Brotherhood of Foresters



The Brotherhood of Foresters is a fraternal organization, based mostly in Edury, which draws its linage from guilds of foresters from medieval and early modern Edury. While there are many fraternal and social groups in Edury, the Foresters are notable for their avowed apolitical stance; most other such groups in Edury play both club and political party. This is largely believed to come from the days when guilds of foresters would swear to serve the people of a particular area, but not those who ruled it, due to the quickly changing fortunes in Eduran politics and the shortage of people with the skills to efficiently manage forests. Today, the Brotherhood has only ceremonial roles in managing forestry, especially since so many Eduran citizens do not live in heavily forested or rural areas.

Forestry (in terms of the fraternal organization) is organized into Lodges, where initiates are termed "Freemen/Brothers of the Wood", slightly more experienced members are called "Wachters" and are lead by Woods Masters (or past woods masters.) These, of course, are meant to emulate the old ranks of the medieval guilds.

History
Any histories which claim that the Brotherhood is descended from the appointed forester of a bronze age king are agreed to be apocryphal in nature.

The Brotherhood is recognized to be descended from numerous organizations of old foresters in various regions in Edury. These groups would not typically act as lumberjacks, but would manage the forests to designate which trees were ready for harvest and which purposes, as well as maintaining roads and tracks through wooded areas, manage rivers and streams, and defend the people who lived in and around the forests from criminals and wild animals.

Due to the various skills required for these activities, and the long times it took to train people for this job, most forestry organizations in Edury swore only to manage the forests, not as part of any state, but as a separate organization. Due to the quickly changing regimens in the Eduran provinces and states, this vow was usually recognized by the powers-that-be, who would appoint their own lumberjacks to work with the foresters to harvest trees deemed ready to be felled. Due to the precious nature of wood, and the numerous uses of it, these foresters were held in high regard, and as such, usually required that prospective members be free commoners, rather than bonded serfs.

Through the 16th to the 19th centuries, these groups merged and gave up more and more of their actual duties as state-appointed arborists would manage the precious resource of lumber. It is unknown when the central Brotherhood started to take over from the individual guilds, but it happened sometime around the 18th century. Today, the Brotherhood is a purely fraternal organization, which sometimes takes up charitable causes or ceremonial forestry duties.

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