Some Notes on Europe, 1212 - 1475
Events in most of Europe carried on despite the events in Iberia. The fall of the English monarchy through the Oxford provisions and the Magna Carta carried on unabated, as did the Teutonic Crusades or the machinations surrounding the germinating Italian city-states. There are several areas where Iberian politics noticeably effected local events, which will here be examined in turn:
Aragon
The fortunes of Aragon in the 13th century changed entirely due to the actions of a man who did not ever invade Aragonese territory, nor even officially declare war with the Aragonese monarchy. The collapse of the Reconquista, the campaign to restore Iberia to Christianity, was the singular factor pushing Aragon to expand its interests outside Iberia, and the one man most responsible for that collapse was Yusuf Muhammad. The actions of a single Moorish noble would result in the largest empire in the history of medieval Christian Iberia, and lead to Iberian armies fighting wars in lands as far afield as Italy and Algeria.
The rise of Yusuf Muhammad was something that was of equal shock to both Christians and Muslims, but in its aftermath, both drew surprisingly similar parallels. Many Muslims saw in him a Andalusi Saladin, and Christians saw the same (of course the opinion of Saladins conquests, was the main point of distinction). Pamphlets published in the latter decades of the 13th century labelled Yusuf Muhammad (Jusufus Rex or Jusufus Mahoun) as a “fanged demon who confounds with smoke and serpent”, in the words of one monk writing in England. His campaigns capitalized on, and eventually exacerbated indirectly a phenomenon within Christian Iberia that would eventually become a driving economic pressure pushing Aragon to expand east. This was the policy of rewarding mercenaries with lands in Iberia.
During the campaigns of Muhammad al-Nasir and the vicious, but ultimately insignificant series of battles along the Sierra Morena like at Las Navas de Tolosa, the calls for further foreign aid by Christian Iberian kings multiplied exponentially. Inns catering to traveling bands of holy warriors doubled their expenses to keep with demand, writers published pamphlets on travel advice for ‘pilgrims’ traveling south. This policy was welcomed by Christian kings, who were acutely aware of the sort of manpower needed to stem (or hopefully reverse) the constant tide of Islamic armies that would come across Gibraltar each year. These nobles were often rewarded with estates in Spain, though this would eventually lead to conflict with local landlords. As the pace of the Reconquista ground to a halt against the willingness of the Almohad caliphs to massacre seemingly endless Andalusi levies in industrial quantities, this class of rapacious, foreign nobles grew more restless without further land payments to reward their efforts. Without new lands to administer and parcel out, but with a still present demand for experienced knights, the Iberian monarchs had a serious timebomb on their hands. This bomb burst in a serious of gargantuan chevauchees across the border into the Islamic Algarve, tacitly allowed by the king of Portugal to ease the pressure (and take advantage of the Caliphs absence in Morocco). It then promptly backfired when the apoplectic Caliph Yusuf II marched into Portugal at the head of another massive army and took Lisbon in 1229. The Andalusi coup thereafter expanded these conquests. The instability of the system of estates in the border throughout both Castile and Portugal also lent towards defection towards the Muslims (native landholders, seeing their estates carved up to pay French and Italian nobles held little love for the monarchy, and less willingness to endure torture and bankruptcy for that love). As a price for their inability to adequately reward their own armies, the kings of Iberia soon found two of their largest most prized cities in Muslim hands. A fact that was quickly seized upon by the Aragonese monarchy was that the remobilization of Andalusia under a vibrant native regime with a proven track record of military success was that this policy could not last in Iberia as it had. Therefore, the Aragonese looked to the ocean. The first objective was the easy picking of the Balearics.
The conquest of the sultanate of the Balearics was inevitable after the fall of the Almohads. A nominally independent state under Maghrebi suzerainty, it put up an impressive fight when James I landed, but ultimately the entire sultanate succumbed in 1236. The conquest of the Balearics was noticeable for being the only significant, and lasting success for the Christians against the Moors that actually outlasted the life of a single ruler. Indeed, no Muslim armies would ever land on the Balearics again, not that any Muslim rulers cared that much in the first place. These islands were converted over time into a Aragonese staging ground, the modus operandi of expansionistic kings like James I and III being to expand Aragonese power in the Mediterranean while simultaneously pursuing peace with their immediate enemies to the west. The first step in this process was to carve up the newly conquered islands into working estates, ally with Muslim leaders in Iberia proper, and simultaneously deport Muslims from the islands to Iberia to minimize the chance of any rebellion in the east while they were placating the west. Aragon, by virtue of its position controlling essentially the entire Mediterranean coast of Iberia, could easily expand as much as it wanted without significant opposition from any other Christian powers (and the crumbling Andalusi fleet unable to do anything but pick at isolated merchant vessels and bandit fleets). It did much of this in the good graces of the other western European maritime states, who were concerned with internal affairs more than the loss of a rump sultanate to the southwest, but they wised up very quickly after James II intervened in Sardinia in 1275.
Aragonese intervention in Sardinia was nominally an acceptable action by a ruler to gain greater control over his far-flung noble estates. James II, through his marriages into the Sardinian nobility had decided to expand his holdings in the area of Logudoro, but he did so with a decisiveness that belied his true intentions: empire-building. At the head of a great army he marched outwards from his holdings on the coast, forcibly conquering the landed nobility of the region who did not accept his claims of being the true ruler of Sardinia through marriage. This tactic quickly backfired, as the Aragonese grip over the Sardinian nobility fractured under rebellion. James II, having underestimated the fervor of the Sardinian independence streak, had to awkwardly grapple with constant rebellions even as his conquests on a map, appeared to be shining successes. After his final conquest in 1299, the brutality inflicted upon the Muslims in the Balearics was inflicted doubly in Sardinia, and the local nobility was roundly purged as a consequence for their insubordination. The massive casualties endured by the Sardinians did buy Aragon an empire, but the mistakes James II made would be repeated constantly from war to war and would in the end spell the doom of it.
These mistakes amplified themselves in the single largest front of the empire, Sicily. Like Sardinia, Aragon clawed its first foothold in the territory through marriage. Like father, like son – James III through marriage to Margaret intervened in a local Sicilian rebellion ostensibly to restore Sicilian independence against the Capetian occupation there. The French fury at this was palpable, though their retaliation was hampered by succession struggles in the early decades of the 14th century.
The battle of Luco exposed French weakness and instigated Aragonese arrogance. Key to the Aragonese victory in this battle were the native Sicilian rebels. After decades of cruel Capetian oppression and several previous uprisings, Sicily was a powder keg, and James III freely exploited the native hatred of the French to rally all the rebels of the island to his side. At Luco the French army found its supplies cut, wells poisoned, and its camps burned, and James III easily seized the day. Yet just as soon that James III had whipped the French from the island, his wife died, and with her any claims he had to be the rightful ruler in Sicily. James III had repeated the mistakes of his father in being unnecessarily cruel towards those local nobles who did not immediately fall in line, and the instance Margaret died the entire island rose up to push Aragon out with the French. In the end, the rebels succeeded in creating an independent monarchy, and both Aragon and France were left humiliated: France had lost a long-held colony and Aragon had only had one for a few days. Sicily would see little peace, for Aragon would relentlessly fight to continue expanding its foothold in the western Mediterranean even if it had been spurned on land.
To test another option alongside naval imperialism, the Aragonese monarchy subsequently decided to attack another territory with dubious loyalties to the Aragonese crown: Tunisia. Capitalizing on previous European successes against the sheikhs there, Alfonso I landed on the Ifriqyan coast and quickly claimed a wide portion of the coast. Local political infighting meant that regional sheikhs were more than happy than to accept Aragonese authority in exchange for a measure of stability. Unfortunately, as in Sicily, as in Sardinia, Aragonese military victories were poisoned by a combination of bad luck and blunders in governance. Unlike his predecessors Alfonso I was more lenient towards local peoples, but his failure was being unable to control the Berber tribes, something not even other Berber rulers could do in previous years. Aragonese holdings in Sardinia were pacified, but their territory in north Africa was always on the edge of total collapse were it not for continued military pressure. Alfonso I, being the clever general he was, continued to put down local revolts successfully and earned the title Rex Africanus, laying the foundation for his successor Fernando to become the ruler with the largest Aragonese empire to his name as a result. Fernando, following successes in the old stomping ground of Sicily added to his name enclaves in Italy, territory anew in Sicily alongside his holdings in Sardinia, the Balearics, and in North Africa. By 1392 Aragon had a foothold in every theatre of the western Mediterranean except for France herself. Though there were even Aragonese ambitions to take that coast as well, which likely would have succeeded, had the Aragonese fleet not been destroyed in 1436 (a date which itself marks the beginning of a serious decline in Aragonese power). Alongside Aragonese military successes though, came the revulsion of every other power in Europe including the Pope himself. This universal hatred played a significant role in the stagnation of the empire in the mid-15th century.
Aragonese power in the west, a direct extension of them being forced out of potential conquests in Iberia, forced as a subsequent consequence the unification of many disparate powers against them. These ‘odd bedfellows’, such as Pisa, the Papacy and France, eventually became a major power bloc that would dominate European politics in the 16th century. In the end the short-lived Aragonese empire provided the common foe that created much of the political state of Mediterranean Europe in the renaissance.
The Papacy and Italy
The Papacy became a serious political threat in the 13th and 14th century. Pioneered by Gregory IX, the papacy took a direct hand in many European affairs, attempting to secure its own power and spread Christian dominion. The Moorish victories in Iberia in the early years of this century would scar the conscious of many popes during this period and provide a catalyst for increasingly draconian religious persecution in mainland Europe as a result.
The Papacy paid close attention to Iberia even before the situation there turned against Christian interests. Popes in previous years had alternated between attempting to woo Maghrebi leaders to be lenient towards long-oppressed Christian minorities and inciting Christian kings to intensify the Reconquista. After the fall of Toledo in 1263, whatever old policy there was vanished. The immediate aftermath was fury in Iberia, and despondency in Rome. Infighting had doomed the latter crusades, and the recapture of La Mancha by the moors only added to the palpable feeling of cataclysm. Pope Urban IV, his attention torn between politics in Denmark, Pagan warfare in the Baltics, renewed German campaigns in Italy and the recapture of Constantinople by Orthodox Byzantine forces had little mental energy to devote to yet another catastrophe for catholic hegemony. In an attempt to stem what he saw as the core responsible factor for the renewed Islamic successes in the west, cultural degradation, he released his Regnum Purifacto, which called for the purging of Jewish culture in mainland Europe, the strict crackdown of interfaith commerce, and ordered Muslims expelled from all port cities in Europe. These draconian, sweeping restrictions were implemented piecemeal, with many local rulers doing little more than holding back as local Christians did the persecution for them. In the worst incident, the entire Muslim community of Palermo, itself a tiny remnant of a once-flourishing population, was wiped out to a man by Christian mobs. Similar incidents occurred throughout Iberia and were met by persecutions likewise by Muslim rulers upon Christian subjects.
Still, the Pope, who became deeply enmeshed in wars in Italy with Manfred, the heir of Frederick II, could do little more than make such gestures. There would be little other involvement with the Papacy in Iberia until the Aragonese invasion of Sicily in 1319. Aragon had long been on unsteady terms with the Pope and James I had quarreled over Navarrese succession early in the 13th century. The reign of this long-lived, and famously belligerent Aragonese monarch was indeed punctuated by constant bickering with Rome, and he passed that trait onto his sons, who each grew over their respective reigns to resent Papal authority more and more. The belief of a Aragonese empire and true Papal dominion over the west were seen as fundamentally incompatible by both parties.
Such conflict was certainly on Pope John XXII mind when he attempted to flex his muscles in the Holy Roman Empire to have Imperial forces intervene in Sicily after his other ally, Philip V, was decisively defeated at Luco. Strong-arming the Guelph families to send soldiers to Sicily he resulted in little more than resentment and symbolic gestures, their willingness to commit soldiers towards Papal campaigns entirely sapped by the constant infighting in northern Italy in previous decades. His attempts at wielding papal authority as directly as an emperor would chafed the Italian noble families. Facing such stiffness, the Pope turned again to France to resolve the situation. Complicating his efforts was the rise of an independent Sicilian monarchy that recognized neither Aragonese, French or Papal authority. Unfortunately for the papacy, who would have preferred Capetian dominance remained in Sicily unchallenged, Pope John in 1332 was forced to recognize the independent Sicilian monarchy after they had successfully beaten off every challenger force. Later popes would attempt to heal the situation by making peace with the Sicilians, who would themselves become an important Papal ally against Aragonese aggression.
In effect, the constant specter of Aragonese expansion towards Italy remained a thorn in the Papal side throughout the 14th and 15th century, even if the Pope was ostensibly focused on other matters. Papal interventions in Sicily slowed down drastically after the impotent flailing of John XXII did little but tarnish the papal reputation, frustrate the Italian noble families, irritate the French monarchy and perturb Papal ambitions in the Holy Roman Empire (quite the accomplishment). Later popes learned from the situation, using other sources of power to intervene more indirectly against Aragon.
Affairs in the rest of Italy tended to follow Papal power, with the Italian city-states paying close attention on the constant wars to the west while playing an awkward dance between Islamic sultans, Papal authorities, and continental kings. For all the consternation the rise of the Ayshunids caused in Rome, it meant a simple readjustment of existing norms in the rest of Italy. In the 14th century Italy was dominated by two power blocs: the remaining Angevin territories in southern Italy (The so-called Kingdom of Naples), and the Papacy in central Italy. In the north, the various merchant republics jockeyed between them. This situation would remain largely unchanged through the 15th century, except that the Kingdom of Naples would constantly decline at the expense of its neighbors.
The ascendency of Muslim states in Iberia frightened the Pope but did little but force a readjustment of existing norms among the Italian republics themselves, of these Genoa foremost. Of all the states of western Europe, only Genoa was as ingratiated with Muslim states as the powers in Iberia proper. Genoese ships had plied the trade routes along the Maghreb and Al-Andalus long before the Ayshunids appeared, and they continued to do so after they did. If anything, the rise of the Ayshunids improved Genoese fortunes as the more moderate, stable Ayshunid government was far more conducive to trade in all aspects than the volatile Almohads. Genoa would go on to use these revenues to bolster its position at home against Venice, which found itself consistently outspent and outmaneuvered throughout the 14th century.
France
The history of France in the medieval period is fundamentally a history of a bad situation turning worse. The early 13th century was defined by the monarchy attempting to assert its power in England and in Occitania. The French victory at Bouvines centralized the French monarchy and the Albigensian crusade solidified the monarchies control over the rebellious southern dukes, but the situation quickly went downhill afterwards. Louis IX had to deal with endless internal rebellions, only to die in Tunisia during an abortive crusading mission. Philip III then spent much of his own reign dealing with wars in Sicily. Despite successes in crushing a Sicilian rebellion in 1282 to aid his uncle Charles I of Naples, Sicily became little more than a cash sink soon after as a result of the brutality of the suppression. A constant stream of French military aid to Naples drained the kingdoms coffers, leaving his son Philip IV cash-strapped during further conflict with England and Flanders. By the final loss of Sicily in 1332, Philip VI had a kingdom that had been bankrupt for decades, drained of military and facing a serious military situation against the English, only through miraculous financial machinations did he preserve the kingdom. The English victories at Crecy, Sluys and then the Black Deaths arrival pushed France to the brink of literal anarchy by the mid-14th century. The low point was in 1356, when the English kidnapped the king of France, and a subsequent peasant revolt unseated the rump leadership, dividing France into a mass of devolved states. France was destroyed: the king captured, the military distilled into a rampaging mass of bandits roaming a countryside denuded by plague and warfare, English armies marching unstopped throughout the country and former French possessions abroad at the mercy of a militaristic Aragon and opportunistic Italian states.
Were it not for Charles V, there might not have been a French kingdom by the year 1400. He first sought peace with England, dividing the realm and granting essentially all English land claims. By signing deals with the restless nobility, he slowly recentralized the powerbase of the monarchy, and worked equally to reform the military away from the seasonal roving bands of routiers that had plagued the countryside previously. He was able to avert a peasant uprising narrowly, and the aid of the Navarrese (who seeked a closer relationship with the French crown in competition with Castile) helped him immensely in propping up his own position among the nobility. Charles even negotiated the return of King John, but that very ruler who had caused the destruction of the French military did not last long in Charles good graces – he died mysteriously while in Paris soon after his release.
Charles V then sealed his alliance with Navarre and negotiated Castilian neutrality while he re-pursued his war with England. Charles, a skilled diplomat, was able to balance alliances with both the Pope (who still wanted French aid in Italy), and Navarre – fighting all the while a war of attrition with England. His successes resulted in the nominal consolidation of the French crown and even the recapture of French territory lost by concessions early in his reign. The English, facing a serious revolt in Gascony, fought back furiously at the backing of the Black Prince, but could not effectively counteract French guerilla tactics.
His successor, Charles VI squandered Charles V financial prudence, and promptly returned many conquered French territories to the English. Charles VII would have gone down in history as a minor lord were it not for Joan of Arc, whose emergence galvanized French rebels and led to the successful reversal of the English annexation of France. France returned from the dead, but not through the work of the king alone. Charles VII to his credit, created a standing army, maintained a powerful monarchy, and kept away Papal influence but his own achievements pale in comparison to the so-called “Maid of Orleans”. Without English forces destabilizing the country, his successor Louis XI was able to restore France to true prosperity for the first time since the early 13th century. French losses in the Mediterranean in earlier years did little to dampen French optimism, especially as the Aragonese empire, their largest rival there, seemed to self-destruct without external intervention. The French monarchy entered into the 16th century stable, secure and flush with recent military successes both internally and externally.
* A note on England
English affairs carry on mostly the same as in OTL with one major exception: England allies itself with Aragon instead of Portugal. Because of the Anglo-French rivalry England was searching for allies in Iberia but also in this timeline there is no House of Aviz (Portugal doesn't exist in this timeline past a certain point). Instead, England allies with Aragon, both of whom hate France and ironically both end up with rulers who dislike the Papacy as well.
I thought about talking about the Holy Roman Empire but decided against it, internal affairs there are not different enough from OTL yet to merit it, in my mind.
