King’s Rest
There’s a lot of talk these days in our country (Croatia) about making Sunday an obligatory holiday, pros and cons, etc… This reminded us of this little piece of lore that’s been lying in Nuclino for a while, called “King’s Rest”, as part of our calendar series, so let’s share it:
As part of his efforts in modernising the Kingdom to be in touch with the changing structure of society (from the mostly agricultural to an industrial one), King Leonard the Wise introduced a law guaranteeing a day off to every working animal, so that all animals may have the time to enjoy arts and sciences.
This was a formalization of an existing norm for farmers of the market day, in which farmers went to the markets to sell things, and other animals bought the items, as was similar in many regions of our world as well (see Nundinae for example).
However, codifying this in law made sense to Leonard as the exact day in the week wasn’t unified across the Kingdom before the introduction of the King’s Rest (the northern Lynx-held regions had Midday Markets on the third day of the week, and so on) . This made organisation of commerce and general trade easier and also allowed animals to all have a common day of socialising with each other (resulting in the 1820 “cub boom” among other things).
The unified free day was also benificial in the creation of the Kingdom’s first worker’s unions, as many professions needed a day when they could all meet and organise that was outside the watchful eye of certain workplace cadres, being a thorn in the side of several industry leaders. Even so, the obligatory day off remained even after Leonard’s reign, the King’s Rest law was renamed to Lionday, and has remained in place in both the reigns of Leopold and King Lav.
Lest you think we’re just making these things up out of boredom, actually – aside from botany, history and chemistry, Charles will also dabble in Kingdom law. One of the side-quests in the game will have the player dive deep into the minutiae of the Kingdom’s legal system to try and figure out a situation regarding the non-implementation of Lionsday in a certain coal mine. Here’s what happens to start off the quest (no spoilers, don’t worry):
As seen in a by-law regarding Lionsday – “during times of distress or hardship, in order to preserve the smooth operation of certain industries, the King’s Rest may be waived by local administrators for a limited time.
This waiver may not extend beyond the period of distress, and should be duly compensated as a regular workday.” Of course, this becomes a point of contention between the workforce and the bureau, and Charles has to use his skills as a bylaw-interpreting-hedgehog to help one side out.
Sure, jump on our Discord and tell us all about what you think of work-free Sundays or whatnot.