The Greater Norman Empire and its successor states.

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Jammy

oh classic, pure brilliance, i cannot wait for that meeting.

Interesting about wanting to give the throne of Egypt to sumbody else.

If Conrad is only young then he could be "disposed" of if sombody else wanted to have a try for the Imperial throne

Yeah, the opportunity to set up Dawit's meeting with Edgar was too good to pass up.
As for young Conrad, his regency council--with the exception of Frederick Hohenstaufen--contains mainly opponents of his father OTL. All of them will have a stake in maintaining Conrad's power for the time being, as it bolsters their own. William wants Frederick on the throne of Egypt because he wants someone who can stabilize that border against possible Islamic incursions.

The next series of posts will be retrospective biographies and country descriptions, as I promised would happen in about 1080.

[AJNolte]

All:
As mentioned in my last post, I'm working on a rather large retrospective post. Already written are England, sections on the post-French states and the HRE. I'm working on an update on the Republic of Tunisia. What other retrospectives do you most want to hear about? Should IUI include the Byzantines, all the nacent crusader states, Scandinavia, Scotland, Wales, Ireland or Sicily? Or should I just buckle down and write up blurbs on all of them? If so, I have to warn you that this update will be a long time in coming. Anyway, let me know what you want to hear about first. Also, if there are any specific people you want me to cover in the "people" retrospectives, let me know that as well. Finally, I'm intending to do a few (hopefully cleverly concealed) cameos. If you want one, PM me and or leave a comment here. I'm planning on no more than five and I have two already, so first-come first serve, although frequent posters to the TL will probably have some precedent, as many of you have helped shape it considerably.

Awaiting your comments, and (hopefully) posting updates soon.

[Jammy]

Originally Posted by AJNolte

All:
As mentioned in my last post, I'm working on a rather large retrospective post. Already written are England, sections on the post-French states and the HRE. I'm working on an update on the Republic of Tunisia. What other retrospectives do you most want to hear about? Should IUI include the Byzantines, all the nacent crusader states, Scandinavia, Scotland, Wales, Ireland or Sicily? Or should I just buckle down and write up blurbs on all of them? If so, I have to warn you that this update will be a long time in coming. Anyway, let me know what you want to hear about first. Also, if there are any specific people you want me to cover in the "people" retrospectives, let me know that as well.

I think personally you can forgo Scandinavia and maybe just short bits for Scotland and Ireland.

[Analytical Engine]

Uber-coolness.

I look forward to more tales of the super-Norman Empire.

[AJNolte]

Glad you like it.
I've decided to post the update once I've finished Tunisia and Jerusalem. I figure that my posts on the Fatimids, Egypt and the Byzantines are current enough to begin giving you a picture of what has happened there. Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Sicily, while they will become more important later, are really side shows at this point. However there are some foundational bits of info on Tunisia and the Kingdom of Jerusalem that I want to put out there. So hopefully the next update will arrive within 24 hours.

[Analytical Engine]

By "Tunisia" do you mean OTL Tunisia, or does it include Tripolitania as well?

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Analytical Engine

By "Tunisia" do you mean OTL Tunisia, or does it include Tripolitania as well?

ITTL Robert Guiscard conquered Tunisia and Algeria from the impending Banu Hilal incursion. I suspect that OTL Libya will be added in time as well. You can find the posts about Tunisia a few pages back.

[AJNolte]

A little late, but worth the wait I hope.

Part 6. All the Nations of the Earth.

1. From: Matters of Sovereignty: crown and Witen in Medieval England by Thomas Watson, St. Edward's College Oxford.

From 1066 to the death of William in 1089, relations between king and Witen were for the most part rather cordial. This is surprising given the nature of William's rise to power. Yet William was so distracted by foreign adventures, namely the establishment of his empire, that he in practice left a large portion of England's administration in the hands of the Witen. When at home, Edgar led this body, and did so skillfully. However, as he was more often than not accompanying William on some foreign adventure or other, administration of England fell in practice to the great lords and archbishops. In Northumbria, a large number of Norman lords settled by direct invitation of the king, marrying Saxon widows, adopting Saxon orphans and generally insinuating themselves into the local aristocracy. Greatest among these was Roger Beaumont, who became earl of Kent through marriage and, by adopting the son of Osulf of Northumbria, who was slain in the campaign against the French king, was temporarily proclaimed duke of York. Alfred Beaumont would, in his turn, prove to be one of England's most important and influential lords, and one of the earliest examples of the harmonious blending of Norman and Saxon which created the later English aristocracy. . Some few other Norman lords took a similar path to power and influence as Beaumont, greatest among them Arnulf DeClair, who, through marriage and cunning diplomacy, gained for himself the earldom of Chester in western England. These first-generation Norman lords would prove William's most loyal cadre in the Witen, though by the second generation they had assimilated to a much more English way of looking at things. Yet on the whole, most of William's policies were approved. The massive Domesday book he had suggested as a means of more accurately and efficiently collecting taxes was in fact created. The size and strength of the English military contribution to the empire steadily increased, and England began constructing a first class shipping industry to supplement those of Normandy and Sicily. England grew wealthy through the military service of its native sons, who brought back with them a knowledge of lands throughout the empire and, as often as not, either became merchants themselves or served as guards and interpreters for the growing English merchant class. The church reformed, first under the direction of Stigund of Canterbury, then, after his death, Odo of York. The lay investiture crisis saw the first great conflict between king and Witen, and one in which the latter was clearly victorious. Indeed, William seems to have recognized at this point that some means of balancing the power of the great magnates in the Witen must be found. Thus it was that William began, through his intermediaries, to make overtures toward the growing merchant and freeman class, confirming the city charters issued by Edward the Confessor and tentatively advocating a second chamber in the Witen, to be composed of merchants and town burgesses. Of course, this issue would not come to the fore until the reign of Edward II, as Edward Beauclerc would style himself, but it is worth noting that even William considered such a measure. By and large however, William received much support from the Witen on those issues which he found most important. As a result, the powers of the Witen were never seriously challenged during William's reign. England, faced by no external threats and gifted with internal peace and security, prospered.

2. From: France and Spain, nations that Weren't.

The collapse of French central power in the Wars of French partition gave rise to a number of successor states, which even from the start pursued often conflicting policies almost calculated to drive France further apart. Salia was the first to drift away from the French influence. Under the rule of King Baldwin and his cousins Dirk and Arnulf, Salia quickly established itself as a distinctive kingdom with its own language and habits. Dutchman and Flemings could make themselves understood to one another far more easily than they could understand those in the rest of the Frances, and the languages of the various Salian regions rapidly began to mix and mingle into a precursor of modern Salian. Politically, the triumvirate began a program of expanding at the expense of their neighbors, gaining victories over the Bishop of Eutrect and annexing the territory of Luxembourg. Recognizing the fragility of the triumvirate system, they organized Salia into an elective monarchy, with the king to be elected by the lords, bishops and great merchant gilds of the free cities in Salia from a descendant of one of the triumvirs. Like England across the channel, Salia benefited from the influx of trade brought by the crusaders, and experienced a golden age. In Normandy also, prosperity had come with the expansion of the empire. Rouon was soon counted one of the most magnificent cities in all the Frances, as William and his successors attempted to fashion it into a capital for their empire. Anjou lagged behind the Norman state and its allies, but it had come out rather well in the partition of France, gaining the county of Maine and influence, through its crusader lord Fulk, in Andalusia. Finally, Brittany was becoming ever more enmeshed in imperial politics, as the Breton lords at last confirmed Robert Curthose as their next duke. Let us contrast all these happenings with those in the south of France and the formerly royal French lands. In France proper, as it could still legitimately be called then, a power struggle had begun which pitted the Counts of Blois against several potential Capetian successors. Stephen of Blois had designs on the crown of France, such as it was, and of all the would-be successors, he had the best army. The Succession war began in 1075, and would last until the treaty of Paris in 1085, wherein Stephen married into the Capetian house and was crowned King Stephen I. of France. The French nationalists hold up King Stephen I as the savior of French nationhood, but in reality he was anything but. Stephen not only recognized the imperial claims of William and the independent status of all the old regions of France, he even went so far as to consider swearing fealty to William to protect himself from Anjovine aggression over a border dispute. This failed to come about only because the Anjovine backed down over the issue. If Stephen could have extended his authority anywhere, it would have been to the south, where Aquitaine and Toulouse were engaged in a clash of their own to establish their borders. Indeed, Aquitaine's attempt to assert its sovereignty over Toulouse would have naturally brought any self-respecting French nationalist to support the Toulousian cause. Yet it was Aragon, a Spanish princedom, which intervened on Toulouse's behalf against the Aquitainians, thereby helping to spark a rivalry which exists down to the present day. Once we remove the lenses imposed by the nationist movements in Spain and France from our eyes, Aragon's actions actually make far more sense than any hypothetical French involvement. Aragon and Toulouse shared a common language, Occitan. They shared a common border, and a common interest in checking the aggressive intentions of the Aquitainians who, believing themselves to be the heirs of Charlemagne, were attempting to carve out an empire in southern France and northern Spain. This alliance between Aragon and Toulouse would, of course, result in the Kingdom of Occitania, Aquitaine's traditional rival for influence in the region and a nation which transcended the borders which a concept of French and Spanish nationhood would arbitrarily impose.

3. From: The Compleat Middle Ages.

The Holy Roman Empire found itself in an awkward position, with two imperial competitors now threatening its position and legitimacy and its Emperor, as hated as he may have been by many nobles and bishops, now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The pack of regents with whom the boy king Conrad had been saddled could not have been worse. Henry of Luxembourg, Rudolf of Rheinfeld and Siegfried of Mainz were all sometime conspirators against Conrad's father, and immediately began to intrigue against one another. Yet things would take their own course to leave one man, Frederick Hohenstaufen, in control of the empire's destiny. Henry of Luxembourg was the first to suffer disaster. In 1080, Luxembourg was attacked by the kingdom of Salia. In the subsequent battle, Henry and his forces were routed, and Henry was mortally wounded. Luxembourg was annexed by Salia, and a spot on the regency council left vacant. Frederick acted quickly, moving that Bishop Manfred of Bremen, a reformist in the Greggorian mould, be appointed in Henry's place. Seeing Manfred as an unworldly player unlikely to seek an advantage against them, Rudolf and Siegfried acquiesced. They could not know that Frederick, now de facto ruler of Egypt, had been in communication with both William and the Pope, with the intent of gaining a preponderance of influence on the regency council, nor that Pope Gregory had told Manfred to support Frederick's designs. Yet trouble soon appeared as Otto of Nordheim, angered at being shut out of power again, rebelled. Rudolf mobilized imperial forces and delivered a crushing blow, killing Otto, but Rudolf was also wounded. Although he would survive, Rudolf's health would never recover, and Conrad's cousin, the young Rudolf II, became de facto ruler of Swabia and regent for Conrad. Rudolf, himself a young man, was easily persuaded to support Frederick, and Siegfried of Mainz, now outnumbered, quickly fell into line after a conversation with Pope Gregory. Thus it was that Frederick Hohenstaufen came to dominate the Empire. His tasks were many: maintain imperial authority at the expense of bishops and nobles, restore the empire's influence both internationally and with the Pope and modernize the imperial military and infrastructure. On all of these he made a solid beginning, upon which Emperor Conrad would, once he reached his majority, so dramatically expand. Frederick was not an original thinker. His military and political reforms were copied in large part from the English example, and his civil service reforms were almost entirely Fatimid in origin. Yet Frederick, and later Conrad, took the best from other nations and empires and applied it to the Holy Roman Empire. The results would revolutionize the fate of the empire and, it may be argued, the world.

4. From: Great Documents in Tunisian History.

The Charter of 1075.

This document helped shape Tunisia's distinctive republican character.


Having undertaking for the Glory of God to settle this fair land of Tunisia and Algeria, liberating it from the heathen darkness and restoring it to the light of Christ, we, the Christian people of Tunisia, do hereby embark to form for ourselves a government suitable for our grand experiment, and distant from the reach of all princes, potentates and other tyrants. So we do covenant one with another and before God and under Christ, having before him no Lord on heaven nor on earth, to form for ourselves a republic like unto that of the Romans. Let this charter be the basis of our government from this day forward.

Article 1.

Section 1.
Upon this day, the 14th of April 1075, and from this day forward, the Republic of Tunisia is hereby established. Citizenship in this republic shall be granted to all goodly Christians of Tunisian birth who possessed 500 acres of property or greater, or an amount of equal value in some material good. And to all those men who have fought to gain their liberty and liberate this land from the heathen, to them also shall be given citizenship, but not to their descendants unless they shall meet the above requirement. But any who have served Tunisia, on land or on sea for a time not less than twenty years, or to those who have given great service to the republic above and beyond the call of duty, to them also shall citizenship be given. Likewise all priests serving in parishes with more than 500 congregants shall be given citizenship. Citizens shall have the right to elect members of the senate, to stand for election, to be appointed to posts in the cabinet of the consul, to command Tunisia's armies and navies and to serve as bishops and archbishops within the church, and members of the pretorial court.

Section 2.

No Christian shall, within the republic, be deprived of his life or his property, nor ever be held in peonage for more than ten years. All Christians who are not citizens are free men, unless through reasons of deepest debt they find themselves in debt peonage. But no Christian may hold the wife of another Christian in bondage, nor his children, unless the consent of said Christian is given, nor may his wife and children be held in bondage while he is free. Likewise any heathen who shall convert to Christianity shall be held in peonage for no more than ten years.


Section 3.

All those heathens who, through stubborn recalcitrance and unregenerate nature, refuse to convert to Christianity shall, for the purpose of their ultimate conversion and civilization, be held in life peonage to any citizen who shall buy their contract. Said citizen shall be responsible for their upkeep and ultimate conversion. No peon shall be deprived of life, nor of those things basic to his survival, and any citizen who deprives his peons in such manner doth place his immortal soul in gravest peril. But should these peons, through gentle guidance, be brought to accept the truth of Christianity, let credit be given to the master who has, like Philimon, been a master whose exemplary character shows the light of Christ to those servants whose care hath been entrusted to him.

Section 4.

No Jew shall be held in life peonage unless through great debt, but neither shall any Jew be a citizen, nor own any property to exceed 50 acres, nor contract for the services of any peon save through special dispensation of the church. But neither shall the Jew be deprived of his right to life.


Article 2.

Section 1.

The republic shall be divided into prefectures, each of which shall have an assembly elected by all the citizens of the prefecture. Each assembly shall elect from the citizenry of that prefecture a prefect, who shall govern each prefecture as its executive, administer the laws of the senate, command the forces of the prefecture on land and sea and aid the consul in the administration of war and peace.

Section 2.

From each assembly, five men shall be elected to the senate from each prefecture for a single term of seven years. The senate shall have the power to make laws, levy taxes, provide for the upkeep of the army and navy and preserve and protect Tunisia's Christian and republican character. Then from the prefects the senate shall elect a consul to serve for a term of twelve years, to which a second twelve year term may be added if the senate shall approve. And the consul shall appoint a cabinet of ministers, first among them two proconsuls, one to aid him in matters of war and the relations between nations and another to aid him in the administration of the republic's internal affairs. The consul shall command all Tunisian forces on land and on sea, administer the laws of the senate, officiate in all disputes between prefectures and preserve and protect Tunisia's Christian character.

Section 3.

The church shall have the task of administering the courts of Tunisia in accord with the nation's Christian and republican character. From amongst the clerks, cannons and other clergy of the church shall be appointed pretors, who shall administer the law throughout the prefectures, and a grand pretorial court which shall officiate in matters of law which require an appeal. All pretors shall have the rank of citizenship. Their pay shall be regulated by law, and for their retention they shall be accountable both to the assemblies in the church in the case of lesser pretors and the senate and the church in the case of greater pretors.


Article 3.

Amendments to this charter shall be made in the following way. First, they must be past by the senate and a majority of assemblies, then approved by the church, then past in a referendum of all eligible citizens.

Article 4.

This charter shall be considered the law of the land and no law save the law of God himself may be considered higher, and no allegiance save only that to God may supersede that owed to the republic.


5. From: God's Realm, a History of the Kingdom of Jerusalem by Paul Kiegsen.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was to prove one of the luckiest of Emperor William's possessions, both during William's reign, after his death and even in the time of troubles. Like England and Sicily, but to an even greater extent than either of these two realms, Jerusalem was a land ruled by a mixture of Norman and native aristocracy. It was second only to Syria among William's realms in both diversity and precariousness, possessing a large and hostile Muslim population which would require pacification and conversion if Jerusalem was to become a viable and long-lasting state. Fortunately, it would be blest with an able general administrator in the Person of Richard of Normandy, William's third son. When he came to Jerusalem in 1080, Richard was still a young man, though one who had served well in several of his father's military campaigns and who showed great promise as a ruler. This promise was fully realized as he took the reins of administration in Jerusalem from his father. Instead of surrounded himself with his idle friends, as his brother William Ruphus was doing back in Rouon, Richard showed a knack for picking intelligent and capable subordinates, and delegating responsibility to them. Among them was Saint Anselm, formerly chaplain to the Empress Margaret of Byzantium. Richard set Anselm a daunting task, the creation of a series of laws designed to encourage conversion on the part of the Muslims without pushing them into rebellion. Anselm, though a very poor administrator, was a very gifted scholar, already recognized for such works as 'Christ of the Jews', in which he put forward a thorough argument for Christ's messiahship according to the Old Testament, 'Truth Unity and Church', a nuanced work laying out the similarities and differences between the churches of east and west but ultimately arguing that none of their differences warranted schism, and the Amadeian Dialogues, which recorded his theological discussions with his most gifted pupil Saint Amadeus. Though at this time he had not yet finished his Theologia Systematica, he had begun outlining this, his best-known work. Yet for all his theological works, the sectarian laws were perhaps his greatest political achievement. anselm created five religious categories within the kingdom with differing rights: orthodox, heterodox or schismatics, heretics, jews and Muslims. Orthodox Christians had full rights to own property, and could hold any position in the government or military. Schismatics could hold property, so long as the total property they owned was no greater than one half that owned by all orthodox Christians in the kingdom, and could hold positions in the government and military but could not command either. Heretics could own property so long as the total property held by heretics was no greater than one third that held by orthodox Christians, and could serve in government, but could only serve in the military in special divisions set aside for them. To the Jews the same restrictions applied, save that the cap on land was placed at one quarter the orthodox Christian total. For Muslims, the cap on land was half the total owned by all the kingdom's Jews, the carrying of weapons in any capacity was forbidden, a tax was leveled against them, they were forbidden to build any knew mosques or evangelize and they could not serve in government. While harsh, these laws were far less ruinous than those of the Kingdom of Syria or Egypt, both of whom had more restrictive constraints on Islam for some time. This may perhaps be because Muslims, as a percentage of population, were a less significant force in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or because the kingdom felt itself, surrounded as it was by Christian states, safe from reconquest. Alternatively, it may simply be a result of Anselm and Richard. For whatever reason however, those Muslims with the wealth to do so left Syria and Egypt for Jerusalem. Many of them were merchants, doctors and scholars. For such people, exceptions to certain of the more restrictive sectarian laws could be found. The most glaring such exception was, of course, the Druze, whom Anselm, through some rather clever logical manipulation and a probably deliberate acceptance of some probable untruths told to him by members of the Druze higherarchy, classified them as heretics rather than Muslims. Yet the most interesting effect of the sectarian laws would be the rise of the Ishmaelite Jews, of whom more later. Their relatively liberal attitude toward religious dissenters, efficient administration and deliberate policy of encouraging trade quickly made Jerusalem far more profitable than anyone had expected, and Richard, possibly deservedly, got much of the credit. Yet possibly the greatest contribution of Richard to Jerusalem's continued welfare was his marriage to a Maronite warlord's daughter, which thereby cemented the loyalty of the growing local Christian population to the Williamite house, and to the empire. Small wonder that William consented to crown his son king of Jerusalem in 1083, six years before his death. Richard was quick to swear fealty to his emperor father, thus establishing Jerusalem's status as a semi-autonomous kingdom within the empire.

6. From: A History of Sicily by Tancredo Viscanti, University of Palermo Press.

Thus in 1072, Roger deCoatville was crowned king of Sicily, and swore fealty to William. Roger would prove an able monarch, and like many subkings in the empire, followed a policy of centralizing his administration and establishing a unified Sicilian military. Unlike any other power in the empire however, Sicily focused on the development of a highly effective galley fleet, complete with soldiers who could fight from aboard ship. Thus, where their cavalry was nothing out of the ordinary, the Sicilians developed a very early marine tradition which still exists today. The Sicilians put their galleys and marines to immediate use, raiding Muslim Andalusia and Morocco, and any other Muslim ports they could find. Aside from these raids, moderate participation in the First and Third Crusades and occasional skirmishes with the Italian vassals of the Holy Roman Empire however, the reign of King Roger I. was by and large a peaceful one. Roger married Adela, the older daughter of the Emperor, and with her had three sons: Roger II, Simon, bishop of Naples and later Archbishop of Rouon, and Tancred I (later a claimant in the first succession crisis), as well as two daughters, Maria and Matilda. Sicily, like all of the Greater Norman Empire, prospered during the imperial reign of William, the brief reign of Robert and the golden years under Edward Beauclerc.

7. From: Edward Beauclerc, a life, by John of Salisbury.

It is worth considering the nature of the kingdom of Syria which, aside from England, would have the greatest influence on young Edward of all his father's realms. The kingdom was in many ways a contradiction; at once steeped in Christianity and under constant threat from Muslim bandits, full of scholarship yet home to staggering ignorance on the part of its more benighted desert dwellers, and run both by the constantly scheming Greek and the direct but brutal Norman. Hard, exotic, alluring and dangerous, Syria was truly the frontier realm of the Norman empire. It was the least profitable realm for much of its early history, because of the great expense of combating constant Muslim bedouin raids. Yet it was also home to Saint Hildebrand, the warrior missionary who converted many of them. All of this would have its impact on the man who, in turn, did so much to shape the empire.

[Alratan]

I thought Syria was equally Byzantine as Norman?

[Analytical Engine]

Apart from Aragon, what states exist in the Iberian Peninsula?

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Alratan

I thought Syria was equally Byzantine as Norman?

It is. John is over-simplifying when he calls it "a kingdom of the empire", though he does mention the mixture of Greeks and Normans running the kingdom.

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Analytical Engine

Apart from Aragon, what states exist in the Iberian Peninsula?

Castile, Leon, Portugal, (probably?) Navarre and later Christian Andalusia.
Any ideas on what to do with them?

[Analytical Engine]

Originally Posted by AJNolte

Castile, Leon, Portugal, (probably?) Navarre and later Christian Andalusia.
Any ideas on what to do with them?

They'd probably go to war with each other for a few decades, on and off.

[Jammy]

Originally Posted by Analytical Engine

They'd probably go to war with each other for a few decades, on and off.

I concur
I want to see more of Edgar's illegitimate son
I like the sound of the sucession war.

Kepp it up

[leonardocruzbr]

Originally Posted by AJNolte

Of course, this issue would not come to the fore until the reign of Edward II, as Edward Beauclerc would style himself,

I take that this time the numbering of kings will not be reset, so wouldn't it be Edward IV? There were three Edwards among the saxon kings of England:

Edward I, also Edward the Elder. Reigned from 899-924.
Edward II, also Edward the Martyr. Reigned from 975 to 978
Edward III, also Edward the Confessor. Reigned from 1043 to 1066.

[Scarecrow]

Its very interesting AJNote, but is there enough Christians in Tunisia to form a republic so early?

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by leonardocruzbr

I take that this time the numbering of kings will not be reset, so wouldn't it be Edward IV? There were three Edwards among the saxon kings of England:

Edward I, also Edward the Elder. Reigned from 899-924.
Edward II, also Edward the Martyr. Reigned from 975 to 978
Edward III, also Edward the Confessor. Reigned from 1043 to 1066.

***Smacks self on forehead*** Good point. Henceforth shall it be retconed. (And if I ever finish/clean up this timeline and transfer it to Timelines and scenarios I will go back and make the appropriate retcons).

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Scarecrow

Its very interesting AJNote, but is there enough Christians in Tunisia to form a republic so early?

Part of the reason the entire army was enfranchised. There have also been a fair number of Berber conversions, and there will be more as time goes on. I have this sneaking suspicion that they'll get a lot of younger sons emigrating, and possibly even peasants and townsmen who want to grab a piece of land.
On a side note, I have a feeling population pressure won't be so intense, what with all the new crusader kingdoms to populate with Christians and the great big war in France.

[AJNolte]

Originally Posted by Jammy

I concur
I want to see more of Edgar's illegitimate son
I like the sound of the sucession war.

Kepp it up

Wars in Iberia: definitely. If anyone has any info re: the personalities involved at the time I'd certainly appreciate it.
You'll see Dawit soon. Keep in mind that he's only about 12 years old in 1080 though.
I hadn't planned on doing too much more with the succession wars. If you'd like to write up and/or outline some posts on it you're welcome to do so. I'm definitely agreeable to farming out portions of the TL, particularly in France and Spain.

[Analytical Engine]

Just to let you know, the Counties of Blois and Champagne were in personal-union at this time.