Does the English king still speak mostly French at this time? What about the nobles? I can see tensions arising between Francophone and Anglophone subjects of the Franco-English kingdom (assuming that's the way this is going).
Does the English king still speak mostly French at this time? What about the nobles? I can see tensions arising between Francophone and Anglophone subjects of the Franco-English kingdom (assuming that's the way this is going).
1) Don't think the Cypriots will take kindly to being just handed over to a Muslim power willy-nilly without a fight. The Venetians might have been rapacious Latin bastards on the island, but at least they would be viewed as Christian rapacious bastards. I'm sure they would rebel and try to set up an independent government of their own (Empire of Nicosia anyone?) They would also intrigue to have Ragusa help them if the Cypriots felt they needed a Christian power as back-up.
Same for the Peloponnese - although there they'd have to contend with the mighty Osmanlis just across the Hexamilon (neck of land separating Peloponnese from the rest of Greece).
2) To say nothing of the Turkish Sultanates themselves: based in Europe, with heavily dhimmi populations, no matter how many Turks you have migrate into them (and if you have ALL Turks in the Middle East migrate 50% into Rumelia and 50% into Russia it STILL won't be enough for them to be a majority in either Sultanate).
Hmm. Interesting.
Don't think the Cypriots will take kindly to being just handed over to a Muslim power willy-nilly without a fight. The Venetians might have been rapacious Latin bastards on the island, but at least they would be viewed as Christian rapacious bastards. I'm sure they would rebel and try to set up an independent government of their own (Empire of Nicosia anyone?) They would also intrigue to have Ragusa help them if the Cypriots felt they needed a Christian power as back-up.
Same for the Peloponnese - although there they'd have to contend with the mighty Osmanlis just across the Hexamilon (neck of land separating Peloponnese from the rest of Greece).
I like the fragmented state of Anatolia, but I can't see it staying like that for very long. The Emirate or Antioch, or Karaman, or the Koyunlu will make a grab for domination before too long.
To say nothing of the Turkish Sultanates themselves: based in Europe, with heavily dhimmi populations, no matter how many Turks you have migrate into them (and if you have ALL Turks in the Middle East migrate 50% into Rumelia and 50% into Russia it STILL won't be enough for them to be a majority in either Sultanate). Now Rumeli and Rus could be relaxed with that state of affairs, and recruit local Christians into Sultanal service, but after a while the Muslim intelligensia will want Rumeli or Rus to turn back and reconquer the "heartlands" of Islam, and establish their authority over the Holy Sanctuaries. So at the very least the two Sultanates will interfere in Anatolia and try to control, if not conquer the lesser states there.
Your 'Augustus' of Trebizond takes the 'lesser' title of Basileus. Sorry but 'Basileus' means 'Emperor' in Greek in the 15th century. Basileus used to be 'King', but in ancient times. By this stage it means nothing other than 'Emperor'. 'Avyoustos' (Augustus) would be a subsidiary title belonging to the Emperor but 'Basileus' would be in no way inferior to it.
Like what you did with Ragusa. Let's have lots of interesting Renaissance developments there and in the Ragusan colonies. Maybe we could even have an interesting "intellectual encounter" between Christianity and Islam in Ragusa. I leave it to your creativity to decide what.
1) I don't know about Cyprus, but generally for almost at all times when facing the choice between a Turban man and a Latin, Orthodox Christians usually chose the former. Though yes I've heard that in Cyprus the Latins were more accommodative to the locals there compared to at other places, and there were indeed wealthy local Orthodox elites that had rather large influence in the country under the Latin rule, IIRC....
2) IOTL during this time, Balkan muslims were certainly minority in terms of religious proportion, but OTOH also the largest socio-cultural group around.
With the injection of additional muslim immigration from Anatolia, that would only make such status firmer. Won't be surprised if by the late 1600s ITTL the muslims will be constituting 60% of Balkan population (though most likely it would take longer)....
Damn, my Greek has failed me once more! Fine he'll just be king then.
Well you've foreseen things very well Megas, the force is strong with you. Either that or I'm becoming predictable. Either way, we'll be seeing a move back into Asia but it won't be uncontested.
As for localistic resistance- the people are relieved to be free of the venetians and the latins for awhile yet they eventually begin to become restless. But economic restructuring and land redistribution keep them happy for a few years so we'll be seeing uprisings in probably the 1450s/60s.
Did you forget the recent discussion?Hmm. Well I'm sceptical that the Balkan Muslims would have been the biggest socio-cultural group in the late 15th century. In Anatolia, sure; in Rumeli, even taking account of the massive migrations SF has described, no way: the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Hungarians, maybe even the Vlachs/Romanians would ALL have been bigger socio-cultural units than the Turco-Muslim settlers - unless of course if the migrations had led to widespread massacres, flight from the land by dhimmi peasants, and the conversion of wide areas of the Balkans into pasture-land, in which case the Balkan economy would have collapsed and the Osmanli Sultanate would not have been able to be a rich, prosperous state giving timars to all those sipahis. The same would apply for the Rus Sultanate.
Hiya.
I only dipped into that thread. Can you summarise the relevant part, please?
I stand by everything I wrote: ethnic Turkish, or half-Turkish, azabs, akinjis, dere-beys, babas, sufis, kuls, ghazis, sipahis, merchants, bureaucrats - and all the rest - are what I would consider as belonging to the Turco-Muslim socio-cultural group in late-15th century Rumeli/Balkan Europe. At no point could such a group, as I have defined it, be in the majority of the Balkan lands or the Russian lands (as shown in your map on the thread). They could have dominated politically, of course, but the relative isolation of the two Sultanates from the "heartlands" of Islam would have made them more peculiar than the Ottoman Empire ever was IOTL - with, I predict, several innovative practices/institutions arising because of the contact with the large numbers of surrounding Christians.
No one is saying (or at least should be saying) they are a majority. In the Balkans at least, they are, pound-for-pound a plurality. The population of the Balkans was around 4.5 million at the time of the Fall of Constantinople. That's after three generations of Turkish migration. The Christian population is so completely opposite of monolithic that it's a question of whether they'll change anymore than pre-Selim Ottomans did. I do admit the acquisition of the old Arab-Islamic heartlands changed the character of the empire somewhat, Finkel is right on that one.Hiya.
I only dipped into that thread. Can you summarise the relevant part, please?
I stand by everything I wrote: ethnic Turkish, or half-Turkish, azabs, akinjis, dere-beys, babas, sufis, kuls, ghazis, sipahis, merchants, bureaucrats - and all the rest - are what I would consider as belonging to the Turco-Muslim socio-cultural group in late-15th century Rumeli/Balkan Europe. At no point could such a group, as I have defined it, be in the majority of the Balkan lands or the Russian lands (as shown in your map on the thread). They could have dominated politically, of course, but the relative isolation of the two Sultanates from the "heartlands" of Islam would have made them more peculiar than the Ottoman Empire ever was IOTL - with, I predict, several innovative practices/institutions arising because of the contact with the large numbers of surrounding Christians.
Hiya.
I only dipped into that thread. Can you summarise the relevant part, please?
I stand by everything I wrote: ethnic Turkish, or half-Turkish, azabs, akinjis, dere-beys, babas, sufis, kuls, ghazis, sipahis, merchants, bureaucrats - and all the rest - are what I would consider as belonging to the Turco-Muslim socio-cultural group in late-15th century Rumeli/Balkan Europe. At no point could such a group, as I have defined it, be in the majority of the Balkan lands or the Russian lands (as shown in your map on the thread). They could have dominated politically, of course, but the relative isolation of the two Sultanates from the "heartlands" of Islam would have made them more peculiar than the Ottoman Empire ever was IOTL - with, I predict, several innovative practices/institutions arising because of the contact with the large numbers of surrounding Christians.