| Ichabod von Chronistein | |
|---|---|
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| Alleged portrait of Ichabod, c. 1566 | |
| Lord of Chronistein | |
| Reign | 1565 – 1648 |
| Predecessor | Title Created |
| Born | 9 January 1523 Kahla, Thuringia, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 30 October 1611 Chronistein, Thuringia, Rätian Union |
| Father | Jeremiah von Jenagotha |
| Mother | Philipina of Thuringia |
| Religion | Anabaptism |
Ichabod von Chronistein (9 January 1523 - 30 October 1611) was a German writer, historian, and statesmen, famous for his documentation of the political history of the Rätian Union and the Holy Roman Empire at large during the Forty Years' War. He became one of the most famous chroniclers of the 16th century, assembling the most complete collections of histories, plays, short stories, and myths in Germany. He is credited with beginning the modern study and tracking of genealogy and family trees, which he used to great effect documenting the hundreds of members of his own House of Jenagotha.
Born a grandson of the Thin White Duke of Thuringia via a minor branch – his mother was an illegitimate daughter of the Duke while his father came from the Elisabethan branch – Ichabod had a claim to nobility but was raised relatively poor. After the Thin White Duke's death his descendants had been less welcoming of distant branches of the family, leaving hundreds of descendants unlanded or in low social standing. Ichabod's ancestors belonged to this group of unnotable Jenagothas, having squandered most of their wealth and prestige before Ichabod's birth. His father, Jotham, had died relatively young in war, and Ichabod was partially raised by his uncle Lael, who lived a largely unassuming life as a carpenter. Jotham had managed to negotiate a marriage to an unimportant daughter of the Duke in a bid to stay relevant to his fellow dynasts, thereby controversially marrying his half-sister.
As a young man Ichabod began an education at the University of Erfurt and showed a deep interest in his heritage and history. He was identified as an extremely smart individual, being able to memorize entire books and musical pieces. His other hobbies included board games such as draughts, and he frequently challenged people across Thuringia to duels in the game, going undefeated. Although he was expected to go into a career in law, Ichabod had little interest in the profession and left after a few years. He would take part in a number of cases in front of his local rätia, but soon became more famous for his apt summaries of council meetings and their politics and feuds more so than his legal proceedings. In 1550 he retired from the law and became a full time writer and political commentator, earning him both respect and ire from various politicians. He famously criticized the indecisive government of Marcus Cranach and wrote plays satirizing the political situation of the day. After 1550 Ichabod swore off participating in politics and never again appeared before a rätia personally.
Ichabod is most famous for his in-depth study into the genealogy of the House of Jenagotha. He became the utmost authority on tracking and cataloging the family's many members, eventually becoming an important resource for later leaders of Thuringia. He set about creating uniform terms to describe each branch of the family, connected distant members, and recorded the most complete chronicles of each member. He famously created terms such as the "Bankerts" to describe certain branches of the family, which later took up political connotations, while more explicitly political terms he coined include the "Left vs Right" dichotomy and the "Second Party System". Ichabod's study into the Jenagothas revealed that a vast number had become disennobled or even left destitute, and he petitioned the Thuringian government to create a stipend and other measures to preserve the dynasty. After years of writing Ichabod's fame grew and he eventually convinced Louis, Apostolic President to offer a yearly salary to all members of the family and opportunities for housing, as Louis believed preserving the holy bloodline was of the utmost importance. Conversely Gedeon I of Thuringia was against the practice, believing that the strongest would prevail, and that Ichabod was a conman.
Ichabod eventually used his funds from publishing and his stipend from the government to construct a holding of his own, Chronistein, after his nickname of "The Chronicler". Over the next several decades Chronistein would see a turbulent rise and fail, becoming a refuge for writers and artists, before later becoming a monument to Ichabod's own hermitage. After 1570 Ichabod rarely traveled, preferring to live exclusively in his tower in Chronistein. He began to communicate with the outside world almost exclusively through messengers, and hired people to preform all tasks for him. Critics and radical thinwhitedukists would point to Ichabod as an example of extreme decadence and aristocracy that the government stipends had enabled, while others praised Ichabod's self-made image. Later historians would instead view his erratic behavior and extreme isolationism through the lens of mental illness. Instead of traveling, Ichabod created a trusted network of informants and other authors, who reported to him goings on across the Empire, while in Chronistein he created one of the area's most robust printing press centers.
Ichabod's histories often dipped into mythology later in his life. He documented all the various rumors and claimed lineages popularized across Thuringia and sought to make sense of them, and he ultimately popularized the controversial idea that the Thin White Duke was a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. Ichabod's curiosity soon turned him toward the Meisids, and he compiled a series of works documenting their genealogy and relation to Thuringian nobility, which caused a panic in the nobility against "crypto-Meisids". Ichabod's later tomes documenting the complete Meisid family, mythology, and hierarchy became censored and took up a mythologized position in their own right. His other niche writings include the genre of "alternate history", where he theorized how various events in history could have played out differently.
By the time of the Forty Years' War, no person could claim to have seen Ichabod in the flesh in almost a decade, as he had perfected his elaborate network of servants and middlemen. The fortified tower of Chronistein became an unkempt and largely forgotten place, however, Ichabod continued to churn out works even in his old age, and he earned the ominous title of the "Man in the High Castle". In 1602 he published a history of the Frankfurt Phase and background information legitimizing Joktan of Hesse, earning him the ire of the Catholic League as a propagandist. As such, a stated goal of the secret League of Jessen, an extremist, Catholic organization in eastern Germany, became the destruction of the Chronistein tower.
In 1611 Ichabod died of old age while in Chronistein, and this was not discovered until days later. After following a set of very intricate instructions to ensure that it was truly necessary for intervention to occur, Ichabod's sanctuary was broken into at the behest of his great-niece Masimira, and his body was found and recovered. As per Ichabod's will, his facilities at Chronistein were used to continue his work past his death, developing into the famed Chronistein Institute, while his body was donated to science. This inadvertently led to numerous conspiracy theories and accusations that his body was finding use among the occult.
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