So the challenge is to create a sort of Holy Roman Empire based around some sort of Poland.
Make of it what you will!
Make of it what you will!
AHC: Polish HRE
- Thread starter The Professor
- Start date
"Centered on" =/= "identical with"
I can certainly see a Polish king winning an election as Holy Roman Emperor, but as Draeger suggests it would have to be Poland sans the union with Lithuania: the electors wouldn't want a monarch who already ruled so large and powerful a state, he might actually be able to make them do stuff they didn't want to!
"Centered on" =/= "identical with"
I can certainly see a Polish king winning an election as Holy Roman Emperor, but as Draeger suggests it would have to be Poland sans the union with Lithuania: the electors wouldn't want a monarch who already ruled so large and powerful a state, he might actually be able to make them do stuff they didn't want to!
This, pretty much. Gotta be [edit]post-Anjou and pre-Union[/edit]. Best bet is a Luxembourg, like I said. Have Charles IV or Sigismund be elected King of Poland (the latter actually happens in my [ded] TL), boom, HRE Poland.
"Centered on" =/= "identical with"
Ah yes, quite right. That's what you get when you post in a hurry.
Anyway, the period could be a good starting point. Make the territories of the entire former Poland subsumed into the empire the way Silesia and Pomerania were, then have them all reunite once again, have the Habsburgs weakened (stronger, faster Ottomans?), prevent any German state or dynasty from gaining comparable power. If all this happens Poland might end up as the most powerful entity within the empire.
The Great Khan dies later.
The Mongols crush more of Central Europe and stay for decades, with a capital at the Vistula.
A Polish magnate becomes intrumental in collecting tribute between Dnieper, Danube and Rhine.
When the Mongol hegemony is broken, the Polish lands become the centre of the new confederal polity claiming the title of Holy Roman Empire.
Have the fragmentation of Poland post Mongols go better for them. One of the countless Plastic dukes (of Silesia etc.) becomes king of Poland, then Emperor, and snags bohemia in a dynastic union as happened to the Habsburgs. This westward looking Poland likely does not unify with Lithuania and likely expands into Pomeranian etc using the HRE crown as cover.
Well it was already an elective monarchy so the easiest solution would be to simply go with that but restrict the franchise to say the ten or so duchies I think it was that developed in Poland to act as equivalents to the Holy Roman Empire's Electors. That's going to change things in that whilst it still limits the monarch it skews power to the greater magnates over the lesser nobility than our timelines Poland, considering how widespread membership of the nobility became and unwieldy the Sejm was that might not be such a bad thing. If Lithuania were to still join with Poland, no guarantees, the Grand Duke title could also make a somewhat comparable position as King of the Romans/Germany.
Interesting. This is going with the spirit of the OP (a HRElike entity based further east and "Polish"led)
Anyone want to expand this? or counter?