The Sartaskori, or Prince-Eaters, refers in historical usage to a philosophical and theological tradition that developed within Maninism in the 6th and 7th centuries RM, and in contemporary usage to the radical Smithist faction on the fringes of Maninism.
Origins[]
As the situation on the ground in the Halyrate shifted away from regional power bases towards the sprawling, diffuse networks of the Orders in the 6th century, Maninist political thinkers began to develop a complex philosophical foundation for the new order. Drawing from the Maninist oecumenical movement started by Ilun Serap - with its emphasis on the essential unity of the Maninist world and dilineation of people by skills or callings, rather than place of birth - the core argument of the early Sartaskori was that vesting sovereignty in regional princes necessarily constrained the natural freedom of man to form associations with his fellows, wherever they might be, and therefore sovereignty must not be vested in regional, temporal rulers. The term Prince-Eater was applied derogatorily by scholars of the Sephashim, and then adopted as a point of pride by the thinkers themselves.
The Prince Eaters Today[]
By the end of the 7th century the philosophy of the Sartaskori had become dominant throughout the Maninist world, and the term began to fall from general usage - with broad consensus, it was simply no longer necessary. Instead, its application became restricted chiefly to the radical Smithist wing of the Faith: those Faithful who felt that Maninism had not gone far enough in liberating man from the illegitimate bonds imposed by princes, and that the process must continue by any means necessary until its completion. In the middle of the century the Eskarite Ksartan published The Virtues of Regicide, the defining tome of these new Sartaskori, and for a time afterwards debating the merits of the Smithist claims was much in vogue. However, in the practical arena the most obvious expression of the philosophy of these new Prince-Eaters was the notorious Apprivian Order, and with the dissolution and suppression of that Order the philosophy was again regarded as insufficiently respectable for proper debate, and is currently confined chiefly to minor Orders operating on the outskirts of the Maninist realm.