You may be asking, “Why is Europe far different from our timeline, even though the only point of divergence is a Scottish king being sent out to sea?”. Ultimately, it all comes down to the butterflies from the exile, how it affected the Scottish government, and the relationships the merchants from Lulachfrýgyld had with Europeans. After the capture of Lulach by Malcolm, his son Mael was payed off to support the new monarchy. It took quite a bit of money to get him to give up the throne, which destabilized the Scottish government in the long run. Mael’s children, and later descendants, would become high-ranking lords in the Scottish feudal system. After the truth came forth that Malcolm gave money away to Lulach’s son, someone the people of Scotland
hated, he began to slowly lose his credibility. After finding out that Mael had sent him away with supplies, and that he was probably alive in another part of Europe, the Scottish monarchy was on the verge of collapse once more. While it didn’t fall apart immediately, the shady trade would become one of the first nails in a very small coffin. By the year 1100, Scotland would fall, though not for the shoddy monarchy alone.
Firstly, after the instatement of the House of Moray (Mael’s family) as feudal lords, other nobles began to go against the king. Scotland, at the time, was not under the harsh rule of the Catholic Church to the same degree as the rest of Europe, and issues arising from the manors managed to work their way up to the top. Some high ranking officials would even go so far as to bribe mercenaries, merely to make fun of King Malcolm. Secondly, external forces began to have their way in Scotland. The Scandinavians, which had been declining due to the rise of the Catholic church, saw opportunity in capturing Scotland, and possibly even using it as a way to rebound their power. In 1076, Sweyn II of Denmark invaded and captured King Malcolm, killing his heirs and taking over the country. It was originally operated under a puppet monarchy, but Denmark saw it easy to take over such a divisive nation, especially after the damage caused by Lulach, the Moray, and Malcolm. By the early twelfth century, they didn’t believe it was necessary to keep a puppet monarchy, technically uniting the two kingdoms under a single crown.
The uniting of Scotland and Denmark had consequences of its own, consequences that had began to extend to the rest of Europe. Although it was originally quite decentralized, the Danish kings became much more powerful in the 1100’s. By adopting more Mediterranean ideas, they were able to strengthen themselves. One thing the kings didn’t appreciate adopting, however, was the rule of the church. Denmark, with a cash cow in Scotland, didn’t need the aid of the Pope anymore. Of course being excommunicated, and maybe even interdicted, wouldn’t be the best thing in the world, but it was better for the king to be powerful than well-liked. The feudal system was still quite powerful, but the monarchs began to have the upper hand. After the death of the Geatish King Karl Sverkersson in 1167, the Danes usurped the throne. A few years later, the weak Norwegian nobles began to surrender, one by one, to the Danes. It was not what we would consider a conventional war, however. The annexation mostly consisted of the kings being killed, not entire armies. All it took was an announcement that the Geats were under Danish rule to unite a nation. Of course, it wasn’t ideal to be under the rule of someone so far away, but the serfs of Sweden had bigger things to worry about. In the year 1224, all of Scandinavia was united under King Thorkil I, King of the Danish, the Sænskr (Swedish), the Geats, the Nordics, and the Skozkr (Scottish).
As the thirteenth century rolled on, Scandinavia centered its power, and was able to fight as a powerful country. It was representative of a new type of nation, one never before seen in Europe. Taking cues from the Vikings and their seafaring ways, the Scandinavian government was quite fractured. While there weren’t any more clans, the nobles would have a large amount of power in the land, as long as they swore fealty to the King. However, in contrast to the rest of the feudal system, the King still had far more power than the nobles. Not only did their have their own personal army to use against the lords if they chose to rebel, they also had the people on their side. By rejecting the Christian church, the Scandinavian King was the head of a different branch, and was revered for it. King Thorkil managed to do something amazing in his reign, which was spinning the “lies” of the Catholic church back on them. Even through their threats of interdict, the Scandinavian military was able to hold up, and the king claimed that rule by a Pope was against Jesus’ preachings. Of course this wasn’t true, but it was ultimately one of the main ways the Scandinavian branch of Christianity began to diverge. The people, of course, didn’t care. After the people who remembered Thorkil’s reign began to die, people didn’t remember what happened. All they knew was that the way to get closer to god, the way to get up to heaven, was to pray in a Scandinavian church.
One seemingly unrelated issue, the issue of the Mongols, ties back into the new Scandinavian kingdom. With a weaker Christian church, they have less room to mobilize their military, meaning that a foreign empire could carve out more area in Roman Catholic areas such as the HRE. Of course, the Mongols here didn’t actually get too much more land, they only managed to hold onto it better. Some small khanates in Russia, before being absorbed by Poland or Lithuania, formed different branches of Christianity as a way of holding their citizens down. The 1200’s and 1300’s frequently consisted of the upper class using the serfs. With the King of Scandinavia changing the face of their religion because the people had no way to keep written records, to the Mongols eventually installing Christian rulers, and changing the religion because they knew they held the power. A lack of a powerful force during the High Middle Ages might also explain the rebound of the Byzantines. Instead of the Catholic Church holding power over the Orthodox, it was a more even split. A few crusades still took place, but the disaster known as the Fourth Crusade never happened due to conflicts in the north. With that, the Byzantine Empire survived, and also lived to fund the few surviving crusader states.
Outside of the Byzantines, Scandinavia, and the Middle East, not a lot is different. Except for one particular nation; England. After Scandinavia took over Northumbria in the late-1200’s, England shifted their priorities south. The Norman conquest still went roughly the same as it did OTL, except for a few small details. For example, the original government fell sooner, and the Normans were able to hold rule for far longer (with the Danes in Scotland, why not the Normans in England?). With a more assimilated Anglo-Norman culture, they were able to expand into France far easier. They had to if they wanted to survive against the Scandinavians, after all. After a brief unity between the crowns of England, Normandy, and France in the 1300’s, their possessions began to grow smaller, as the English kings refused to adopt French mannerisms. However, the “Englishness” of England began to fade, as survival took priority in the minds of the kings. They would have rather kept France and adopted parts of the language and ruling class than be taken over by Scandinavia. By the fifteenth century, England was quite Frenchized, even though their culture was still viewed as “English”. The spoken language was quite similar to what we’d describe as French, while the written language was more similar to Norse.
With more people taking advantage of the lack of education in Europe, one would think that the continent, by 1450, is a very dark place. However, other factors also promoted political and technological growth. While there wasn’t a Renaissance forming, it was a slower transition from the Dark Ages to civilized society. A less powerful Catholic Church, especially in Britain and Germany, means the earlier fall of the feudal system, especially as people began to die in the Crusades. The diseases brought on by the Mongols (though not as bad as IOTL) also made the nobles less powerful. Plus, furs and fish coming in from the strange land to the west allowed for richer trade, with Venice becoming known for its strange amount of Coffeetree wood. In addition to all that, the advent of the Scandinavians spread the ideas of empire through Northern Europe, giving the Europeans the resources needed to create a “Caliphate” of their own. Ultimately, the 1400’s brought more power to the monarchy, a shift in priorities to making the world more literate (Scandinavian Christianity dropped a bit in popularity, but there were still no written records of the 1200’s), and a greater connection to the rest of the world.