Centenarians

The Centenarians—also called the Hundreders—are a cohort within the mathic world associated with a centennial cycle of Apert. Within the Concent of Saunt Edhar, they maintain their own math across a meadow and wall from the Decenarian community and are accorded dedicated space in the Mynster.

First Appearance and Context

Within the Concent of Saunt Edhar, they are situated in the adjacent Centenarian Math across a meadow from the neighboring Decenarian Math, and they have a reserved south nave within the Mynster.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Centennial opening: Their gate opens only once each century. Avout note that if a Tenner became a Hundreder during an Apert, that person would share the current opening but would almost certainly not live to see the following centennial one.
• Preparatory questioning: In the years leading up to an opening, Hundreders are said to conduct interviews through a grate in the dark of the Upper Labyrinth to gather information and ready their community.
• Scheduled rooftop access: At night, portcullises allocate sole access to the rooftop Starhenge so that a single math uses the stair and roof at a time; these arrangements are administered under the authority of the Warden Regulant.
• Farewell and Evocation: During a Voco service, the Hundreders address a hymn of mourning and farewell for a named member being Evoked; the fraa steps alone through the Centenarians’ screen to answer the call.
• Screens and portcullises: Their screen in the Mynster is opened for such formal processions, and their portcullis in the upper works has been observed closed even in daylight during a period of restricted access.
• Privacy of naves: The Ita have blocked the use of a high‑resolution speelycaptor that could have imaged across the chancel into the Thousanders’ and Hundreders’ naves, reinforcing that the screens safeguard privacy during services.

Relationships

• Neighbors: Their math stands across a walled meadow from the Decenarian Math.
• Comparisons: They are regularly contrasted with the Thousanders in discussions of cycle length and outlook.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Usage of grounds: Their side of the shared meadow is described as supporting livestock, reflecting an agrarian use of nearby land.
• Names and usage: "Centenarians" is a formal designation; "Hundreders" is a common informal term. A single member may be called a "Hundreder" or a "Centenarian."

Terminology and Historical Notes

A dictionary entry defines “to go Hundred” as derogatory slang meaning to lose one’s mind. It traces the phrase to a Third Centennial Apert when the gates of several Hundreder maths opened to startling outcomes across different sites (e.g., at one, a mass suicide; at another, nothing at all; elsewhere, the emergence of a new sect, the appearance of an unknown primate species, or the discovery of a crude reactor in catacombs). These mishaps are cited as prompting the creation of the Inquisition and the modern institution of hierarchs, including Wardens Regulant empowered to inspect and impose discipline in all maths.

Current Status/Location

Active within the Concent of Saunt Edhar. Contact with others is expected by way of grated interviews in the upper labyrinth ahead of their rare opening, and rooftop access is regulated so that on some nights the Centenarians have the stair and roof to themselves.