The Propietary Orders were a large group of Maninist Orders formed in the early years of the Order system, which were infamously under the control of a single individual or family.
History[]
As the Halyrate of Gallat collapsed, innumerable local elites rose up to seize what scraps of power they could. The Maninist Faith remained outside the resulting free-for-all, and moreover jealously guarded and expanded its privileges against any who sought to infringe upon them. The losers of the internecine conflicts sweeping Gallat accordingly began to seek shelter under the prestige of the Faith. It became common practice for Houses and rich individuals to gift their property en masse to a newly created Order, thereby putting it outside the reach of their political foes, and then run that Order as their own personal property. This naturally attracted a great deal of opprobrium, both from the temporal powers who were losing all their tax base to the Faith, and from the Faithful who were appalled at this cynical manipulation of their beliefs. The issue was addressed in a series of Synods, which ultimately led to the propietary Orders dissolving or being subsumed into larger, more respectable Orders. In recent centuries the watchful eye of Concourse has prevented the practice from recurring, though that may in truth be due to the absence of any remaining elites outside the Order system who might exploit it.
Legacy[]
The era of the proprietary Orders saw much of the wealth of the Gallatene cities shifted, at least nominally, into the Faith, thereby largely neutering the lords of those cities, the most powerful potential opponents of the emerging Halyrate system. Although they are all gone now, the propietaries therefore played a crucial role in establishing the early dominance of the Faith over the competing temporal powers. The Order of Idiril is the last proprietary Order standing, though it is of course much reformed from its origins.