This is a summary of The Early Fourth Century, chapter eight of A Brief History of the Order. The original is in 17 parts.
- Throughout the early part of the fourth century, tensions rise between those who support the new schools and sub-houses of the Year of Spring, and those who oppose their departure from traditional Cholaeic values. This tension is exacerbated by the rapid rise of the young covenants Plenilunium Album and Prima Lux, and by the decline of many of the Order's older covenants. The Order begins to divide into two political camps: the traditionalists, and the liberals, who are also sometimes known as "Plenilunials" after the enormously successful Covenant Plenilunium Album.
- House Cristofer becomes increasingly interventionist in this period. Its magi establish themselves as the arbiters of the one-in-four oath, and gain for Cristofereans recognition as mediators and observers for the Order as a whole. Despite Annalum's official stance of political neutrality, it quickly comes to be perceived as an ally of the Plenilunials.
- House Manere schisms in 310, when its magi cannot agree on the succession of a Primus. The two contenders—Tyndareus of Prima Lux, and Vespa of Ad Vim Per Veritatem—are each acclaimed Primus by their followers, and the House divides into Dawn and Western Houses Manere. When the more moderate Vespa is overthrown by the sworn enemy of the Dawn Mediastinus in 316, the Order loses hope that the two Houses Manere might be reunited. The First Manerean Schism serves as a focal issue for the tensions between traditionalists and Plenilunials and facilitates the rise of partisan politics within the Order.
- Epidemic and civil strife give rise to a growing sense of religious acopalysm within both the Order and Tympania as a whole. In this period both Cletia and Theophraste the Younger, both of House Aegidius, produce works reflecting this trend: Cletia writes her Eschaton, and Theophraste prescribes a highly self-denying variant of Aegidian ascetisism in his work de intellecti.
- This same sense of apocalypse lends force to the rise of syncretistic mystery cults in the cities of the Near Dawn and their spread into Tympanian lands. A group of Circulan Lemmites found Quintus Opacus to keep an eye on the cults and prevent their expansion.
- An alliance is formed between the followers of the new Primus Manere Mediastinus, the magi of the Carnifex, and the Lemmites of Quintus Opacus to bring about the destruction of Covenant Prima Lux, which they believe to be a hotbead of diabolry. The Carnificians and Quintus Opacans begin to seek a way to prove to the rest of the Order that the Prima Luxians are diabolists.
