The Androfrancine Order appears in Ken Scholes’ novel Lamentation, which I’ve reviewed elsewhere.

Following the collapse of a mighty empire in a war of vast destruction, P’Andro Whym formed the Androfrancine Order to preserve the learning of elder days, to teach useful magic and technology, and to retain and suppress harmful knowledge of the sort that caused the destruction in the first place. Over the following centuries, the order has become the central institution in all the land. The head of the Order is called the Pope; and although the land is now divided into many sometimes squabbling nations, he is regard as King over them all. Meanwhile, the Brothers of the Order send out archaeological teams to the ruined lands seeking yet more lost knowledge, which they preserve in the Library. The Pope is revered by all, and the Order along with him; but the Order is also resented for its control of technology, and for the subtle and secret machinations by which it maintains its position.

Brothers in the Order are celibate, at least in principle, though they sometimes have bastard children; such bastards are raised by the Order as the “Orphans of P’Andro Whym”, are well educated, and often enough join the Order themselves. Between the Brothers and the Pope is a hierarchy of Bishops and Archbishops.

The role the Order plays in Schole’s world is patterned after the role of the Catholic Church in uniting Western civilization and preserving various texts in the scriptoria of countless monasteries after the fall of Rome. This is clearly indicated by the use of the terms “Order”, “Bishop”, “Archbishop”, and “Pope”. But the fascinating thing about the Order is that despite its religious trappings there’s nothing particularly religion-like about it. It has a hierarchy, it has the Gospels of P’Andro Whym, the Pope is honored as a spiritual father by the Brothers…but there is no theology at all. There are mental disciplines of some sort—the Brothers recite quatrains of the Gospels of P’Andro Whym under stress—but the content of the “faith” appears to be entirely materialistic and not at all supernatural. Think of the Abbey of St. Leibowitz without the Catholic faith, and you’ve got it.

For a wonder, there are no Bishops Behaving Badly. It’s clear from Scholes’ book that the members of the order are capable of error and hubris, but for the most part they seem to be carrying out their mission sincerely and with the common good in mind.

It’s such a different conception than usual that most of the categories I’ve come up with don’t apply. It doesn’t make sense to ask whether the beliefs of the Androfrancine Order are true or not, for example, because the Order doesn’t really address eternal verities. And it makes for an interesting book. Ultimately, though, the Androfrancine Order suffers from incoherence. It simply isn’t a believable institution.

The Catholic Church managed to unite Europe because Europe was Christian. But the Androfrancine Order doesn’t really seem to have a religion. There doesn’t seem to be anything about it that would account for the esteem and reverence in which it is held by the population at large; and there’s quite a bit about it that would give powerful men good reason to storm the library and sieze its contents. I could see the Pope of the Order being hated and feared. I could see the Order ruling over mankind with an iron fist. But that doesn’t seem to be how it works. Instead, the Order does what it does, and the people let them, and it seems very unlikely.

There are a number of robots, called “mechoservitors”, in the book, one of which becomes nearly human mentally and emotionally. This is in keeping with the materialist nature of Androfrancine teaching; if intellect is no more than atoms in motion, there’s no reason why a robot can’t be human.

To sum up, we have a number of themes in play here:

• A Pseudo-Catholic Hierarchy
• Monasticism (of a sort)
• Monks Preserving Knowledge
• Philosophical Materialism
• Historically Incoherent: This is a value judgement of my own. What I mean is that the social setting at the beginning of Scholes’ book is one that I don’t think could actually have arisen—the forces what would have caused it to develop in those directions and made it stable once there are lacking. Or, of course, they might be hidden from the reader; this is the first book in a series.

Update: I got a note from Ken Scholes himself! He had this to say about the Order:

They worship the “light” of human knowledge and accomplishment. Secular humanists and behaviorists start a religion among a small band of survivors to try and protect what’s left of humanity from itself and save what can be saved of its past. Of course, it backfires down the road a bit despite their best efforts at control.

So there you go!

The Church of Tehlu appears in Patrick Rothfuss’ novel The Name of the Wind. It is the established religion in the regions in which the story takes place.

Rothfuss tells us fairly little about the Church of Tehlu as an institution. We know that there are priests, and that the priests have the support of the rulers. There are persistent rumors about pedophilia among the priesthood; in one city, the street urchins sometimes accept help from the priests of Tehlu, but run when invited to come inside the church. We also know that some of the priests are zealous to seek out and arrest heretics. The general notion is of a corrupt and venal priesthood: Priests Behaving Badly. We do meet one saintly man, one who lives with and cares for the street children, especially those with special needs; and it is hinted that he might once have been a priest of Tehlu. Thus, we have the sense that if there are saints, they are not found in the church.

Rothfuss tells us nothing about the practice of the church. Not only is the main character pretty much unconcerned with religion, there’s little sense of religion playing any significant part in the day-to-day lives of the people he runs into. If there’s a regular day of worship, or any usual sacrifices or tithes, or any daily practice of religion, we are not informed. We do meet one street bully who’s concerned not to anger Tehlu, and we gather that the country folk are more religious (read, more credulous) than the city folk.

There is a yearly festival that is celebrated all across the land that celebrates Tehlu, who delivered mankind from fierce demons.

Tehlu, it seems, is the creator of all that is and of mankind in particular. Tehlu looks down upon earth and sees mankind behaving badly all across the land. In all the world, he finds one good person, a woman whose name I don’t remember, and he speaks with her, and asks petulantly why he shouldn’t destroy mankind for their sins? She argues with him, and asks him how he expects mankind to act, when they are so plagued with demons? They have no time to be good, being so afflicted. Tehlu then incarnates himself in her womb, is born as a man, and grows to adulthood in a matter of months. Declaring himself to be Tehlu, he travels the world hunting down and killing the demons. (As so often in fantasy novels, demons are portrayed as corporeal entities who can be slain.) At last Tehlu gives his life to slay the last of the demons, using a vast iron wheel to cook the demon to death, and returns to the heavens. Hence, the symbol of Tehlu worship is the wheel—which, surprisingly, does not appear to be a symbol of the wheel of time.

The festival celebrates Tehlu’s victory over the demons. During the festival, which lasts a week, the young and young at heart in each town dress as demons and roam about, wreaking havoc, except to those that invoke Tehlu; and one man dresses as Tehlu and roams about banishing the demons one by one.

The essential question to ask about any religion, fictional or otherwise, is “Is it true?” Some fictional religions are intended to be true within the fictional world, and some are not. I’ll use the world theosphere to connote the supernatural reality of a fictional world.

So, is the Church of Tehlu true within the theosphere of Rothfuss’ world? It would appear not. At least, the main character, a man of wider experience than most, thinks that the church of Tehlu is simply a convenient fiction that most people use to explain a world they do not understand. There are no demons; but there are creatures that it’s convenient to call demons when dealing with the simple (i.e., almost anyone but the main character). The true nature of Rothfuss’ theosphere remains opaque.

Thus, The Name of the Wind uses the following standard tropes:

• Priests Behaving Badly: as explained above.
• Esotericism: the ultimate truth about the world is veiled from almost everyone, and from the conventionally religious most of all. The hero, however, knows better.
• Corporeal Demons: As is usual in fantasy, the line of demarcation between the physical and spiritual realms is muddy.
• Heterodox Saints: saintly behavior is inversely proportional to orthodox church membership.
• Absence of Practice: although religion is present in the book, practice of religion is conspicuous by its absence. It’s not clear, though, whether practice is absent from Rothfuss’ world, or simply from Rothfuss’ book.