AHC: Early modern Lingua Franca other than French?

I count it by the Dead of Charles II, the End of the Thirty years war was a blow but not a irremediable one, and in this time Spain was still in possession of the Spanish Netherlands; after the Dead of Charles, The War of the Spanish Succession, the lost of the Netherlands to France, England, Netherlands and finally Austria, The lost of the Influence over Italy, the close of the Spanish road, is the final death sentence.

It was over by the War of Devolution. The fact that England, the Dutch (!) and Sweden were willing to ally with Spain against France showed that the balance of power had now changed.
 
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Because in Early modern time, France was the most powerful country in basicly every way (militarily, culturaly, diplomaticaly) except seapower (which was first the Netherlands and than England/Great Britain).

Another factor is that the flight of the Huguenot refugees brought francophones to a lot of parts of Europe.

France had been an influential state for a long time. French knights played a huge role in the Crusades for instance. In some places, like the Low Countries and England, it had been fashionable for aristocrats to speak French as a second (or even first) language since the Middle Ages.
 
In a scenario where a lucky series of kings in Scandinavia form a lasting North Sea Empire (unilikely as it may be), then Old Danish could have become a lingua franca across northern Europe. Later, it would be replaced by its English dialect, Anglo-Danish, then probably by Low German or perhaps even East Slavic depending on the North Sea Empire's direction of expansion.

Old Occitan had a really important cultural expense that went beyond its linguistical borders, essentially as a poetic and lyric language, and in the right circumstances could have been the equivalent of Italian for the Renaissance of the XVth, for the Renaissance of the XIIth.
Could an earlier appearance of the Crown of Aragon be a plausible way to create this preeminence of Old Occitan?
 
Could an earlier appearance of the Crown of Aragon be a plausible way to create this preeminence of Old Occitan?
Shot answer no.
Long answer, The Crown of Aragón was firmly Spanish With Catala as their more influent Language, The old Occitan Is a Southwest French Language, The Crown of Aragón Is a border state of the region that speak Occitan. A earlier Aragón Crown Is periféric at best With The Occitan development and extintion.
 
As for alternative Lingua Franca, I think Dutch have a potential, it's pretty close to Low Saxon and some German states did use it. Maybe the Hohenzollern could have pushed it as administrative and ecclesial language in their domains. I think it would have pushed the Mecklenburg, Holstein, the Welfian states and the German enclaves in the Baltic to also use it in similar manner. As such we could see Dutch replacing Low Saxon as Lingua Franca of the Baltic. Of course the Dutch of the Baltic would likely diversify from standard Dutch fast, I think it would use fewer French loanwords.
 
With Catala as their more influent Language,
Catalan for most of the Middle-Ages is essentially an Occitan dialect, not that distinguishable from Languedocian. Its distinction is essentially coming from geopolitical events, with the gradual administrative and cultural distinction (trough chanceries and courts) from the Old Occitan ensemble.

Could an earlier appearance of the Crown of Aragon be a plausible way to create this preeminence of Old Occitan?
I don't think so : IOTL it already began the differenciation of Catalan that the Treaty of Corbeil only accelerated. More chanceries mean more synthetised forms, and one chancery effectively cut culturally from the others have a big chance to lead to an ausbau language.
 
Shot answer no.
Long answer, The Crown of Aragón was firmly Spanish With Catala as their more influent Language, The old Occitan Is a Southwest French Language, The Crown of Aragón Is a border state of the region that speak Occitan. A earlier Aragón Crown Is periféric at best With The Occitan development and extintion.

Like what LSCatalina said, Catalan is basically another form of Occitan (which remains better known in the English-speaking world as Provençal) - with some differences in diacritic placement (because Catalan swapped the mid front vowels from their place in Occitan) and absence of some vowels found in Occitan, one could write a Catalan text in Occitan orthography and would still be understood. OTOH, even with that taken into account, Catalan is somewhat more phonologically conservative than Old Occitan, because it never shifted the back vowels - therefore, the letters <u> and <o> would be pronounced as would be in Vulgar Latin, not like someone from São Miguel in the Azores or like in Occitan. Now, if there was more coherence within the Occitan-speaking world in terms of standard written language, that would be a good thing even if the spoken languages diverge. (Even more so if we can get another Romance language apart from Romanian and some varieties of Arpitan/Franco-Provençal to maintain some sort of morphological case system into the present day.) All one could probably get with the maintenance of a more independent Aragón is a form of Occitan with some local features, particuarly the somewhat more conservative vowel inventory, much like the distinction today between, oh I don't know, between Galician, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese - in progression from more Spanish-like (such as Aragón proper) to intermediate but still conservative in some respects all the way up to more French-like, with Aragón's chancery standard of Occitan in that intermediate position. And that's perfectly OK.
 
Like what LSCatalina said, Catalan is basically another form of Occitan (which remains better known in the English-speaking world as Provençal) - with some differences in diacritic placement (because Catalan swapped the mid front vowels from their place in Occitan) and absence of some vowels found in Occitan, one could write a Catalan text in Occitan orthography and would still be understood.
This is a later development (both in Occitan and Catalan) : medieval Languedocian and Catalan are quite hard to differentiate. This is basically the reason why the Song of St. Fides is considered as both the first text in Catalan and in Occitan.

Now, if there was more coherence within the Occitan-speaking world in terms of standard written language, that would be a good thing even if the spoken languages diverge.
There was an existing Occitan "koinè", IOTL, based on literary and poetic supra-dialectal language. The problem of its survivance (which might interest @SeaCambrian as well) would be to prevent the Great Southern War and as such the continued political fragmentation that weakened Languedoc in face of the Crusade. Arguably, preventing or allowing a quick and decisive victory in the War of Succession of Auvergne after the death of Guilhèm I (possibly trough the survival of Boson, son of Guilhèm) might help altough it might changes things about the medieval Occitan culture.

(Even more so if we can get another Romance language apart from Romanian and some varieties of Arpitan/Franco-Provençal to maintain some sort of morphological case system into the present day.)
Case system in the XIIth is essentially about literary and poetic texts, probably disappearing since the XIth in French, maybe in the early XIIth in Occitan in everyday language.
 
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