Religious PoDs in the early to late Middle Ages

[Midas]

I'm interested in writing some AH-inspired fiction starting around the early to late Middle Ages. In doing so I've been trying to shore up my historical knowledge of the period.

There's been some religious threads coming up here and there in the pre-1900 section and some of the discussion has been very interesting. I posted an "Islamic Schism" thread way back and found it similarly enlightening, though I thought I should've read a lot more before I wrote it.

This is just sort of a general thread for any sort of recommendations for not just schisms, but religious changes, movements and general "PoDs" in the early-to-late ages. I'm being inclusive of all religious movements, so everything from Zoroastrianism to Incan polytheism to the Abrahamic religions.

[GreatScottMarty]

No Byzantine Hesychascism.
No Cathar Crusade
Franks do not convert to Catholicism and remain followers of Arius.
Orthdoxy becomes state religion of Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania

[8Deer]

Franks do not convert to Catholicism and remain followers of Arius.

Didn't the Franks convert directly from paganism to Catholicism?

[Midas]

Originally Posted by 8Deer

Didn't the Franks convert directly from paganism to Catholicism?

iirc they did. However many other German tribes were Ariusian at the time (or Arian or whatever rocks your boat). There's quite a few WIs and discussions on the Franks converting to Arius' form of Christianity actually, that I read. It's certainly something to consider.

[Lysandros Aikiedes]

Arianism was the favoured religion by the rulers of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Suebi, Vandals, Burgundians, and the Lombards.

Before the 600's however, the Burgundians, Lombards, Suebi, and Visigoths had embraced Catholicism.

[MNP]

Different conception of Christian and/or Islamic Holy War.

The Jihad/Crusade use was kind of there in the background but it only really developed in response to initial Crusades and the Islamic attempt to regain them.

Be warned, as someone who did a Just-Before-the-Dawn of the Dark Ages, PoD finding historical records are a mess both before and after Charlemagne. It tends to improve somewhat after the 940s.

[Whanztastic]

Sassanid Empire converts to Mazdakism and goes on an evangelic frenzy as it spreads across the Empire, sending missionaries in all directions.

Mandaeism is embraced by the Arab tribes and is spread by them instead of Islam, or something.

So many delightful religious choices that could have made it with a little luck.

[Midas]

Wow. Do you have any links that lead to religions like this? It would be really interesting to see and stuff like that is what I was mostly going for.

[Onyx]

How about an Eastern Orthodox Conversion of the Cumans?

[Lysandros Aikiedes]

The ideology of Bogomilism is adapted by the ATL Bulgarian Church by the 1100's.

A more plausible version of The Hammer and the Cross Trilogy. Certain circumstances lead the Pagan Germanics to begin making more imaginative uses of the Runic alphabet as early as the Fifth Century. Before Christianization begins to gain strengh in Anglo-Saxon Britain and northern Europe, the northern Germanic and Norse societies might feature the rise of a new class of scholars and scribes. Somewhere among them, a religiously motivated individual makes a comprehensive work of literature, perhaps commissioned by the powerful Kuningas of his day, whom uses it to expound a new ideology that protects and promotes the traditional beliefs, and enhances further cultural distinctiveness of the Norse-Germanic Pagans from the Christians of Europe.

[Cuāuhtemōc]

- Ottomans converting to Orthodox Christianity

- Ottomans remain more or less Shia-like

- Mongols adopt Nestorianism.