Could any medieval European state have rejected the legacy of Rome?

For centuries, and even to the modern day maybe, the legacy of Rome looms large. So many polities and kings have derived their legacy to that empire and its precursor republic. So how could a European country reject that legacy in favor of either some other tradition to base off of (besides nomadic horse archer peoples from the east), or in favor of inventing a new one entirely? I guess doing it off of a new Christian tradition would've been more possible by the time of the Reformation.

A less radical idea I still remember from @Faeelin's old Mustafa the Pretender TL that I used to obsess about:

The Christian Empire

Carlos, King of France, Spain, and Naples, personally welcome the Pope in Avignon. Clement gives a stirring speech on how this is the Church’s darkest hour, when the forces of heresy are preparing for the final war. He appoints Carlos as "Emperor of Christ, the West, and God willing, the World." Clement then makes some noises to sooth Ladislas, appointing him the Protector of the Faith. The creation of the Christian Empire backfires, as even the Catholics of England and Italy view this as a political move.

Carlos I dies, and is succeeded by his son, Filippo, in 1563. Not content with his current holdings, Phillip turns his eyes on Portugal, which has been, for the last 40 years, a Spanish vassal anyway. With the support of the Pope, King Sebastian dies, and Ferdinand, Duke of Mexico, is put forward as a candidate for the throne (his wife was a sister of Sebastian). Ferdinand gains the throne of Portugal after a Spanish invasion, and France, Portugal, and Spain are under the rule of the Christian Empire. With that task completed, Filippo begins construction of the Christian Armada, and sends messages to Alexus, Edward, Ferdinand, and Ladislas. Ferdinand politely declines, and begins sending messages to Albert and the Senate regarding an alliance, but Edward and Ladislas agree to support any moves against the nations of Venice and the Empire. In 1572, on Easter Sunday, the galleys of the Empire set sail.

That's kind of a novel idea, a particularly devout Catholic creating a empire like that out of his preexisting holdings. Could there be any analogous alternate history scenarios? It doesn't necessarily have to involve religion.

But, that's still a Roman Catholic empire, with all that entails, and will still hearken back to Rome at some level.

I'm somewhat amused that the timeline was probably written before Crusader Kings was popular (definitely pre-CK II), and the concept of medieval kingdoms forming ahistorical empires based on conquered lands was popular. I think there were CK I mods that did allow that to happen, though.
 
The West Francian -> medieval French state was sort of locked out of claiming Holy Roman legitimacy, so even though it definitely took advantage of its legacy of Charlemagne it didn’t really use the Roman aspects of his empire so much. In other words, I’d argue medieval France sort of did this.
 
I think a non-Catholic or "post-Catholic"(like protestants) European country could do this, or even just have a more autonomous church and keeping more local "pagan" influences after conversion, including local scripts(Futhark or Ogham) and so on.
 
Didn't the Kingdom of Hungary for most of their history celebrate their claimed "hunnic ancestry"?
Poland also had "Sarmatism" :)
And the Nordic countries had Gothicism, but I don't think either of these entailed a rejection of Roman legacy. In the nordic case it was actually a way to link themselves to the Roman world, since if their countries hadn't been part of the Roman Empire, they could atleast be the descendants of people who interacted with it.
 
Why couldn't a Catholic country reject the legacy of Rome?
Because the pope lives in Rome?
It was not even always true. There was a time when the pope lived in Avignon.

The Catholic Church is Roman not because the city happens to host the Pope, but because the Papacy itself, as Bishop of Rome, reclaims its primacy from the fact Rome as the capital of the Empire held primacy. That's why even in Avignon the Pope didn't and couldn't relinquish the title of Bishop of Rome
 
The Catholic Church is Roman not because the city happens to host the Pope, but because the Papacy itself, as Bishop of Rome, reclaims its primacy from the fact Rome as the capital of the Empire held primacy. That's why even in Avignon the Pope didn't and couldn't relinquish the title of Bishop of Rome
The pope does not reclaim his primacy from the fact that Rome was the capital of the empire.
He reclaims his primacy from the fact that he is St Peter's successor.
 
Last edited:
And the Nordic countries had Gothicism, but I don't think either of these entailed a rejection of Roman legacy. In the nordic case it was actually a way to link themselves to the Roman world, since if their countries hadn't been part of the Roman Empire, they could atleast be the descendants of people who interacted with it.
Very true... even in far-off Iceland, literacy in Latin was quite high....

And nobility, that liked to insert few Latin words in every sentence...
True as well... Latin even being one of the official languages of the old Commonwealth.

Even pagan Lithuania rather wholeheartedly embraced a Roman/Latin legacy after the conversion began...

I guess a good place to start would be to figure out which medieval state/culture owed the least to a Roman legacy... 🤔
Ireland before the Normans started pushing in maybe? While it's true that they Christianized very early on, the Celtic Church rites evolved quite differently from those on the continent...
 
I guess a good place to start would be to figure out which medieval state/culture owed the least to a Roman legacy... 🤔
Maybe a Lithuania which adopts Islam from the Golden Horde or an alt-Russia where Vladimir the Great stuck to paganism or adopted Islam instead?
 
Why couldn't a Catholic country reject the legacy of Rome?
Because the pope lives in Rome?
It was not even always true. There was a time when the pope lived in Avignon.

The Catholic Church is Roman not because the city happens to host the Pope, but because the Papacy itself, as Bishop of Rome, reclaims its primacy from the fact Rome as the capital of the Empire held primacy. That's why even in Avignon the Pope didn't and couldn't relinquish the title of Bishop of Rome
Didn't the Church claimed the Roman Empire still existed in its integrity in the sense of a "imperium christianorum"? For what I understand, from their perspective, the "Emperor of Romans" (the "holy" was a late addition) was the earthly sovereign of the (christian) world and the kings were subordinate to him. The coronation of Charlemagne wasn't supposed to create a new Empire, but to make him successor to the deposed emperor in Constantinople. Am I wrong?
 
Why couldn't a Catholic country reject the legacy of Rome?
Because the pope lives in Rome?
It was not even always true. There was a time when the pope lived in Avignon.
Catholic countries all ended up using Latin script, Latin as a liturgical language and had some connection to Rome.
If you want them to stay "Catholic" you need to transform the Catholic church significantly.
 
Didn't the Church claimed the Roman Empire still existed in its integrity in the sense of a "imperium christianorum"? For what I understand, from their perspective, the "Emperor of Romans" (the "holy" was a late addition) was the earthly sovereign of the (christian) world and the kings were subordinate to him. The coronation of Charlemagne wasn't supposed to create a new Empire, but to make him successor to the deposed emperor in Constantinople. Am I wrong?
You are right. But it was not only the Catholic Church. Entire Western Europe saw things like that.
However, that kind of symbolic political position can easily change. After all, the Catholic Church still exists now and the current pope does not claim the Roman Empire still exists.

Catholic countries all ended up using Latin script, Latin as a liturgical language and had some connection to Rome.
If you want them to stay "Catholic" you need to transform the Catholic church significantly.
If you want to reject Rome's legacy to the point of not using Latin scripts anymore, you need to transform much more than simply the Catholic Church.
 
There needs to be a reason for that rejection, and historical trends are stacked against any/all of them.

I think it is likely to one of those seemingly small things. To get at what I mean, otl St. Patrick sped the Christianization of Ireland and the British Isles arguably by centuries and that monasticism had role centuries later in Christianizing other parts of Europe. But having that one boy captured on a raid seemed inconsequential at the time and if you were to come into a forum like this in an atl and propose "The TL of St. Patrick" you'd likely have some one arguing against how impossible it would be.

In a novel I'm writing, a secondary PoD is the mistreatment of King Guthrum of Wessex foster daughter and wife of his son leads to a much more Norse world.

I think you could come up with a small incident big butterfly.
 
Top