The Great Houses, with the votes accorded them in the Landsraad, are listed below as they appeared at the beginning of the reign of Emperor Paul Muad'Dib:
Following the accession of Emperor Leto II, the fortunes of the Great Houses declined drastically, as more power became concentrated in the Imperial Fortress. By the year 11000, fully one-third of the Great Houses had been reduced in status to Minor Houses, or had vanished altogether; less than a dozen Houses had stepped upward to fill their positions. The situation reached crisis level by 11500, when the Great Houses were reduced to half their number at the time of Leto's accession. The functioning of the Landsraad was imperiled by this loss of membership; its sessions became less and less frequent, and finally ceased completely before the end of Leto's reign. Former members of the Landsraad became known as "mediatized houses," giving them slightly higher status than the few surviving Houses Minor.
At their height, during the reigns of the last few Corrino emperors, the Great Houses functioned in surprisingly similar ways, given the diversity of their cultural backgrounds, political heritage, and philosophies of government. Most had private armies or guardsmen constituting a permanent protective force for both the noble families and their private and House properties; these standing armies sometimes rivaled the best that the Imperium had to offer. Many of the Houses had long-term transportation agreements with the Spacing Guild that ensured priority shipment of goods or troops during periods of high competition or crises. Such agreements could be overridden only by the Imperium during times of supreme interstellar stress. At the heart of each House, large or small, old or new, was the economic machine that financed the private troops, interstellar commerce, luxurious living, and aspirations to power.
Most of the Houses used a highly centralized form of governance, based on the hereditary or elected leader, a council consisting of economic and political advisors and the commanders of the private armies, and a regular series of audiences with the populations they governed. For all practical purposes, despite the claims of the Imperium and local traditions, the Houses ruled unchallenged in their local fiefs, which often consisted of one or more planets or planetary systems. Only a handful of planets in the Imperium (for example, Finally, Libermann, or Refuge) possessed Free Planet status, serving as open marketplaces to the known universe. The Houses used sophisticated long-range economic planning to diversify their holdings; most Houses learned from the early examples of one-market clans going bankrupt that diversity generally meant higher profits and greater stability, and followed a practice of reinvesting their money into as many different commodities as possible. By the time of Paul, only a few Houses still relied solely upon one particular drug, product, or service as their principal means of support.
At their worst, the Great Houses represented arrogance, privilege, selfishness, greed, lust for power, repression, military adventurism, political machination, and a blatant disregard for the rights or the desires of the populations they governed. At their best, as with the House of Atreides and others, the Great Houses were a workable form of government, providing guidance for the populace, economic welfare, justice, protection from Imperial bullying, security, the promise of lifetime service with fair wages and a comfortable retirement, selflessness, and a sense of community. Unfortunately, given humanity's penchant for misusing power of all kinds, the negative elements tended to outweigh the positive in most cases, and the long-term historical picture of the entire government system (of which the Great Houses only represented a part) is certain to show the problems inherent in the Imperial structure. Ultimately, it was not Leto II who destroyed the Great Houses; he had only to create the proper conditions, and the Houses slowly deteriorated. This decline perhaps says more about the Imperium as conceived by the Corrinos than it does about the Houses proper; the centralization of power in the hands of one man was simultaneously the greatest boon and largest flaw to the governance of the Houses. The fact that certain men or families managed to overcome the deficiencies of the system is a tribute more to their personalities or training than it is to the structure itself.
R.R.
Further references: GREAT HOUSES, ARMS, PENNANTS, AND INSIGNIA; ATREIDES, HOUSE; HOUSES MINOR. Most of the Great Houses have been the subjects of histories or analyses: see Landsraad Information Office, Standard History of the Great Houses, tr. Driiga Trap (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak), for a general work; also uncovered on Rakis is the complete 120-volume set of Baron Zarn Jeiil's comprehensive genealogy, The Great Houses in History (9654). Many volumes of Jeiil's work have been reprinted in the Temporary Series; check with your local Library Confraternity member for an up-to-date listing.
GREAT HOUSES, ARMS, PENNANTS, AND INSIGNIA
Throughout the history of the Imperium, distinctive devices identifying members of the Great Houses served several purposes; how long the practice endured shows how important the nobility considered those purposes. First, a coat of arms was the signal mark of noble status. It displayed both the owner's distinction and individuality — no other in the known worlds bore the same arms. Second, the coat was hereditary, and therefore proved descent from an ancestry that had achieved greatness, or at least notoriety. Third, when a figure or color from the coat was used as a badge by retainers, soldiers, or servitors, the association with the House was clear for all to see.
The origin of coats of arms is lost in the past. They were certainly used before the Imperium, and may derive from Terra itself. The names of the colors alone, unchanged in ten thousand years, prove the antiquity of the custom; what language they derive from no one can say. The approved colors are: or (yellow or gold), argent (silver), gules (red), azure (blue; compare The Azhar Book), sable (black), vert (green), purpure (compare modern Galach parfal), tenne (orange), and murrey (dark red).
Heraldry, the system of describing coats of arms, has a unique syntax, quicker illustrated than explained. Here, for example, is the blazon, or verbal description, of the arms of House Corrino: "White a lion sejant guardant erect or." That is, on a white field, a yellow or gold lion, seated facing the viewer.
House Corrino
Here are the arms of the more powerful Great Houses. The illustrations should clarify any doubt caused by unfamiliar terminology.
House Alman: Gules on an eagle displayed wings inverted white, beaked and armed or, a shield or with heart of the first (i.e., with a heart of the first color named).
House Atreides: Sable a falcon's head couped gules encircled by laurel branches vert.
House Kenric: Party per chevron or and vert (a field of yellow overlaid with green in the shape of a chevron) in chief (at the top) three bexants gules (red circles) fesswise (horizontally), in nombril (at bottom center) a rocket ascending argent.
House Wallach: Sable on a pale (a vertical band) argent, a closed book tenne encircled by a serpent vert.
House Wikkheiser: Azure an anchor or between alpha and omega white.
House Ophelion: Party per cross on 1 and 4 vert a lozenge (diamond) argent, on 2 and 3 or a cross formy sable.
House Tiiopa'il: Argent a bend (diagonal band) azure in sinister (left) base a pentagon of the last, in dexter (right) chief a wolf's head sable erased.
House Delambre: Party per fess azure and purpure a bar potenty argent, in chief a lasgun or, in nombril a harp or.
House Ezharian: Vert on a fess argent, three roses gules fesswise.
House Moritani: Azure on a bend argent a ringed planet gules, in sinister base and dexter chief a star of five points of the second.
House Fenring: Argent a chain sable palewise two lions rampant combatant gules.
House Harkonnen: White a ram's head caboshed guardant azure.
House Ordos: Or two bones white per saltire, in dexter chief entwined with ivy vert.
PENNANTS. The pennant served chiefly as a battle flag; flown on a long staff, it marked a rallying point for troops in combat. For easy recognition, it usually bore only the principal color or colors of the arms. The
House Atreides pennant, for example, was black and red; House Corrino's was white with a gold stripe, but as the pennant of the House (rather than the throne) was never used as a battle flag. The Imperial Battle Flag was that of the Sardaukar, plain black. Houses did not hesitate to adopt special battle flags for situations in which ambiguity might threaten command control.
BADGES. Those attached to a Great House often wore a badge to show their allegiance. The badge was usually the charge, or figure, from the coat of arms. Thus, the badge of Atreides was a falcon's head in red; that of Corrino, a golden lion; that of Moritani, a ringed planet in red.
THE COLLEGE OF HERALDS. The registry and approval of coats of arms rested with an office of the Landsraad called the College of Heralds. Three ranks of officers, kings of arms, heralds, and pursuivants, settled disputes over claims and administered the use of arms.
W.E.M.
Further references: A.C.F. Daiweez, A Complete Guide to Heraldry (Kaitain: New Burke); Z.P. Brug-Lidal, Historic Heraldry (Kaitain: New Burke).
GREAT MOTHER
A deity of vast complexity; older than any in pre-Imperium history. Possibly the earliest reference to Great Mother is found in the Book of Ancient Teachings1, which documents the aphorism, "Before there was anything, there was Great Mother." The Apocryphus, a similar text of the same period, records the tale of a young votary who, thinking to unveil the image of Great Mother Goddess in her temple at Gnosken, found his tongue forever after paralyzed from the shock of what he had seen.2 Both sources concur in suggesting an image of Great Mother as unapproachable and unknowable, a smiling mask covering multiple faces.
According to the Apocryphus, frequent mention of Great Mother is found in parchments dating back at least one hundred centuries before the Butlerian Jihad. A fragment of one manuscript on cosmogony purports to tell the story of how, at first, there was all-encompassing darkness and night, void of creatures, characteristics, or differentiation of any kind. The All was impenetrable, dreamless sleep. Yet there was One Pure Consciousness. As Time unfolded, there was creation; for Time itself was the Mother. From this beginning was formed the Cosmic Egg growing in the waters of the abyss that was all space, and all space was the Mother. As the waters rocked it, the Cosmic Egg burst and all things flowed from it; and this too was the Mother. So began the Many-in-One that is Creation, Life, and Destruction, also the Mother. The One is three, and they are the source, the continuation, and the end. The One is She from whose eternal form and substance the universe is made, and who is thereafter called sustainer of the cosmos, beguiler and enchantress, dark ravisher of memory and life, and restorer and renewer of All. With this, the fragment breaks off.3
However, definitive research completed under the direction of Dr. H.H. Remmiz, compiler of the final version of The History of Religious Iconography, concluded that the Dark Lady persona was an important if not crucial manifestation of Great Mother, or Great Goddess as she was sometimes called. In her role as Goddess, she was said to possess wisdom, intuitive knowledge and inspiration, and the divine power of fecundity. As supreme agent of fruitfulness, she was known as Gaea, or Earth Mother — the maternal link between heavenly and earthly worlds. But as Dark Lady, she was intentionally shrouded in mystery, symbolizing the Priestess of Night, the Queen and Mistress of the Realm of No Return. This domain was considered both the fount of womanhood and the well of death. Deep in the Lady's sanctuary was thought to lie the answer to the riddle of life and death, as repository of all spiritual treasure. Thus, in its ambivalence, the figure of Great Mother was, at one and the same time, that of the Terrible Mother who brings death and destruction, and the World Mother who contains the principle and spirit of all living things.4
This portrait of mystic duality is corroborated by entries in the Summa of Ancient Belief and Practice (c. 9050).5 There seems little doubt that in numerous incarnations, Great Mother was simultaneously a protective and a dangerous force, constructive and destructive in complementary fashion. Serving as the Mother of All Things, for example, she was accepted as the creatrix of the material universe alive with potential death. Clearly, most evidence supports the view that Great Mother, or Cosmic Mother, had two clearly discernible aspects since she was the embodiment of all that is opposite and ambiguous. Representing the universe in its balancing of the tension of all opposites, Great Mother came to mean both victory and defeat, oasis and desert. She became what is and what is not, the mystic center from which all comes, to which all returns, and from which all comes again. She became Wife, Lover, Daughter, and Mother to the Universal Great God himself.
A legend surrounding the appearance of a consort for the Paragon of Peace is contained in the Bios-Mythos Series. It relates how the god, while meditating, envisioned the kernel of his heart opening. Therein was revealed the Great Mother, who appeared as an image of the dawn of creation, the other of the Great One, and queen over all creatures in the universe. She was holding in her the primal power of all existence, the source of all birth. In this vision, she was the body of the worlds, the spirit of the transcendent, the cosmic dream from which all space and matter are derived.6
As a matter of record, an outer-world people, the Sehni, sanctified a Great Mother with two faces, symbolic of her role as reconciler of all antinomies. Called by the Sehni the Myriad-Named-One, and Lady-of-Abundance, she was for them a reminder of fertility and decay, dawn and darkness, saint and witch, wisdom and desire. Her two faces showed love and hate, beauty and horror. Sehni praise-poems (several have survived intact) indicate the two-fold view of Great Mother was a composite image of the principle of contradiction itself, without which the eternal process of creation would be impossible and without which the tension between the real and the ideal could not exist. Their theology developed the myth of the sacramental murder of Great Mother whose scattered body formed the creation of all the worlds of heaven and earth.7
Official studies of early agricultural societies, catalogued in the GEO section, Central Library, support the myriad-nature symbolism of Great Mother in ancient agrarian cultures. One such study, credited to Professor Ris Semajo, advances the theory that these cultures engaged in certain ritual practices involving Great Mother surrogates in order to ensure an abundant crop yield.8 He cites the myth of the Mother-as-Cornucopia, in which her very substance was believed to nourish the populace for the duration of several cycles. Prayers were offered to the Lady Womb and Tomb. Occasionally, a beautiful young female would be selected to serve as holy incarnation of Lady Womb. At the end of the harvest season, she would be dressed in robes of green and gold plantanes and sacrificially dedicated to Great Mother in gratitude and supplication.
A primitive picto-disc, originating on Terra and donated to the Royal Archives by a private collector, depicts Great Mother as the Goddess of Night seated on a throne between two columns. In her palm, she holds two keys. She is crowned with a lunar crescent, and appears to lean sideways against an artifact bearing the inscription "Sphinx." The feet of the Goddess rest on a surface composed of dark and light squares. The deciphering table accompanying the disc makes the cryptic symbology plain. The columns represent solar and lunar principles. Of the two keys, one is gold like the sun and signifies the bright light of reason; the other is silver like the moon, signifying the luminescent light of imagination and intuition. The lunar crescent of her crown symbolizes the eternal cycle that is the phenomenal universe. The "Sphinx," a symbol of cosmic riddles, implies ambiguity. The alternating squares below the Goddess' feet image the contingent nature of all existence, subject to chance and the law of opposites. The whole plate is entitled, "Enigma."9
Historians of the Butlerian Jihad noted that the image of Great Mother underwent a profound transformation as a result of several wandering religious sects teaching that she was Mother Witch, Sybil, and Sorceress in one. She was characterized by their dogma as treacherous and subtle, covetous of subservience and surrender. Named "Belladon" by them, she commanded respect and obedience, especially for the awe
some prophetic and conjuring powers she was thought to possess. Her being was reputed to be at home in the abyss between sacred and profane covenants. At once terrible and beautiful, she was emblematized as a snakewoman who enchants her worshipers away from the path of righteous doing. It was believed she poisoned the air with sweet sounds that bewitched the soul. Some described her as the pain of the quest, the reality of suffering, and the absolute of selfsurrender. Others called her a devourer of men whose proper sign was the moon, which inflicts lunatic obsession and madness. For them, she was the conjurer of all shapes and forms, the Witch of the World holding all in her primordial spell.10
Later ages restored to Great Mother a more benign countenance. While vestiges of Mother Witch remained, these took on less mystical and more aesthetic form. The Azhar Book notes a superstition, popularly held in antiquity, that the Witch-Mother, Anjana, was in reality a young and beautiful goddess with bright, light eyes and golden hair. She would disguise herself as an old woman only in order to test the charity of her subjects. Her true form, however, was clothed in a tunic of flowers and silver stars, symbolizing earth and heaven, procreation and spiritual regeneration. She reputedly carried a golden staff which transformed all it touched into riches. Her habitat was an underground bower filled with the treasure of the spirit."11
References to this more spiritual and idealized Great Mother are available in those portions of the ancient teachings handed down by the Navachristians of Chusuk.12 Their faith projected a Divine Mother image whose saintliness was depicted alternately as an aureole of stars about her head or a crown of joined lily stalks. Known by her followers as Mother of Universal Charity, she was associated with vegetation that is ever green and with the bloom called "amaranth," meaning unfading. In various forms and guises, this Great Mother stood for devotion, care, sympathy, and love.
The Dune Encyclopedia Page 60
