Lemuel was taken on as an apprentice while his master was deep in the process of revising his Cholaeic Code. His observation of Cristofer's futile attempts to lead the Order to ratify a unifying Code seems to have made a deep impression on him, as he was to remain for the rest of his life the Order's strongest advocate of unifying law. Despite his best efforts, however, Lemuel was unable to prevent the decline of the Council, and over the course of his lifetime he was to witness the dissolution of all central authority within the Cholaeic Order.
Although rather weak both magically and physically, Lemuel was a strong orator and a fine diplomat. Always a voice for control and regulation, he was the only member of House Cristofer to speak in favor of an Order-wide proscription on political activism, and although he was to vote against the ratification of e chao omnia as Order Code in 229, he did so only after a long and difficult personal struggle. Over the next years, as the Order divided over the question of Evasendian politics, Lemuel struggled to reconcile the two factions; his efforts are often thought to have been the only thing preventing the Council from schisming altogether after 230.
Lemuel was responsible for the reconvention of the Council in the aftermath of the crisis of 232, and from that point on, he was to gradually take over Cristofer's duties and responsibilities as First Speaker of the Council of the Order of Cholae. He led the Council to its unanimous proscription on political service in 232, and while he was opposed to the idea of the Cholaeic Diaspora, foreseeing that it would reduce even further Order unity and control, he nonetheless oversaw the organization of the diaspora parties later that year. By 235, he had become the First Speaker of the Council in all but name.
Although often visibly irritated by the extent to which his nephew Ennius, founder of Annalum, had supplanted him in the mind of the Order as the de facto leader of House Cristofer, Lemuel was nonetheless a great supporter of Annalum. He sent his first filius Reynard to Annalum help the magi there organize and catalog the new library in 238, and over the next thirty years, his patronage of the booksellers and travelling merchants of Evasendia was so avid that it became difficult even to find a single book or manuscript in the city of Evasendia: Lemuel purchased them all and shipped them straight to Annalum.
Over the next years, the slow but steady decline of the Council was to become Lemuel's driving concern. He repeatedly petitioned both the Primus Manere, Luke, and the sole surviving mage of House Touccio, Cyril, to serve on the Council as representatives of their Houses in the years following the diaspora, and on more than one occasion attempted to persuade the leaders of Houses Aegidius and Savacion to return to Evasendia. His efforts were to no avail, however, and the Council's role as a regulatory body for the Order as a whole was seriously weakened by the fact that it was composed of members of only three of the seven Houses of the Order.
The Council's refusal to take action against Helde after the fall of Melos in 242 and its inability to enforce its edicts against Vindex in 245 and 250 were dramatic demonstrations of its waning power, and after 250, the Council's younger members became increasingly reluctant to remain at Evasendia. As early as 235, Lemuel had dared to rebuke the founder Eleanor for advising her student Xyris to seek admission at one of the diaspora covenants; over the next decades, the Council's lack of young blood was to become one of his obsessions. He was, however, to prove incapable of convincing even his own descendants to remain on the Council: his second filius Evander joined Annalum in 253, and ten years later, his favorite grandson Austyn was to do the same.
Lemuel succeeded Cristofer as the leader of the House after Cristofer's death in 252. The title of First Speaker of the Council of the Order of Cholae, however, passed on to Eleanor, who was now the sole surviving founder of the Order. There is some evidence that Lemuel was unhappy with this decision: over the next years, he was to nag Eleanor incessantly, exhorting her to exert her authority more often, and he was furious with her when, in 258, she did not even attempt to prevent the retirement of Tresmillia of House Lem from the Council.
Tresmillia's retirement left the Council composed of representatives of Houses Cristofer and Eleanor alone, and when the Annalum Cristofereans released their first Cristoferean Census later that year, the entire Order recognized that if anyone could legitimately lay claim to the role of central authority for the Order, it would not be the Council, but Annalum. It was the Annalum magi who organized the First Tribunal in 269, and the Tribunal itself was held, not at Evasendia, but at Annalum itself. Nonetheless, out of respect for the tradition of the Council, all of its members were invited to sit in positions of high honor at the First Tribunal. Lemuel himself attended as the representative of House Cristofer.
Suspect from the start as an Eleanorean ally, Lemuel cooperated with the prosecution throughout 270, even aiding in the execution of his grandson Austyn. Nonetheless, in 271 he was formally accused of theocratism by Nexus of House Manere. The accusation of Lemuel marked the turning point of the Eleanorean purge: Nexus had gone too far, and when he further claimed that Cristofer himself had been a theocrat, the assembled magi of the First Tribunal walked out, the Annalum Cristofereans demanded that the Antrum prosecutors leave the library immediately, and the Eleanorean trials came to an end.
In the aftermath of the First Tribunal, everyone recognized that the Council at Evasendia was effectively disbanded—everyone, that is, but Lemuel himself. Although he was invited to remain at Annalum, Lemuel refused to abandon the Council; in 271 he returned to Evasendia along with his filius Reynard and Reynard's apprentice Contumacia—the last surviving members of the Council of the Order of Cholae. Delayed on their journey home, they did not reach Evasendia until early the next year. News of the destruction of Annalum and the death of Lemuel's younger filius Evander was waiting for them when they arrived back home.
Over the next year, Lemuel watched his sole surviving filius Reynard sink into madness. In time, Reynard came to believe that he was living in the heyday of the Council, surrounded by the Founders, and he was humored in this belief by his apprentice Contumacia, who researched the lives of the founders so as to more believably participate in her master's delusional conversations. Lemuel enjoined the young woman repeatedly to leave Evasendia and seek training with the Annalum magi, but she was unwilling to abandon her master.
Late in 272, returning home one day to find his raving filius talking with a girl pretending to be Aegidius, Lemuel asked Contumacia once more to leave Evasendia and when she once more refused, calmly retired to his quarters and hanged himself.
Lemuel's postumous reputation within the Order was largely defined by his biographer and grand-daughter Contumacia, whose account of his life portrays him as a martyr to Cristofer's dreams of Order unity. The younger of the two surviving branches of House Cristofer descends from Lemuel through his grandchildren Caesius and Contumacia. He taught two students:
- Reynard (C10), from 223 to 238
- Evander (C13), from 238 to 253
