occurred anywhere in Christendom.  That is however my opinion and nothing remotely canon.    I can easily see a Pope too distracted by separatists in the form of Orthodox Christians AND Gwyneddan Anglican-type Christians to be able to do much to reunite Christianity under one banner.  In any case, I don't think the church in Gwynedd owes allegiance to anyone above the Archbishop of Valoret.  He seems to be the authority, a la the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican church.  (Perhaps revanne can pop into this discussion and add more, as I'm sure she knows more about Anglican hierarchy than this poor American who has never visited the UK, LOL.)

That being said, the Torenthi church as depicted in KKB seems to have a strong Eastern Orthodox flavor and the Gwyneddan church is roughly Anglo-Catholic, so there must be some Roman Catholic-cognate somewhere.

There is, in the maps in the back of the Codex, a city called Rum (with an accent mark over the u) that might be the Deryniverse cognate of Rome.

As to Muslims and Mecca, there are certainly Muslims in the Eleven Kingdoms (Azim, Rasoul, etc.), so there must be a Mecca-cognate somewhere, but it hasn't been important enough to a story for KK to illustrate it.  Goscamber, if you'd like to pop into chat tomorrow evening (around 7pm US Eastern), you can ask KK herself, and you'd be welcome to come hang out with all of us. 

[Evie]

That being said, the Torenthi church as depicted in KKB seems to have a strong Eastern Orthodox flavor and the Gwyneddan church is roughly Anglo-Catholic, so there must be some Roman Catholic-cognate somewhere.

If Bremagne is the French/Spanish blend equivalent in the world of the Eleven Kingdoms, then maybe its church is more of a Roman Catholic equivalent in the fictional universe.  Though while I think there certainly may be an equivalent to the RC church in KK's fantasy realm, it doesn't necessarily follow that there must be one, any more than there must be a Mecca equivalent, although I'll agree one certainly seems plausible, given the existence of Moors in that universe. But since it's a completely fictional world, it need only be as parallel to our own world as the author desired to create it, and a universe that falls in line perfectly neatly with our own might not fit her story purposes as well.  We know she has already diverged from exact parallelism in other areas, such as creating the university system earlier in her world than it fully emerged in ours, giving her healers (and I suspect not just the Deryni ones, but especially the Deryni Healers) a greater knowledge of medicine than was known to Western Europe in the same time periods, giving Gwynedd a higher tech level and often later clothing styles than were known in the same corresponding real world calendar years, and having a more literate population even before the invention of the printing press than our Western Europe had.  So she could well have decided to diverge from exact parallelism in the religious arena as well for the sake of story simplicity.

[Goscamber]

Gas chamber? ROFL.

And thank you for your replies, everyone!

If I can figure it out, I might try Chat.

Well, I seem to have logged in.  My name appears and there's what looks like ruled notepaper, but my cursor doesn't appear or move when I tap my keyboard.

Is it only active after 7?

[revanne]

"Revanne pops in" - I have a real life Bishop to deal with today and a confirmation service - I will try to pop back later today. Alas I won't make chat - 7pm eastern time is midnight ours. Will miss you but looking forward to February's.

[drakensis]

According to the Codex:

Rum doesn't appear to have created an empire as Rome did in our history, and remains a republic.
Byzantiun, which seems more greek than roman (ruled by an Autokrator, which is a greek title), established an empire which stretched as far as west as central Gwynedd before retreating for various reasons.
The Pax Rumana - proposed by the Grand Consul of Rum and endorsed by other states like Byzantiun - maintained standards of diplomatic contact for a couple of centuries following, in which case the kingdoms and principalities of the west established themselves. By the late 7th century the Pax had collapsed. (This was more or less the golden era of the Deryni, the time of Orin). Bremagne was probably the most powerful of the western kingdoms, the centre of the western Church. However the loss of its eastern provinces (later Fallon and the Forcinn states) and the breakaway of Gwynedd's church ended Bremagne hegemony west of Torenth.


Christianity (The Holy and Apostolic Church) is, circa 1130, divided into twelve independent Churches. We know their order of precedence but not specifically age (although there's likely one). The Gwynedd Church is 10th in precedence, and one of only two headed by an Archbishop (the other is the Howicce church (which serves Howicce, Llanned and Connait).
Besides these two, the other major churches of the 11 Kingdoms are that of Torenth, Bremagne and Tralia (the most junior of the twelve).

Christianity evidently stretches far to the east, with churches for Egypt and Assyrian equivalents. Since Byzantiun's church has precedence, it's likely they had a religious hegemony at one point, but it doesn't appear to have out-lasted their empire.
Torenth was christianised by greek-speaking Byzantiun missionaries and Gwynedd by latin-speaking Ruman missionaries, thus their different ecclesiastical tongues. This suggests a division between eastern orthodox Byzantiun and western catholic Rum was at least brewing by the late 2nd century - the time of these missionaries.

[Goscamber]

Wow! Thank you very much, drakensis!  I'm glad I just made an ILL request for CD.

I hope that I can borrow it.  My attempt to borrow the most recent Sayers Companion was a bust, though it was only available from university libraries.  The closest copies of CD is the Cleveland and Columbus public libraries, so I have hope.

[Evie]

Gas chamber? ROFL.

And thank you for your replies, everyone!

If I can figure it out, I might try Chat.

Well, I seem to have logged in.  My name appears and there's what looks like ruled notepaper, but my cursor doesn't appear or move when I tap my keyboard.

Is it only active after 7?

It should be active at any time, although much of the time there isn't anyone actively there except during official chat time. When you arrive, you should get a welcome message at the top of the screen saying you are on the #deryni_destinations channel.  Other people's text will appear in the large window during chat, but you should type in the small strip of a window below that, and once you hit the Enter key, your text will appear to others in the main window.

[revanne]

The Gwyneddian Church depicted by KK feels to me Roman Catholic but feels structurally very much what I am used to in the Church of England with the Church being autonomous with no external authority over and above the Archbishop of Valoret ( C of E AB of C). The dioceses too seem to have an autonomy I'm familiar with, free from outside interference so long as they stay within Church law. Which in KK's world -as it would potentially here- becomes a problem when the law is unjust. De Nore and Loris are within their rights to rigorously apply the statues of Ramos- even as Archbishop, Cardiel cannot just impose his will, hence his justified anger at the position Duncan has put him in. What is different from the Church of England is the relationship with the crown, in theory the Queen is head of the Church of England in a way which Kings of Gwynedd are not (all of which makes me realise I am being unfair in my criticisms of Brion  *grinds teeth*).
We don't have itinerant Bishops either, the idea of a wandering Bishop gives me the collywobbles, but it makes sense in a medieval context.

[revanne]

sorry, first sentence should say Gwyneddian church feels RC liturgically - that's what preview is for! *sighs*

[Elkhound]

We don't have itinerant Bishops either, the idea of a wandering Bishop gives me the collywobbles, but it makes sense in a medieval context.

What about the "flying bishops" I remember reading about a few years ago that they were talking about to give episcopal oversite to parishes who had disagreements with their regionary bishops?

[Evie]

We don't have itinerant Bishops either, the idea of a wandering Bishop gives me the collywobbles, but it makes sense in a medieval context.

What about the "flying bishops" I remember reading about a few years ago that they were talking about to give episcopal oversite to parishes who had disagreements with their regionary bishops?

Are flying bishops accompanied by a Flying Nun?  (Sorry, couldn't resist, although I fear I'm showing my age with that pop culture reference!)

[revanne]

We don't have itinerant Bishops either, the idea of a wandering Bishop gives me the collywobbles, but it makes sense in a medieval context.

What about the "flying bishops" I remember reading about a few years ago that they were talking about to give episcopal oversite to parishes who had disagreements with their regionary bishops?

Flying bishops are specifically for those who cannot accept the priestly (and now episcopal) orders of women and there is a procedure for parishes seeking such oversight. For obvious reasons it's not a procedure I have a close knowledge of.

I get the sense that Gwynedd's itinerant bishops prowl around seeking whom they may devour travel round the country doing things like episcopal visitations and confirmations in outlying regions whereas the diocesan bishops are more centralised and administrative.

It would be scary if a bishop suddenly turned up in your congregation. I did a christening once where there was a man in a purple clerical shirt sat in the congregation. He turned out to be a methodist minister friend of the family who insisted his shirt was burgundy - I did point out to him that it was near enough purple to unnerve unsuspecting Anglican -Episcopalian- priests

[Elkhound]

My impression is that they are something like missionary bishops, or circuit riding preachers, dealing with communities too remote or small to be served by the titled bishops.