AHC: European Peasant Revolt Crowns New Dynasty

4689170_orig.jpg

One of the coolest aspects (at least to me) of the Chinese Dynastic Period was the ability for a successful peasant rebellion to crown a new Imperial Dynasty.

So the challenge here is to have any one of the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th century medieval peasant revolts accomplish something similar in any one of the existing European Kingdoms.

Requirement: Choosen peasant leader must become the new monarch
 
This AHC has me thinking about the uprising led by Ivaylo in Bulgaria. It would be interesting to see an ATL about him surviving and establishing a new dynasty.

Now I have to come up with a short timeline for this situation.
 
There's Ivailo of Bulgaria, the capable peasant leader who became Tsar for a while in the late 13th century. Didn't manage to get a dynasty going, unfortunately.

For a non-medieval example, there's the Serbian uprising in the early 1800s, which crowned its leader, Black George, and started off the Karadjordjevic dynasty. A later led to the creation of a rival dynasty, also of peasant origins.

Interestingly, Ivailo was apparently a swineherd, and Black George a swine merchant. Maybe there's something about dealing with the sometimes extremely cunning pigs (instead of, say, the monumentally stupid sheep) that prepares a man for good leadership.

I've always wondered what would happen if Gyorgy Dozsa's rebellion succeeded. The demographic and economic consequences along would be massive - maybe even massively good. A Hungarian crusader-kingdom with a defanged, purged and partially renewed aristocracy and fairly high level of peasant rights? Maybe it could even successfully resist the Ottoman invasion?
 
Top