Imperial Messenger Service

[econ21]

Planned re-opening of the Imperial Diet

Honorable Electors,

As my loyal Duke Lothar has mentioned, you are all summoned to Nuremburg for a full session of the Diet to open in 1340. I look forward to seeing you all there.

However, there are some things I would ask you to leave behind. Duke Lothar has spoken of the terms on which he is providing Nuremburg for Imperial use. These terms were simply that we both agree to let the past be the past and work together for the good of the Reich.

The Reich has not been an innocent victim of the cataclysmic events of the recent years. Many of us bear some responsibility for creating the chaos. There are some of you who would look at me and the agenda of reunification as a key cause. There may be some justice in that view. As there may also be in the responsibility I ascribe to those who slew Kaiser Siegfried or sacked Constantinople or killed Pope Abate. Both sides may have some element of truth, but to seek to apportion blame now is unproductive.

As I have signalled by making the Lutheran and former rebel Peter von Kastilien my Prinz, I am willing to forget past disagreements and divisions. I ask you all to do the same.

Fritz von Kastilien's declaration seeks to reopen past wounds. It offers a view of history quite unrecognisable to me. And it is quite unnecessary. After the Byzantine extermination of Rome, no German could possibly advocate unifying with them. I can only think that the intention of the declaration is to embarass those, like myself, who once supported re-unification. If it is debated on the floor of the Diet, nothing good will come of it.

Electors, I will see you at the Diet, but I ask you not to come to refight old battles but to come prepared to start afresh, to rebuild a better Reich.



Kaiser Elberhard

[Ramses II CP]

(OOC: Despite some wrangling with the Kaiser the work of translating and distributing the Proclamation goes forward. It is one of the last documents to take advantage of the Imperial Messenger Service for distribution before the Diet reopens. Eventually every major city in every nation of Europe has a few copies arrive. Slowly, slowly the word spreads, but the true effects, positive and negative for the Reich, are, perhaps, too subtle to be appreciated without the perspective of history.)

The Complete Renunciation of the Catholic-Orthodox Unification

The undersigned do formally and publically renounce any further attempts at reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. This noble, if misguided, endeavor by important figures on both sides of the schism was permanantly undermined and made impossible by outright Byzantine treachery. At the last possible moment a plot was discovered by men of the Reich involving agents of Byzantium stealing the Reich's treasury, capturing and torturing members of the German nobility, and laying waste to the Reich's capital, Rome. Though some aspects of this vile scheme were unpreventable it's advancement has finally been entirely halted, and can now expect to be reversed.

That the other nations of Europe would muster their every effort to oppose the tragically flawed reunification of Orthodoxy with larger Christianity is understandable, however, today the Papacy and the Reich stand together in repudiating the very idea of unification. The idea of a 'Catholic Alliance' standing opposed to a Catholic nation in good standing with the Pope is just as impossible now as the idea of unification itself.

Pope Renaldus
Father Alexander Luther
Prinz Peter von Kastilien, Duke of Franconia
King Matthias Steffen, of Outremer
Duke Lothar Steffen, of Bavaria
Duke Arnold, of Austria
Duke von Salza, of Swabia
Count Dieter Bresch, of Madgeburg
Count Friedrich Karolinger, of Innsbruck
Crusader Andreas von Salzgitter
Count Fritz von Kastilien

[econ21]

THE OPENING OF THE IMPERIAL DIET

All Electors are immediately summoned to the Imperial Diet.

Any future proclamations to the Reich can be made on the floor of the Diet. Messengers are directed to the post any announcements there.

The Kaiser would like to thank Fritz von Kastilien for the high quality paper used in his recent Proclamations. The thickness, coarseness and opacity of the paper is a testament to the qualities of its author. Arabs in Outremer have reported novel uses for paper discovered by men in the far away lands of Cathay. Fritz's proclamation, spread across Europe, may do wonders for sanitation in the Western world.

Kaiser Elberhard