I see the French royal court moving to Toulouse as a temporary measure until conditions in Northern France improved enough for them to return to Paris. Once Charles VII reconsolidates his power, he’ll return to Paris if nothing else to prevent the Valois princes from getting any ideas above their station.
The Dead Live: A Hundred Years' War Timeline
- Thread starter Zulfurium
- Start date
- Status
@Zulfurium, thanks for clarifying and hopefully you will cling to my idea, at least. (And i had to clarify more a bit, he (Humphrey) is based mostly on northeastern Castile i assume and acted as a bridge especially to Navarrese and Plantagenet interests (if you were to make it Foix-connected). He is a moderate in both, but generally in favor of reconciliation. He doesn't want too much conflict between them and treats both Lancasters and Plantagenets as the same. I will describe it more below)
And i found out that in your recent update you seems to make some homages to my idea i published before, but modified somehow, probably to be more matching. I had to revise to match with modifications. The numbers represent paragraphs (can be considered as story segments). My idea is for Update Forty-Nine and i suggest the title will be "Struggle of Hispania", as this update refers around instability of whole Hispania (in some definitions, it also includes Mauritania, you can use "Struggle of Iberia" as an alternative if you like, but in general Iberia doesn't mean up into North Africa even in some definitions). But since it will also include Italian portions, this had to be more accurately titled as "Struggle of the South-West". I think "Hispania" will be more attractive than "the South-West". What you take up is in your opinion.
Update Thirty-Seven: "The Sons of Iberia"
That was my correction for now, i would send other corrections later.
UPDATE
And i found out that in your recent update you seems to make some homages to my idea i published before, but modified somehow, probably to be more matching. I had to revise to match with modifications. The numbers represent paragraphs (can be considered as story segments). My idea is for Update Forty-Nine and i suggest the title will be "Struggle of Hispania", as this update refers around instability of whole Hispania (in some definitions, it also includes Mauritania, you can use "Struggle of Iberia" as an alternative if you like, but in general Iberia doesn't mean up into North Africa even in some definitions). But since it will also include Italian portions, this had to be more accurately titled as "Struggle of the South-West". I think "Hispania" will be more attractive than "the South-West". What you take up is in your opinion.
- Sforza's first years of reigning in Sicily are described in here (up until Francesco's intervention).
- Introduction of Hafsids into this TL as an enemy to the Sicilians. They invade Malta earlier (and based on Ottoman's siege of Malta IOTL, but modified to match the era of this TL. I had to reason why i want to base this on Ottomans IOTL rather than real IOTL is because you changed Zayyanids to be stronger and i had to make sure that you do the same towards Hafsids). I would like the invasion starts from October 1422 and had Micheletto Attendolo counter that invasion, with his best. I'll expect him to get some trouble before Francesco arrives in January 1423.
- The Siege of Malta starts to gain attention as Micheletto Attendolo is in trouble. Particularly Francesco and Enrique V is concerned and both decided to intervene on January 1423. Enrique V and Francesco don't know each other but found theirselves fighting for same cause, and the intervention of both beats back Hafsids on February 1423, losing most of their forces while Micheletto Attendolo is also in near-defeated state (most of his army are killed), but manages to survive. From this Sforzas and Enrique V began to be acquianted and later become allies, as they plan to conquer Hafsids and Zayyanids. Also, in here Francesco Sforza is now starts shooting into world stage and gained attention while the siege would be highly celebrated in the history of Christianity, rivalling the Count Bernat's defeat tales.
- Enrique V's rule of Castile and Aragon are shown here, with some signs of unstability began to appear here. Humphrey makes his first mention here as the major landowner in the Northeast Castile (and hopefully connected to the Foix, through it Navarre and through it again Plantagenets). First Tratismaran raids and revolts occur here, and described in here. I expect Thomas of Lancaster (which commanded the operations against revolters) to be killed in one of these Trastimaran raid-revolt (hopefully based on Battle of Baugé) occuring in 1422. Humphrey takes over the operations, returning from the Foix lands and gained support from them, led by Gaston V de Foix (assuming Humphrey is connected to the Foix). Enrique V is ocassionally involved against revolters but he starts to began his focus to the Malta later, as why Enrique V intervened on Malta. Enrique V also began targeting Aragonese nobles, trying to get support of them. One of these steps is the conquest of Zayyanids, and is the focus of Enrique soon after defeating Hafsids. As to be noted, the events are from the end of Tratismaran possesion of Aragon in Update Forty and ends in Enrique V's return from Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen (now named Kingdom of
- Aftermath of Hafsid defeat in Malta, in which Enrique V and Sforza, now acquianted focuses the development of Malta, but Enrique V began to plan and propose the joint invasion of Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen and Hafsids on March, in attempt to please some Aragonese nobility. Sforzas doesn't want it, but Enrique V insists he should do it. After some debates, Sforzas capitulates into agreement between the two that Enrique V will invade Zayyanids, while Sforzas invade Hafsids on April. Joint invasion of Zayyanids and Hafsids commence on May.
- Events of Zayyanid invasion described in here, with this time the invasion against Zayyanids is a success by June, but Enrique V doesn't want to vassalize Zayyanids as he decided to put himself to the extreme in a full attempt to get some Aragonese nobility to favor him, by starting an inquistion (this will be described more later, but this inquistion is definitely would influence the methods of Portuguese and Sicilian occupations to keep the stability of the region), putting an Aragonese Dominican in command of the inquistion. The events during inquistion will be described in the next paragraph. In the east, we will see the events of the Hafsid conquest (unlike Enrique Francesco struggles more despite the opportunity) in this paragraph but i expect Banu Sulaym's introduction here in the middle of the events. They launched a major raid against Hafsids on June causing Hafsids to divert resources and due to overstretching Sforzas easily defeated Hafsids ending in their extinction of the dynasty by Banu Sulaym on early July. Sforzas recreate Kingdom of Africa on mid-July, which was existed in late 12th century by Normans but lost quickly to Almohads. Sforzas put King Louis III of Sicily and Naples as a King of Africa, but with Francesco as a regent (and true power) of the realm of Kingdom of Africa.
- Aftermaths of the events described earlier are more described in this paragraph. As noted, Spanish Inquistion begins, fifty years earlier than IOTL. Now i describe the events during the Inquistion of Tlemcen: There are many revolts against Spanish and the Inquistion during the majority of 1423's as Enrique V is trying to gain hold of the kingdom. These revolts would occassionally started by Zayyanids itself, forcing Enrique V to continue warfare against them. This lasts until late 1243 where former Zayyanids and pro-Zayyanid population driven exile into Morocco, while Inquistion began to take clear effect on the remaining population as they become Christians, while also committing itself into development of the region. Before leaving in November, Enrique V created the Kingdom of Caesaria with himself as the ruler, but actually ruled autonomously by the Grand Inquistor, as the regent of Kingdom of Caesaria. (Note: He considered to annex the region into Castile, but he reconsidered after creating a "kingdom" was a good choice in order to gain recognition from the populace. He delayed his plans for annexation until 1435) In the east, Banu Sulaym suddenly raided Kingdom of Africa three or two days after it's creation despite the gratitude given by Francesco Sforza, forcing Sforzas to declare war against Banu Sulaym on late-July. This paragraph would see the first foreign policy moves by Qara Qoyunlu Sultan Jahan Shah, in which he intervenes in support of Banu Sulaym while also planning to vassalizing it in attempt to expand Egypt for the first time since Qara Qoyunlu's civil war. The intervention shocked Francesco Sforza but regardless decided to do warfare against Jahan Shah with vigor. African-Egyptian War lasted from August into mid-November where after vigorous and stalemating warfare Jahan Shah surrendered his claims of whole Sirte region and instead Banu Sulaym's territories (Sirte region) are halved into two in which western one is controlled by Kingdom of Africe while eastern one is controlled by Banu Sulaym king, but as a vassal of Egypt. After that Francesco returns to Tripoli but when he is there he began to hear the tales of Spanish Inquistion. When he heard that he decided to start an inquistion of his own (founding an office and put Grand Inquistor in charge of it) by early December and it would be as equally successful as the Spanish one. He finally returns into Sicily as very popular man well-known in the world stage as a "crusader" and became the most powerful man in the Sicily, firmly and no doubt. Thanks to this Sforza began to feel proud of his success and popularity, crediting Enrique V and due to it they began to make closer friendships with each other, ending up on marriage of their childs in 1426, tying them at this point. Before the next paragraph, we will see the first whispers from Granada as Enrique returned to Castile.
- This paragraph will mostly tell about Enrique's struggles of Navarre, but with more detail. Humphrey of Lancaster are first mentioned in this paragraph. If you were to make Humphrey connected to the Foix (i had to note and really clarify. Humphrey of Lancaster are married to the Foix since late 1409, so hopefully you would take this path), i would describe him as i say, major landowner based in the Northeast Castile who acted as a not just military leader on Aragon but also as an ambassador of France, Navarre and England from his connections of the Foix. As he is challenging and extinguishing revolts in Aragon, he advises his brother occassionally to not make a serious and radical position on Kingdom of Navarre, instead he wanted his brother to take a moderate position by reconciliating himself (Lancasters) with the Plantagenets, assuming that Lancasters could grow with it. Enrique V doesn't heed him until he finally heeds his advice on 1429 under pressures and as expected Blanche of Castile marries with Henry of Wales, involving himself into Iberian Kingdoms.
- This paragraph would describe the Enrique V's struggle of Aragon and sometimes Castile are here (note:TAXES!). Here, this paragraph would describe increasingly intense Aragonese revolts and Tratismaran raids while i also expecting some first popular uprisings against Enrique V due to taxes due to wars and campaigns (note: occurs in before the peak and final Aragonese revolt and Tratismaran raid, respectively). In the tax revolt, i would like to see some of the Portuguese intervention in favor of revolts and the tensions in relationship with Castile are described as the reason why Portugal intervenes. In the peak and final Aragonese revolt and Tratismaran raid, i had to reference the quote about "Aragon is on flames by 1428", so i had to assume that this event occurs on 1428 and the revolts and raids would involve massive pillaging, sacks and everything, to the extent of the Princes' War ITTL. In this time i am expecting that Portuguese will intervene in favor of Aragon and the intervention is led by Prince Henry while Sforzas intervene in favor of Castile, supporting the pretender of Aragonese (particularly Sardinian) throne. I am expecting that this will end in early 1429 with Sforzans get the regency of Sardinia, Prince Henry of Portugal's death (thanks to the weakened Portuguese Navy as Prince Henry is so aggressive at the explorations and war with Morocco), Aragonese nobility turns completely (while most population is turned partially) against Tratismara thanks to the tales of Count Bernat while also doing smear campaigns against them, and Tratismara is reduced into few members with Ferran's and Isabel's children surviving and exiling into Anjous while the rest, Ferran and Isabel are dead drowning. Portugal's relationship with Spain drops drastically, more contentious than before and John of Lancaster (Duke of Bedford IOTL) makes his first mention here, as he happens to marry with Infanta Isabella (wife of Philip de Burgogne) with more than 7 children during this point in time (early 1429, heavily involved and infuental in Portugal as the leading pro-Lancastrian voice in the country and prominent landowner of most of the Northern Portugal (mostly on regions near Porto), Galicia and Northwest Castile. He is in conflict of words with words against João I's actions against his brother and based on IOTL personality, he is more willing against the Portuguese, unlike his brother Humphrey which is more softer and moderate. These events and personality would finally make John of Lancaster revolting against him when João I rejected the Enrique V's request to join the pact against rebelling Granada by trying to take the throne from João I himself. This will be described more in the next paragraph.
- This final paragraph would involve Prince Henry's colonial explorations, voyages and exploits during the 1420 until 1426. I am expecting the Vasco da Gama's, Bartolomeu Dias's, and Fernao do Po's actions being done by Prince Henry instead, expecting two to three voyages (done aggressively by Prince Henry) before Moroccan problem starts. From 1422 it is stated that Wattasids had taken the control of Morocco in a civil war via puppet Marinid King, thereby allowing a formidable person named Abu Zakaria Yahya al-Wattasi to control whole Morocco. I expect that his strongman control allow him to do whatever he like against Portuguese. My expectations is that he would do raids on Portugal constantly with increasing intensity until a one on 1426 finally considered to be the strongest, forcing João I to consider ending Moroccans once for all (and envying methods used by Enrique V and Francesco Sforza). When Henry returns from his voyage into India, with riches from voyages, he heard that his country (Portugal) is in trouble as João I troubled in the war against Wattasids (along with Zayyanids), which was much and far more stronger than previous wars ever experienced by the Portuguese. He decided to intervene and he returns into Canaries putting the riches around before requesting some 5000 men and supples into Morocco. He then invades southern coastal (Saguia el-Hamra) region of Morocco days later, and when he's in there he found out that this region in particular have negligigent defenses thanks to Wattasid's invasion of Tangiers, which brings about nearly all of the Moroccan army to fight the invaders. Henry exploited this and in doing so, easily bringing most of the South Morocco into the Portuguese rule in matter of days. Wattasids are shocked when the news are heard of the fall of Saguia el-Harma and forced to stretch resources to fight the invaders in the south, causing Moroccans to defeated easily after a bloody warfare by mid-1427. The fall of Moroccans weakened Portuguese navy and this would be the cause why Portuguese intervention in favor of Aragon failed and also Prince Henry's death in the sea. In the aftermath of the invasion, João I decided to respect Enrique V and Francesco Sforza's actions by starting the Portuguese Inquistion in the Moroccan lands, third in the whole Europe to do so. He also formed the Kingdom of Mauritania based on former Marinid territories with himself as the King while appointing Prince Henry as the Viceroy-General of Mauritania. Prince Henry and João I decided to focus into consolidation of the region, Christianizing the population and suppressing the revolts, while Wattasids, Zayyanids and Marinids are exiled to deep into Maghreb and murdered by Berbers living in there. Prince Henry would remain on Morrocco until João I orders him to lead intervention against the Castile on September 1428 (while João is back on Portugal in mid-March 1428). Granada's whispers began to intensify due to isolation thanks to it, and described in the final paragraph.
- This paragraph would describe events leading into Update Fifty-One, i would tentatively call it "De Bellum curet Hiberiae", meaning "The Wars of Iberia", and this update would bring on Henry of Wales' first involvements in Iberia. Nah, in this paragraph i would say that whispers of Granada is intensifying. As they are isolated from another Muslim powers - Granada began considering independence and revolt from Castile in attempt to restore Muslim power in the Maghreb and connect back with other Muslim powers in the region. They asked independence from Castilians in mid 1428, but Castilians reject it and they started protesting against them in late 1428 (while also preparing their defences) until the end of the Plantagenet-Lancaster division on approximately mid-1429. When their issues aren't heard in mid-1429, they began considering declaring independence unilaterally as Enrique V began to focus into this particular region. Enrique V, in attempt to completely expulse Muslim power from Iberia, tried to annex it in 17 September 1429. However, when Granadans hear it they quickly revolted against and unilaterally declared independence from Castilians in the next week and began to raid the Castilian possesions ruthlessly. Enrique then declares war on the "rebels" and "heretics" quickly. The war, however was hit by many problems as Muhammed IX proves to be very badass ruler, more than Yusuf back earlier and would met with many defeats in the beginning of the next year as Muhammed IX rejected any attempts to become a vassal, forcing Enrique V to make a pact against the last Moorish power in mid-January. He invited Kingdom of Aragon, Francesco Sforza, England and Portugal to join - Aragon, England and Francesco Sforza quickly accepted but Portuguese under João I rejected joining the pact (response on 20 January) because of contentious relationship, causing John of Lancaster to call out the King João I of hypocrisy and double standards. João I is annoyed and orders to arrest John in the next day. When John of Lancaster heard of it he revolted with the support of pro-Castilian nobles and population in north Portugal, in the same day with the aid from Castile and Castilian volunteers. In late January he managed to capture Porto, completely turning the northern quarter of Portugal into rebels. He wanted to be a regent for João I at first, but when nobles note that João I of Aviz might resisting the regency and noting how the most of the northern Portugal are tired of João I's actions of repressing the northern population due to João's suspicion of most of the northern Portugal being supportive of Enrique V, the nobles recommend John to be King instead (John reluctantly accepts), and in a small ceremony located on the old throne place in the city of Porto, John of Lancaster is crowned as João II da Lancaster, King of Portugal and the Algarve. This, however caused significant population, particularly the recently captured cities near and south of Porto and pro-João I three-quarters to rabidly oppose João I. This caused pushbacks in early February and João II is forced to call for help. The supporters of João II would be the English King at the time, then Henry of Wales and Enrique V in the coming months. The events are ending in here as Henry of Wales would highly intervene in here by February and beyond, so i want to end the idea in this event.
Update Thirty-Seven: "The Sons of Iberia"
I have to quote entire story segment of Aragonese-Zayyanid War of Update Thirty-Three in hope that you would remember it. At it is, here is the results i wanted completely. Look at the boldened texts in above and below, closely and you will remember where they are located.The Kingdom of Tlemcen was a Berber kingdom that stretched from Tlemcen to the Chelif bend and Algiers, and at its zenith reached the Moulouya river to the west, Sijilmasa to the south and the Soummam river to the east. The Bānu ʿabd āl-Wād, also called the Bānu Ziyān or Zayyanids after Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan, the founder of the dynasty, were leaders of a Berber group who had long been settled in the Central Maghreb. Contemporary chroniclers asserted that they had a noble origin. Tlemcen was an important center under the Almoravids and their successors the Almohads, who began a new wall around the town in 1161. Yaghmurasen ibn Zayyan, 1235–83, of the Bānu ʿabd āl-Wād was governor of Tlemcen under the Almohads. He inherited leadership of the family from his brother in 1235. When the Almohad empire began to fall apart, in 1235 Yaghmurasen declared his independence. The city of Tlemcen became the capital of one of three successor states, ruled for centuries by successive Ziyyanid sultans. Its flag was a white crescent pointing upwards on a blue field. The kingdom covered the less fertile regions of the Tell Atlas. Its people included a minority of settled farmers and villagers, and a majority of nomadic herders. Yaghmurasen was able to maintain control over the rival Berber groups, and when faced with the outside threat of the Marinids, he formed an alliance with the Sultan of Granada and the King of Castile, Alfonso X. According to Ibn Khaldun, "he was the bravest, most dreaded and honorable man of the 'Abd-la-Wadid family. No one looked after the interest of his people, maintained the influence of the kingdom and managed the state administration better than he did." Before his death he instructed his son and heir Uthman to remain on the defensive with the Marinid kingdom, but to expand into Hafsid territory if possible. Under Yaghmurasen's leadership, and later under Abu Hammu II, 1359–89, the kingdom pursued an expansionary policy, pushing towards Fez in the west and into the Chelif valley and Béjaïa in the east. By 1415 Abd Malek I Zayyanid had sat on the throne for four years, after emerging victorious from the succession crisis that followed the death of his brother Abu Abdallah in 1411 and saw a nephew and brother precede him to the throne (14).
Viscount Bernat de Cabrera at The Siege of Oran
The Aragonese assault on the Algerian Coast was not particularly wanted nor thought to be needed by King Ferran and his advisors, but they decided to join in the various Iberian attacks on Muslim lands because of the agreement that ended the war with Castile. The attack would focus its attentions in two regions, around the city of Oran which was one of the wealthiest cities in the world and on the town of Algiers which was less prominent and farther from the Zayyanid center of power in Tlemcen. The first attack occurred on the 31st of July 1415, when a force of 4,000 was landed outside the walls of Algiers and the town was swiftly taken by storm. The Emir of Algiers was taken captive in the surprise assault and was placed under house arrest while the Aragonese began siphoning what wealth they could from the town. A month later, on the 1st of September, a much larger force of 15,000 was landed near Oran, under the command of Bernat IV de Cabrera, Viscount of Cabrera, the city which, toward the end of the 14th century, had been celebrated by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun thusly, "Oran is superior to all other cities by its trade. It's a paradise for the unhappy one. Those who arrive poor in its walls, will leave it again rich." The city excelled in the export of lead, wool, skins, fine burnous, carpets, haïks, cumin, nuts, and galls, as well as black African slaves. It was the main port of the Zayyanids and was well defended and prepared for the assault. The Siege of Oran would prove to be a military disaster from start to finish for the Aragonese. Firstly, their attempts at landing met with failure twice, as the currents and defensive positions around Oran prevented landings closer to the city. The third attempt succeeded in the face of a concerted defense, but cost hundreds of lives (15). The Aragonese slowly hammered through the outer defenses of Oran and finally arrived before the city walls on the 8th. On 12th September, Bernat ordered the first assault on the city, attacking five points at the same time, Bernat personally leading one of the assault teams himself. But it quickly failed – the scaling ladders were too few and, as it turns out, too short, to reach the top of the walls. The assaulters had to withdraw. Aragonese casualties amounted to some 20 dead and 500 wounded. The artillery had also proven too weak to do much damage. In the wake of the assault, Bernat ordered larger ordnance cannon to be shipped in from Palermo. Soon after the first assault, the first Zayyanid relief troops arrived in Tangiers. A column of 300 elite Aragonese knights was sent to intercept them, but they were swiftly swept aside. Some fifty Aragonese knights were cut down, and the rest barely escaped. The death of several leading nobles caused some consternation in the Aragonese camp. On the 18th of September, a larger Zayyadi army appeared over the hills of Oran. The Aragonese chroniclers, with great exaggeration, claimed it was composed of 10,000 horsemen and 90,000 foot Bernat moved his army to a hillside, offering battle, but the Zayyadi just held their position in the valley. After three motionless hours, Bernat ordered the Aragonese to march against them and force the issue, but the Zayyadis just retreated back up the hills, evidently wishing to hold the higher ground. Seeing their motion, Bernat called off the attack, and returned with his troops back to the siege lines. The next day, much the same maneouvers were repeated, with the same results. On the 21st of September, the dance changed slightly: the Moroccan army began a threatening march towards the siege lines. Bernat quickly arrayed his troops in two lines. The Moroccans then suddenly halted. Bernat seized the initiative and sent his stronger left wing to take a height on the Zayyadi flank, and ordered his first line forward. Seeing the flanking maneuver, the Zayyadi began to retreat. At that moment, the Oran garrison burst out in a sortie against the siege camp, which was being held by a reserve force. The Zayyadi had hoped Bernat's line would break back to rescue the camp, but the reserves successfully repelled the sally by themselves. The height taken and the Aragonese line advanced unabated pushing the Zayyadi to call a retreat and broke the engagement. The Aragonese counted this encounter as a victory. Soldiers reported seeing the vision of a white cross appear in the sky that very evening (16).
Their morale restored, the Aragonese decided to proceed with a new assault on the city. Their scaling ladders were now extended, a new siege tower had been built and the two larger ordnance cannons shipped in from Palermo was finally doing serious damage on the gates and walls of the city. On the 28th of September, Bernat ordered the second assault. Bernat led the assault force himself, leaving the rest of the troops to defend their flanks and keep the Zayyanid relief army at bay. But the second assault failed as badly as the first. The city's defenders rushed to the critical points, and poured on rapid and heavy missile fire. The Aragonese assaulters were prevented from even reaching the walls, only one ladder managed to be set up – and was promptly destroyed. On the 3rd of October, Bernat was preparing his third assault when he received intelligence of a new massive Zayyanid relief army – reported, with doubtless exaggeration, to be some 60,000 horse and 700,000 foot. This massive army was personally led by Sultan Abd Malek Zayyanid. Viscount Bernat realized the Aragonese were hopelessly outnumbered, that the siege was lost and the best they could do was to fight an orderly rearguard action back to the ships. All the seamen were ordered to prepare sail, while the army was arrayed to defend a retreat of the assault force back to the fortified siege camp lines. The arriving Moroccan army did not pause but attacked at once. The Aragonese advance posts were quickly overwhelmed and the way to the city cleared. The Zayyadi then charged the Aragonese forces. The artillery batteries were quickly overrun and taken. The Zayyadi charge then turned on Bernat's cavalry – which quickly broke and beat a retreat back to the siege camp line. Bernat's own horse was killed from under him, effectively disabling his ability to survey the field and organize the retreat. He eventually made it to safety in the camp, having evaded capture on foot. The retreat nearly turned into a rout when about two thousand of the Aragonese soldiers, nobles among them, abandoned the siege line and fled in panic all the way down to the beach to make for the ships. It was only by the furious fighting of those remaining on the palisade that the Zayyadi army did not manage to overwhelm and take the siege camp that very day. The battle was broken off by evening. The Zayyadi army encircled and settled down to a siege of the Aragonese siege camp (16).
Overnight, the Aragonese besiegers – now besieged – set about repairing and strengthening the defenses of the siege camp. The next day, the Zayyanids launched another assault on the siege camp, but were repelled after a heavy four-hour fight. By this point the expeditionary force had been reduced to around 9,000 the remainder having been lost over the course of the siege or in the chaotic assault the previous day. The Aragonese camp was certainly in a desperate situation, with only a day or so worth of food left. When these ran out, Bernat resolved on a night operation to breach the Zayyanid lines and force his army's passage to the beach and the idling ships. But this operation was detected before it even began. The Zayyadi reinforced the posts guarding the paths to the sea, cutting off all hope of escape for the Aragonese army. At his wits end, Bernat de Cabrera and his army decided to sell their lives expensively and marched out of their camp at dawn on the 5th of October 1415. The Aragonese launched themselves into the surrounding Zayyanid forces who greatly outnumbered them, and over the course of the day slowly ground their way towards the walls of Oran, having sworn to touch the city walls before they died. The bloodshed of the battle horrified Sultan Abd Malek, who found the flower of his state's youth bleeding out on the sands of Oran to no gain. By nightfall the Aragonese force had been destroyed, with some 2,000 taken prisoner, the vast majority of them wounded, while Bernat himself died underneath the walls of Oran. The survivors would eventually be ransomed to King Ferran in return for the abandonment of Algiers and a lump sum while the tale of the Siege of Oran would spread across Europe and become a cornerstone of Aragonese bitterness towards the Portuguese (17).
Do you look them carefully? If not, you had to read it back until you completely got it. Once you got it then change all of them to Zayyanids per the resultant text. Hopefully you will got it all.The Kingdom of Tlemcen was a Berber kingdom that stretched from Tlemcen to the Chelif bend and Algiers, and at its zenith reached the Moulouya river to the west, Sijilmasa to the south and the Soummam river to the east. The Bānu ʿabd āl-Wād, also called the Bānu Ziyān or Zayyanids after Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan, the founder of the dynasty, were leaders of a Berber group who had long been settled in the Central Maghreb. Contemporary chroniclers asserted that they had a noble origin. Tlemcen was an important center under the Almoravids and their successors the Almohads, who began a new wall around the town in 1161. Yaghmurasen ibn Zayyan, 1235–83, of the Bānu ʿabd āl-Wād was governor of Tlemcen under the Almohads. He inherited leadership of the family from his brother in 1235. When the Almohad empire began to fall apart, in 1235 Yaghmurasen declared his independence. The city of Tlemcen became the capital of one of three successor states, ruled for centuries by successive Ziyyanid sultans. Its flag was a white crescent pointing upwards on a blue field. The kingdom covered the less fertile regions of the Tell Atlas. Its people included a minority of settled farmers and villagers, and a majority of nomadic herders. Yaghmurasen was able to maintain control over the rival Berber groups, and when faced with the outside threat of the Marinids, he formed an alliance with the Sultan of Granada and the King of Castile, Alfonso X. According to Ibn Khaldun, "he was the bravest, most dreaded and honorable man of the 'Abd-la-Wadid family. No one looked after the interest of his people, maintained the influence of the kingdom and managed the state administration better than he did." Before his death he instructed his son and heir Uthman to remain on the defensive with the Marinid kingdom, but to expand into Hafsid territory if possible. Under Yaghmurasen's leadership, and later under Abu Hammu II, 1359–89, the kingdom pursued an expansionary policy, pushing towards Fez in the west and into the Chelif valley and Béjaïa in the east. By 1415 Abd Malek I Zayyanid had sat on the throne for four years, after emerging victorious from the succession crisis that followed the death of his brother Abu Abdallah in 1411 and saw a nephew and brother precede him to the throne (14).
Viscount Bernat de Cabrera at The Siege of Oran
The Aragonese assault on the Algerian Coast was not particularly wanted nor thought to be needed by King Ferran and his advisors, but they decided to join in the various Iberian attacks on Muslim lands because of the agreement that ended the war with Castile. The attack would focus its attentions in two regions, around the city of Oran which was one of the wealthiest cities in the world and on the town of Algiers which was less prominent and farther from the Zayyanid center of power in Tlemcen. The first attack occurred on the 31st of July 1415, when a force of 4,000 was landed outside the walls of Algiers and the town was swiftly taken by storm. The Emir of Algiers was taken captive in the surprise assault and was placed under house arrest while the Aragonese began siphoning what wealth they could from the town. A month later, on the 1st of September, a much larger force of 15,000 was landed near Oran, under the command of Bernat IV de Cabrera, Viscount of Cabrera, the city which, toward the end of the 14th century, had been celebrated by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun thusly, "Oran is superior to all other cities by its trade. It's a paradise for the unhappy one. Those who arrive poor in its walls, will leave it again rich." The city excelled in the export of lead, wool, skins, fine burnous, carpets, haïks, cumin, nuts, and galls, as well as black African slaves. It was the main port of the Zayyanids and was well defended and prepared for the assault. The Siege of Oran would prove to be a military disaster from start to finish for the Aragonese. Firstly, their attempts at landing met with failure twice, as the currents and defensive positions around Oran prevented landings closer to the city. The third attempt succeeded in the face of a concerted defense, but cost hundreds of lives (15). The Aragonese slowly hammered through the outer defenses of Oran and finally arrived before the city walls on the 8th. On 12th September, Bernat ordered the first assault on the city, attacking five points at the same time, Bernat personally leading one of the assault teams himself. But it quickly failed – the scaling ladders were too few and, as it turns out, too short, to reach the top of the walls. The assaulters had to withdraw. Aragonese casualties amounted to some 20 dead and 500 wounded. The artillery had also proven too weak to do much damage. In the wake of the assault, Bernat ordered larger ordnance cannon to be shipped in from Palermo. Soon after the first assault, the first Zayyanid relief troops arrived in Tangiers. A column of 300 elite Aragonese knights was sent to intercept them, but they were swiftly swept aside. Some fifty Aragonese knights were cut down, and the rest barely escaped. The death of several leading nobles caused some consternation in the Aragonese camp. On the 18th of September, a larger Zayyanid army appeared over the hills of Oran. The Aragonese chroniclers, with great exaggeration, claimed it was composed of 10,000 horsemen and 90,000 foot Bernat moved his army to a hillside, offering battle, but the Zayyanid just held their position in the valley. After three motionless hours, Bernat ordered the Aragonese to march against them and force the issue, but the Zayyanids just retreated back up the hills, evidently wishing to hold the higher ground. Seeing their motion, Bernat called off the attack, and returned with his troops back to the siege lines. The next day, much the same maneouvers were repeated, with the same results. On the 21st of September, the dance changed slightly: the Zayyanid army began a threatening march towards the siege lines. Bernat quickly arrayed his troops in two lines. The Zayyanids then suddenly halted. Bernat seized the initiative and sent his stronger left wing to take a height on the Zayyanid flank, and ordered his first line forward. Seeing the flanking maneuver, the Zayyanid began to retreat. At that moment, the Oran garrison burst out in a sortie against the siege camp, which was being held by a reserve force. The Zayyanid had hoped Bernat's line would break back to rescue the camp, but the reserves successfully repelled the sally by themselves. The height taken and the Aragonese line advanced unabated pushing the Zayyanid to call a retreat and broke the engagement. The Aragonese counted this encounter as a victory. Soldiers reported seeing the vision of a white cross appear in the sky that very evening (16).
Their morale restored, the Aragonese decided to proceed with a new assault on the city. Their scaling ladders were now extended, a new siege tower had been built and the two larger ordnance cannons shipped in from Palermo was finally doing serious damage on the gates and walls of the city. On the 28th of September, Bernat ordered the second assault. Bernat led the assault force himself, leaving the rest of the troops to defend their flanks and keep the Zayyanid relief army at bay. But the second assault failed as badly as the first. The city's defenders rushed to the critical points, and poured on rapid and heavy missile fire. The Aragonese assaulters were prevented from even reaching the walls, only one ladder managed to be set up – and was promptly destroyed. On the 3rd of October, Bernat was preparing his third assault when he received intelligence of a new massive Zayyanid relief army – reported, with doubtless exaggeration, to be some 60,000 horse and 700,000 foot. This massive army was personally led by Sultan Abd Malek Zayyanid. Viscount Bernat realized the Aragonese were hopelessly outnumbered, that the siege was lost and the best they could do was to fight an orderly rearguard action back to the ships. All the seamen were ordered to prepare sail, while the army was arrayed to defend a retreat of the assault force back to the fortified siege camp lines. The arriving Zayyanid army did not pause but attacked at once. The Aragonese advance posts were quickly overwhelmed and the way to the city cleared. The Zayyanid then charged the Aragonese forces. The artillery batteries were quickly overrun and taken. The Zayyanid charge then turned on Bernat's cavalry – which quickly broke and beat a retreat back to the siege camp line. Bernat's own horse was killed from under him, effectively disabling his ability to survey the field and organize the retreat. He eventually made it to safety in the camp, having evaded capture on foot. The retreat nearly turned into a rout when about two thousand of the Aragonese soldiers, nobles among them, abandoned the siege line and fled in panic all the way down to the beach to make for the ships. It was only by the furious fighting of those remaining on the palisade that the Zayyanid army did not manage to overwhelm and take the siege camp that very day. The battle was broken off by evening. The Zayyanid army encircled and settled down to a siege of the Aragonese siege camp (16).
Overnight, the Aragonese besiegers – now besieged – set about repairing and strengthening the defenses of the siege camp. The next day, the Zayyanids launched another assault on the siege camp, but were repelled after a heavy four-hour fight. By this point the expeditionary force had been reduced to around 9,000 the remainder having been lost over the course of the siege or in the chaotic assault the previous day. The Aragonese camp was certainly in a desperate situation, with only a day or so worth of food left. When these ran out, Bernat resolved on a night operation to breach the Zayyanid lines and force his army's passage to the beach and the idling ships. But this operation was detected before it even began. The Zayyanid reinforced the posts guarding the paths to the sea, cutting off all hope of escape for the Aragonese army. At his wits end, Bernat de Cabrera and his army decided to sell their lives expensively and marched out of their camp at dawn on the 5th of October 1415. The Aragonese launched themselves into the surrounding Zayyanid forces who greatly outnumbered them, and over the course of the day slowly ground their way towards the walls of Oran, having sworn to touch the city walls before they died. The bloodshed of the battle horrified Sultan Abd Malek, who found the flower of his state's youth bleeding out on the sands of Oran to no gain. By nightfall the Aragonese force had been destroyed, with some 2,000 taken prisoner, the vast majority of them wounded, while Bernat himself died underneath the walls of Oran. The survivors would eventually be ransomed to King Ferran in return for the abandonment of Algiers and a lump sum while the tale of the Siege of Oran would spread across Europe and become a cornerstone of Aragonese bitterness towards the Portuguese (17).
That was my correction for now, i would send other corrections later.
UPDATE
Ehm! Another correction! Located in the most recent update. Change both to "Stewarts". This should be clear.
Last edited:
Had an idea for you @Zulfurium. Don't know what your plans are for Egypt but I came across something pretty cool that could work for your TTL Islamic world. In 1412, after Sultan An-Nasir Faraj was captured and assassinated, the Egyptian Emirs enthroned their Abbasid Caliph Al-Musta'in as the new Sultan. He only held power for six months before being deposed but he seemed to be capable as Sovereign (which is probably why he was deposed!). Not sure if an Abbasid restoration in Egypt would work long-term or not but it would be very cool to see if you can do something with it!
@Zulfurium, you are so close! I have seen you got fixed majority of the segment where you fixed majority of the errors that you got! But i seen one more needed to correct: this one. "theZayyanid". Change it into "the Zayyanid", the correct one, and this is done for good.The Aragonese assault on the Algerian Coast was not particularly wanted nor thought to be needed by King Ferran and his advisors, but they decided to join in the various Iberian attacks on Muslim lands because of the agreement that ended the war with Castile. The attack would focus its attentions in two regions, around the city of Oran which was one of the wealthiest cities in the world and on the town of Algiers which was less prominent and farther from the Zayyanid center of power in Tlemcen. The first attack occurred on the 31st of July 1415, when a force of 4,000 was landed outside the walls of Algiers and the town was swiftly taken by storm. The Emir of Algiers was taken captive in the surprise assault and was placed under house arrest while the Aragonese began siphoning what wealth they could from the town. A month later, on the 1st of September, a much larger force of 15,000 was landed near Oran, under the command of Bernat IV de Cabrera, Viscount of Cabrera, the city which, toward the end of the 14th century, had been celebrated by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun thusly, "Oran is superior to all other cities by its trade. It's a paradise for the unhappy one. Those who arrive poor in its walls, will leave it again rich." The city excelled in the export of lead, wool, skins, fine burnous, carpets, haïks, cumin, nuts, and galls, as well as black African slaves. It was the main port of the Zayyanids and was well defended and prepared for the assault. The Siege of Oran would prove to be a military disaster from start to finish for the Aragonese. Firstly, their attempts at landing met with failure twice, as the currents and defensive positions around Oran prevented landings closer to the city. The third attempt succeeded in the face of a concerted defense, but cost hundreds of lives (15). The Aragonese slowly hammered through the outer defenses of Oran and finally arrived before the city walls on the 8th. On 12th September, Bernat ordered the first assault on the city, attacking five points at the same time, Bernat personally leading one of the assault teams himself. But it quickly failed – the scaling ladders were too few and, as it turns out, too short, to reach the top of the walls. The assaulters had to withdraw. Aragonese casualties amounted to some 20 dead and 500 wounded. The artillery had also proven too weak to do much damage. In the wake of the assault, Bernat ordered larger ordnance cannon to be shipped in from Palermo. Soon after the first assault, the first Zayyanid relief troops arrived in Tangiers. A column of 300 elite Aragonese knights was sent to intercept them, but they were swiftly swept aside. Some fifty Aragonese knights were cut down, and the rest barely escaped. The death of several leading nobles caused some consternation in the Aragonese camp. On the 18th of September, a larger Zayyanid army appeared over the hills of Oran. The Aragonese chroniclers, with great exaggeration, claimed it was composed of 10,000 horsemen and 90,000 foot Bernat moved his army to a hillside, offering battle, but the Zayyanid just held their position in the valley. After three motionless hours, Bernat ordered the Aragonese to march against them and force the issue, but the Zayyanids just retreated back up the hills, evidently wishing to hold the higher ground. Seeing their motion, Bernat called off the attack, and returned with his troops back to the siege lines. The next day, much the same maneouvers were repeated, with the same results. On the 21st of September, the dance changed slightly: the Zayyanid army began a threatening march towards the siege lines. Bernat quickly arrayed his troops in two lines. The Zayyanids then suddenly halted. Bernat seized the initiative and sent his stronger left wing to take a height on the Zayyanid flank, and ordered his first line forward. Seeing the flanking maneuver, the Zayyanid began to retreat. At that moment, the Oran garrison burst out in a sortie against the siege camp, which was being held by a reserve force. The Zayyanid had hoped Bernat's line would break back to rescue the camp, but the reserves successfully repelled the sally by themselves. The height taken and the Aragonese line advanced unabated pushing theZayyanid to call a retreat and broke the engagement. The Aragonese counted this encounter as a victory. Soldiers reported seeing the vision of a white cross appear in the sky that very evening (16).
Viscount Bernat de Cabrera at The Siege of Oran
Had to clarify a bit of my idea i posted before, in paragraph 11 i had to note that just before revolting, Muhammad IX launches a coup against Muhammad VIII, citing a reason that Muhammad VIII is not willing to go further against "Christians" (Castile) led by Enrique V who is threatening to end his realm. It was successful and he killed unpopular Muhammad VIII with support of some servants. He declared independence from Castile little bit after and declared war on Castile by raiding some cities near Granada. Some hours later, while Enrique V is in southern Castile he found out and heard the news that Granada declared war on Castile, he returned to the capital and prepares most of the Castilian army to go into the war, and declaring war against the resurgent Granada led by Muhammad IX. He goes back into southern Castile then fights Muhammad IX's forces.
Well that was my clarifications. Please wait for further corrections, okay. However, before i end this, i want to ask: What happened to other prominent figures in Loire Campaign and Siege of Orleans (Jean II d'Alencon, Jean de Dunois, Jean de Brosse, Jean de Xaintralles, John Talbot, Thomas de Scales, John Fastolf, William de la Pole, Thomas Montacute, William Glasdale)? What happened to Owen Tudor (relative of Owain Glyndwyr)? Otherwise, thank you.
Last edited:
@SuperMarioBros99thx I think that we have a different view of the ability to power project with regards to all of the different powers. Quite simply, Enrique V is going to be far too busy with events in Aragon for the entire decade to involve himself in North African adventures. Further, the Sicilians and their Barcelona guests are going to be far more focused on seeing if they can reestablish control of Aragon when compared to North Africa. This time period really didn't see all that much African interest in the Mediteranean. Malta was the focus of bitter civil war between two claimants to the County of Malta, so might do something with that, but there simply aren't the same pressures present in the region which led to the War for the Mediteranean. I also think that events are going a bit too quickly for your suggestions. The way to view the unrest in Aragon is similarly to what happened in northern France during Henry's campaigns in the region IOTL. The Portuguese are going to be mainly focused on establishing diplomatic cover from Enrique (mainly by way of alliances with French and English forces, but their focus is squarely fixed on Africa and their expeditions. I try to build my story on OTL trends and forces as much as possible, with the butterflies pushing those trends in ways which seem obvious to me.
Regarding the different people you mentioned:
Jean II is between 11-13 during the final warfare of the Princes' War, so it is his father Jean I d'Alencon who plays an important role in the fighting around Normandy and Paris. Jean de Dunois is relegated to the sidelines, mostly fighting alongside his brothers, though not in a leadership position. He will come to play a part in the Orléans regency for his youngest brother, Albert, and is a close supporter of his step-mother Margaret von Habsburg, he gained some leadership experience during his father's later campaigns against his subjects and received quite a bit of land within the Orléans duchies. Jean de Brosse was killed a long time ago if I remember correctly, or hasn't emerged in any significant position, Jean de Xaintralles participated in Prince Edward's campaigns in the south, but hasn't really emerged as an important figure, John Talbot has been invovled in the fighting in France in various capacities, mostly in Northern France, and is set to go to Ireland but also hasn't emerged in a significant way. Thomas de Scales served in northern France in the last few years of the conflict but hasn't really accomplished anything which brings him any sort of renown, John Fastolf also hasn't gained any real noteriety though he has fought and is joining the conflict in Ireland, William de la Pole's family mostly fell from grace during Richard's Rebellion and he has mostly served in a minor military posting in northern France, Thomas Montacute served in southern France with quite a bit of distinction and was killed at the Siege of Auxerre - he was married to King Edward's illegitimate daughter and is succeeded by his young son Thomas de Montagu who will be raised as Duke of Salisbury soon, William Glasdale serves in the English forces under Prince Edward with limited distinction but not enough to warrent mentioning. Owen Tudor joined the Royal Welsh Archers under his relative and participated with distinction throughout Prince Edward's campaigns, he is a lieutenant in the Royal Welsh Archers but nothing more than that.
I hope that answers your questions. I will definitely take your suggestions under advisement, but I have several ideas that are contradictory with them which I will run with. It will probably end up being some sort of mashup. Thank you for the suggestions and comments, it really helps stimulate my thought processes.
Regarding the different people you mentioned:
Jean II is between 11-13 during the final warfare of the Princes' War, so it is his father Jean I d'Alencon who plays an important role in the fighting around Normandy and Paris. Jean de Dunois is relegated to the sidelines, mostly fighting alongside his brothers, though not in a leadership position. He will come to play a part in the Orléans regency for his youngest brother, Albert, and is a close supporter of his step-mother Margaret von Habsburg, he gained some leadership experience during his father's later campaigns against his subjects and received quite a bit of land within the Orléans duchies. Jean de Brosse was killed a long time ago if I remember correctly, or hasn't emerged in any significant position, Jean de Xaintralles participated in Prince Edward's campaigns in the south, but hasn't really emerged as an important figure, John Talbot has been invovled in the fighting in France in various capacities, mostly in Northern France, and is set to go to Ireland but also hasn't emerged in a significant way. Thomas de Scales served in northern France in the last few years of the conflict but hasn't really accomplished anything which brings him any sort of renown, John Fastolf also hasn't gained any real noteriety though he has fought and is joining the conflict in Ireland, William de la Pole's family mostly fell from grace during Richard's Rebellion and he has mostly served in a minor military posting in northern France, Thomas Montacute served in southern France with quite a bit of distinction and was killed at the Siege of Auxerre - he was married to King Edward's illegitimate daughter and is succeeded by his young son Thomas de Montagu who will be raised as Duke of Salisbury soon, William Glasdale serves in the English forces under Prince Edward with limited distinction but not enough to warrent mentioning. Owen Tudor joined the Royal Welsh Archers under his relative and participated with distinction throughout Prince Edward's campaigns, he is a lieutenant in the Royal Welsh Archers but nothing more than that.
I hope that answers your questions. I will definitely take your suggestions under advisement, but I have several ideas that are contradictory with them which I will run with. It will probably end up being some sort of mashup. Thank you for the suggestions and comments, it really helps stimulate my thought processes.
@Zulfurium Thank you for that, and thank you also for adopting my idea into TL (well, this is for the first time i have contributed into people's TL). But i had to clarify again a bit, for paragraph 11, i forgot to mention but i had to note that sometime after the beginnimg of the war, Enrique V considered to re-vassalize the Granada but over time thanks to the Muhammad IX's bravery he starts to reconsider annexation of Granada once for all. Enrique V would finally go down into that path after he started the pact of finishing Granada.
Anyways, did you finally correct the word i pointed out before (located on Update 37)? I would like that update finally if you tell me that.
What do you think of Emperor Constantine's idea?
What happened to late One Hundred Years' War figures such as Jean Bureau, Thomas Kyriell, and Arthur de Montfort (note: this is Duke Arthur III of Britanny IOTL, son of John IV of Brittany)?
Thank you and i am waiting for your reply.
Anyways, did you finally correct the word i pointed out before (located on Update 37)? I would like that update finally if you tell me that.
What do you think of Emperor Constantine's idea?
What happened to late One Hundred Years' War figures such as Jean Bureau, Thomas Kyriell, and Arthur de Montfort (note: this is Duke Arthur III of Britanny IOTL, son of John IV of Brittany)?
Thank you and i am waiting for your reply.
Last edited:
I did actually incorporate the Abbasid Caliph. Specifically his daughter married Jahan Shah and as a result the Qara Qoyunlu now claim descent from the Abbasids. Al-Musta'in never attempts his coup, instead he closely supports the Qara Qoyunlu's attempts at establishing their Sultanate and allies with them. The Qara Qoyunlu and Ottomans are probably the most stable of the post-Timurid period, with the Aq Qoyunlu as the most unstable, struggling with the Persian nobility in an effort to establish a proper Persian Shahdom. It bears mentioning that Uzun Hasan will turn up later in the TL and will play a significant role in stabilizing the Aq Qoyunlu.
There is a good reason for Enrique not to restart the conflict with the Grenadines, specifically he is already struggling with a near unmanageable Aragonese insurgency. Enrique simply doesn't have the resources to turn elsewhere due to the fierce resistance of the Aragonese. It is a key part of why he gives up on Navarre, he simply doesn't have the resources to deal with another enemy.
Jean Bureau is in Jean de Champagne's lands and seeks employment as a lawyer in Troyes before coming to the attention of the Duke. He then enters service with Jean and works as part of his administration. He hasn't yet started working in a military capacity and is more of an administrator for the time being. Thomas Kyriell served in northern France and with Ingleram de Mowbray, whose personal retinue he has entered. Arthur de Rochefort (who I think you mean) was never born. His OTL mother is TTL Queen Joan of England and married Edward V, his OTL father married Joan's sister. He is replaced by TTL's Duke Arthur, though TTL's Arthur is a significantly weaker personality and never got invovled in the degree of shenanigans that Arthur de Rochefort did IOTL.
Fixed Update 37 btw, thanks
.@Zulfurium Before i end this current conversation for granted i had to tell you why i loved this TL particularly alot. I had to be honest and i think this looks pretty bigoted if i am aware of. I had to say sorry for Romance peoples who are suffered during the past from 1300's until 1900's, peoples who like Roman Empire's history (they might dislike "Germanic" barbarians) and please don't kick me out okay, i know i think i have a mistaken mind. Now here is the reasons why i liked this TL, honestly:
*This TL seems to be geared towards Germanic' (NOT Germans, but "Germanic" and also Habsburg are NOT considered) peoples domination of Europe before World War II but AFTER Frankish Empire's collapse. Why i said this? This is because i don't think there is any TL's before that ever explore around concept about Germanic peoples (not Habsburgs, they are not considered) ever dominate most of the Europe, BEFORE World War III but AFTER the end of Carolingian dynasty (essentialy after 12th century and before 20th century to be honest). It seems that this TL would finally explore this scenario of, and probably the best chances of Germanic peoples' domination of Europe during this time period. Is that it? Well, it is just so rare to see these TLs based on this scenario ever happen.
*Wow! Unity of the regions before it could ever happen IOTL by decades or even centuries! Ollie Bye might be proud of this, if he would do some map making projects. If i were to see Ollie Bye's map ITTL, i think he would make serious amounts and less of reds and red-colored countries (they mean Germanic). That just make me so imaginative of things that could be happen with. With Russia, Low Countries, Iberia, Turks, and North Europe unificating (and probably also Germany and Serbia but not Italy) earlier and probably ever-lasting, this seems somewhat making me committed to contributing this TL even more than i think i could do!
That's the reason why i loved this TL. Looks pretty bigoted and somewhat r***** to Romance peoples out there (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latins...), probably insulting to extremist Roman-loving fans (WHY GERMANIC BARBARIANS DOMINATE EUROPE???) and everything bad happening from these reasons. I am really sorry about these and don't give me infractions of that...
Okay, now here is what i would like to look in the next update, especially for the Russians:
Ivan III is not just going to another Rus' states for easy plunder but at same time he annexes it, expanding and also uniting the Rus' under one state. I expect him to focus at playing diplomatically with smaller Rus' states while focusing on conquest of Novgorod. He plunders all the way while conquering it in three years. Then he turned against all of his non-Mongol vassal allies "to punish" them for not complying Khan's authority (Note: this is actually a cover), conquering them relatively very quickly in just four months and at same time plundered them again. Also during this time, he managed to get some of the Rus' states gain independence as he played them only to punish them with Edigu's support. As time progresses however, Edigu began to show some suspicion that he does these only for attempting to gain power and not doing it for the Khan (who wanted the weak Muscovite ruler). In 1423, Ivan III's intentions finally exposed when he shows impantience as he seized & pillaged Rostov and Tver, which are Mongol vassals and actually loyal into Mongols, not doing anything wrong for Edigu. After exposition he returned to Moscow but Edigu began to prepare for invasion with a huge army trying to punish Ivan III for his attempts. Ivan III from Moscow, managed to be aware with it and prepared to muster his forces for war against the Khan. In a one of the most decisive battle in Medieval history along with the Battle of Toledo, Ivan used his knowledge of anti-nomad tactics and using that he decisively destroyed the Edigu's army along while also killing the Edigu himself, allowing anarchy to engulf Golden Horde once more (and split into White Horde and Blue Horde again). While all of this happened, sometime before the Edigu's invasion victims of the Ivan's plunder began to show, with pro-Mongol sentiments and in many of these Ivan III's younger brother became figurehead of these rebellions. Ivan III ignored these to focus on Edigu's invasion. The rebels showed to be pretty successful due to non-interference from Ivan III, but after he returned from that decisive battle he got massive prestige and used it to turn many of the rebels into his cause promising them some benefit and some spoils from his pillaging and quickly crushed the rebellion while Vasily is killed. These actions start to getting some attention worldwide, but not major enough. After the Edigu's invasion and rebellions, Ivan began to turn his attention into quickly reforming, consoidating and centralizing the state while annexing remaining principalities, thus fully uniting the Rus' into one rule, turning Grand Duchy of Moscow into Empire of Russia (by becoming Tsar of the All Russia, reflecting on Ivan III's ambitions to get Russia into world stage on 1425). He also, during this time began to make his presence on the world by conducting some diplomatic policies into Plantagenets, France, etc. After completing reforms on 1426, he began to consider and turned into invasion of the Golden Horde. With Golden Horde on chaos and his knowledge of nomadic tactics he succeeded in occupation, pillaging, seizure and annexation of half of the Golden Horde lands (White Horde) while putting back Jalal al-Din Khan into the throne of "Golden Horde" (Blue Horde), now a vassal of Russia on 1428. In Crimea, Crimean Tatars declare independence but their indepence was deterred by dual invasion of Venice and Russia (note: Venice broke the deal with Golden Horde as Russia began to make it's presence to the world and while making diplomatic relations with Venice, Russia pressured them to broke deal and got it in this one). After gaining victory form Golden Horde, he sees his prestige growing as he returned to Moscow but at same time hostility with the nobility grows, in which would make troubles in Ivan III's mid-reign (1440's decade). After celebrations he returns to campaigning again, this time to North Caucasus as an attempt to get Russia into world stage. However during the campaign he found out that people in North Caucasus are very hostile and thus forced to retreat into Golden Horde lands. From there he raised a massive army into North Caucasus, which once in there the campaign spirals out of control and well noted for it's violence and brutality. He finally managed to win that on August 1430 but with massive losses from it. He returned to Moscow but a popular agitation ensued, forcing Ivan III to focus ending these rebellions. He crushed these rebellions with help of Nordics, his ally on October 1430 (about a week before Vytautas' death). He is surprised of Nordics' intervention, in which Nordics note that they felt grateful with Ivan's actions, allowing him with their support. These actions would greatly influental on creation of Russo-Nordic Alliance - The alliance of two states in which Russians give support to the Nordic claims and Nordics give support to the Russian claims, thus making the Great Eastern War four-sided (Bjelbo-Rurik dynastu vs Kęstutis dynasty vs Jagiellons vs Piast dynasties). After he crushed the rebellion, he decided to start laws designed to satisfy lower classes like Edward V in his early reign, but this somewhat caused more frictions on nobility. When he heard Vytautas' death next week, he immediately goes into Vilnius with some bodyguards and some 2000 men. But as he is entering Vilnius, however he is surprised to see that population quickly opposed his succession. This forced Ivan to occupy Vilnius with some forces he carried, thus crowned as Jonas (Lithuanian form of Ivan) with some support of pro-Vytautas nobility who doesn't care about religion, but for dynastic matters. Anti-Jonas population and nobility resisted in Vilnius, and they later fled and supported Sigismund Kęstutis - brother of Vytautas (some of them supported Švitrigaila). Jonas struggled to completely control Vilnius and began to see need for the alliance with the Nordics, who supported Ivan which surprised him also. He began to enter negoitations with Nordics for alliance, while trying to keep Russian army to occupy Vilnius under his arms. The Nordics requested retaking lands of Samogitia into Teutonic Order, and help them in conquest of Samo and Karelia in order to start an alliance with Russia - in which Ivan III reluctantly accepts. He prioritized the stability of Lithuania and with help of Teutono-Nordic forces in early 1431 Nordic-Teutonics retaken all of the lands lost from Battle of Grunwald easily while Russia consolidated control of most of the eastern Lithuania with some difficulty. After feeling safe, Ivan turned into Karelia and in June 1431 Nordics and Russians finally conquered the region in which Russians control Karelia and Kona peninsula while Nordics gain all of Northern Finland and Samo. This connected Nordics and Russians via land, allowing Nordics to easily help Russia via land routes. After Nordics' request finished, Nordics ratified the alliance thus Russo-Nordic alliance is finally started. Then that's the end of the next update.
Before i end this, i want to ask: What happened into remaining Lancastrian phase of the war figures Ambroise de Loré, Gilbert de Lafayette, John Stewart (Earl of Buchan), John of Darnley, and Edmund Beaufort?
Anyways. Thank you, but i had to apologize for Romance readers here as my statements might be offensive to you.
*This TL seems to be geared towards Germanic' (NOT Germans, but "Germanic" and also Habsburg are NOT considered) peoples domination of Europe before World War II but AFTER Frankish Empire's collapse. Why i said this? This is because i don't think there is any TL's before that ever explore around concept about Germanic peoples (not Habsburgs, they are not considered) ever dominate most of the Europe, BEFORE World War III but AFTER the end of Carolingian dynasty (essentialy after 12th century and before 20th century to be honest). It seems that this TL would finally explore this scenario of, and probably the best chances of Germanic peoples' domination of Europe during this time period. Is that it? Well, it is just so rare to see these TLs based on this scenario ever happen.
*Wow! Unity of the regions before it could ever happen IOTL by decades or even centuries! Ollie Bye might be proud of this, if he would do some map making projects. If i were to see Ollie Bye's map ITTL, i think he would make serious amounts and less of reds and red-colored countries (they mean Germanic). That just make me so imaginative of things that could be happen with. With Russia, Low Countries, Iberia, Turks, and North Europe unificating (and probably also Germany and Serbia but not Italy) earlier and probably ever-lasting, this seems somewhat making me committed to contributing this TL even more than i think i could do!
That's the reason why i loved this TL. Looks pretty bigoted and somewhat r***** to Romance peoples out there (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latins...), probably insulting to extremist Roman-loving fans (WHY GERMANIC BARBARIANS DOMINATE EUROPE???) and everything bad happening from these reasons. I am really sorry about these and don't give me infractions of that...
Okay, now here is what i would like to look in the next update, especially for the Russians:
Ivan III is not just going to another Rus' states for easy plunder but at same time he annexes it, expanding and also uniting the Rus' under one state. I expect him to focus at playing diplomatically with smaller Rus' states while focusing on conquest of Novgorod. He plunders all the way while conquering it in three years. Then he turned against all of his non-Mongol vassal allies "to punish" them for not complying Khan's authority (Note: this is actually a cover), conquering them relatively very quickly in just four months and at same time plundered them again. Also during this time, he managed to get some of the Rus' states gain independence as he played them only to punish them with Edigu's support. As time progresses however, Edigu began to show some suspicion that he does these only for attempting to gain power and not doing it for the Khan (who wanted the weak Muscovite ruler). In 1423, Ivan III's intentions finally exposed when he shows impantience as he seized & pillaged Rostov and Tver, which are Mongol vassals and actually loyal into Mongols, not doing anything wrong for Edigu. After exposition he returned to Moscow but Edigu began to prepare for invasion with a huge army trying to punish Ivan III for his attempts. Ivan III from Moscow, managed to be aware with it and prepared to muster his forces for war against the Khan. In a one of the most decisive battle in Medieval history along with the Battle of Toledo, Ivan used his knowledge of anti-nomad tactics and using that he decisively destroyed the Edigu's army along while also killing the Edigu himself, allowing anarchy to engulf Golden Horde once more (and split into White Horde and Blue Horde again). While all of this happened, sometime before the Edigu's invasion victims of the Ivan's plunder began to show, with pro-Mongol sentiments and in many of these Ivan III's younger brother became figurehead of these rebellions. Ivan III ignored these to focus on Edigu's invasion. The rebels showed to be pretty successful due to non-interference from Ivan III, but after he returned from that decisive battle he got massive prestige and used it to turn many of the rebels into his cause promising them some benefit and some spoils from his pillaging and quickly crushed the rebellion while Vasily is killed. These actions start to getting some attention worldwide, but not major enough. After the Edigu's invasion and rebellions, Ivan began to turn his attention into quickly reforming, consoidating and centralizing the state while annexing remaining principalities, thus fully uniting the Rus' into one rule, turning Grand Duchy of Moscow into Empire of Russia (by becoming Tsar of the All Russia, reflecting on Ivan III's ambitions to get Russia into world stage on 1425). He also, during this time began to make his presence on the world by conducting some diplomatic policies into Plantagenets, France, etc. After completing reforms on 1426, he began to consider and turned into invasion of the Golden Horde. With Golden Horde on chaos and his knowledge of nomadic tactics he succeeded in occupation, pillaging, seizure and annexation of half of the Golden Horde lands (White Horde) while putting back Jalal al-Din Khan into the throne of "Golden Horde" (Blue Horde), now a vassal of Russia on 1428. In Crimea, Crimean Tatars declare independence but their indepence was deterred by dual invasion of Venice and Russia (note: Venice broke the deal with Golden Horde as Russia began to make it's presence to the world and while making diplomatic relations with Venice, Russia pressured them to broke deal and got it in this one). After gaining victory form Golden Horde, he sees his prestige growing as he returned to Moscow but at same time hostility with the nobility grows, in which would make troubles in Ivan III's mid-reign (1440's decade). After celebrations he returns to campaigning again, this time to North Caucasus as an attempt to get Russia into world stage. However during the campaign he found out that people in North Caucasus are very hostile and thus forced to retreat into Golden Horde lands. From there he raised a massive army into North Caucasus, which once in there the campaign spirals out of control and well noted for it's violence and brutality. He finally managed to win that on August 1430 but with massive losses from it. He returned to Moscow but a popular agitation ensued, forcing Ivan III to focus ending these rebellions. He crushed these rebellions with help of Nordics, his ally on October 1430 (about a week before Vytautas' death). He is surprised of Nordics' intervention, in which Nordics note that they felt grateful with Ivan's actions, allowing him with their support. These actions would greatly influental on creation of Russo-Nordic Alliance - The alliance of two states in which Russians give support to the Nordic claims and Nordics give support to the Russian claims, thus making the Great Eastern War four-sided (Bjelbo-Rurik dynastu vs Kęstutis dynasty vs Jagiellons vs Piast dynasties). After he crushed the rebellion, he decided to start laws designed to satisfy lower classes like Edward V in his early reign, but this somewhat caused more frictions on nobility. When he heard Vytautas' death next week, he immediately goes into Vilnius with some bodyguards and some 2000 men. But as he is entering Vilnius, however he is surprised to see that population quickly opposed his succession. This forced Ivan to occupy Vilnius with some forces he carried, thus crowned as Jonas (Lithuanian form of Ivan) with some support of pro-Vytautas nobility who doesn't care about religion, but for dynastic matters. Anti-Jonas population and nobility resisted in Vilnius, and they later fled and supported Sigismund Kęstutis - brother of Vytautas (some of them supported Švitrigaila). Jonas struggled to completely control Vilnius and began to see need for the alliance with the Nordics, who supported Ivan which surprised him also. He began to enter negoitations with Nordics for alliance, while trying to keep Russian army to occupy Vilnius under his arms. The Nordics requested retaking lands of Samogitia into Teutonic Order, and help them in conquest of Samo and Karelia in order to start an alliance with Russia - in which Ivan III reluctantly accepts. He prioritized the stability of Lithuania and with help of Teutono-Nordic forces in early 1431 Nordic-Teutonics retaken all of the lands lost from Battle of Grunwald easily while Russia consolidated control of most of the eastern Lithuania with some difficulty. After feeling safe, Ivan turned into Karelia and in June 1431 Nordics and Russians finally conquered the region in which Russians control Karelia and Kona peninsula while Nordics gain all of Northern Finland and Samo. This connected Nordics and Russians via land, allowing Nordics to easily help Russia via land routes. After Nordics' request finished, Nordics ratified the alliance thus Russo-Nordic alliance is finally started. Then that's the end of the next update.
Before i end this, i want to ask: What happened into remaining Lancastrian phase of the war figures Ambroise de Loré, Gilbert de Lafayette, John Stewart (Earl of Buchan), John of Darnley, and Edmund Beaufort?
Anyways. Thank you, but i had to apologize for Romance readers here as my statements might be offensive to you.
I am honestly not quite sure what to say to this...
I never thought that the timeline would be construed as anything beyond an experiment in what ifs, alternate histories and causal dynamics. I certainly don't think that it is particularly geared towards the "Germanics", at least not purposefully. I wanted to consider the potential for John of Gaunt's very real plans for trying to claim the Castilian throne and the effects of a better led Kalmar Union. On the other side, I was really interested in the complex interplay of the different levels of the feudal nobility in France and its connections to the rest of the world. The Princes' War was meant to be an opportunity to really experiment with the different nobles of the period and an attempt at trying to game out the potential effects of a surviving Louis d'Orléans. My main goal has been to experiment with as many different locations as possible and moving events in as many different directions as possible.
I don't quite understand why people from the Romance nations would be insulted at the TL. It is an alt timeline, with the majority of the focus actually being on those romance countries. France and its nobility have been at the heart of the TL for almost the entirety of the TL, with the English honestly being secondary players in many ways. I never really thought of any of these populations being split into as broad catagories as "germanic" or "romance" before you mentioned them, and honestly find them really poor descriptors. Not only are the political and cultural structures incredibly complex and varied within these catagorizations, but grouping them together in such a way at this point in time makes absolutely no sense. It simply isn't a relevant way of categorizing events at this point in time, nor does it really work at any other point in time. I try to be as detailed as possible, and categorizing things in that manner really breaks with that entire approach.
I am honestly rather confused about why you would think this TL is in any way meant to bash anyone. It isn't. Don't think I can be clearer about that.
I have already written out the Eastern European update and am well into the Spanish update now (where the revolts in Aragon really turned out to need a lot more fleshing out than I had expected), so I don't know how many of your thoughts would be incorporated there.
Ambroise de Loré fought for both the Navarrese and Angevins at different points in the conflict, but at the time of the Treaty of Soissons is a vassal of Pedro of Navarre.
Gilbert de Lafayette fought for the Bourbons throughout the war and was present at Montpensier where he was captured, being ransomed on the cheap after the Treaty of Soissons.
The Earl of Buchan is part of the Scottish exiled community, but has found himself outside of the inner circle of power due to the Douglases' hostility towards him. They view him as a competitor for power. He has taken some lands in northern Brittany.
John of Darnley remains in Scotland and is a middling noble at the Scottish court. He hasn't particularly distinguished himself in any particular way at this point.
Edmund Beaufort doesn't exist ITTL, his father being the Despot of Morea in the ERE. His father was at the center of several updates.
I hope that answers your questions. I would prefer if we dropped the whole "germanic" and "romance" classifications and discussions, make me rather uncomfortable and really aren't meant to play a part in this TL. I have tried to respond to you as best I could, but would prefer if we stopped here. I really hope no one is offended at this TL, would horrify me because that is the last thing I want it to do.
This might be one of the most bizarre comments I have ever read on this site. The idea that you can split Europe into romance and Germanic groups at this point in time is very strange. The statement that the "romance nation's" are doing worst is also very strange and I have seen no evidence to come to that conclusion.
Zulfurium I just want to let you know that your timeline has been amazing. I have followed along since the very beginning wasting plenty of time at work. I have in no way seen any discriminations against any peoples, this has been in no sense a wank for any cultural group anyone may want to define. But this is AH so really you can do whatever you want. Personally I would of wanked the English a little more but that's just my take.
You have put massive work into researching this project and it has shown throughout. I have to commend you and I hope your hiatus on this timeline after chapter is not too long.
You have put massive work into researching this project and it has shown throughout. I have to commend you and I hope your hiatus on this timeline after chapter is not too long.
@TheCoolCucumber Thanks for your comment. Why i made that bizzare comment is because i am really showing my fear while also at the same time i am trying to show my honesty on how i really loved this TL. I am fearful of what i am going to do, that's why i made that such bizzare comment.
@Zulfurium Oh, thank you. I am really a somewhat newcomer to the history. I want to learn more about history and i seem to really like it. I know some people might and could make bizzare comments like that given the circumstances, and i had to make that comment on why i really like that TL. I planned to give the reason why before i end this conversation before the Eastern European update comes and i think with these, that's the end of the discussion. Now, since i am a newbie i am prone to do these such outlandish and vivid imaginations (which probably could perpetuate bigotry and racism, something what i hate and what i am to avoid), and i think you are very helpful at making my imaginations somewhat more realistic. Before i say "see you on the release of the next update", i want to give you thanks for giving me advice needed on my imaginations. Without someone like you are here i think i will probably judged due to my imaginations and probably even result to a ban or something. This is what i wanted to avoid, i am doing my contributions with good faith, not doing it with bad faith but still, i need to find good ways to do so. These things would be vital in my future in this site, without these things to do so, i think i would see my end in a bad way.
Anyways, this is would be my last post in here until the eventual release of Update 47! I hope that the update would be the best. Thank you and goodbye, see you on the release of the next update! I am not expecting the replies anytime soon, but well, cheers!
Last edited:
Update Forty-Seven: The Eastern War
In this one we make our way back to the East to discover how the war, which I have been building up to since update 21, plays out. I have not gone into anything like the detail I have elsewhere simply because I don't have enough of a grasp on the region to do it justice. Further, this update covers a decade-long war in a single update, which really doesn't give me an opportunity to do it justice. Suffice to say that I wish I could do it justice and that it honestly deserves as much coverage as I gave to the Princes' War. It is probably as important in many ways. I have included a map before the actual update because I doubt people have a good grasp on many of the locations in the region, I certainly didn't - and honestly probably still don't. All that equivocating besides, I really hope you enjoy how things play out in this update. I think that the end result is in keeping with the realism/plausability I have tried to inject into the rest of the timeline. Please let me know what you think!
Map of Eastern Europe around the 1420s (OTL)
Following Janusz's decision to declare himself King of Poland, the focus of Waldemar's forces shifted northward. Janusz was the first to act, marching westward towards Poznan and capturing towns including Inowroclaw, Wloclawek and Brzesc before stalling out in front of the walls of Trzemeszno. Waldemar had finally been able to martial enough forces to oppose this army by the 29th of August 1419 and launched his forces northward at the Mazowian army from Pyzdry. After skirmishing broke out between Nordic and Mazowian pickets south of Trzemeszno, King Janusz decided to withdraw eastward, drawing Waldemar after him. As the skirmishes between the two forces heated up only for Janusz to find his path eastward blocked by the long Popielewskie Lake and he was therefore forced to turn and face the oncoming Nordic army. The Battle of Popielewskie Lake was the result, with both sides hammering at each other until Waldemar's left wing gave way and the Nordic forces were forced into retreat. Janusz pulled back to Inowroclaw to recover while launching armies westward in an effort to raise the countryside against the Nordic invaders, with limited success for the time being. The two armies would move southward, clashing at the Battles of Kolo and Leczyca before the fighting came to an end in 1419 (1). Casimir IV Jagellion's supporters would launch minor raids and assaults into Mazowian and Nordic lands while the two larger opponents clashes, slowly regaining some of their power and lands in the process. 1420 would begin with one of the largest battles of the war to date, when Waldemar launched an army north-east from Kolo towards Brzesc, seeking to cut off the salient stretching to Inorwroclaw. The Battle of Brzesc was preceded by fierce skirmishing, while the actual battle once again turned against the Nordics when a force of Tartar mercenaries who had signed on with Janusz raked the Nordic flanks. Waldemar was driven into retreat once more, only learning of the Battle of the Vistula Lagoon soon after and the resultant cutting off of his supply lines. King Janusz was quick to exploit this, launching several assaults into Nordic lands and recapturing towns like Kolo and Leczyca after intense opposition. Janusz launched another assault on Trzemeszno, this time succeeding when Waldemar was called westward in response to revolts in favor of the Mazowian Piasts (2).
With the Nordic position deteriorating under this constant pressure, the rapidly growing Nordic membership of the Teutonic order began pushing for the Order to support Waldemar. Fierce debate followed within the order, as the older German leadership found themselves challenged by the numerous but newly joined Nordic Teutonic knights. The strife between the two factions would come to a head in late 1420, as Janusz pressed even further into Great Poland, capturing Pyzdry and Sroda and leaving Poznan exposed to assault. While Waldemar martialed what forces he could, with much of the countryside up in arms in favor of the Piasts, a conspiracy of Nordic Teutonic knights launched a palace coup against the German leadership group - imprisoning them and deposing them in favor of Nordic knights before word could even escape the region. In the spring of 1421, as Janusz was preparing for the final assault on Poznan, the Teutonic armies marched southward out of Prussia. The sudden entrance of the Teutonic Knights into the conflict in Poland led to the fall of Lipno, Inowroclaw, Dobryzn, Wloclawek and Brzesc in rapid succession, forcing Janusz to rush eastward in an effort to prevent encirclement, with Waldemar launching himself in pursuit. Rushing down the Warta River, through the recently captured Sroda, Pyzdry, Kolo and Leczyca before crossing to the Vistula at Wyszogrod, Janusz found himself forced to give up all of his successes from the last two years. Waldemar followed closely after, dispatching forces to besiege the cities as he passed them and putting down the remaining revolts in the region before meeting up with the Teutonic forces at Dobryzn in preparation for a drive down the Vistula towards Warsawa (3).
Janusz pulled together all the forces available to him at Wyszogrod before setting out to protect the city of Plock from the advancing Nordic and Teutonic forces. The Battle of Plock was fought on the 14th of May 1421. The Mazowian force outnumbered their Teutonic and Nordic opponents but were less well armored and riven by internal dissension as an increasingly vocal faction of Jagellion Partisans agitated against Piast rule from within the ranks of the army. In an initial clash the two forces found themselves equally matched, but slowly the armored Teutonic cavalry began to drive back the Mazowians, launching assault after assault on the frontlines while the riven Mazowians saw large segments of their army turn tail at the orders of their lords. On the verge of collapse, King Janusz led a cavalry charge into the disarrayed Teutonic forces after they had found themselves mired in combat, and drove dozens from their saddles. The two forces continued hammering at each other until night fell, with the Nordic forces slowly retreating to Dobryzn. The Battle of Plock would mark the end of the initial fierce fighting between the Mazowians and Nordic forces, both sides having been driven to exhaustion and the Mazowians finding that they could not trust their neighbours. In the meanwhile, several of the forces left to besiege the various Mazowian-captured towns found themselves under attack from popular revolts erupting in reaction to the rising taxes - a result of the Hanseatic blockade. King Waldemar found himself forced to turn back westward, launching into the lawless reaches of Greater Poland in an effort to enforce submission (4). In the meanwhile, High King Olaf began negotiations with the Hanseatic League in an effort to bring the conflict in the Baltic to a close, as it had become clear that a continuation of that naval conflict would weaken the Nordic forces in Poland too much. These negotiations culminated in the Treaty of Sønderborg, signed in southern Jutland, which set a lower Sound Toll on Hanseatic ships and ended the Lübeck Salt Tax - the two most onerous parts of the previous settlement. This would help reopen the Baltic to Nordic shipping and reestablished the supply lines to Poland. The winter of 1421-1422 would prove particularly cold and brought to an end most of the popular discontent in Greater Poland. By mid-1422 the Nordic position had returned to a position of strength (5).
King Casimir IV of Poland
In early 1420, Ivan III of Muscovy was able to bring further forces to bear on Švitrigaila, successfully taking the Ruthenian lands up to Smolensk, before stalling out in front of the large fortress city which opposed Vytautas. Švitrigaila led forces out of the southern reaches of Lithuania, having augmented his forces with Tartar mercenaries at great expense, and marched for Kiev. In a series of battles along the river, most notably at the battles of Korsun, Kaniow and Kiev he succeeded in driving Vytautas out of Southern Lithuania. The Fall of Kiev occured nearly simultaneously with the Fall of Smolensk, opening up the routes between Vytautas and Ivan and allowing them to coordinate their efforts better. Švitrigaila moved his focus more towards the border regions with Poland in response, capturing Zytomierz, Zwiahel and Zaslaw with relative ease and reestablishing control of lands connected to the Jagellions after an offensive by Vytautas had broken the connection. Fighting spread northward, with both Vytautas and Švitrigaila leading forces into the region, centering mostly on Pinsk and Turow. Ivan of Muscovy was able to lead an army into southern Ruthenia while Švitrigaila and Vytautas were occupied in the west, capturing immense tracts to land from Smolensk in the north to Poltava in the south. The fighting around Pinsk would prove particularly fierce, eventually turning in Vytautas favor as Švitrigaila's reliance on Tartars proved too expensive to keep running. By late 1422 Švitrigaila's positions were collapsing in the region and he had personally gone south to Kiev in hopes of martialing further forces and of gaining Jagellion support (6).
While Janusz and Waldemar had been tearing into each other with abandon, Casimir's supporters had been building up their position. During the intense fighting in Greater Poland, the Jagellions had encroached on their borders until the two combatants dispersed under the strain of the fighting after the Battle of Plock. After weighing which of the two contenders for the throne presented the greatest threat to the Jagellions, Casimir's supporters decided to focus their attentions on the Piasts of Mazowia, where pro-Jagellion partisans had already demonstrated their support for Casimir. By the autumn of 1421 the Jagellions had begun an assault across the front. Capturing Sandomierz, Opatow and Checiny with relative ease, the Jagellions launched themselves towards Lublin in hopes of cutting off communications and subsequently breaking the Mazowian control in southern Poland. King Janusz dispatched much of his forces southward in an effort to prevent just such an occurrence, engaging in bloody fighting at Itza, Goraj and Radom. However, the exhausted nature of the Mazowian forces played heavily in the favor of the Jagellions and saw them emerge victorious from the battles in these locations. Lublin held out under siege for much of a year, but eventually fell in late 1422 - opening the route into Lithuania and allowing contact with Švitrigaila (7). 1423 saw the Teutonic and Nordic forces tear into northern Mazowia once more. With his position collapsing and under assault from two fronts, Janusz sought out an agreement with the Jagellions. In return for allowing Conrad Piast, Janusz's son and brother-in-law to Casimir and Alexander Jagellion, to succeed Janusz in his Mazowian lands, Janusz would give up his crown and fully back the Jagellions. Despite agreeing to this, and arranging for Alexander to marry Janusz' youngest daughter in an effort to end their conflict, Warsawa fell on the 13th of August 1423 to the Nordic armies (8).
Švitrigaila began receiving immense amounts of support from the Jagellions after the Fall of Lublin and as a result was able to significantly strengthen his position. From Kiev, he led an army up the Dniester in an effort to take the heartlands of Vytautas' support. After capturing Ostrz, Švitrigaila encountered significant resistance at Czemihow, though that town fell into his hands as well, before running into Vytautas' main force south of Lubecz. In the three Battles of Lubecz that followed, the fighting slowly turned in Švitrigaila's favor, until in the third battle he was defeated and driven into retreat. Švitrigaila began a widespread campaign in an effort to conquer all of the towns, castles and cities in the region over the course of 1423 and 1424, by the end of the year he had successfully taken over the region. Vytautas, in response drew directly on his grandson Ivan for support, leading to twin campaigns on either side of Švitrigaila's newly taken territories, including the destruction of Putwyl and the desolation of wide stretches of territory in eastern Lithuania. Vytautas personally led a force compromising many of the men of Old Lithuania out of Sluck towards Švitrigaila's territories. In the Battles of Bobrujsk and Rohaczew, Vytautas successfully ended Švitrigaila's northern advance. Following these setbacks, Švitrigaila began recruiting large numbers of Tartars once more in hopes of turning the tide in his favor - extensively taxing the regions he had just taken. Edigu, Khan of the Golden Horde was eager to accept Švitrigaila's offer (9).
Ivan III of Muscovy Receives Oaths of Fealty Following The Battle of Loyew
Edigu and his Golden Horde swept into Ruthenia, leaving death and destruction in their wake. They met up with Švitrigaila at Baturyn, having destroyed the southern-most positions held by Ivan of Muscovy, and the two began marching westward in hopes of encountering Vytautas. In response to news of the Golden Hordes' involvement in the conflict, Ivan of Muscovy marched immediately to his grandfather's aid, joining him at Gomel, north of Lubecz. From across Lithuania, and into Poland, men streamed towards Gomel in hopes of driving out the Tartar menace which one of their own had let in. The two forces would collide at the Battle of Loyew in April 1425, fought between Gomel and Lubecz, and would see the end of two major players in the undertaking. The Battle of Loyew saw the Muscovite and Lithuanian army of Vytautas fortify themselves on the western bank of the Dnieper while Švitrigaila and Edigu launched assault after assault across the river, mainly centered on the small town of Loyew on the western bank. Intense fighting on both banks resulted, with Vytautas and Ivan leading multiple assaults across the river. Over the course of eight days the two sides skirmshed back and forth, until finally - during the height of an assault across the river - Edigu found himself speared by a Lithuanian knight. The Horde forces seemed about to collapse, causing Vytautas to launch his army across the river, only for Švitrigaila to crash into the Lithuanians. Intense fighting followed, with Vytautas beaten from his horse and killed during the battle. Vytautas' army seemed on the verge of collapsing when Ivan joined the fighting. Švitrigaila was eventually forced into retreat, but in the end the Battle of Loyew had accomplished his goal. With Edigu dead, the Horde forces abandoned Lithuania for their own lands - which would collapse into civil war when Jalal-al Din Khan, who had been a guest of Vytautas since the middle of the previous decade, was dispatched by Ivan to reclaim his throne - while Švitrigaila retreated to Kiev to recuperate. Both armies at the Battle of Loyew had taken immense losses, but the loss of Vytautas would prove to be the most important of them all (10).
In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Loyew, with most of the Lithuanian nobility present, Ivan III of Muscovy had himself declared Grand Prince of Lithuania and demanded that fealty be given. Having little choice with the large Muscovite presence, the Lithuanian nobility began giving their oaths immediately. While Ivan had succeeded in gaining the oaths of fealty from a large segment of the Lithuanian nobility, he was not widely accepted as Vytautas' successor and he consequently faced immediate opposition (11). While Švitrigaila was able to amass further power in southern Lithuania, his decision to ally with the Golden Horde made him widely unpopular with the Old Lithuanian nobility. They therefore remained opposed to him, but began seeking an alternative to Muscovite domination. Their attention instead turned to Vytautas' brother, Zygimantis Kestautatis, who declared himself Grand Prince of Lithuania at Vilnius and consequently gained the backing of much of the Old Lithuanian nobility. Ivan acted swiftly to preserve what he could of his Lithuanian inheritance, marching into the Vitebsk region in an effort to subjugate it as swiftly as possible. As the months passed following the Battle of Loyew, more and more of Ivan's Lithuanian supporters went over to Zygimantis, with the result that Ivan was left scratching at the edges. Švitrigaila, in the meanwhile reoriented himself against Zygimantis, who he came to view as his primary rival, and marched north from Kiev once more. Large clashes at Ostrow, Kleck and Sluck followed with the front moving back and forth multiple times as one offensive after another went in. The devastation of central Lithuania was continued in these clashes, while Ivan of Muscovy secured his positions as well as he could. By the end of 1425 Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Briansk and Kursk had all fallen under Muscovite sway and Ivan began planning for an offensive into the old heartland of Lithuania (12).
In the two and a half years that followed the fall of Warsawa, the Jagellion and Nordic claimants to the Polish throne tore into each other like rabid beasts. The frontlines had mainly run from Wielun, through Piotrkow, Opoczno and Rawa to Warka on the Vistula. East of the Vistula, the two sides mainly descended into raids, ambushes and skirmishes between minor forces. At the same time, the efforts of Švitrigaila drew strongly on the Jagellion resources, and after his turn towards the Golden Horde those ties proved increasingly burdensome to the outraged Polish nobles who made up the council controlling the war effort. The intense battles that were fought, twice at Rawa, once at Wielun and three times at Warka proved devastating to the region, while the dozens of raids and skirmishes tore through villages and towns leaving them destroyed (13). When Ivan launched his assault into Lithuania in early 1426, it seemed like Švitrigaila would emerge supreme in the region as Zygimantis' forces began to collapse. The Jagellion council as a result decided to cut their support for Švitrigaila, who suddenly saw his position begin to crumble, while the Jagellions asserted their own claim to the Lithuanian throne. With his reliance on Tartar mercenaries, alliance with the Golden Horde and role in the widespread devastation of Lithuania, Švitrigaila quickly saw his supporters jump ship and declare in favor of the Jagellions. The sudden rise of the Jagellions in southern Lithuania, just as Zygimantis and Ivan were locked in a death struggle, meant that the Nordic and Muscovite armies found themselves outnumbered individually. It was at this point that Ivan reached out to Waldemar, offering to split Poland and Lithuania between them and offering Samogitia to the Teutonic Order as a further inducement. Waldemar would leap at this suggestion, signing the Treaty of Thorn in April of 1426 and allying the Muscovite and Nordic forces against the Jagellions and Zygimantis. The Teutonic forces in Livonia moved swiftly to assert their power in Samogitia, taking control of the region by the end of 1426 (14). This intervention led to a collapse of Zygimantis' positions and his death in the Battle of Szawle when he marched north to oppose the Teutonic invasion. The Jagellions were quick to muster support from the Old Lithuanian nobility, who were willing to accept Jogaila's sons as rulers given the other options available. By early 1427 Švitrigaila's position had become untenable and he fled eastward to the court of his one-time ally and founder of the Nogai Horde Edigu's son Sheidak Nogai Khan who had taken up rule in the eastern parts of the Golden Horde in which his family had control during the years of the Golden Horde's civil war (15).
Casimir IV Jagellion meets his betrothed at Warsawa
While Ivan advanced towards Vilnius and the Livonian forces moved through Samogitia, the Jagellions moved rapidly to oppose them. Intense fighting around Krewo, Zaslaw and Minsk saw Ivan driven to a standstill, pushing him southward towards Rohaczew. The Livonian advance found itself blunted at Kowno, but left most of Samogitia in Livonian hands. Ivan would launch an invasion into southern Lithuania, hoping to grasp hold of Kiev and establish a claim to the ancient Rus. In the meanwhile, Waldemar and his Teutonic allies began a series of attacks into the eastern reaches of Mazowia, resulting in fierce battles around Wizna and Lomza which turned in favor of Waldemar. By mid-1427 the war had shifted to the lands around Kiev, where Ivan was undertaking a major advance in the face of serious opposition. In battles at Rylsk, Putwyl and Baturyn, the Muscovite advance stove in the Jagellion front, forcing the redeployment of large forces from Poland and Old Lithuania to counter the assault. The Battles of Czemihow and Ostrz ended in Muscovite victories, but on the outskirts of Kiev the Lithuanians were finally able to muster enough forces to end the advance. The Battle of Kiev saw immense numbers of soldiers clash in fierce melees, eventually turning in Jagellion favor after taking large losses, including several prominent nobles. By the waning days of 1427 the Muscovite advance had come to an end, and would gradually contract back to Putwyl (16).
After almost a decade of intense conflict, the two sides began sending out peace feelers. King Waldemar would be the first to do so, worried about his father's worsening health and hopeful that he could leave his brother - the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order (17) - in charge of his Polish conquests, initiating the negotiations which would be undertaken at Warsawa. Ivan joined soon after, dispatching a close advisor to serve as proxy. Over the course of 1428 the two sides undertook intense negotiations, while skirmishes and raids continued on all fronts, eventually coming to an agreement in the Peace of Warsawa. Waldemar would renounce his claim to the Kingdom of Poland in return for the Provinces of Greater Poland and Mazowia as well as acknowledging the legality of the transfer of Samogitia to the Teutonic Order. Ivan of Moscow agreed to give up his claim to the Grand Principality of Lithuania in return for his conquests starting in the north on the Daugava River, running through Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Roslaw, Briansk, Trubczewsk, Putwyl and Poltawa in the south. This vast swathe of land was given over to Ivan while his daughter Anastacia married the young Casimir IV Jagellion while Eleanor of Malmö was married to Ivan's heir Vasily Ivanovich. Thus the Great Eastern War came to an end, known to history as the Polish-Lithuanian Succession War (18). In time Alexander Jagellion would take up regency of Lithuania for his brother, ruling from Kiev. The loss of Mazowia came as a deep blow to the Piast rulers of the region, who were forced to move southward and settled around the Kievan lands, gaining large tracts of land in the region in an effort to impose a feudal system on the otherwise lawless region (19).
Footnotes:
(1) The emergence of Janusz leaves Waldemar forced to focus on this larger and more powerful enemy when contrasted with the child king Casimir.
(2) The lands of Greater Poland found themselves under significant financial pressure when the Hanseatic League closed off contact with the Baltic and as a result rose up in opposition to the Nordic invaders. Furthermore, the emergence of a Piast candidate to the throne proves wildly popular in Greater Poland with a resultant rise in popular revolts in the region.
(3) This period of conflict is actually one of the most hectic and violent, seeing some of the largest number of losses in the Polish theater of the war. The intervention of the Teutonic Order proves vital to securing Waldemar's positions.
(4) After exhausting each other, the two sides need time to lick their wounds. The Nordic forces get the opportunity to fix their supply problem and recover. Not so much for the Mazowians.
(5) This peace agreement is painful for Olaf to sign, but in the end he decides that there was too much at stake for him to not go through with it. The loss of the Lübeck Salt Tax is a particularly grim loss, but it could be worse. The Sound Toll being lowered for the Hanseatic fleets is another decision he isn't happy about, but given the potential gains in the Baltic region and Poland he decides that the cost is worth it. That said, there is also the potential for another conflict with the Hanseatic fleets when the position in Poland is secured.
(6) Švitrigaila's support is focused mainly on the border with Muscovy, in southern Lithuania and in western Lithuania, bordering on Poland. Vytautas largely controls old Lithuania in the north and most of central Lithuania.
(7) I hope that the reasoning behind the Jagellion assault on the Piasts is understandable. The Piasts have a much better claim to the Polish Kingdom and have a larger degree of support from the wider Polish population than the Nordic King Waldemar, making Janusz more of a threat for the Jagellions. The Siege of Lublin is really important, because it helps to strengthen Švitrigaila's positions in Lithuania and allows the two sides to exchange resources when needed.
(8) The surrender of the Mazowian Piasts is a shame, but they now find themselves tied to the Jagellions by marriage. The decision to marry the Piast daughter to Alexander and not Casimir does create some tension but the dangerous position of the Jagellions and their young age keeps these threats in check for the time being.
(9) Švitrigaila's decision to ally with the Golden Horde is one of his biggest blunders and fundamentally turns large parts of the Lithuanian population against him. We will see the results of this later on.
(10) The Battle of Loyew is another of those large and storied battles that appear in the historic record between the Golden Horde and their European opponents in Russia. The death of Vytautas against the "Mongol Hordes" in a victorious battle lead to his elevation into greatness. His death also greatly weakens Ivan's position in Lithuania and leaves him scrambling for alternatives.
(11) These oaths are extracted under significant pressure, but do allow Ivan to claim that he has widespread support from the Lithuanian nobility. The fact that very few Lithuanians view them as legitimate are unimportant, providing Ivan with a strong cause for continuing his involvement in the conflict.
(12) This invasion of the Vitebsk region is really important, because it secures one of the wealthiest and most populated regions of Lithuania for the Muscovites. Furthermore, the people of the region are more than willing to subordinate themselves to Ivan, viewing him as a closer fit than their Lithuanian overlords.
(13) I can't understate how bloody this fighting is. The frontlines basically stalemate, with both sides marshalling large forces to attack each other in battle after battle. At the same time both sides face significant popular discontent, flaring up in countless uprisings across Poland in favor of a Piast candidate. The Piasts of Silesia give significant consideration towards putting forward their claim but in the end Emperor Sigismund forces them to stay out of it and funnels support to Waldemar when he can.
(14) The Treaty of Thorn begin an alliance between Muscovy and the Nordic Kingdoms which allows the Muscovites to begin participating in wider European politics and will prove useful in the future. The invasion of Samogitia would have experienced far more popular uprising than do occur, if not for the immense losses taken by the Samogitian nobility in the war so far.
(15) I haven't touched on the civil war in the Golden Horde, but it is a struggle that lasts from 1425 until 1432 and ends with a split in the horde, the easternmost lands becoming part of the Nogai Horde while the Golden Horde remains under Jalal-al Din Khan ibn Tokhmatysh and his successors.
(16) I strongly considered having the Muscovites take Kiev and keep it, but decided against it. This leaves plenty to fight over in the future and gives Alexander Jagellion something to build on in the future.
(17) This Grandmaster, Hàkon of Lund, came to power in 1425 at the height of the conflict in Poland. Though the Nordic forces had taken over the Teutonic Order before this, they had been forced to retain a German Grandmaster until this point in time, when his death in battle created an opening for Hàkon. This signals the first of a long series of Nordic royals who will take on leadership of the order, and brings the Teutonic Order firmly into the Nordic orbit.
(18) I realize that the towns and cities mentioned can be difficult to keep track of, but it basically amounts to a large chunk of eastern Lithuania coming under Muscovite control while a large part of Poland, basically most of its northern lands, come under Nordic domination. The Jagellions agreed to this position because it seemed increasingly clear that Emperor Sigismund was gearing up to intervene in the conflict himself. They therefore move quickly to cut their losses. Even with these major losses, the Jagellion lands remain incredibly powerful and have plenty of room to expand to the south. The focus of the Jagellions will be on reclaiming their lost lands when they can, but mostly on expanding into the Ukrainian plains. The center of gravity for both Poland and Lithuania moves significantly to the south.
(19) The Piast settlement around Kiev is simply the first of many Polish nobles, moving from Greater Poland and Mazowia, who will settle in the south and establish large feudal estates in the region. This significantly strengthen the Jagellion positions in the Ukraine, but leaves them with less support in their lost lands.
Map of Eastern Europe around the 1420s (OTL)
The Eastern War
Janusz I at the Battle of Plock
Janusz I at the Battle of Plock
Following Janusz's decision to declare himself King of Poland, the focus of Waldemar's forces shifted northward. Janusz was the first to act, marching westward towards Poznan and capturing towns including Inowroclaw, Wloclawek and Brzesc before stalling out in front of the walls of Trzemeszno. Waldemar had finally been able to martial enough forces to oppose this army by the 29th of August 1419 and launched his forces northward at the Mazowian army from Pyzdry. After skirmishing broke out between Nordic and Mazowian pickets south of Trzemeszno, King Janusz decided to withdraw eastward, drawing Waldemar after him. As the skirmishes between the two forces heated up only for Janusz to find his path eastward blocked by the long Popielewskie Lake and he was therefore forced to turn and face the oncoming Nordic army. The Battle of Popielewskie Lake was the result, with both sides hammering at each other until Waldemar's left wing gave way and the Nordic forces were forced into retreat. Janusz pulled back to Inowroclaw to recover while launching armies westward in an effort to raise the countryside against the Nordic invaders, with limited success for the time being. The two armies would move southward, clashing at the Battles of Kolo and Leczyca before the fighting came to an end in 1419 (1). Casimir IV Jagellion's supporters would launch minor raids and assaults into Mazowian and Nordic lands while the two larger opponents clashes, slowly regaining some of their power and lands in the process. 1420 would begin with one of the largest battles of the war to date, when Waldemar launched an army north-east from Kolo towards Brzesc, seeking to cut off the salient stretching to Inorwroclaw. The Battle of Brzesc was preceded by fierce skirmishing, while the actual battle once again turned against the Nordics when a force of Tartar mercenaries who had signed on with Janusz raked the Nordic flanks. Waldemar was driven into retreat once more, only learning of the Battle of the Vistula Lagoon soon after and the resultant cutting off of his supply lines. King Janusz was quick to exploit this, launching several assaults into Nordic lands and recapturing towns like Kolo and Leczyca after intense opposition. Janusz launched another assault on Trzemeszno, this time succeeding when Waldemar was called westward in response to revolts in favor of the Mazowian Piasts (2).
With the Nordic position deteriorating under this constant pressure, the rapidly growing Nordic membership of the Teutonic order began pushing for the Order to support Waldemar. Fierce debate followed within the order, as the older German leadership found themselves challenged by the numerous but newly joined Nordic Teutonic knights. The strife between the two factions would come to a head in late 1420, as Janusz pressed even further into Great Poland, capturing Pyzdry and Sroda and leaving Poznan exposed to assault. While Waldemar martialed what forces he could, with much of the countryside up in arms in favor of the Piasts, a conspiracy of Nordic Teutonic knights launched a palace coup against the German leadership group - imprisoning them and deposing them in favor of Nordic knights before word could even escape the region. In the spring of 1421, as Janusz was preparing for the final assault on Poznan, the Teutonic armies marched southward out of Prussia. The sudden entrance of the Teutonic Knights into the conflict in Poland led to the fall of Lipno, Inowroclaw, Dobryzn, Wloclawek and Brzesc in rapid succession, forcing Janusz to rush eastward in an effort to prevent encirclement, with Waldemar launching himself in pursuit. Rushing down the Warta River, through the recently captured Sroda, Pyzdry, Kolo and Leczyca before crossing to the Vistula at Wyszogrod, Janusz found himself forced to give up all of his successes from the last two years. Waldemar followed closely after, dispatching forces to besiege the cities as he passed them and putting down the remaining revolts in the region before meeting up with the Teutonic forces at Dobryzn in preparation for a drive down the Vistula towards Warsawa (3).
Janusz pulled together all the forces available to him at Wyszogrod before setting out to protect the city of Plock from the advancing Nordic and Teutonic forces. The Battle of Plock was fought on the 14th of May 1421. The Mazowian force outnumbered their Teutonic and Nordic opponents but were less well armored and riven by internal dissension as an increasingly vocal faction of Jagellion Partisans agitated against Piast rule from within the ranks of the army. In an initial clash the two forces found themselves equally matched, but slowly the armored Teutonic cavalry began to drive back the Mazowians, launching assault after assault on the frontlines while the riven Mazowians saw large segments of their army turn tail at the orders of their lords. On the verge of collapse, King Janusz led a cavalry charge into the disarrayed Teutonic forces after they had found themselves mired in combat, and drove dozens from their saddles. The two forces continued hammering at each other until night fell, with the Nordic forces slowly retreating to Dobryzn. The Battle of Plock would mark the end of the initial fierce fighting between the Mazowians and Nordic forces, both sides having been driven to exhaustion and the Mazowians finding that they could not trust their neighbours. In the meanwhile, several of the forces left to besiege the various Mazowian-captured towns found themselves under attack from popular revolts erupting in reaction to the rising taxes - a result of the Hanseatic blockade. King Waldemar found himself forced to turn back westward, launching into the lawless reaches of Greater Poland in an effort to enforce submission (4). In the meanwhile, High King Olaf began negotiations with the Hanseatic League in an effort to bring the conflict in the Baltic to a close, as it had become clear that a continuation of that naval conflict would weaken the Nordic forces in Poland too much. These negotiations culminated in the Treaty of Sønderborg, signed in southern Jutland, which set a lower Sound Toll on Hanseatic ships and ended the Lübeck Salt Tax - the two most onerous parts of the previous settlement. This would help reopen the Baltic to Nordic shipping and reestablished the supply lines to Poland. The winter of 1421-1422 would prove particularly cold and brought to an end most of the popular discontent in Greater Poland. By mid-1422 the Nordic position had returned to a position of strength (5).
King Casimir IV of Poland
In early 1420, Ivan III of Muscovy was able to bring further forces to bear on Švitrigaila, successfully taking the Ruthenian lands up to Smolensk, before stalling out in front of the large fortress city which opposed Vytautas. Švitrigaila led forces out of the southern reaches of Lithuania, having augmented his forces with Tartar mercenaries at great expense, and marched for Kiev. In a series of battles along the river, most notably at the battles of Korsun, Kaniow and Kiev he succeeded in driving Vytautas out of Southern Lithuania. The Fall of Kiev occured nearly simultaneously with the Fall of Smolensk, opening up the routes between Vytautas and Ivan and allowing them to coordinate their efforts better. Švitrigaila moved his focus more towards the border regions with Poland in response, capturing Zytomierz, Zwiahel and Zaslaw with relative ease and reestablishing control of lands connected to the Jagellions after an offensive by Vytautas had broken the connection. Fighting spread northward, with both Vytautas and Švitrigaila leading forces into the region, centering mostly on Pinsk and Turow. Ivan of Muscovy was able to lead an army into southern Ruthenia while Švitrigaila and Vytautas were occupied in the west, capturing immense tracts to land from Smolensk in the north to Poltava in the south. The fighting around Pinsk would prove particularly fierce, eventually turning in Vytautas favor as Švitrigaila's reliance on Tartars proved too expensive to keep running. By late 1422 Švitrigaila's positions were collapsing in the region and he had personally gone south to Kiev in hopes of martialing further forces and of gaining Jagellion support (6).
While Janusz and Waldemar had been tearing into each other with abandon, Casimir's supporters had been building up their position. During the intense fighting in Greater Poland, the Jagellions had encroached on their borders until the two combatants dispersed under the strain of the fighting after the Battle of Plock. After weighing which of the two contenders for the throne presented the greatest threat to the Jagellions, Casimir's supporters decided to focus their attentions on the Piasts of Mazowia, where pro-Jagellion partisans had already demonstrated their support for Casimir. By the autumn of 1421 the Jagellions had begun an assault across the front. Capturing Sandomierz, Opatow and Checiny with relative ease, the Jagellions launched themselves towards Lublin in hopes of cutting off communications and subsequently breaking the Mazowian control in southern Poland. King Janusz dispatched much of his forces southward in an effort to prevent just such an occurrence, engaging in bloody fighting at Itza, Goraj and Radom. However, the exhausted nature of the Mazowian forces played heavily in the favor of the Jagellions and saw them emerge victorious from the battles in these locations. Lublin held out under siege for much of a year, but eventually fell in late 1422 - opening the route into Lithuania and allowing contact with Švitrigaila (7). 1423 saw the Teutonic and Nordic forces tear into northern Mazowia once more. With his position collapsing and under assault from two fronts, Janusz sought out an agreement with the Jagellions. In return for allowing Conrad Piast, Janusz's son and brother-in-law to Casimir and Alexander Jagellion, to succeed Janusz in his Mazowian lands, Janusz would give up his crown and fully back the Jagellions. Despite agreeing to this, and arranging for Alexander to marry Janusz' youngest daughter in an effort to end their conflict, Warsawa fell on the 13th of August 1423 to the Nordic armies (8).
Švitrigaila began receiving immense amounts of support from the Jagellions after the Fall of Lublin and as a result was able to significantly strengthen his position. From Kiev, he led an army up the Dniester in an effort to take the heartlands of Vytautas' support. After capturing Ostrz, Švitrigaila encountered significant resistance at Czemihow, though that town fell into his hands as well, before running into Vytautas' main force south of Lubecz. In the three Battles of Lubecz that followed, the fighting slowly turned in Švitrigaila's favor, until in the third battle he was defeated and driven into retreat. Švitrigaila began a widespread campaign in an effort to conquer all of the towns, castles and cities in the region over the course of 1423 and 1424, by the end of the year he had successfully taken over the region. Vytautas, in response drew directly on his grandson Ivan for support, leading to twin campaigns on either side of Švitrigaila's newly taken territories, including the destruction of Putwyl and the desolation of wide stretches of territory in eastern Lithuania. Vytautas personally led a force compromising many of the men of Old Lithuania out of Sluck towards Švitrigaila's territories. In the Battles of Bobrujsk and Rohaczew, Vytautas successfully ended Švitrigaila's northern advance. Following these setbacks, Švitrigaila began recruiting large numbers of Tartars once more in hopes of turning the tide in his favor - extensively taxing the regions he had just taken. Edigu, Khan of the Golden Horde was eager to accept Švitrigaila's offer (9).
Ivan III of Muscovy Receives Oaths of Fealty Following The Battle of Loyew
Edigu and his Golden Horde swept into Ruthenia, leaving death and destruction in their wake. They met up with Švitrigaila at Baturyn, having destroyed the southern-most positions held by Ivan of Muscovy, and the two began marching westward in hopes of encountering Vytautas. In response to news of the Golden Hordes' involvement in the conflict, Ivan of Muscovy marched immediately to his grandfather's aid, joining him at Gomel, north of Lubecz. From across Lithuania, and into Poland, men streamed towards Gomel in hopes of driving out the Tartar menace which one of their own had let in. The two forces would collide at the Battle of Loyew in April 1425, fought between Gomel and Lubecz, and would see the end of two major players in the undertaking. The Battle of Loyew saw the Muscovite and Lithuanian army of Vytautas fortify themselves on the western bank of the Dnieper while Švitrigaila and Edigu launched assault after assault across the river, mainly centered on the small town of Loyew on the western bank. Intense fighting on both banks resulted, with Vytautas and Ivan leading multiple assaults across the river. Over the course of eight days the two sides skirmshed back and forth, until finally - during the height of an assault across the river - Edigu found himself speared by a Lithuanian knight. The Horde forces seemed about to collapse, causing Vytautas to launch his army across the river, only for Švitrigaila to crash into the Lithuanians. Intense fighting followed, with Vytautas beaten from his horse and killed during the battle. Vytautas' army seemed on the verge of collapsing when Ivan joined the fighting. Švitrigaila was eventually forced into retreat, but in the end the Battle of Loyew had accomplished his goal. With Edigu dead, the Horde forces abandoned Lithuania for their own lands - which would collapse into civil war when Jalal-al Din Khan, who had been a guest of Vytautas since the middle of the previous decade, was dispatched by Ivan to reclaim his throne - while Švitrigaila retreated to Kiev to recuperate. Both armies at the Battle of Loyew had taken immense losses, but the loss of Vytautas would prove to be the most important of them all (10).
In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Loyew, with most of the Lithuanian nobility present, Ivan III of Muscovy had himself declared Grand Prince of Lithuania and demanded that fealty be given. Having little choice with the large Muscovite presence, the Lithuanian nobility began giving their oaths immediately. While Ivan had succeeded in gaining the oaths of fealty from a large segment of the Lithuanian nobility, he was not widely accepted as Vytautas' successor and he consequently faced immediate opposition (11). While Švitrigaila was able to amass further power in southern Lithuania, his decision to ally with the Golden Horde made him widely unpopular with the Old Lithuanian nobility. They therefore remained opposed to him, but began seeking an alternative to Muscovite domination. Their attention instead turned to Vytautas' brother, Zygimantis Kestautatis, who declared himself Grand Prince of Lithuania at Vilnius and consequently gained the backing of much of the Old Lithuanian nobility. Ivan acted swiftly to preserve what he could of his Lithuanian inheritance, marching into the Vitebsk region in an effort to subjugate it as swiftly as possible. As the months passed following the Battle of Loyew, more and more of Ivan's Lithuanian supporters went over to Zygimantis, with the result that Ivan was left scratching at the edges. Švitrigaila, in the meanwhile reoriented himself against Zygimantis, who he came to view as his primary rival, and marched north from Kiev once more. Large clashes at Ostrow, Kleck and Sluck followed with the front moving back and forth multiple times as one offensive after another went in. The devastation of central Lithuania was continued in these clashes, while Ivan of Muscovy secured his positions as well as he could. By the end of 1425 Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Briansk and Kursk had all fallen under Muscovite sway and Ivan began planning for an offensive into the old heartland of Lithuania (12).
In the two and a half years that followed the fall of Warsawa, the Jagellion and Nordic claimants to the Polish throne tore into each other like rabid beasts. The frontlines had mainly run from Wielun, through Piotrkow, Opoczno and Rawa to Warka on the Vistula. East of the Vistula, the two sides mainly descended into raids, ambushes and skirmishes between minor forces. At the same time, the efforts of Švitrigaila drew strongly on the Jagellion resources, and after his turn towards the Golden Horde those ties proved increasingly burdensome to the outraged Polish nobles who made up the council controlling the war effort. The intense battles that were fought, twice at Rawa, once at Wielun and three times at Warka proved devastating to the region, while the dozens of raids and skirmishes tore through villages and towns leaving them destroyed (13). When Ivan launched his assault into Lithuania in early 1426, it seemed like Švitrigaila would emerge supreme in the region as Zygimantis' forces began to collapse. The Jagellion council as a result decided to cut their support for Švitrigaila, who suddenly saw his position begin to crumble, while the Jagellions asserted their own claim to the Lithuanian throne. With his reliance on Tartar mercenaries, alliance with the Golden Horde and role in the widespread devastation of Lithuania, Švitrigaila quickly saw his supporters jump ship and declare in favor of the Jagellions. The sudden rise of the Jagellions in southern Lithuania, just as Zygimantis and Ivan were locked in a death struggle, meant that the Nordic and Muscovite armies found themselves outnumbered individually. It was at this point that Ivan reached out to Waldemar, offering to split Poland and Lithuania between them and offering Samogitia to the Teutonic Order as a further inducement. Waldemar would leap at this suggestion, signing the Treaty of Thorn in April of 1426 and allying the Muscovite and Nordic forces against the Jagellions and Zygimantis. The Teutonic forces in Livonia moved swiftly to assert their power in Samogitia, taking control of the region by the end of 1426 (14). This intervention led to a collapse of Zygimantis' positions and his death in the Battle of Szawle when he marched north to oppose the Teutonic invasion. The Jagellions were quick to muster support from the Old Lithuanian nobility, who were willing to accept Jogaila's sons as rulers given the other options available. By early 1427 Švitrigaila's position had become untenable and he fled eastward to the court of his one-time ally and founder of the Nogai Horde Edigu's son Sheidak Nogai Khan who had taken up rule in the eastern parts of the Golden Horde in which his family had control during the years of the Golden Horde's civil war (15).
Casimir IV Jagellion meets his betrothed at Warsawa
While Ivan advanced towards Vilnius and the Livonian forces moved through Samogitia, the Jagellions moved rapidly to oppose them. Intense fighting around Krewo, Zaslaw and Minsk saw Ivan driven to a standstill, pushing him southward towards Rohaczew. The Livonian advance found itself blunted at Kowno, but left most of Samogitia in Livonian hands. Ivan would launch an invasion into southern Lithuania, hoping to grasp hold of Kiev and establish a claim to the ancient Rus. In the meanwhile, Waldemar and his Teutonic allies began a series of attacks into the eastern reaches of Mazowia, resulting in fierce battles around Wizna and Lomza which turned in favor of Waldemar. By mid-1427 the war had shifted to the lands around Kiev, where Ivan was undertaking a major advance in the face of serious opposition. In battles at Rylsk, Putwyl and Baturyn, the Muscovite advance stove in the Jagellion front, forcing the redeployment of large forces from Poland and Old Lithuania to counter the assault. The Battles of Czemihow and Ostrz ended in Muscovite victories, but on the outskirts of Kiev the Lithuanians were finally able to muster enough forces to end the advance. The Battle of Kiev saw immense numbers of soldiers clash in fierce melees, eventually turning in Jagellion favor after taking large losses, including several prominent nobles. By the waning days of 1427 the Muscovite advance had come to an end, and would gradually contract back to Putwyl (16).
After almost a decade of intense conflict, the two sides began sending out peace feelers. King Waldemar would be the first to do so, worried about his father's worsening health and hopeful that he could leave his brother - the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order (17) - in charge of his Polish conquests, initiating the negotiations which would be undertaken at Warsawa. Ivan joined soon after, dispatching a close advisor to serve as proxy. Over the course of 1428 the two sides undertook intense negotiations, while skirmishes and raids continued on all fronts, eventually coming to an agreement in the Peace of Warsawa. Waldemar would renounce his claim to the Kingdom of Poland in return for the Provinces of Greater Poland and Mazowia as well as acknowledging the legality of the transfer of Samogitia to the Teutonic Order. Ivan of Moscow agreed to give up his claim to the Grand Principality of Lithuania in return for his conquests starting in the north on the Daugava River, running through Polotsk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, Roslaw, Briansk, Trubczewsk, Putwyl and Poltawa in the south. This vast swathe of land was given over to Ivan while his daughter Anastacia married the young Casimir IV Jagellion while Eleanor of Malmö was married to Ivan's heir Vasily Ivanovich. Thus the Great Eastern War came to an end, known to history as the Polish-Lithuanian Succession War (18). In time Alexander Jagellion would take up regency of Lithuania for his brother, ruling from Kiev. The loss of Mazowia came as a deep blow to the Piast rulers of the region, who were forced to move southward and settled around the Kievan lands, gaining large tracts of land in the region in an effort to impose a feudal system on the otherwise lawless region (19).
Footnotes:
(1) The emergence of Janusz leaves Waldemar forced to focus on this larger and more powerful enemy when contrasted with the child king Casimir.
(2) The lands of Greater Poland found themselves under significant financial pressure when the Hanseatic League closed off contact with the Baltic and as a result rose up in opposition to the Nordic invaders. Furthermore, the emergence of a Piast candidate to the throne proves wildly popular in Greater Poland with a resultant rise in popular revolts in the region.
(3) This period of conflict is actually one of the most hectic and violent, seeing some of the largest number of losses in the Polish theater of the war. The intervention of the Teutonic Order proves vital to securing Waldemar's positions.
(4) After exhausting each other, the two sides need time to lick their wounds. The Nordic forces get the opportunity to fix their supply problem and recover. Not so much for the Mazowians.
(5) This peace agreement is painful for Olaf to sign, but in the end he decides that there was too much at stake for him to not go through with it. The loss of the Lübeck Salt Tax is a particularly grim loss, but it could be worse. The Sound Toll being lowered for the Hanseatic fleets is another decision he isn't happy about, but given the potential gains in the Baltic region and Poland he decides that the cost is worth it. That said, there is also the potential for another conflict with the Hanseatic fleets when the position in Poland is secured.
(6) Švitrigaila's support is focused mainly on the border with Muscovy, in southern Lithuania and in western Lithuania, bordering on Poland. Vytautas largely controls old Lithuania in the north and most of central Lithuania.
(7) I hope that the reasoning behind the Jagellion assault on the Piasts is understandable. The Piasts have a much better claim to the Polish Kingdom and have a larger degree of support from the wider Polish population than the Nordic King Waldemar, making Janusz more of a threat for the Jagellions. The Siege of Lublin is really important, because it helps to strengthen Švitrigaila's positions in Lithuania and allows the two sides to exchange resources when needed.
(8) The surrender of the Mazowian Piasts is a shame, but they now find themselves tied to the Jagellions by marriage. The decision to marry the Piast daughter to Alexander and not Casimir does create some tension but the dangerous position of the Jagellions and their young age keeps these threats in check for the time being.
(9) Švitrigaila's decision to ally with the Golden Horde is one of his biggest blunders and fundamentally turns large parts of the Lithuanian population against him. We will see the results of this later on.
(10) The Battle of Loyew is another of those large and storied battles that appear in the historic record between the Golden Horde and their European opponents in Russia. The death of Vytautas against the "Mongol Hordes" in a victorious battle lead to his elevation into greatness. His death also greatly weakens Ivan's position in Lithuania and leaves him scrambling for alternatives.
(11) These oaths are extracted under significant pressure, but do allow Ivan to claim that he has widespread support from the Lithuanian nobility. The fact that very few Lithuanians view them as legitimate are unimportant, providing Ivan with a strong cause for continuing his involvement in the conflict.
(12) This invasion of the Vitebsk region is really important, because it secures one of the wealthiest and most populated regions of Lithuania for the Muscovites. Furthermore, the people of the region are more than willing to subordinate themselves to Ivan, viewing him as a closer fit than their Lithuanian overlords.
(13) I can't understate how bloody this fighting is. The frontlines basically stalemate, with both sides marshalling large forces to attack each other in battle after battle. At the same time both sides face significant popular discontent, flaring up in countless uprisings across Poland in favor of a Piast candidate. The Piasts of Silesia give significant consideration towards putting forward their claim but in the end Emperor Sigismund forces them to stay out of it and funnels support to Waldemar when he can.
(14) The Treaty of Thorn begin an alliance between Muscovy and the Nordic Kingdoms which allows the Muscovites to begin participating in wider European politics and will prove useful in the future. The invasion of Samogitia would have experienced far more popular uprising than do occur, if not for the immense losses taken by the Samogitian nobility in the war so far.
(15) I haven't touched on the civil war in the Golden Horde, but it is a struggle that lasts from 1425 until 1432 and ends with a split in the horde, the easternmost lands becoming part of the Nogai Horde while the Golden Horde remains under Jalal-al Din Khan ibn Tokhmatysh and his successors.
(16) I strongly considered having the Muscovites take Kiev and keep it, but decided against it. This leaves plenty to fight over in the future and gives Alexander Jagellion something to build on in the future.
(17) This Grandmaster, Hàkon of Lund, came to power in 1425 at the height of the conflict in Poland. Though the Nordic forces had taken over the Teutonic Order before this, they had been forced to retain a German Grandmaster until this point in time, when his death in battle created an opening for Hàkon. This signals the first of a long series of Nordic royals who will take on leadership of the order, and brings the Teutonic Order firmly into the Nordic orbit.
(18) I realize that the towns and cities mentioned can be difficult to keep track of, but it basically amounts to a large chunk of eastern Lithuania coming under Muscovite control while a large part of Poland, basically most of its northern lands, come under Nordic domination. The Jagellions agreed to this position because it seemed increasingly clear that Emperor Sigismund was gearing up to intervene in the conflict himself. They therefore move quickly to cut their losses. Even with these major losses, the Jagellion lands remain incredibly powerful and have plenty of room to expand to the south. The focus of the Jagellions will be on reclaiming their lost lands when they can, but mostly on expanding into the Ukrainian plains. The center of gravity for both Poland and Lithuania moves significantly to the south.
(19) The Piast settlement around Kiev is simply the first of many Polish nobles, moving from Greater Poland and Mazowia, who will settle in the south and establish large feudal estates in the region. This significantly strengthen the Jagellion positions in the Ukraine, but leaves them with less support in their lost lands.
Last edited:
Good update. One correction, though: this quote from footnote 15
A shame you couldn't devote as much attention to this as you did to the Princes' War, but then this TL would be even more of a door-stopper than it already is (so far, you've written over 267K words in a few months, an output most AH.comers wish they could do on their TLs, and you're likely going to be nominated for a Turtledove, if not win)...
Interesting update on a region of the world that has gotten little attention (Augenis's and baselius444's TLs excepted) in some alternate history TLs...
should read 1425 until 1432, Zulfurium.
A shame you couldn't devote as much attention to this as you did to the Princes' War, but then this TL would be even more of a door-stopper than it already is (so far, you've written over 267K words in a few months, an output most AH.comers wish they could do on their TLs, and you're likely going to be nominated for a Turtledove, if not win)...
Interesting update on a region of the world that has gotten little attention (Augenis's and baselius444's TLs excepted) in some alternate history TLs...
Thank you for pointing out the mistake, I have been reading too much Reformation literature, that has to be it
I have been trying to get a grip on the region in this period for several months now and I still haven't gotten a proper understanding of it. If it had been set a century later, or in the mid-16th century I would have a signficantly better understanding of the situation, but at this point it is still too close to the transition between written and unwritten records, particularly with Lithuania. Once you get a century or two into it there are more commonalities to the rest of Europe which makes it easier to get my mind around.
I knew for a while that I wouldn't be able to get into it properly, but I tried as best I could. There is a lot of really tantilizing stuff which I can sense is there, but I never quite got to the point where it clarified. Poland and Lithuania, and the PLC later on, are entities which I would love to read up on a lot more, but will probably have to wait a while on it. I have Henryk Sienkiewicz on my reading list, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Thank you for the kind words!
What happened to this sentence? My fix is this:
No line breaks.
You seem to make some homage to my idea here. Great but not many. It seems that Ivan is so focused on Lithuania that he decided to not focus to uniting the Rus'. I would look into further unity of the Rus' by this point. I'll look into the Papal update next week.
Hmmm. I don't know how much southern expansion would encite either Poles or Lithuanians. I don't think the people at the time were aware of chernozem, and even if some expansion and colonization begins, it'll surely end up reversed if and when the Tatar raids begin. This was still only a single generation away from Algirdas and his "all of Rus are belong to us" attitude, so I think at least Lithuania would be more interested in getting back at Moscow (whether they are able to is a different question entirely, but we Lithuanians are a stubborn people
) than taking over some steppe.:3
Update Forty-Eight: Urbane Heresy
We now take a look at some of the larger cultural, social, religious and economic developments occuring across western and central Europe. Particularly developments within the Church and its congregation are at the heart of this update. Sorry if this is a bit rough, I have been ridiculously busy this week, so I haven't had the same amount of time to check through the text. I really hope you enjoy the developments. Let me know your thoughts!
Johannes Gutenberg
In the decade that followed the League of Swabian Cities' victory over the Habsburgs the cities found themselves the locus of intense economic growth and as a result experienced a rapid increase in wealth. In the early 1420s, stretching into the middle of the decade, the cities found themselves in a fierce contest with the Swiss Cantons over the tariffs exerted in the Alps on goods being transported north from Milan. After a series of attempts at negotiating a reduction in the tariffs, with little success, the leadership of the Swabian League began searching out alternatives to these issues, eventually turning towards the nobility of the Franco-German border regions in hopes of provoking a conflict between these nobles and the Swiss. As a result, the Swabians were able to provoke a bloody conflict which ended in a major defeat for the northern cantons. However, what the Swabians had not accounted for was the results which this weakening of the northern cantons would have on the power balance of the region, with the southern Cantons leaping at the opportunity to humiliate their richer northern rivals who had experienced a significant economic boost during the years of the tariffs. This breakout of warfare, which ended up blocking several vital Alpine trade routes, led to Swabian attempts at circumventing the more central routes by allying with Chur and its League of God's House - thereby joining them in their opposition to the Bishop of Chur and the Swiss Confederacy. This eastern route proved highly beneficial and evaded much of the intense fighting among the Swiss for the time being (1).
Despite the disruptions caused by the wars of the Swiss, the trade ties between Italy and Swabia only strengthened, building on the strengthening Eastern Trade as the post-Timurid states consolidated and the Rhoman Empire, experiencing an economic boom, expanded its trade with the West. Over the course of the 1420s and 1430s trade and urbanization would link Florence and its Tuscan competitors, through Liguria and Lombardy, to the Swabian cities. From Swabia, trade would flow up through the heavily populated Rhineland with its numerous smaller City Leagues in the lead until it reached the immensely urbanized Low Countries, most particularly Flanders and Brabant where Antwerp would grow into one of the largest cities in Europe. This thick band of cities tied together western and central Europe and allowed the swift transfer of ideas, trade goods and much else - rapidly increasing the rate of growth across the region. This Tuscan-Lombard-Swabian-Rhineland-Flemish belt would be one of four major trade routes which allowed the spread of Renaissance ideas on a massive scale from Italy (2). The other major over-land route ran from Greece, through Venice to Vienna, wherefrom it split in two. One of these routes would be along the Danube, running into Swabia and connecting with the Urban Belt in the west while it left Habsburg lands and ran eastward down the Rhine all the way to the Black Sea. The other route ran from Vienna to Prague, bringing wealth and finery to the Imperial Court, before following the Vltava River until it ran into the Elbe whereupon the trade route followed the river all the way north to Hamburg. From Hamburg, the trade route moved into the Baltic where it connected the Nordic Kingdoms to the rest of Europe's trade routes. This trade route was largely dominated by the Hanseatic League, who had recently begun facing stiff competition from Nordic merchants, and branched into the wider North Sea trade network (3). The third major trade route connected Tuscany and Liguria to the Iberian and Southern French markets. From Italy the trade moved into southern France and Aragon by sea, entering at the ports of Barcelona and Narbonne primarily though Montpellier also experienced a growth in trade. From Narbonne the trade followed the Aude until Carcassonne where it took to the roads until it reached the Garonne, running toward Toulouse, where it supplied the French Royal court, before ending at Bordeaux where it serviced the Duke of Aquitaine's court. From Bordeaux, the trade route found itself connected to the Atlantic Seaboard trade network, with most of the trade running north to England or south to Navarre, Castile and Portugal. The other main branch of this trade route entered the Iberian Peninsula at Barcelona, wherefrom it either moved further inland along the Ebro, though this route would prove difficult during the reign of Enrique V due to political strife and unrest in Aragon, or southward towards Andalusia, southern Castile and the West African trade center at Ceuta (4). A fourth trade route was dominated by Sicilian and Marseillais merchants and ran from Sicily, Tuscany and Liguria to Marseille, wherefrom it travelled up the Rhône and eventually crossed over to the Loire, Seine and Marne rivers, or across to the Rhine where it joined the Urban Belt. This fourth route would prove to be the main trade route for many of the mighty dukes of northern France (5).
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born in the German city of Mainz, the youngest son of the upper-class merchant Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden, and his second wife, Else Wyrich, who was the daughter of a shopkeeper. His surname was derived from the house inhabited by his father and his paternal ancestors 'zu Laden, zu Gutenberg'. The house of Gänsfleisch was one of the patrician families of the town, tracing its lineage back to the thirteenth century." Patricians in Mainz were commonly named after houses they owned in this time period. In 1411, there was an uprising in Mainz against the patricians, and more than a hundred families were forced to leave. As a result, the Gutenbergs moved to Eltville am Rhein, where his mother had an inherited estate. Following his studies at the University of Erfurt, he migrated for political reasons to Strasbourg, where his family had connections (6). It was in Strasbourg in 1430 that Gutenberg first built his prototype of what would eventually become the movable type printing machine (7). Gutenberg was able to secure investors with relative ease and immediately began working to perfect his invention. It would take him until 1433 to perfect, but by 1434 the first western moveable type printing press was in commercial use. The first work to be printed for distribution would be a German translation of the Bible, soon followed by French, Latin and Italian translations which all sold out quickly. Gutenberg would build more presses, beginning in 1436, and soon found people copying his design across the Urban Belt. While it would take decades for the printing industry to properly establish itself, it was already causing controversy by the late 1430s when printed versions of John Wycliffe's writings and other literature which flirted with heresy entered circulation. Gutenberg would eventually leave Strasbourg, when his decision to print Wycliffe's Bible translation led to the city council's decision to exile him. He would return to his birth town of Mainz in 1442 but soon found himself in trouble with the Prince-Bishop of Mainz. This tension with the Prince-Bishop would eventually end with Gutenberg's decision to give the Bishop a stake in his printing business and the Prince-Bishop's decision to give Gutenberg a monopoly on official Bible printing in Latin in all of his lands (8).
Anti-papal propaganda spread across Western Europe depicting the Pope in league with demons
When Jan Hus returned to Bohemia and began to implement the Honorian Reforms, he found significant opposition from several more radical sects who were beginning to emerge in Bohemia as part of the religious reformation which had gripped Bohemia and had for a time been led by Jan Hus himself. Over the course of the 1410s and 1420s, Jan Hus, with the backing of the Emperor and Pope, began moving against these radicals. The most prominent figure to emerge among the radicals in Bohemia would be a former monk from a prominent Prague family known as Prokop the Bald, who was joined most importantly by Mikuláš Biskupec of Pelhřimov, a radical preacher who thought Jan Hus did not go far enough with his denunciations and as a result provoked multiple riots and significant civil strife centered on the city of Tabor. By the early 1420s, with Emperor Sigismund growing ever more powerful and focused on the religious turmoil of his home state, these radicals increasingly found themselves the focus of vicious persecutions. By the middle of the decade, Mikuláš Biskupec of Pelhřimov found himself dragged before an ecclesiastical court and was judged guilty of heresy for his claims that the Church hierarchy should be dismantled and monasteries closed up and their wealth given over to the poor. Mikuláš Biskupec of Pelhřimov's execution began what would prove to be a larger exodus of radical "Taborite" faithful, led by Prokop the Bald, in the direction of the Waldesian Valleys of the Vaudois, Vallais and Piedmont. Thousands would join Prokop, including the noblemen Hynek Krušina of Lichtenburg and Diviš Bořek of Miletínek, eventually settling across the region, but with most of the leadership settling in Berne and Geneva - the latter of which would soon come to experience significant troubles with its new overlord, the Duke Savoy (9).
The Savoyard efforts at incorporating Geneva into their dynastic lands would provoke a conflict with the Bishop of Geneva, who had just recently given the town a charter, over the jurisdiction of the town. Pope Honorius' successor would eventually insinuate himself into the conflict between the Duke and Bishop, but for the time being the struggle for control left a power vacuum into which the Taborites quickly insinuated themselves (10). By 1430, large parts of the Genevan and Bernese town councils had joined the Taborites, linking it with a degree of anti-aristocratic sentiment which proved incredibly popular with large segments of the Swiss population. At the same time, the Waldesians found themselves reinvigorated by the infusion of fanaticism injected by the Taborites and the seeming weakness increasingly distant regime of the Savoyard Duke, Amadeus VIII, who found himself spending most of his time at the French court at Toulouse. In the 1430s this growing Alpine Reformation would begin to seep into the trade routes of the Urban Belt where they would come into contact with the Beghards and Beguines. The Beguines and Beghards were related communities of female and male semi-monastic collectives which followed mystical and spiritual beliefs and cared for people in the surrounding areas to where they lived. The movements had originated in the Low Countries in the twelfth century and had spread down the Rhine and into Swabia over the following century and a half, before the Catholic Church began suspecting them of heresy. Under Pope John XXII and Urban V these communities had been targeted by inquisitors and had been persecuted by local church officials, but after Urban V's deposition and the chaos of the Schism this persecution had ground to a halt, allowing these communities to reemerge (12). Under Honorius, the Beguines and Beghards had largely been left alone, with some mistaking their practices for new ones certified in the Honorian Reforms, which meant that when word began to spread of the blind Jeanne d'Arc's visions there were plenty of people willing to listen. Jeanne d'Arc left her convent in 1428, at the age of 19, having been convinced by her visions that she must share the happy news that the Rapture was coming. While transcriptions of her visions from the three years prior to Jeanne leaving the convent at Metz circulated between Augustinian monasteries, Jeanne made her way to Nancy where she hoped to gain access to the duke and to share the news. Every evening she would loudly preach about what she had seen with anyone willing to listen, quickly developing a significant following who dedicated themselves to protecting the young woman. On arriving at Nancy she learned that the Duke and his wife Isabella had left the city for England a month before, and she therefore turned eastward. She would eventually arrive at Strasbourg where she recommenced her public preaching to the great consternation of many. Women began to flock to Jeanne's gatherings by the hundreds, causing significant disruption to the daily routines of the city. The presence of several prominent men's wives and daughters provoked a scandal, and in mid-1429 Jeanne and her followers found themselves expelled from the city, though not before receiving immense donations from several of her prominent supporters in the city. Over the course of the next five years Jeanne travelled up and down the Rhine, spreading her message and accumulating an intense following, particularly among the Beguines communities where she would often seek shelter for a time, particularly when she came into conflict with ecclesiastical figures. The religious fervor that was generated by Jeanne's preaching on her visions meant that when the Taborites came into contact with the Rhineland population, the region was ready to follow anyone who promised salvation. Jeanne's preaching and visions caused significant interest both within the church and among the wider population. In 1434, Jeanne d'Arc received an invitation to visit the court at Toulouse from Catherine of England who had become intrigued by this fascinating blind woman who provoked such strong responses wherever she went. Jeanne arrived at the French Royal court in late 1435, leaving behind a region in turmoil (13).
Particularly influential to the Honorian Reforms, which had begun revitalizing a church mired in controversy following its failure to properly fulfill its duties during the Black Plague and during the intense upheaval of the Schism, was what was then known as "new learning" and would in time come to be known as "humanism"(14). Humanists, which all of the main figures of the Honorian Reformers could be considered to be, were lovers and connoisseurs of words. They saw them as containing power which could be used actively to change human society for the better. The words which inspired such excitement were found in ancient texts from long-vanished societies with the same belief in the transforming power of poetry, oratory and rhetoric – ancient Greece and Rome. Part of the project of transforming the world must be to get as clear a picture as possible of these ancient societies, and that meant getting the best possible version of the texts which were the main records of how those societies had thought and operated. These ancient texts had inspired similar excitement before; leading to the description of the sudden effect of manuscripts on intellectual life in ninth- and twelfth-century Europe equally as the first Renaissance, with that of the 15th century being considered the second of these. In this new age of Renaissance, the impact was far more widely spread through society, particularly once the technology of printing on paper opened up far more rapid possibilities of distributing copies of the texts, and gave much greater incentives for the spread of literacy associated with these innovations; this in turn produced a far more intense search for ancient manuscripts often lying neglected in cathedral or monastery libraries since earlier bursts of enthusiasm for the past. Moreover, many more Greek manuscripts re-emerged from this latest treasure-hunt. Medieval western Europe had access to remarkably little Greek literature; the text of such central works of literature as Homer’s epics, for instance, was hardly known until the fifteenth century. In fact until then, very few scholars had any more than the vaguest knowledge of the Greek language. If they knew a learned language other than Latin, it was likely to be Hebrew, for the good reason that while there were virtually no Greeks of any significance in the West, there were plenty of argumentative and ingenious Jewish rabbis, who had an awkward ability to question Christianity and so needed to be refuted by reference to their own Hebrew literature. Now, however, western humanists would be forced to acquire skills in a new language if they were to make use of the texts suddenly available (15). The Turkish Crusade had opened the floodgates to Rhoman literature, with all of the western participants becoming avid collectors of texts, manuscripts and thinkers from the region. By 1415 immense conglomerations of scribes found themselves gathered together in Constantinople, Athens and Thessalonika to make copies for sale in western markets to immense profit. It is for this reason, that when word of Gutenberg's printing press reached Constantinople, the Emperor himself dispatched representatives to acquire the schematics for the press (16).
Alongside the exhilarating rediscovery of Greek, the humanists also gained new perspectives on the Latin language and culture. They developed a great enthusiasm for the politician turned philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. Civic humanists appreciated Cicero’s detailed discussion of government, disregarding the inconvenient fact that he had been a very unsuccessful politician, and when in 1421 his treatise on oratory was rediscovered in the cathedral library at Lodi in northern Italy, the new book sealed his reputation as the ideal model for powerful and persuasive Latin prose. It became the ambition of every cultivated young scholar to write just like Cicero, given inevitable adjustments like newly coined words for printing, gunpowder and cannon-fire. This humanist literary style, which also resulted in humanists reviving the conventions and metrical forms of ancient poetry, was very different from the Latin which scholastic philosophers and theologians had used over the previous few centuries. One could tell a humanist prose composition from a scholastic text merely by seeing how the sentences are constructed. The contrast became even more obvious when humanist manuscript writers painstakingly mimicked the ‘italic’ characteristics of what they took to be ancient script; printers then imitated their italic script, producing a typeface very different to the Gothic type which other printers used in imitation of medieval manuscript ‘bookhand’. This was parallel to the Renaissance’s architectural and artistic revolution, which began in Italy in the fifteenth century and rapidly spread northwards: the visual forms of ancient buildings, sculpture, paintings and gardens were more and more accurately imitated as part of the effort to bring back to life the lost world of Greece and Rome. How might one establish authenticity amid the intoxicating but unsorted flow of information from the east? One criterion must be to assess a text in every respect – its content, date, origins, motives, even its appearance. So much depended on texts being accurate. This meant developing ways of telling a good text from a corrupt text: looking at the way in which it was written and whether it sounded like texts reliably datable to the same historical period. Historical authenticity gained a new importance: it now became the chief criterion for authority. In earlier centuries, monks cheerfully forged documents on a huge scale for the greater glory of God, particularly charters proving their monastery’s claim to lands and privileges. They lived in a world where there were too few documents, and so they needed to manufacture the authority to prove things which they knew in their hearts to be true. That attitude would no longer do. A ‘source’ for authority, or fons, now outweighed the unchallenged reputation of an auctoritas. Ad fontes, back to the sources, was the battle-cry of the humanists. Hence the relevance of a humanist as a textual editor: an individual, equipped with the right intellectual skills, could outface centuries of authority, even the greatest authority in medieval Europe, the Church, unless the Church acted first (17).
Eventually the central document of the Christian Church, its ultimate fons the Bible, must come under the same scrutiny. Now the humanist preoccupation with words was crucial, because the Bible’s words were translations at various different levels. Christians saw them as interpretations of the mind of God to humanity, but beyond this ultimate translation from the perfect to the imperfect, the biblical texts were experienced at different removes from their original human writers. Medieval western Christianity knew the Bible almost exclusively through the fourth-century Latin translation made by Jerome, the Vulgate, ‘common’, version. When the Vulgate’s printed form was standardized during the 1440s, some persistent copyists’ errors were identified in various strands of the manuscript versions, but they were easily dealt with. Humanist excavation then went behind the Vulgate text. Before it reached Latin, the Hebrew Scripture, the Christian Old Testament, had been translated into Greek, principally a version completed in the second century BCE known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint itself contained a number of detectable mistranslations from Hebrew; such deviations interested humanist scholars just as they had long fascinated Jewish scriptural commentators, but they were not going to threaten Christian understanding of faith. Jerome had done his considerable best to re-examine the Hebrew text behind the Septuagint; nevertheless, faults remained (18). It would be the aim of younger men from among the Honorian Reformers to address these mistranslations and thereby correct the long-held misinterpretations of the Church. This would not prove to be an easy task (19).
Painting of Pope Honrius V at the height of his power
In March of 1425 Honorius V celebrated the thirtieth year of his long reign and his immense successes in a series of elaborate celebrations meant to demonstrate papal power and prestige. While much of his reign had been taken up with his program of reform, reshaping the very fabric of the church to his will, Honorius had accomplished immensely important tasks of geopolitical and cultural significance. His early and rabid support of both humanist scholars and renaissance artists had led to the revitalization of the City of Rome and the reconstruction of dozens of churches, palaces and public spaces (20). The early initiatives undertaken by the pope had been expanded on significantly throughout this time. In the east, the sudden loss of the Alunite mines at Phocaea to Ottoman control, part of Süleiman's bid to take control of all of Anatolia, led to a shock in the textile industry and presented a commercial opportunity to the Papacy. Alunite was the key component in Alum, a dye-fixing reagent necessary for fixing dyes to wool. The Alunite mines at Phocea had been the single source of supply in Europe up until the discovery of alunite at Tolfa, near Rome, as part of Honorius' attempts at prospecting the region in search of more sources of revenue. The Tolfa mines had initially struggled with the Phocean alunite, but with the fall of Phocea the Tolfa mines suddenly became the only source under Christian control. Over the course of the first half of the fifteenth century, the revenue generated from the Tolfa mines would become a vital component of the papal finances and a source of conflict between the different factions of the Church (21). At the same time Honorius had ensured good relations with Emperor Manuel II of Rhomania, helping to further develop the trade routes between east and west, and after the death of Manuel's daughter-in-law Anna of Moscow, Honorius proved vital in negotiating the marriage between Ioannes Palaiologos, Manuel's son and heir, and Elizabeth von Luxembourg, younger daughter of Emperor Sigismund and Mary of Hungary (22). Honorius' successive successes with ending the conflicts in northern Italy and France made him immensely popular. Yet another decision made by Honorius V during his later reign was the decision to give papal sanction to Henry the Navigator's expeditions and to give him a papal mission to spread the word of god. When João I of Portugal asked for the declaration of a Crusade in Africa, Honorius was swift to agree - legitimizing the Portuguese conquests in Morocco, after Portuguese promises to spread the true faith in their new lands, and ensuring future efforts in the region (23). In light of all of these accomplishments, it became clear in the immediate aftermath of his 1425 celebrations that his reign was nearing its end. Pope Honorius therefore began looking to his succession.
The three most likely candidates to succeed Honorius were, in 1425, Giordano Orsini (24), Oddone Colonna (25) and Gabriel Condulmer (26). While Giordano Orsini was a prominent member of the Orsini family who dominated the Guelph faction within Rome and was considered the man closest to Pope Honorius, his rivals were powerful and dangerous in the extreme. Oddone Colonna was one of the most prominent figures in the Colonna family, who dominated the Ghibelline faction in Rome and was the darling of the conservative faction of the church. The conservative faction had largely been in decline since the failure of the Council of Saluzzo, but with the increasing rapidity of change caused by the Honorian Reforms, they had started to experience growing support - particularly in Northern Italy, Hungary and Aragon (27). Gabriel Condulmer was a nephew to the powerful Cardinal Angelo Correr, who dominated Venetian ecclesiastical politics and had been a leading figure among the conciliars until his death in the months before the Council of Saluzzo - which he had opposed and considered as a danger to their movement (28). The Orsini and Colona had historically feuded and were liable to attack each other at the slightest instigation, a factor which caused significant difficulties for Pope Honorius during his Roman reconstruction. Immediately after the settlement in Lombardy, which the Venetians had disapproved of, the Colonna had rallied their supporters against the Guelphs who rejoiced at the peace, resulting in deadly riots and street fighting which were only ended with force by the Captain General of the Church, Ranuccio Farnese il Vecchio. Over the course of 1425 and 1426, Pope Honorius began negotiating with both of these factions to clear the way for his chosen successor. By late 1426, with Honorius beginning to weaken, Oddone Colonna had given his agreement to accept Giordano's succession in return for the elevation of his nephew, Prospero Colonna, to the Cardinalate. Gabriel Condulmer proved more challenging, demanding the revocation of Pope Honorius' decree against the conciliars in return for his support. When Honorius proved tardy in agreeing to this deal Condulmer went to Colonna and offered to support his ascension to the papal throne in return for concessions to the conciliar position. This sudden threat to his plans for succession angered Honorius, who remained resistant to Condulmer's demands through the winter of 1426-27, only for Honorius' health to rapidly collapse (29).
Pope Honorius V, known in his previous life as Rinaldo Brancaccio, died on the 27th of March 1427 after a reign of 32 years and 7 days, making him the longest-ruling Pope since Saint Peter, beating the previous longest-reigning pope Adrian I who had reigned for 23 years, 10 months and 25 days between 775 and 792 A.D. Over his long reign he had fundamentally reshaped what it meant to by Christian. He had declared and shepherded one of the most successful crusades in history against one of the most dangerous enemies faced by Christendom. He had returned the Holy See to its rightful home, in Rome, and had united a splintered Church at war with itself. He had reinvigorated the church and introduced reforms on a scale not seen since Gregory the Great. He had rebuilt Rome from the ruins of neglect and introduced culture and learning to a court in sore need of it, and he had reestablished friendly relations with the East. Furthermore, he had brought peace between not only the northern Italians but to that most pernicious and long-lived strife between the England and French, and between the French themselves. He was an era-defining figure who reshaped the world around him. His death brought to an end the sheer hegemonic dominance of the Papacy and opened up the Church to strife and uncertainty, but the legacy he left behind would be difficult to tear down (30).
The Papal Conclave comes to an end with the Election of Innocent VII
The Papal Conclave of 1427 would prove to be a bitterly disputed battle between the three main contenders to the papacy. Any one of these candidates had the backing of around a third of the Cardinals, though Giordano Orsini had slightly more while Gabriel Condulmer had slightly fewer than this during the early ballots. As weeks turned into months and the bitter disputes between the Cardinals turned even more tense, the stability and security of the Church and Honorius' reforms came under threat. During the summer months of 1427, which turned out to be particularly warm, several cardinals collapsed from heatstroke, weakening the support for Colonna and his conservatives. Increasingly frustrated by the intractable opposition he faced, Orsini finally began to give in to the intense pressure put on him by Gabriel Condulmer to end Honorius' sanctions on the conciliars. By October of 1427, with several more of the elderly cardinals having succumbed to the intense rigors of the conclave, Gabriel Condulmer and Giordano Orsini had finally come to an agreement (31). On the 23rd of October 1427 Cardinal Giordano Orsini ascended to the Throne of St. Peter as Pope Innocent VII, pledging to continue the works of his predecessor. Once he had been elected, Cardinal Condulmer came to Innocent and demanded that he follow through on their agreement - only for Innocent to laugh in his face and dismiss him, claiming that he had never planned to turn his back on his mentor's work (32).
Giordano Orsini was an immensely talented man, with a firm grasp on the issues of the day, but one thing he could not and would not do was give ground on the principles established by his formidable predecessor. Innocent was not the man Honorius was, he was not as forthright, as charismatic nor as formidable as Honorius. Instead, he was a man willing to lie his enemies in the face, a man with no compunctions when acting against his enemies and a man who would with time become known as a dangerous enemy and a good friend (33). Gabriel Condulmer was outraged at Innocent's response and immediately began working to oppose him alongside many of the cardinals who had supported him in the past. Oddone Colonna was just as outraged at his rival's rise to power and immediately began working to undermine him. The City of Rome became increasingly riotous as Orsini and Colonna partisans clashed in the streets and alleys of the city. Gabriel Condulmer, viewing Oddone as a potential ally against Innocent, reached out to the conservative cardinal. On the 3rd of May the two met at the Farfa Abbey where they establish an agreement to work together in opposition to the Honorian Reformers and the treacherous Pope Innocent. Thus was born the Farfa Conspiracy, which would plague the reigns of several popes in the years to come (34)
(1) The victory of the Swabian League of Cities is a major divergence ITTL, allowing these associations of cities to strengthen and spread. The victory in Swabia emboldens other German leagues, particularly those of the Rhineland, and leads to an explosive growth in wealth generation and trade. The rivalry of the Swiss and Swabians however, is far from over. The shift towards Chur significantly weakens the financial stability of the Swiss, and is part of why so many end up becoming mercenaries, while forcing the Swiss to start searching for ways of strengthening their grip on trans-Alpine trade.
(2) While there was a significant degree of trade along this axis IOTL, the strength of the Swabian cities serves to connect Tuscany and Lombardy to the Rhineland in a way that never happened IOTL. This sets the urban growth of the region into overdrive and speeds up a number of processes, as we will see later.
(3) The greater stability exerted by Sigismund's long and successful reign allows for trade along this axis to grow and prosper. It isn't as large of a trade route as that of the Urban Belt, but it is very significant.
(4) This trade route is enabled by the close relations between France and Aquitaine, and the dual importance of Toulouse and Bordeaux. With Toulouse acting as French capital, this route experiences far greater use. Narbonne becomes one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean and the silting of the Aude is countered by significant public works.
(5) While many of these trade routes existed IOTL, and this particular one is actually somewhat weaker than it would be later in the century IOTL, the sheer volume of trade is a lot larger ITTL. With the Ottomans, Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu slowly settling into place and the recovery of the Byzantine Empire, the sheer quantity of Eastern trade and Western demand have experienced an extreme degree of growth.
(6) All of this is basically what can be pieced together of Gutenberg's OTL early life.
(7) This is nine years earlier than OTL and is provoked by the greater level of economic activity in the region, particularly with Strasbourg serving as crossroads for the urban belt and for trade between France and Germany, which means that there are more investors for Gutenberg to propose his ideas to. Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg at this point in time IOTL and as such, it is Strasbourg which reaps many of Mainz' plaudits.
(8) The simultaneous growth of heretical movements across the western Alpine region and in the Rhineland (as will be detailed later), development of the printing press and moveable type and the growth of the Urban belt all conspire to create the chaotic circumstances needed to change the world.
(9) Many of these Bohemian are OTL radical Hussites, who stumble into changing circumstances. Many of the OTL Utraquists participate happily in Jan Hus' reform scheme, and become part of the sanctioned Bohemian Reformation. The OTL radicals find themselves a persecuted minority and therefore flee towards what seems like safety in the Alps.
(10) There are several differences from OTL which explain why Geneva remains in the aforementioned limbo. First of all, Amadeus VIII is not an anti-pope ITTL and therefore cannot simply make himself Bishop of Geneva as he did IOTL. Secondly, Pope Honorius is constantly on the lookout for conflicts like this where he can strengthen papal power and thirdly, the Duke of Savoy is quite busy playing house in Toulouse with Catherine of England. This leaves a gap in leadership which the Taborites exploit to the fullest, and awakens the Waldesians to the distracted nature of leadership in the region.
(11) The Beguines and Beghards are part of several communities like this which came out of the "first reformation" under Gregory the Great, alongside the Dominicans and Franciscans. They got involved in begging and mysticism which made them targets for repression by the church. The descriptions are based on OTL.
(12) IOTL the repression continued throughout the schism, but due to the distraction caused by Urban's fall from power and the later distraction of the Turkish Crusade, no one ever got around to restarting the repression of the Beguines and Beghards. Under Honorius, most reformist thoughts are left in peace or supported actively, these Rhineland and Low Country communities make it through to play an important role in invigorating the religious convictions of the Rhineland.
(13) The fact that Jeanne survives the trip to Nancy is something of a miracle and is held forth by some as God's protection of her. After Nancy Jeanne finds herself protected by various different people, and gains several protectors. Jeanne has all of the earnest charisma which she had IOTL, but due to her blindness she has developed in a different direction. She is incredibly pious and convincing, turning all of her impressive talents which she demonstrated against the English IOTL towards preaching and sharing her millenarian visions. It bears mentioning that the date of Jeanne's arrival at the French Court is in the same year as her OTL execution.
(14) The effects of the Turkish Crusade, beyond their immediate impact on the Ottoman Sultanate, really begin to play out here. Humanist beliefs are accelerated by these communications between Orthodox and Catholic nations. Humanism is actually a term coined in the late 1800s if I recall correctly, and the term in use at the time was "New Learning". I have used Humanism because it should help people's understanding somewhat.
(15) This is all OTL. In OTL it was the fall of Constantinople which opened up the west to this literature.
(16) This is in part due to the continued role played by the Order of the Dragon as a cross-confessional order and the demand originally stimulated by the crusaders who returned from the Turkish Crusade. Men like Prince Edward got their appreciation for this writing from his father's library and personally became a major proponent of "new learning" as a result. Pope Honorius, who happens to be one of these very early Humanists, is able to singlehandedly drive demand immensely. These pseudo scribal factories quickly become part of a larger printing industry which finds strong footing in the Byzantine Empire.
(17) This is all OTL.
(18) This is again all OTL. It was the decision to start questioning the fons of many of these Christian documents which eventually led to the Protestant Reformation.
(19) We are getting ahead of ourselves here, but beginning in the late 1430s and early 1440s Humanism starts going through similar developments as happened 10-20 years later IOTL.
(20) Honorius is by this point the longest-reigning pope in history, excepting only Saint Peter's reign as the first Bishop of Rome. He has been a defining figure of the period and is remembered as one of the most important popes in history. While his reform efforts face some opposition and critique, his accomplishments in other fields are just as impressive if not more so.
(21) These mines are discovered nearly 50 years earlier than IOTL, but the Tolfa mines only become important following the fall of Phocea in 1422. Alum was a vital part of the cloth trade of Europe, which was itself one of the most important industries in Europe. The Tolfa mines, providing a monopoly for the papacy, are immensely profitable and secure an immense degree of power and influence for the church in both England and the Low Countries which are both dependent on the wool and cloth trade.
(22) This marriage is accomplished not only by Honorius' wishes, but also as part of the good relations between the two Emperors, stretching back to the Turkish Crusade. This marriage doesn't resolve the many issues between the two Roman Empires, but it does bring them closer and helps to foster significant trade and diplomatic relations between the two Imperial courts.
(23) Honorius is fascinated by the potential of Henry's expeditions and is swift to place papal influence on these colonizing efforts. Beyond supporting the expeditions, Honorius also ensures the dispatch of preachers to the Canaries Islands to convert the people there as swiftly as possible, something that causes some tension with the Portuguese.
(24) I have already given a pretty detailed overview of Giordano Orsini. He was also a cardinal IOTL. IOTL Orsini was Archbishop of Naples from 1400 until 1405, when he was made a Cardinal by Innocent VII. In 1408 he abandoned the "Roman Obedience" and attended the Council of Pisa. He was subsequently administrator of the see of Pécs 1409-10, and legate of Antipope John XXIII in Spain, Picenum and Bologna. Promoted to the suburbicarian see of Albano in 1412, he had a considerable role in the Council of Constance, where he presided over the fifth session. He was the papal legate appointed to establish peace between England and France in 1418. Grand penitentiary from 1419. In 1420, he was named Abbot Commendatory of the Imperial Abbey of Farfa. Legate of Pope Martin V in Bohemia, Hungary and Germany in prosecution of the Hussites in 1426. Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1428, he presided over the Papal conclave, 1431. Orsini opted for the suburbicarian see of Sabina on March 14, 1431. As the legate of Pope Eugenius IV to open the Council of Basle, he defended the rights of Pope against the claims of conciliarist movement. Archpriest of patriarchal Vatican Basilica from 1434 until his death. He is buried in a tomb in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Here his impecable credentials and Humanist tendancies bring him into Honorius' inner circle and he becomes the chosen successor to the Holy See.
(25) IOTL Oddone Colonna ascended as Pope Martin V, the first pope of a reunited Church. ITTL he has remained important, but more as a rival and challenger to Honorius' more radical reformist tendencies. He has had some troubles with Emperor Sigismund, who he views as too supportive of the reformers, but remains a dedicated Ghibelline and supports the City of Rome against the powers of the papacy (though this is a minor issue under Honorius due to his immense popularity in Rome). IOTL He was born at Genazzano, the son of Agapito Colonna and Caterina Conti, between January 26 and February 20, 1369. He belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rome. His brother Giordano became Prince of Salerno and Duke of Venosa, while his sister Paola was Lady of Piombino between 1441 and 1445. Oddone studied law at the University of Pavia. He became apostolic protonotary under Pope Urban VI (1378–89), and was created Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio al Velabro by Pope Innocent VII in 1405. In 1409 he took part in the Council of Pisa, and was one of the supporters of Antipope Alexander V. Later he confirmed his allegiance to Alexander's successor, John XXIII, by whom his family obtained several privileges, while Oddone obtained for himself the vicariate of Todi, Orvieto, Perugia and Umbria. He was excommunicated for this in 1411 by Pope Gregory XII. Oddone was with John XXIII's entourage at the Council of Constance and followed him in his escape at Schaffhausen on 21 March 1415. Later he returned to Constance and took part in the process leading to the deposition of John XXIII.
(26) Gabriel Condulmer was the OTL Pope Eugene IV and was the nephew of OTLs Gregory XII who resigned to make place for Martin V IOTL. Without the intense struggle between conciliarism and the papacy which occured IOTL on top of the horrors of the Schism, Gabriel never becomes opposed to the conciliarists. I have Angelo Correr, OTL Gregory XII, be supportive of the conciliars ITTL because of his willingness to turn over the issue of the schism to a council IOTL. IOTL Pope Eugene IV, born Gabriele Condulmer, was Pope from 3 March 1431 to his death in 1447. Condulmer was born in Venice to a rich merchant family. He entered a community of Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alga in his native city. At the age of twenty-four he was appointed by his maternal uncle, Pope Gregory XII, as Bishop of Siena. In Siena, the political leaders objected to a bishop who was not only 24, but also a foreigner. Therefore, he resigned the appointment, becoming instead his uncle's papal treasurer, protonotary and Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente. Pope Martin V named him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere. He also served as papal legate at Picenum in the March of Ancona.
(27) The conservative movement has far wider reach than this, but it is only in these regions were they are actively supported against the Honorian Reforms. The peace imposed by Honorius in Lombardy proved unpopular with all sides, who turned against Honorius as a result. The Hungarians are dissatisfied with Sigismund's neglect of their kingdom and as a result oppose him and the wider reforms which come out of Bohemia. Aragonese antipathy to the reforms are due to Honorius' seeming acceptance of Enrique V's invasion and occupation of their kingdom. The conservatives are supportive of stronger inquisitions and will later on find the growth of radical and heretical movements in the Alps extremely distasteful.
(28) The Venetians are pretty supportive of the conciliarist movement ITTL, alongside many of the northern French lands. It also sees significant support among the city leagues of Germany. The Honorian Reforms caused people to think more about their spirituality and as a result they begin fragmenting according to their thoughts and beliefs.
(29) This is Honorius' only real major failure. His failure to secure Giordano's easy succession leads to a long and messy conclave which will in time raise the specter of Schism once again.
(30) Pope Honorius is one of the most important figures in this story and has done more than almost anyone else to drive it in a different direction ITTL. I really hope you enjoyed following his career. Now we will get to see what happens when there isn't such a strong and unifying central papal figure.
(31) The Papal Conclave of 1427 isn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been, but it is pretty bad. Pope Honorius' habit of trying to balance the different factions within the Cardinals comes back to bite him, with his only bit of luck being that most of the older Cardinals who perish during the Conclave were conservatives appointed prior to his own election.
(32) Giordano Orsini never had any intention of following through on this promise, which would undermine everything his mentor had worked for, but he isn't shy about giving his agreement and then not following through on it. He is rather tactless in this instance, which can be attributed to the euphoria of ascending to the Throne of St Peter making him over confident.
(33) Innocent's name is rather ironic given his rather poisonous future reputation. He is a fierce proponent of papal supremacy, like Honorius, but he doesn't quite have the same tact or ability to measure how far he can push people which Honorius had. Giordano is a very skilled pope, but he just can't act at the level of Honorius, then again I don't think anyone could.
(34) The Farfa Abbey is one of the most powerful and famous abbeys in Europe. It was traditionally aligned with the Ghibellines like the Colonna, but were forced into accommodating the Guelphs after the Hohenstaufens fell from power. That said, they remain very positive towards the Ghibellines and are therefore chosen by Oddone Colonna to serve as meeting place. He and Gabriel can be relatively certain that they will be able to remain out of Innocent's eyes there. The Farfa Conspiracy is an alliance between the conservative and conciliar branches of the Church which will become quite important in the future.
Urbane Heresy
Johannes Gutenberg
In the decade that followed the League of Swabian Cities' victory over the Habsburgs the cities found themselves the locus of intense economic growth and as a result experienced a rapid increase in wealth. In the early 1420s, stretching into the middle of the decade, the cities found themselves in a fierce contest with the Swiss Cantons over the tariffs exerted in the Alps on goods being transported north from Milan. After a series of attempts at negotiating a reduction in the tariffs, with little success, the leadership of the Swabian League began searching out alternatives to these issues, eventually turning towards the nobility of the Franco-German border regions in hopes of provoking a conflict between these nobles and the Swiss. As a result, the Swabians were able to provoke a bloody conflict which ended in a major defeat for the northern cantons. However, what the Swabians had not accounted for was the results which this weakening of the northern cantons would have on the power balance of the region, with the southern Cantons leaping at the opportunity to humiliate their richer northern rivals who had experienced a significant economic boost during the years of the tariffs. This breakout of warfare, which ended up blocking several vital Alpine trade routes, led to Swabian attempts at circumventing the more central routes by allying with Chur and its League of God's House - thereby joining them in their opposition to the Bishop of Chur and the Swiss Confederacy. This eastern route proved highly beneficial and evaded much of the intense fighting among the Swiss for the time being (1).
Despite the disruptions caused by the wars of the Swiss, the trade ties between Italy and Swabia only strengthened, building on the strengthening Eastern Trade as the post-Timurid states consolidated and the Rhoman Empire, experiencing an economic boom, expanded its trade with the West. Over the course of the 1420s and 1430s trade and urbanization would link Florence and its Tuscan competitors, through Liguria and Lombardy, to the Swabian cities. From Swabia, trade would flow up through the heavily populated Rhineland with its numerous smaller City Leagues in the lead until it reached the immensely urbanized Low Countries, most particularly Flanders and Brabant where Antwerp would grow into one of the largest cities in Europe. This thick band of cities tied together western and central Europe and allowed the swift transfer of ideas, trade goods and much else - rapidly increasing the rate of growth across the region. This Tuscan-Lombard-Swabian-Rhineland-Flemish belt would be one of four major trade routes which allowed the spread of Renaissance ideas on a massive scale from Italy (2). The other major over-land route ran from Greece, through Venice to Vienna, wherefrom it split in two. One of these routes would be along the Danube, running into Swabia and connecting with the Urban Belt in the west while it left Habsburg lands and ran eastward down the Rhine all the way to the Black Sea. The other route ran from Vienna to Prague, bringing wealth and finery to the Imperial Court, before following the Vltava River until it ran into the Elbe whereupon the trade route followed the river all the way north to Hamburg. From Hamburg, the trade route moved into the Baltic where it connected the Nordic Kingdoms to the rest of Europe's trade routes. This trade route was largely dominated by the Hanseatic League, who had recently begun facing stiff competition from Nordic merchants, and branched into the wider North Sea trade network (3). The third major trade route connected Tuscany and Liguria to the Iberian and Southern French markets. From Italy the trade moved into southern France and Aragon by sea, entering at the ports of Barcelona and Narbonne primarily though Montpellier also experienced a growth in trade. From Narbonne the trade followed the Aude until Carcassonne where it took to the roads until it reached the Garonne, running toward Toulouse, where it supplied the French Royal court, before ending at Bordeaux where it serviced the Duke of Aquitaine's court. From Bordeaux, the trade route found itself connected to the Atlantic Seaboard trade network, with most of the trade running north to England or south to Navarre, Castile and Portugal. The other main branch of this trade route entered the Iberian Peninsula at Barcelona, wherefrom it either moved further inland along the Ebro, though this route would prove difficult during the reign of Enrique V due to political strife and unrest in Aragon, or southward towards Andalusia, southern Castile and the West African trade center at Ceuta (4). A fourth trade route was dominated by Sicilian and Marseillais merchants and ran from Sicily, Tuscany and Liguria to Marseille, wherefrom it travelled up the Rhône and eventually crossed over to the Loire, Seine and Marne rivers, or across to the Rhine where it joined the Urban Belt. This fourth route would prove to be the main trade route for many of the mighty dukes of northern France (5).
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born in the German city of Mainz, the youngest son of the upper-class merchant Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden, and his second wife, Else Wyrich, who was the daughter of a shopkeeper. His surname was derived from the house inhabited by his father and his paternal ancestors 'zu Laden, zu Gutenberg'. The house of Gänsfleisch was one of the patrician families of the town, tracing its lineage back to the thirteenth century." Patricians in Mainz were commonly named after houses they owned in this time period. In 1411, there was an uprising in Mainz against the patricians, and more than a hundred families were forced to leave. As a result, the Gutenbergs moved to Eltville am Rhein, where his mother had an inherited estate. Following his studies at the University of Erfurt, he migrated for political reasons to Strasbourg, where his family had connections (6). It was in Strasbourg in 1430 that Gutenberg first built his prototype of what would eventually become the movable type printing machine (7). Gutenberg was able to secure investors with relative ease and immediately began working to perfect his invention. It would take him until 1433 to perfect, but by 1434 the first western moveable type printing press was in commercial use. The first work to be printed for distribution would be a German translation of the Bible, soon followed by French, Latin and Italian translations which all sold out quickly. Gutenberg would build more presses, beginning in 1436, and soon found people copying his design across the Urban Belt. While it would take decades for the printing industry to properly establish itself, it was already causing controversy by the late 1430s when printed versions of John Wycliffe's writings and other literature which flirted with heresy entered circulation. Gutenberg would eventually leave Strasbourg, when his decision to print Wycliffe's Bible translation led to the city council's decision to exile him. He would return to his birth town of Mainz in 1442 but soon found himself in trouble with the Prince-Bishop of Mainz. This tension with the Prince-Bishop would eventually end with Gutenberg's decision to give the Bishop a stake in his printing business and the Prince-Bishop's decision to give Gutenberg a monopoly on official Bible printing in Latin in all of his lands (8).
Anti-papal propaganda spread across Western Europe depicting the Pope in league with demons
The Savoyard efforts at incorporating Geneva into their dynastic lands would provoke a conflict with the Bishop of Geneva, who had just recently given the town a charter, over the jurisdiction of the town. Pope Honorius' successor would eventually insinuate himself into the conflict between the Duke and Bishop, but for the time being the struggle for control left a power vacuum into which the Taborites quickly insinuated themselves (10). By 1430, large parts of the Genevan and Bernese town councils had joined the Taborites, linking it with a degree of anti-aristocratic sentiment which proved incredibly popular with large segments of the Swiss population. At the same time, the Waldesians found themselves reinvigorated by the infusion of fanaticism injected by the Taborites and the seeming weakness increasingly distant regime of the Savoyard Duke, Amadeus VIII, who found himself spending most of his time at the French court at Toulouse. In the 1430s this growing Alpine Reformation would begin to seep into the trade routes of the Urban Belt where they would come into contact with the Beghards and Beguines. The Beguines and Beghards were related communities of female and male semi-monastic collectives which followed mystical and spiritual beliefs and cared for people in the surrounding areas to where they lived. The movements had originated in the Low Countries in the twelfth century and had spread down the Rhine and into Swabia over the following century and a half, before the Catholic Church began suspecting them of heresy. Under Pope John XXII and Urban V these communities had been targeted by inquisitors and had been persecuted by local church officials, but after Urban V's deposition and the chaos of the Schism this persecution had ground to a halt, allowing these communities to reemerge (12). Under Honorius, the Beguines and Beghards had largely been left alone, with some mistaking their practices for new ones certified in the Honorian Reforms, which meant that when word began to spread of the blind Jeanne d'Arc's visions there were plenty of people willing to listen. Jeanne d'Arc left her convent in 1428, at the age of 19, having been convinced by her visions that she must share the happy news that the Rapture was coming. While transcriptions of her visions from the three years prior to Jeanne leaving the convent at Metz circulated between Augustinian monasteries, Jeanne made her way to Nancy where she hoped to gain access to the duke and to share the news. Every evening she would loudly preach about what she had seen with anyone willing to listen, quickly developing a significant following who dedicated themselves to protecting the young woman. On arriving at Nancy she learned that the Duke and his wife Isabella had left the city for England a month before, and she therefore turned eastward. She would eventually arrive at Strasbourg where she recommenced her public preaching to the great consternation of many. Women began to flock to Jeanne's gatherings by the hundreds, causing significant disruption to the daily routines of the city. The presence of several prominent men's wives and daughters provoked a scandal, and in mid-1429 Jeanne and her followers found themselves expelled from the city, though not before receiving immense donations from several of her prominent supporters in the city. Over the course of the next five years Jeanne travelled up and down the Rhine, spreading her message and accumulating an intense following, particularly among the Beguines communities where she would often seek shelter for a time, particularly when she came into conflict with ecclesiastical figures. The religious fervor that was generated by Jeanne's preaching on her visions meant that when the Taborites came into contact with the Rhineland population, the region was ready to follow anyone who promised salvation. Jeanne's preaching and visions caused significant interest both within the church and among the wider population. In 1434, Jeanne d'Arc received an invitation to visit the court at Toulouse from Catherine of England who had become intrigued by this fascinating blind woman who provoked such strong responses wherever she went. Jeanne arrived at the French Royal court in late 1435, leaving behind a region in turmoil (13).
Particularly influential to the Honorian Reforms, which had begun revitalizing a church mired in controversy following its failure to properly fulfill its duties during the Black Plague and during the intense upheaval of the Schism, was what was then known as "new learning" and would in time come to be known as "humanism"(14). Humanists, which all of the main figures of the Honorian Reformers could be considered to be, were lovers and connoisseurs of words. They saw them as containing power which could be used actively to change human society for the better. The words which inspired such excitement were found in ancient texts from long-vanished societies with the same belief in the transforming power of poetry, oratory and rhetoric – ancient Greece and Rome. Part of the project of transforming the world must be to get as clear a picture as possible of these ancient societies, and that meant getting the best possible version of the texts which were the main records of how those societies had thought and operated. These ancient texts had inspired similar excitement before; leading to the description of the sudden effect of manuscripts on intellectual life in ninth- and twelfth-century Europe equally as the first Renaissance, with that of the 15th century being considered the second of these. In this new age of Renaissance, the impact was far more widely spread through society, particularly once the technology of printing on paper opened up far more rapid possibilities of distributing copies of the texts, and gave much greater incentives for the spread of literacy associated with these innovations; this in turn produced a far more intense search for ancient manuscripts often lying neglected in cathedral or monastery libraries since earlier bursts of enthusiasm for the past. Moreover, many more Greek manuscripts re-emerged from this latest treasure-hunt. Medieval western Europe had access to remarkably little Greek literature; the text of such central works of literature as Homer’s epics, for instance, was hardly known until the fifteenth century. In fact until then, very few scholars had any more than the vaguest knowledge of the Greek language. If they knew a learned language other than Latin, it was likely to be Hebrew, for the good reason that while there were virtually no Greeks of any significance in the West, there were plenty of argumentative and ingenious Jewish rabbis, who had an awkward ability to question Christianity and so needed to be refuted by reference to their own Hebrew literature. Now, however, western humanists would be forced to acquire skills in a new language if they were to make use of the texts suddenly available (15). The Turkish Crusade had opened the floodgates to Rhoman literature, with all of the western participants becoming avid collectors of texts, manuscripts and thinkers from the region. By 1415 immense conglomerations of scribes found themselves gathered together in Constantinople, Athens and Thessalonika to make copies for sale in western markets to immense profit. It is for this reason, that when word of Gutenberg's printing press reached Constantinople, the Emperor himself dispatched representatives to acquire the schematics for the press (16).
Alongside the exhilarating rediscovery of Greek, the humanists also gained new perspectives on the Latin language and culture. They developed a great enthusiasm for the politician turned philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. Civic humanists appreciated Cicero’s detailed discussion of government, disregarding the inconvenient fact that he had been a very unsuccessful politician, and when in 1421 his treatise on oratory was rediscovered in the cathedral library at Lodi in northern Italy, the new book sealed his reputation as the ideal model for powerful and persuasive Latin prose. It became the ambition of every cultivated young scholar to write just like Cicero, given inevitable adjustments like newly coined words for printing, gunpowder and cannon-fire. This humanist literary style, which also resulted in humanists reviving the conventions and metrical forms of ancient poetry, was very different from the Latin which scholastic philosophers and theologians had used over the previous few centuries. One could tell a humanist prose composition from a scholastic text merely by seeing how the sentences are constructed. The contrast became even more obvious when humanist manuscript writers painstakingly mimicked the ‘italic’ characteristics of what they took to be ancient script; printers then imitated their italic script, producing a typeface very different to the Gothic type which other printers used in imitation of medieval manuscript ‘bookhand’. This was parallel to the Renaissance’s architectural and artistic revolution, which began in Italy in the fifteenth century and rapidly spread northwards: the visual forms of ancient buildings, sculpture, paintings and gardens were more and more accurately imitated as part of the effort to bring back to life the lost world of Greece and Rome. How might one establish authenticity amid the intoxicating but unsorted flow of information from the east? One criterion must be to assess a text in every respect – its content, date, origins, motives, even its appearance. So much depended on texts being accurate. This meant developing ways of telling a good text from a corrupt text: looking at the way in which it was written and whether it sounded like texts reliably datable to the same historical period. Historical authenticity gained a new importance: it now became the chief criterion for authority. In earlier centuries, monks cheerfully forged documents on a huge scale for the greater glory of God, particularly charters proving their monastery’s claim to lands and privileges. They lived in a world where there were too few documents, and so they needed to manufacture the authority to prove things which they knew in their hearts to be true. That attitude would no longer do. A ‘source’ for authority, or fons, now outweighed the unchallenged reputation of an auctoritas. Ad fontes, back to the sources, was the battle-cry of the humanists. Hence the relevance of a humanist as a textual editor: an individual, equipped with the right intellectual skills, could outface centuries of authority, even the greatest authority in medieval Europe, the Church, unless the Church acted first (17).
Eventually the central document of the Christian Church, its ultimate fons the Bible, must come under the same scrutiny. Now the humanist preoccupation with words was crucial, because the Bible’s words were translations at various different levels. Christians saw them as interpretations of the mind of God to humanity, but beyond this ultimate translation from the perfect to the imperfect, the biblical texts were experienced at different removes from their original human writers. Medieval western Christianity knew the Bible almost exclusively through the fourth-century Latin translation made by Jerome, the Vulgate, ‘common’, version. When the Vulgate’s printed form was standardized during the 1440s, some persistent copyists’ errors were identified in various strands of the manuscript versions, but they were easily dealt with. Humanist excavation then went behind the Vulgate text. Before it reached Latin, the Hebrew Scripture, the Christian Old Testament, had been translated into Greek, principally a version completed in the second century BCE known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint itself contained a number of detectable mistranslations from Hebrew; such deviations interested humanist scholars just as they had long fascinated Jewish scriptural commentators, but they were not going to threaten Christian understanding of faith. Jerome had done his considerable best to re-examine the Hebrew text behind the Septuagint; nevertheless, faults remained (18). It would be the aim of younger men from among the Honorian Reformers to address these mistranslations and thereby correct the long-held misinterpretations of the Church. This would not prove to be an easy task (19).
Painting of Pope Honrius V at the height of his power
In March of 1425 Honorius V celebrated the thirtieth year of his long reign and his immense successes in a series of elaborate celebrations meant to demonstrate papal power and prestige. While much of his reign had been taken up with his program of reform, reshaping the very fabric of the church to his will, Honorius had accomplished immensely important tasks of geopolitical and cultural significance. His early and rabid support of both humanist scholars and renaissance artists had led to the revitalization of the City of Rome and the reconstruction of dozens of churches, palaces and public spaces (20). The early initiatives undertaken by the pope had been expanded on significantly throughout this time. In the east, the sudden loss of the Alunite mines at Phocaea to Ottoman control, part of Süleiman's bid to take control of all of Anatolia, led to a shock in the textile industry and presented a commercial opportunity to the Papacy. Alunite was the key component in Alum, a dye-fixing reagent necessary for fixing dyes to wool. The Alunite mines at Phocea had been the single source of supply in Europe up until the discovery of alunite at Tolfa, near Rome, as part of Honorius' attempts at prospecting the region in search of more sources of revenue. The Tolfa mines had initially struggled with the Phocean alunite, but with the fall of Phocea the Tolfa mines suddenly became the only source under Christian control. Over the course of the first half of the fifteenth century, the revenue generated from the Tolfa mines would become a vital component of the papal finances and a source of conflict between the different factions of the Church (21). At the same time Honorius had ensured good relations with Emperor Manuel II of Rhomania, helping to further develop the trade routes between east and west, and after the death of Manuel's daughter-in-law Anna of Moscow, Honorius proved vital in negotiating the marriage between Ioannes Palaiologos, Manuel's son and heir, and Elizabeth von Luxembourg, younger daughter of Emperor Sigismund and Mary of Hungary (22). Honorius' successive successes with ending the conflicts in northern Italy and France made him immensely popular. Yet another decision made by Honorius V during his later reign was the decision to give papal sanction to Henry the Navigator's expeditions and to give him a papal mission to spread the word of god. When João I of Portugal asked for the declaration of a Crusade in Africa, Honorius was swift to agree - legitimizing the Portuguese conquests in Morocco, after Portuguese promises to spread the true faith in their new lands, and ensuring future efforts in the region (23). In light of all of these accomplishments, it became clear in the immediate aftermath of his 1425 celebrations that his reign was nearing its end. Pope Honorius therefore began looking to his succession.
The three most likely candidates to succeed Honorius were, in 1425, Giordano Orsini (24), Oddone Colonna (25) and Gabriel Condulmer (26). While Giordano Orsini was a prominent member of the Orsini family who dominated the Guelph faction within Rome and was considered the man closest to Pope Honorius, his rivals were powerful and dangerous in the extreme. Oddone Colonna was one of the most prominent figures in the Colonna family, who dominated the Ghibelline faction in Rome and was the darling of the conservative faction of the church. The conservative faction had largely been in decline since the failure of the Council of Saluzzo, but with the increasing rapidity of change caused by the Honorian Reforms, they had started to experience growing support - particularly in Northern Italy, Hungary and Aragon (27). Gabriel Condulmer was a nephew to the powerful Cardinal Angelo Correr, who dominated Venetian ecclesiastical politics and had been a leading figure among the conciliars until his death in the months before the Council of Saluzzo - which he had opposed and considered as a danger to their movement (28). The Orsini and Colona had historically feuded and were liable to attack each other at the slightest instigation, a factor which caused significant difficulties for Pope Honorius during his Roman reconstruction. Immediately after the settlement in Lombardy, which the Venetians had disapproved of, the Colonna had rallied their supporters against the Guelphs who rejoiced at the peace, resulting in deadly riots and street fighting which were only ended with force by the Captain General of the Church, Ranuccio Farnese il Vecchio. Over the course of 1425 and 1426, Pope Honorius began negotiating with both of these factions to clear the way for his chosen successor. By late 1426, with Honorius beginning to weaken, Oddone Colonna had given his agreement to accept Giordano's succession in return for the elevation of his nephew, Prospero Colonna, to the Cardinalate. Gabriel Condulmer proved more challenging, demanding the revocation of Pope Honorius' decree against the conciliars in return for his support. When Honorius proved tardy in agreeing to this deal Condulmer went to Colonna and offered to support his ascension to the papal throne in return for concessions to the conciliar position. This sudden threat to his plans for succession angered Honorius, who remained resistant to Condulmer's demands through the winter of 1426-27, only for Honorius' health to rapidly collapse (29).
Pope Honorius V, known in his previous life as Rinaldo Brancaccio, died on the 27th of March 1427 after a reign of 32 years and 7 days, making him the longest-ruling Pope since Saint Peter, beating the previous longest-reigning pope Adrian I who had reigned for 23 years, 10 months and 25 days between 775 and 792 A.D. Over his long reign he had fundamentally reshaped what it meant to by Christian. He had declared and shepherded one of the most successful crusades in history against one of the most dangerous enemies faced by Christendom. He had returned the Holy See to its rightful home, in Rome, and had united a splintered Church at war with itself. He had reinvigorated the church and introduced reforms on a scale not seen since Gregory the Great. He had rebuilt Rome from the ruins of neglect and introduced culture and learning to a court in sore need of it, and he had reestablished friendly relations with the East. Furthermore, he had brought peace between not only the northern Italians but to that most pernicious and long-lived strife between the England and French, and between the French themselves. He was an era-defining figure who reshaped the world around him. His death brought to an end the sheer hegemonic dominance of the Papacy and opened up the Church to strife and uncertainty, but the legacy he left behind would be difficult to tear down (30).
The Papal Conclave comes to an end with the Election of Innocent VII
The Papal Conclave of 1427 would prove to be a bitterly disputed battle between the three main contenders to the papacy. Any one of these candidates had the backing of around a third of the Cardinals, though Giordano Orsini had slightly more while Gabriel Condulmer had slightly fewer than this during the early ballots. As weeks turned into months and the bitter disputes between the Cardinals turned even more tense, the stability and security of the Church and Honorius' reforms came under threat. During the summer months of 1427, which turned out to be particularly warm, several cardinals collapsed from heatstroke, weakening the support for Colonna and his conservatives. Increasingly frustrated by the intractable opposition he faced, Orsini finally began to give in to the intense pressure put on him by Gabriel Condulmer to end Honorius' sanctions on the conciliars. By October of 1427, with several more of the elderly cardinals having succumbed to the intense rigors of the conclave, Gabriel Condulmer and Giordano Orsini had finally come to an agreement (31). On the 23rd of October 1427 Cardinal Giordano Orsini ascended to the Throne of St. Peter as Pope Innocent VII, pledging to continue the works of his predecessor. Once he had been elected, Cardinal Condulmer came to Innocent and demanded that he follow through on their agreement - only for Innocent to laugh in his face and dismiss him, claiming that he had never planned to turn his back on his mentor's work (32).
Giordano Orsini was an immensely talented man, with a firm grasp on the issues of the day, but one thing he could not and would not do was give ground on the principles established by his formidable predecessor. Innocent was not the man Honorius was, he was not as forthright, as charismatic nor as formidable as Honorius. Instead, he was a man willing to lie his enemies in the face, a man with no compunctions when acting against his enemies and a man who would with time become known as a dangerous enemy and a good friend (33). Gabriel Condulmer was outraged at Innocent's response and immediately began working to oppose him alongside many of the cardinals who had supported him in the past. Oddone Colonna was just as outraged at his rival's rise to power and immediately began working to undermine him. The City of Rome became increasingly riotous as Orsini and Colonna partisans clashed in the streets and alleys of the city. Gabriel Condulmer, viewing Oddone as a potential ally against Innocent, reached out to the conservative cardinal. On the 3rd of May the two met at the Farfa Abbey where they establish an agreement to work together in opposition to the Honorian Reformers and the treacherous Pope Innocent. Thus was born the Farfa Conspiracy, which would plague the reigns of several popes in the years to come (34)
Footnotes:
(1) The victory of the Swabian League of Cities is a major divergence ITTL, allowing these associations of cities to strengthen and spread. The victory in Swabia emboldens other German leagues, particularly those of the Rhineland, and leads to an explosive growth in wealth generation and trade. The rivalry of the Swiss and Swabians however, is far from over. The shift towards Chur significantly weakens the financial stability of the Swiss, and is part of why so many end up becoming mercenaries, while forcing the Swiss to start searching for ways of strengthening their grip on trans-Alpine trade.
(2) While there was a significant degree of trade along this axis IOTL, the strength of the Swabian cities serves to connect Tuscany and Lombardy to the Rhineland in a way that never happened IOTL. This sets the urban growth of the region into overdrive and speeds up a number of processes, as we will see later.
(3) The greater stability exerted by Sigismund's long and successful reign allows for trade along this axis to grow and prosper. It isn't as large of a trade route as that of the Urban Belt, but it is very significant.
(4) This trade route is enabled by the close relations between France and Aquitaine, and the dual importance of Toulouse and Bordeaux. With Toulouse acting as French capital, this route experiences far greater use. Narbonne becomes one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean and the silting of the Aude is countered by significant public works.
(5) While many of these trade routes existed IOTL, and this particular one is actually somewhat weaker than it would be later in the century IOTL, the sheer volume of trade is a lot larger ITTL. With the Ottomans, Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu slowly settling into place and the recovery of the Byzantine Empire, the sheer quantity of Eastern trade and Western demand have experienced an extreme degree of growth.
(6) All of this is basically what can be pieced together of Gutenberg's OTL early life.
(7) This is nine years earlier than OTL and is provoked by the greater level of economic activity in the region, particularly with Strasbourg serving as crossroads for the urban belt and for trade between France and Germany, which means that there are more investors for Gutenberg to propose his ideas to. Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg at this point in time IOTL and as such, it is Strasbourg which reaps many of Mainz' plaudits.
(8) The simultaneous growth of heretical movements across the western Alpine region and in the Rhineland (as will be detailed later), development of the printing press and moveable type and the growth of the Urban belt all conspire to create the chaotic circumstances needed to change the world.
(9) Many of these Bohemian are OTL radical Hussites, who stumble into changing circumstances. Many of the OTL Utraquists participate happily in Jan Hus' reform scheme, and become part of the sanctioned Bohemian Reformation. The OTL radicals find themselves a persecuted minority and therefore flee towards what seems like safety in the Alps.
(10) There are several differences from OTL which explain why Geneva remains in the aforementioned limbo. First of all, Amadeus VIII is not an anti-pope ITTL and therefore cannot simply make himself Bishop of Geneva as he did IOTL. Secondly, Pope Honorius is constantly on the lookout for conflicts like this where he can strengthen papal power and thirdly, the Duke of Savoy is quite busy playing house in Toulouse with Catherine of England. This leaves a gap in leadership which the Taborites exploit to the fullest, and awakens the Waldesians to the distracted nature of leadership in the region.
(11) The Beguines and Beghards are part of several communities like this which came out of the "first reformation" under Gregory the Great, alongside the Dominicans and Franciscans. They got involved in begging and mysticism which made them targets for repression by the church. The descriptions are based on OTL.
(12) IOTL the repression continued throughout the schism, but due to the distraction caused by Urban's fall from power and the later distraction of the Turkish Crusade, no one ever got around to restarting the repression of the Beguines and Beghards. Under Honorius, most reformist thoughts are left in peace or supported actively, these Rhineland and Low Country communities make it through to play an important role in invigorating the religious convictions of the Rhineland.
(13) The fact that Jeanne survives the trip to Nancy is something of a miracle and is held forth by some as God's protection of her. After Nancy Jeanne finds herself protected by various different people, and gains several protectors. Jeanne has all of the earnest charisma which she had IOTL, but due to her blindness she has developed in a different direction. She is incredibly pious and convincing, turning all of her impressive talents which she demonstrated against the English IOTL towards preaching and sharing her millenarian visions. It bears mentioning that the date of Jeanne's arrival at the French Court is in the same year as her OTL execution.
(14) The effects of the Turkish Crusade, beyond their immediate impact on the Ottoman Sultanate, really begin to play out here. Humanist beliefs are accelerated by these communications between Orthodox and Catholic nations. Humanism is actually a term coined in the late 1800s if I recall correctly, and the term in use at the time was "New Learning". I have used Humanism because it should help people's understanding somewhat.
(15) This is all OTL. In OTL it was the fall of Constantinople which opened up the west to this literature.
(16) This is in part due to the continued role played by the Order of the Dragon as a cross-confessional order and the demand originally stimulated by the crusaders who returned from the Turkish Crusade. Men like Prince Edward got their appreciation for this writing from his father's library and personally became a major proponent of "new learning" as a result. Pope Honorius, who happens to be one of these very early Humanists, is able to singlehandedly drive demand immensely. These pseudo scribal factories quickly become part of a larger printing industry which finds strong footing in the Byzantine Empire.
(17) This is all OTL.
(18) This is again all OTL. It was the decision to start questioning the fons of many of these Christian documents which eventually led to the Protestant Reformation.
(19) We are getting ahead of ourselves here, but beginning in the late 1430s and early 1440s Humanism starts going through similar developments as happened 10-20 years later IOTL.
(20) Honorius is by this point the longest-reigning pope in history, excepting only Saint Peter's reign as the first Bishop of Rome. He has been a defining figure of the period and is remembered as one of the most important popes in history. While his reform efforts face some opposition and critique, his accomplishments in other fields are just as impressive if not more so.
(21) These mines are discovered nearly 50 years earlier than IOTL, but the Tolfa mines only become important following the fall of Phocea in 1422. Alum was a vital part of the cloth trade of Europe, which was itself one of the most important industries in Europe. The Tolfa mines, providing a monopoly for the papacy, are immensely profitable and secure an immense degree of power and influence for the church in both England and the Low Countries which are both dependent on the wool and cloth trade.
(22) This marriage is accomplished not only by Honorius' wishes, but also as part of the good relations between the two Emperors, stretching back to the Turkish Crusade. This marriage doesn't resolve the many issues between the two Roman Empires, but it does bring them closer and helps to foster significant trade and diplomatic relations between the two Imperial courts.
(23) Honorius is fascinated by the potential of Henry's expeditions and is swift to place papal influence on these colonizing efforts. Beyond supporting the expeditions, Honorius also ensures the dispatch of preachers to the Canaries Islands to convert the people there as swiftly as possible, something that causes some tension with the Portuguese.
(24) I have already given a pretty detailed overview of Giordano Orsini. He was also a cardinal IOTL. IOTL Orsini was Archbishop of Naples from 1400 until 1405, when he was made a Cardinal by Innocent VII. In 1408 he abandoned the "Roman Obedience" and attended the Council of Pisa. He was subsequently administrator of the see of Pécs 1409-10, and legate of Antipope John XXIII in Spain, Picenum and Bologna. Promoted to the suburbicarian see of Albano in 1412, he had a considerable role in the Council of Constance, where he presided over the fifth session. He was the papal legate appointed to establish peace between England and France in 1418. Grand penitentiary from 1419. In 1420, he was named Abbot Commendatory of the Imperial Abbey of Farfa. Legate of Pope Martin V in Bohemia, Hungary and Germany in prosecution of the Hussites in 1426. Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1428, he presided over the Papal conclave, 1431. Orsini opted for the suburbicarian see of Sabina on March 14, 1431. As the legate of Pope Eugenius IV to open the Council of Basle, he defended the rights of Pope against the claims of conciliarist movement. Archpriest of patriarchal Vatican Basilica from 1434 until his death. He is buried in a tomb in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Here his impecable credentials and Humanist tendancies bring him into Honorius' inner circle and he becomes the chosen successor to the Holy See.
(25) IOTL Oddone Colonna ascended as Pope Martin V, the first pope of a reunited Church. ITTL he has remained important, but more as a rival and challenger to Honorius' more radical reformist tendencies. He has had some troubles with Emperor Sigismund, who he views as too supportive of the reformers, but remains a dedicated Ghibelline and supports the City of Rome against the powers of the papacy (though this is a minor issue under Honorius due to his immense popularity in Rome). IOTL He was born at Genazzano, the son of Agapito Colonna and Caterina Conti, between January 26 and February 20, 1369. He belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rome. His brother Giordano became Prince of Salerno and Duke of Venosa, while his sister Paola was Lady of Piombino between 1441 and 1445. Oddone studied law at the University of Pavia. He became apostolic protonotary under Pope Urban VI (1378–89), and was created Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio al Velabro by Pope Innocent VII in 1405. In 1409 he took part in the Council of Pisa, and was one of the supporters of Antipope Alexander V. Later he confirmed his allegiance to Alexander's successor, John XXIII, by whom his family obtained several privileges, while Oddone obtained for himself the vicariate of Todi, Orvieto, Perugia and Umbria. He was excommunicated for this in 1411 by Pope Gregory XII. Oddone was with John XXIII's entourage at the Council of Constance and followed him in his escape at Schaffhausen on 21 March 1415. Later he returned to Constance and took part in the process leading to the deposition of John XXIII.
(26) Gabriel Condulmer was the OTL Pope Eugene IV and was the nephew of OTLs Gregory XII who resigned to make place for Martin V IOTL. Without the intense struggle between conciliarism and the papacy which occured IOTL on top of the horrors of the Schism, Gabriel never becomes opposed to the conciliarists. I have Angelo Correr, OTL Gregory XII, be supportive of the conciliars ITTL because of his willingness to turn over the issue of the schism to a council IOTL. IOTL Pope Eugene IV, born Gabriele Condulmer, was Pope from 3 March 1431 to his death in 1447. Condulmer was born in Venice to a rich merchant family. He entered a community of Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alga in his native city. At the age of twenty-four he was appointed by his maternal uncle, Pope Gregory XII, as Bishop of Siena. In Siena, the political leaders objected to a bishop who was not only 24, but also a foreigner. Therefore, he resigned the appointment, becoming instead his uncle's papal treasurer, protonotary and Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente. Pope Martin V named him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere. He also served as papal legate at Picenum in the March of Ancona.
(27) The conservative movement has far wider reach than this, but it is only in these regions were they are actively supported against the Honorian Reforms. The peace imposed by Honorius in Lombardy proved unpopular with all sides, who turned against Honorius as a result. The Hungarians are dissatisfied with Sigismund's neglect of their kingdom and as a result oppose him and the wider reforms which come out of Bohemia. Aragonese antipathy to the reforms are due to Honorius' seeming acceptance of Enrique V's invasion and occupation of their kingdom. The conservatives are supportive of stronger inquisitions and will later on find the growth of radical and heretical movements in the Alps extremely distasteful.
(28) The Venetians are pretty supportive of the conciliarist movement ITTL, alongside many of the northern French lands. It also sees significant support among the city leagues of Germany. The Honorian Reforms caused people to think more about their spirituality and as a result they begin fragmenting according to their thoughts and beliefs.
(29) This is Honorius' only real major failure. His failure to secure Giordano's easy succession leads to a long and messy conclave which will in time raise the specter of Schism once again.
(30) Pope Honorius is one of the most important figures in this story and has done more than almost anyone else to drive it in a different direction ITTL. I really hope you enjoyed following his career. Now we will get to see what happens when there isn't such a strong and unifying central papal figure.
(31) The Papal Conclave of 1427 isn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been, but it is pretty bad. Pope Honorius' habit of trying to balance the different factions within the Cardinals comes back to bite him, with his only bit of luck being that most of the older Cardinals who perish during the Conclave were conservatives appointed prior to his own election.
(32) Giordano Orsini never had any intention of following through on this promise, which would undermine everything his mentor had worked for, but he isn't shy about giving his agreement and then not following through on it. He is rather tactless in this instance, which can be attributed to the euphoria of ascending to the Throne of St Peter making him over confident.
(33) Innocent's name is rather ironic given his rather poisonous future reputation. He is a fierce proponent of papal supremacy, like Honorius, but he doesn't quite have the same tact or ability to measure how far he can push people which Honorius had. Giordano is a very skilled pope, but he just can't act at the level of Honorius, then again I don't think anyone could.
(34) The Farfa Abbey is one of the most powerful and famous abbeys in Europe. It was traditionally aligned with the Ghibellines like the Colonna, but were forced into accommodating the Guelphs after the Hohenstaufens fell from power. That said, they remain very positive towards the Ghibellines and are therefore chosen by Oddone Colonna to serve as meeting place. He and Gabriel can be relatively certain that they will be able to remain out of Innocent's eyes there. The Farfa Conspiracy is an alliance between the conservative and conciliar branches of the Church which will become quite important in the future.
- Status