Religion

[Cearnach]

The Pendragon rulebook offers a stark choice to gms: either the Christian Church is the last, best hope of humanity, fully embodying its discourse, or it is a profane, grasping pack of charlatans and hypocrites without redeeming value.

As with any institution run by humans, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Most of the things described in the "good church" section are true, or are at least aspired to by this very human institution. Many of the things described in the "bad church" section are also true, at least of some church leaders. Nothing in life is ever all one way or all the other, and this game will endeavor to reflect the nuance that did exist. Much of the church at least aspires to be the "good church," but the institution often falls short--sometimes disastrously so.

One element of the Church's functions that is not discussed in the "good church" section, but which is deeply important to the nobility, is the Church's role in adjudicating the acceptability of marriages. It is, to a greater or lesser degree of success, responsible for insuring genetic diversity in the aristocracy by preventing marriages between close relatives.

Characters may be more or less pious, but the social expectation is to conform to Christian dogma by word, if not by deed, with some grumbling permitted by some people.

One major distinction between the 12th century and the Arthurian Romances that inspire Pendragon is that belief in the Grail legend does not define Christianity in the Isles. The Arthur and Grail legends are very important as a piece of cultural capital and are playing their part in establishing an English national identity, but they are not a religious text. People are far more interested in pilgrimages and Saint cults during this time period, especially the Camino to Santiago de Compostela and the great pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In England, the pilgrimage tradition includes a number of tombs of important religious figures, including St Edmund at Ely, St Swithun at Winchester, St Cuthbert at Durham, and, most importantly, Thomas a Becket at Canterbury.

Just as today, there are two hierarchical systems at work in the Western Christian Church, both of which owe fealty to the pope. The first is the diocesan structure, in which parishes run by priests make up dioceses which are run by bishops. Bishops have sole authority within their dioceses, but answer in some matters (mostly fiscal) to an Archbishop. There are three archbishops in the isles: Canterbury (the most senior), York, and Armagh (in Ireland). Archbishops answer directly to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome. This system is the destination of many non-inheriting sons of aristocrats, with senior aristocrats often being selected by kings (who either lobby the pope or simply strong-arm the appointment) to one bishopric or another.

The other system is the monastic system, in which monasteries (abbeys, which are run by abbesses or abbots, priories, which are run by priors, and convents, which are populated by nuns), often endowed financially by powerful nobles, devote themselves to perpetual work and prayer. Sometimes, this work takes the form of education or of cultivation. Other times, it takes the form of crusading. It all depends on the Order of monks at a particular abbey, and the rules they follow.

There are several Orders that are extant in the Catholic Church in 1189, some of which are quite new. The Benedictine order is by far the largest, with hundreds of monasteries all over Europe. The most important of these is at Cluny in France, where a reformed rule for the Benedictine order has been promulgated fairly recently. Of the Military Orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers are the largest and most important, and many of the other orders are either very small in number (Order of the Holy Ghost, Order of Aubrac) or more nationalistic than religious in focus (Order of Aviz, Order of Calatrava).

'Traditional' Monastic Orders
• The Benedictines
• The Carmelites
• The Premonstratensians
• The Cistercians

Military Orders
• The Order of the Holy Sepulcher
• The Knights of St. John of the Hospital in Jerusalem (The Hospitallers)
• The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon (The Templars)
• Order of Saint Lazarus
• Order of Aviz (Portuguese)
• Order of St. Michael of the Wing (Portuguese)
• Order of Calatrava (Castilian and Aragonese)
• Order of the Holy Ghost (Provencal)
• Order of Aubrac (French)
• Order of Santiago (Castilian)
• Order of Alcantara (Leonese)
* Order of Mountjoy