Brock's Toll
Overview
Custodianship of Brock's Toll is an Imperial title awarded to either a Marcher or Dawnish citizen. It is a National position, appointed through a unique method.
Responsibilities
The title holder is expected to ensure that Brock's Bridge remains open to Dawnish and Marcher yeomen alike. The actual job of maintaining the bridge falls to civil servants and local labourers, the majority of them Navarr. They charge a small toll for yeomen of whichever nation does not control the bridge, which both provides the sinecure for the title holder, and goes toward the irregualr repairs on the bridge and the paths leading to it.
Powers
Small Income
As a sinecure, Brock's Toll provides an income drawn from the tolls paid by yeomen using the bridge.
The holder of the sinecure receives XX Crowns in income each season.
Selection
The title is selected by a small tourney during the Summer Solstice. Five Marcher yeomen face five Dawnish yeomen in a brutal, non-lethal fight with the last competitor standing claiming the proceeds of Brock's Toll in the coming year.
The title can only be held by a Marcher, or by a Dawnish yeoman. In the event that a Dawnish yeoman holder of the title becomes a noble, they are expected to immediately surrender the title.
Removal
The holder of the title serves until they die, step down or are revoked.
The Keeper can be revoked by the General Assembly, the Assembly of Nine, and the National Assembly of either the Marches or Dawn, depending on the nationality of the title holder
History
The previous
Brock's Toll
Brock's Toll is a famous toll bridge situated roughly halfway between Dawn and the Marches, but historically claimed by both. While it isn't much used by wealthy merchants or nobles, the road that this bridge lies on carries most of the agricultural traffic between Dawn and the Marches, and the operator of the Toll is allowed by tradition to claim one sack from each cart's load.
The bridge is so old that when it was first constructed the Vallorn still controlled most of Miaren. In the early days of the Empire this site changed hands between the two nations several times, often with violence. Even when Earls and Stewards forbade their people to fight, rowdy yeomen would often take matters into their own hands and the Navarr soon became sick of breaking up scuffles over ownership.
Eventually the Imperial Senate took matters into their own hand and decreed that ownership of the Toll would be decided by an annual competition of arms between the yeoman who were so eager to fight. In time this evolved into the modern practice of the Brock's Buffet - a brutal (nonlethal) five-aside melee with only one winner left standing to claim ownership for the coming year.
Since 372 YE the Buffet has been won by the Marches, with the most recent incumbent being Bobby Shanks of House Bolholt in 377 YE.