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This is very similar to a thread I posted several years ago of Japan going Nestorian (Church of the East). If you want, you could use my thought of missionaries from Persia following the trade routes to Japan. The missionaries start among the lower classes and converting some of the minor...

You also have to consider the religious problems for the Byzantine Empire as the Emperor was seen as having a special place in the church.

There is one major difference over the Pope ruling from Vatican City and him following the Laws of Guarantees. Ruling from Vatican City makes the Pope independent from Italy and legally on the same level as any national ruler from say the Prince of Monaco to the President of the United States...

What most people are forgetting is the reason why several Popes were willing to become 'prisoners in the Vatican' when they became pope until the Lateran Treaty. The Pope in the Roman Catholic Church has to remain out of the influence of secular rulers from the Catholic Church's perspective. The...

Perhaps one way to achieve this is having the followers of the old gods flee to Vinland as a sanctuary from the Christian kings? While the power centers in the Norse Kingdoms at this time were christian, there was a significant amount of pagans in the back woods. A seer could start the message...

That Cato shouted Britannia rather than Roma isn't something that's likely to reach Ravenna any time soon. It would take months before those in the capital have a chance to hear about it and it would also likely be only one of a hundred different varieties to the story. Why go after the man who...

Great Britain had no incentive for such a purchase during the 19th century. Their interests were in the lucrative Indian markets and trade with China. Alaska offers nothing to them. In fact, such a purchase would hurt Great Britain because it would funnel money to their adversary in the Great...

I think that part of the reason this wouldn't work is actually the office of Principes and its lack of a conciseness for succession. In Rome, the office was passed by inheritance, purchase, and frequent military coup. Because of this, every senator could secretly dream of becoming the principes...

From my understanding, the germanic tribes during the migration era referred to the Roman Empire as Romans. It is only during the High Middle Ages that the people of western Europe began to refer to Byzantines as the Empire of the Greeks. This being due to several reasons with one of the big...

Another option is a breakdown of the personal unions to more manageable dynastic unions. If one of Charles II's children is Catholic and the other is Protestant he could give Ireland to the Catholic child and keep Scotland and England for the Protestant child. Managing 2 crowns is easier than...

There are several problems with something like this happening and it has to do with the nature of the Spanish colonies. Unlike English colonies, the Spanish colonies were resource extractors. Their trade was set up from colony to mother country. On the other hand, the 13 colonies had a lot of...

The banning of pork in Judaism and Islam actually makes a lot of sense if you look at a few basic facts. 1) Pigs carry a higher risk of parasites than cows and other food animals. That isn't really the case today with commercial farming and the check they have to prevent infection. However, it...

Once again, the Pope is the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church because he is the Bishop of ROME and thus the successor to St. Peter.

The number I suggested was a guess based off of the number of people involved throughout the entire First Crusade who were crusaders. The People's Crusade featured roughly 40,000 crusaders who were almost completely wiped out, the Nobles crusade had roughly 35,000 crusaders, I can't find a...

Actually the permanent residents of Outreimer, by this I mean crusaders who stayed in the holy land and their decedents, were rather pragmatic. Once the religious high of completing your oath was over, the crusaders had to deal with realities of ruling a foreign population, potential enemies on...

The real problem is the idea of a 'political class' of professional politicians and lobbyists didn't exist during the American Revolution. It was expected that 'gentlemen' as in major landowners, successful businessmen and lawyers, would serve for a time in the government of their state or the...

While unlikely, there are ways to get a Papal dispensation on such matters if the king feels the need for it. Silver and soldiers are great for getting all but the most obstinate church leaders (see St. Becket) to bend on issues such as that.

Will we please stop with this myth that the Church was trying to keep people ignorant? Christian monasteries preserved classical knowledge in both the west and in the east. Many scientists/inventors in the late Middle Ages to early Renaissance period were monks. The first universities were...

You also have to consider one major problem for women: childbirth was extremely risky for thousands of years and still is dangerous in some parts of the world. Mothers dying in childbirth was very common. This means that less women lived to old age in comparison to men. When you combine the...

Actually, cod was a very valuable commodity in those days. While not in the same league as spices or silk, fish were good income generators. Remember, Europe is Christian and that means the only meat you can eat on Lent and, under most traditions at the time, Fridays and Holy Days are fish. Cod...