Welcome to Majipoor

Overview

The human history of Majipoor begins about fourteen thousand years before the time of Lord Valentine, when humans first landed on the planet and settled on Alhanroel. At that time the planet was inhabited by a race called the Piurivar as well as a wide variety of animals of varying size and intelligence. Ancient ruins of unknown origin scattered the central plain of Alhanroel, but it is not conclusively known whether the Piurivar or some previous off-worlders built them. With the humans came other races who found the planet a good place to settle down. Humans took a liking to the great peak (30 miles high) they called Castle Mount and installed weather control devices to make it habitable from top to bottom.

Many of the old technological marvels of the days of colonization survive (an infrastructure of transportation and communication, the weather control, and so on) from the days of colonization, but in general, life is more medieval than modern on Majipoor, and manual or animal labor often accomplishes tasks performed with machines in a spacefaring society. Majipoor, though outside the lanes of interstellar commerce, does get occasional visitors from other planets, and there is a spaceport on the continent of Alhanroel.

Very little information is presented in Silverberg's writing to give us a clue about human or alien society beyond Majipoor. It seems sensible to presume that some sort of interstellar government or structure existed at the time of colonization, and that the rarity of outside visitors corresponds to a breakdown in those structures.

Narrative

The legendary Lord Stiamot (about 8000 years before Valentine's era) led the off-world settlers in rounding up the Piurivar and confining them to a reservation called Piurifayne in the central part of Zimroel. This conflict (chronicled partly in The Time of the Burning) is the only generally known significant break in peace of Majipoor's recorded history. Lord Stiamot is also responsible in great part for the shape of the government of Majipoor.

Chronology

About the dates

On Majipoor, dates are usually specified by the year in the reign of the Coronal, which may be fine during any given person's lifetime, but is very awkward for historians and readers. For consistency, I'm choosing a absolute point: the year of colonization by humans. Since the details of the colonization have never been elaborated, we are free to vaguely call some year Zero, when in fact colonization certainly took place over an extended period. If we wanted to be exact, we would probably choose the date of the first human landing on Majipoor as the starting point, but in the absence of details, AC will do. All the dates in the following chart are conjecture and interpolation based on events and references in the sources.

In addition to the Year Zero, I'm choosing a few other places to work from. For example, the events in Lord Valentine's Castle are said to take place about 14,000 years after the colonization. For convenience, I'm saying that the opening scene in that book happens in the year 14000 AC, then working backward and forward from there for other events described in relative terms in the books. Similarly, I'm saying that Sorcerers of Majipoor starts in the year 13000 AC, since it is said to be around a thousand years before Valentine. And so on.

If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm willing to listen.

About the sources

See the Sources page for details and abbreviations.

Silverberg is generally vague about the precise dates of things, and I can't blame him for that—he's an author, not a historian, and it's up to us fanatics to work out the puzzle of history.

The Chart

This chart is based in great degree upon my memories of stories I have not read in many years, so may contain mistakes. As I revisit the works, I'll fill in details. Visitor comments are much welcome—please cite the references on which dates are based.

Some notes on Coronals and Pontifices...

Struin - Guadeloom - Calintane - Siminove

Thraym - Vildivar

Scaul - Spurifon

Valentine - Hissune

Stiamot - Damlong

Sigmar - Melikand

Kanabo - Sirrath

Prankipin

Hunzimar

Meyk

Dizimaule

Dekkeret

Prestimion

Arioc

Spurifon

Pinitor