The Triumph of Barbarossa and the Victory of the Holy Roman Empire

Errnge

Errnge

i think this has huge repercussions for the world. crusades will be seen as viable ways of conversion, and due to their successes, will encourage even more, launched at all the huge former centers of christianity, like carthage and damascus. the reconquista might be even MORE violent. crusader-states will start popping up all over the muslim world.

this might forever (as opposed to OTL's temporary) alter christianity from a religion of peace to a religion of war by institutionalizing it in the roman catholic church. when or if the reformation arises, it may focus more on how jesus preached peace instead of war in his name. this may lead to more widespread anabaptist analogues and more pacifist protestants
 

Eurofed

Banned
Errnge said:
i think this has huge repercussions for the world. crusades will be seen as viable ways of conversion, and due to their successes, will encourage even more, launched at all the huge former centers of christianity, like carthage and damascus. the reconquista might be even MORE violent. crusader-states will start popping up all over the muslim world.
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Absolutely so. Crusades and the Reconquista shall get a massive effort boost, and be expanded to North Africa and Syria. The only centers of power for the Muslim world that are going to remain relatively safe from the uber-Crusades European offensive shall be Persia, Arabia, the Sahel, maybe Mesopotamia or maybe not depending on well the Crusaders entrench in Syria. It's going to be a substantial Islam-screw, with Christianity reconquering (and forcibly reconverting) all the lands it lost to Islam since the first Arab expansion.

this might forever (as opposed to OTL's temporary) alter christianity from a religion of peace to a religion of war by institutionalizing it in the roman catholic church. when or if the reformation arises, it may focus more on how jesus preached peace instead of war in his name. this may lead to more widespread anabaptist analogues and more pacifist protestants
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Well, given that ITTL the Popes are going to lose the power struggle with the Emperors, the Roman Catholic Church is going to evolve into a rather different direction. At the very least it shall be much like the Orthodox and Anglican Churches, much more subservient to the secular power and wary of interfering in politics, with a Papacy and Curia stripped of most its OTL power. It is actually quite likely that at some point, an early Great Schism occurs, as the HRE and the other Western monarchies struggle to affirm their hegemony over the Church, and it evolves in a much more decentralized direction, with all the power in the hands of national episcopates under the watchful eye of the Emperor or King, and the Ecumenic Church as the sole universal authority. The good thing about it is that it makes much easier to heal the East-West schism.

If the Church largely stops to be a transnational independent theocratic organization, and its accumlation of wealth is hence curbed, it is quite possible that the Reformation is butterflied away, or it takes the character of the English Reformation across Europe. Anyway, if it still happens, it shall still be about social issues disguised as religious ones, and it shall not have pacifism as a rallying banner. All but a few high-minded souls are not going to care how many Muslims or Pagans European soldiers butcher in the name of Christ. Middle Age and Early Modern Christianity was already in OTL as ideologically bent to violence as it needed to be for going on an expansionist spree, but more success is not going to endenger more revulsion.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Henry VI was planning on makign the empire become hereidtary in OTL. So I don't think this is a big stretch, although I would like to see some discussion fo what that entails.
 

The Stormlord

The Mongol Tide (Ioannis Melas)

...The Mongols swept into Mesopotamia like a raging torrent, destroying the canals that had irrigated the area for centuries, then razing Baghdad to the ground. Nobody was safe, up to a million people fell at Baghdad alone - Mesopotamia was ruined for centuries. They then swept North-West into Anatolia, making the Turks flee before them into the northern Caucasus, before threatening Rhomanion itself. Emperor Alexandros IV confronted them at Kaisareia, before they could threaten Rhomanion - the Mongols were defeated in the mountains.

Russia was not so lucky. Ruthenia was ravaged, Kiev burned to the ground. Moscow was obliterated by the tide, but they did not reach Novgorod, it being so far north. Russia would not be united until the 1400's, so devastating was the assault. Then, they attacked Poland, razing many cities, before invading the Holy Roman Empire, fully intending to do to Rome what they had done to Baghdad. But they reached their limit in Eastern Germania, their supply-lines stretched ridiculouskly long, their armies operating in unfamiliar weather and terrain - they reached the place now called Austerlitz in Moravia before the horde was shattered there, broken by the death of their leader, the great majority dead, the remainder turned into little more than bandits. People now call Austerlitz the battle that saved Western Civilisation, but if so, the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion...
 
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The Stormlord

Geschichte der Heiliges Römisches Reich (Karl Sternberg)

Otto V, Son of Henry VI, having recently crushed the Mongols at Austerlitz, in 1280 resolved to focus on his realm, as particularist forces were rising in Germany and Italy. Due to a string of bad harvests due to poor weather, a series of peasant rebellions occurred in the years 1280-1291. The risings were eventually halted, but a far more insidious foe was soon to ravage Europe - the Reaping Plague (its name derived from records of 'a Great Reaping of Men').

The plague arrived in Constantinople in 1292 on trading routes from the east, but did not tarry long there, killing only about 600 people before spreading to Italy on a simple trading ship. When it finally arrived, carried in common rats, it was terrible indeed. At first it was seen as nothing more than another seasonal sickness, but then came the realisation that entire villages had died, and quarantines were ordered across Europe. But it was too little, too late, and the plague had already spread to Germany, and from there to Scandinavia, France and eventually England.

The House of Hohenstaufen and several other noble families connected to them were completely wiped out, and a civil war threatened to loom, undoing all their hard work, but eventually the House of Erzengel, a little-known family from Bavaria, took up the Imperial crown, averting a war for the throne.

The plague also spread throughout the Islamic world and the Kingdom of Jerusalem-Egypt, devastating those lands. Mesopotamia in particular, barely recovered from the Mongols, faced complete demographic collapse as half of its population was wiped out. Syria, caught in a tenous position, was also devastated.

France was particularly badly damaged in Europe, losing approximately 45-percent of its population (including its king and most of its royal family). By the time the Reaping Plague had passed, a third of Europe was dead, and a war was about to start, an English war for the French throne...
 
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Yorel

Damn... I hope France stays independant and recovers its strength quickly...
Can't wait to see the succession war though.
 
Errnge

Errnge

THIS IS AWESOME!

I'd like more detail, but wow, I like the way this world is shaping. Very interesting indeed.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Errnge said:
THIS IS AWESOME!

I'd like more detail, but wow, I like the way this world is shaping. Very interesting indeed.
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I concur. :D:cool:

Kairos Fateweaver said:
Otto IV, Son of Henry VI, having recently crushed the Mongols at Austerlitz, in 1280 resolved to focus on his realm, as particularist forces were rising in Germany and Italy. Due to a string of bad harvests due to poor weather, a series of peasant rebellions occurred in the years 1280-1291.
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Hmm, I would not really call these rebellions 'particularist'. They look like vanilla anti-tax peasant rebellions, which had little to do with particularist drives, they were a manifestation of social unrest. As a matter of fact, in this HRE, particularist forces really ought to have been largely smothered out down to the level of the other Western monarchies or less, since the empire has got an unbroken string of longeve, talented, charismatic, and very successful emperors for more than a century. And indeed, this justifies why the dynastic crisis is settled with relatively little trouble.

The risings were eventually halted, but a far more insidious foe was soon to ravage Europe - the Reaping Plague (its name derived from records of 'a Great Reaping of Men').

The plague arrived in Constantinople in 1292 on trading routes from the east, but did not tarry long there, killing only about 600 people before spreading to Italy on a simple trading ship. When it finally arrived, carried in common rats, it was terrible indeed. At first it was seen as nothing more than another seasonal sickness, but then came the realisation that entire villages had died, and quarantines were ordered across Europe. But it was too little, too late, and the plague had already spread to Germany, and from there to Scandinavia, France and eventually England.
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Hmm, any specific reason why the Black Death strikes 50 years earlier, or is it just random butterflies ??

The House of Hohenstaufen and several other noble families connected to them were completely wiped out, and a civil war threatened to loom, undoing all their hard work, but eventually the House of Erzengel, a little-known family from Bavaria, took up the Imperial crown, averting a war for the throne.
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I guess the new Imperial family was somehow linked to the old one, by marriage or distant relatives.

The plague also spread throughout the Islamic world and the Kingdom of Jerusalem-Egypt, devastating those lands. Mesopotamia in particular, barely recovered from the Mongols, faced complete demographic collapse as half of its population was wiped out. Syria, caught in a tenous position, was also devastated.
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More opportunity for Crusader expansion, I deem.

France was particularly badly damaged in Europe, losing approximately 45-percent of its population (including its king and most of its royal family). By the time the Reaping Plague had passed, a third of Europe was dead, and a war was about to start, an English war for the French throne...
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If the Emperor is any smart, he can play the OTL role of Burgundy, and turn this into an opportunity to cripple the power of France for good.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
SavoyTruffle said:
Not really. If Angevin England is the bigger threat, then he'll ally with France instead.
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Very true. But it is rather unlikely, although of course not impossible, that the HRE is going to regard Angevin England as a bigger threat than France, unless some unforeseen dynastic issue changes the perspective.

The interests of the HRE and France may typically clash in a series of areas including the Low Countries, Alsace-Lorraine, Burgundy, Provence, northern Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean. The interests of the Angevin England and of the HRE may typically clash only about the Low Countries.
 
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The Stormlord

The Thirty Years War: Fall of France (Alfred Jones)

In 1297, once the Reaping Plague was over, Europe was devastated. The English King, Arthur I Plantagenet, had a strong claim to the vacant French throne however, it being currently occupied by a regent, the oldest male heir being only three years old. The Holy Roman Empire also wanted to take France down a peg, eliminating a rival on the Continent, and as such the Thirty Years War began. It was not a war in the way we are accustomed to, such as the Long War (1915-1930), or the Rhomaoi-Persian War (1873-1882), as neither side could practice total mobilisation, as it would ensure that the homeland was not fed.

The Thirty Years War was as much a war of skirmishes, political manoeuvres, and waiting as it was of grand battles and sieges. The Empire did not enter the war until 1303, and the various duchies in France at the time rejoiced in playing both sides off each other. By ten years into the war, however, the war's primary reason was barely remembered, even though we remember this period as displaying Arthur I as a great warrior-King, comparable with the Rhomaoi Alexandros VI (who reigned 1453-1500) or the Imperial Barbarossa (1155-1202). There were several periods of relative peace during the war, but they never lasted long.

Finally, in 1328, the war ended, with England regaining the former territories of the Angevin Empire, from Normandy to Navarre, and the Holy Roman Empire gaining some territories in Eastern France. France was reduced to a buffer state in personal union with England, which would in the 1400's be dissolved entirely. Now that the war was over, it was a time for the beginning of the Anagennisi - the rebirth of Roman culture in Western Europe and its flowering in Rhomanion.
 
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SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

Oh, earlier *Renaissance, the House of Capet becoming but a mere footnote in history....

I soon think that the English lands in Britain and Europe will eventually split into two Kingdoms, though.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
SavoyTruffle said:
An Angevin Ausgleich? Which one will dominate?



Nah, England is like China - it has a funny way of assimilating its rulers.
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Not really. It was the plague that wiped out the Anglo Norman elite and set up the dominance of Middle English. Before, it was just a unruly peasant language. ;)
 
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