AH Challenge - Latin Christendom extinguished!

No.

Rome is a bad place for a caliphal residence given its religious significance to the majority of the people of Europe, and with all due respect to the Norse pagans, they ain't got what it takes to stop the missionaries.

We could see an Islamisation of Europe with a fall of Constantinople, but the shape would have to be quite different.
 
I'll have to agree with Carlton, the norse don't have the motivation.

Islam wank is always possible though. Or a christianity retreats north TL where the norse are the only remaining christians:D;)
 
Well, if they would preserve the existence of the identity of the Roman Catholic Church, instead of developing their own brand of church...;)

Well, preserving a Roman Catholic Church identity is rather ASB. Claiming to be preserving a thousand year old tradition while providing excuses to go raiding and pillaging in southern Europe...;)
 
With a POD after 700 AD, could we have Western Europe divided between a Norse Confederacy and a Caliphate of Rome?

I agree with Carlton that Rome is a rather bad place for a capital of a Caliphate, because of both its religious significance as well as the fact that Rome is rather hard to defend.

I also agree that the Norse pagans propably don't have what it takes to stop the missionairies.

That said, the challenge didn't specify that this Norse confederacy had to be pagan - just that it couldn't be a Latin Christian state.

...so all we could let the Celtic Church survive, make it the dominant religion among the Norse, and make sure that the Celtic Church never gets absorbed into the Roman Catholic Church.
 
Well, if they would preserve the existence of the identity of the Roman Catholic Church, instead of developing their own brand of church...;)

I don't think it would make much difference. Most Christian churches preserve a sentimental attachment to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Rome. For a Viking, expressing a sentimental attachment in terms of warfare is not a great leap of the imagination.
 
No.

Rome is a bad place for a caliphal residence given its religious significance to the majority of the people of Europe, and with all due respect to the Norse pagans, they ain't got what it takes to stop the missionaries.

the early Ottoman Emperors did see themselves as the successor to the Roman Empire once they got Constantinople, and the Sultans were also Caliphs. so maybe one of the Sultan tries to go after Naples and Rome?


there really is no way for the norse part to happen.
 
With a POD after 700 AD, could we have Western Europe divided between a Norse Confederacy and a Caliphate of Rome?

Charles Martel loses the Battle of Tours in 732.

While this does not lead to a Muslim occupation in Europe beyond their present limits, it does damage the confidence of the Franks badly especially if Charles is killed. If he is killed, then the Franks are probably absorbed in civil war for some time. Caroligian power is broken and Pope Gregory III in 739 has nobody to call on for assistance against the Lombards.

The Lombards cause great damage to the institutions of the papacy and by extension, its civil power. Looting soon subsides as they attempt to establish themselves as a legitimate power. Their occupation of Rome is bitterly resented by the populace and by the Eastern Emperor. On his assumption of power in 741, Constantine V is not unhappy about the arrest and overthrow of the pope however and continues the prohibition of images. The popes under the Lombards cease to have any credence outside Rome and their missionary structures as well as the whole papal infrastructure collapses causing heresy to bloom unchecked in Europe.

In 755 war between Byzantium and the Bulgarians still breaks out. The Caliphate of Cordoba is still proclaimed the same year. The Muslims in Spain are in a much better position with no worry about Frankish power to the north and their continued occupation of their territories north of the Pyrenees.

Rome has now descended into virtual chaos and taking advantage of the Eastern Empire's distraction, the Caliph Abd-al-Rhaman launches a large raid against the city. Their is almost no resistence except from the Lombard garrison. To their surprise, the large raiding party find themselves in control of Rome. The leadership send an urgent request to Cordoba for reinforcements and the beginning of decades long Muslim occupation of Rome begins.

775 and the Byzantines still defeat the Bulgarians. Meanwhile an ambitious general has proclaimed himself Caliph of Rome and no help will arrive from Cordoba if they face any problems. Now freed from any immediate danger, the Emperor (still Leo IV?) prepares to liberate Rome and erase the tremendous humiliation of a Muslim occupation of the Holy City. In reality, the Muslims have only a veneer of control over Rome and many of the elite have been converted only under sufference. They inform the Emperor they will aid his reconquest. The Muslims have little territory outside of Rome and Ostia. The Eastern Empire has taken back much territory after the Lombards are driven out by the Muslim occupation of Rome and the destruction of their relief force.

780 (Irene still Empress?) the Byzantine army marches on Rome from its base in Ravenna and the population inside the city begin a revolt. Someone opens the gates and the Muslim defenders are slaughtered. A Patriarch selected by the Emperor now sits on the ex-papal throne. A Patriarch second to the one in Constantinople and with no ambition to be Pontiff of the World.

Latin Christianity is extinguished and heresy is well established in the rest of Western Europe where Islam is not present. The Norsemen have still raided and there is no credible power able to convert them. The Celtic Church tries but its missionaries are all killed on sight, sacrificed to Odin.
 

Valdemar II

Banned

Interesting this POD would or could mean the (East) Saxons and Frisians would stay pagan (for at least a century more), they would make a nice buffer or vasal for the danish kings. But that we need is some kind of secular centralification of the Pagan germanic kingdoms, to make christianity less interesting for the local kings.
 
Interesting this POD would or could mean the (East) Saxons and Frisians would stay pagan (for at least a century more), they would make a nice buffer or vasal for the danish kings. But that we need is some kind of secular centralification of the Pagan germanic kingdoms, to make christianity less interesting for the local kings.

That is the problem as I see it. There is no power now strong enough to enforce centralization. No Frankish kingdom, no Charlemagne and no papacy and its attendant army of missionaries.

Once the civil war in Frankia is over Offa will still unite the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms but the intellectual elite in England is not going to go to the continent because there is no court for them to go to except the Eastern Empire where they will not be welcomed.

Perhaps the Celtic church will grow in power and influence and remain close to the Eastern Church as it had historically done. Maybe a 'pincer attack' of missionaries from London and Rome and Constantinople will still be able to turn back the heretical tide and even perhaps in the absence of a Frankish rival, persuade the Saxon kings to convert.

A lingering catholicism among the Franks will be seen as heretical by the Celtic church's Anglo Saxons and the Orthodox Saxons.
 
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