Charter of Arlea

During the final days of the Sylean Federation, as the Grand Duke Cleon was forming his plans to revive the Imperium, it became necessary to set in place the plans for a new deliberative assembly to replace the Grand Senate. This body, later to become known as the Imperial Moot, would incorporate the most powerful of the families which made up the Grand Senate of the Sylean Federation.

The Grand Duke Cleon (through judicious use of diplomacy), formed a small clique of close friends, all of whom were heads or heirs of these great families. Between them, they drafted the Charter of Arlea, which determined the relationship between this new body and its future Emperor. The charter was initially rather simple in its formulation, as the potential needs of a vast interstellar empire were at that time not clearly understood. Paradoxically, for a document which would come to underpin such a vast interstellar government, this simplicity proved to be the charter’s greatest asset, and gave the Moot absolute authority in two areas only: finance and law.

The charter recognized the Emperor as being above the Moot, and as the only authority able to grant or remove powers from noble families. When the Grand Duke Cleon was “persuaded” by the Grand Senate to ascend the Iridium Throne, he appointed the great families who had been signatories of the Charter of Arlea to form the High Moot. Their first task was to reorganize and simplify the many noble orders and titles of nobility from all parts of the new Imperium (from Vland to Sylea) to form an order which would, in turn, form the peerage and the membership of the Moot.

References & Contributors (Sources)

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