It is not that strange that the same man is king of both. It is very strange for them to be one kingdom any time in the near future (as of Henry V's or Edward III's idea of "near future" - using the English regnal numbers for ease of reference to OTL figures).
OTL english is germanic, TTL will be more Latin. French was for exemple certain germanic tones.
I would say that in the long term it is not, as the idea of the two nations was not formed. England and France would be just france.
Yes, Castile can be an opponent. Aragon and Portugal too. Spain can be formed from the union of Castile and Portugal or Castile and Aragon. Or even all three together. It may also not exist.
Very like Charles V, I think.
I think he means that they weren't formed as coherent separate entities. He believes that within 100 years, England would be completely assimilated into France... despite being on an island across a channel. Personally I don't think this would happen, because there are so many examples of the same idea of "Big country conquers small country across a short sea" where the conquered isn't assimilated. Like Korea, or Ireland. At worst the English Language may be driven into a minority, but England would survive. I don't think a union would stop the Anglofrench rivalry.
Yea that's what I am thinking of. I do agree with the person saying England would be France that their main enemy Colonisationwise would be Spain/Castille/Whatever Iberian Power forms. The HRE/Austria, Or eventually Russia and/or the PLC would be the enemies on The continent.
The point I'm making isn't that Protestantism could not be checked or indeed reversed in specific competitions of force - its that Protestantism or something like it was overdetermined by the point in question. The contradictions and circumstances that birthed the movement would not be changed or halted by a simple reconfiguring of the balance of power in Europe. Placing more crowns on a smaller amount of heads will not stop a Protestant-like rupture that spreads throughout Europe. Even if an Angevin Empire does "completely subjugate" localized reform movements in its own territory or territories of others, it can't act everywhere at once and will face the same material limitations that monarchs like Charles V faced historically. Nobody is saying that Protestant areas could not be re-Catholicized or that emergent Protestant movements could utterly fail to launch, but the idea that one new empire would and could crush not just one but all Protestant movements across a continent for centuries seems a little bit ridiculous given the realities of the time. Even if initial Protestant movements are defeated, it doesn't mean they can't come back either and the success of one area contributes to successes elsewhere. The triumph of Hussitism contributed to the flowering of Lollardy in England. Lollardy was trampled, but the seeds laid by the movement eventually bore fruit generations later in the English Reformation. The English Reformation encouraged the Dutch one, and so on and so forth. Even defeats can contribute to Protestant ideas spreading as the uprooting of heresy through fire and sword drives confessional groups from their homes and into exile where they will continue to propagate their ideas, often more viciously and zealously than before (see: Terpstra, "Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World"). Not to mention the very real pragmatic benefits that Protestantism granted to rulers in the fierce competition and state-building of Early Modern Europe. Henry VIII and Frederick the Wise are archetypal characters here. I'm under the weather today so this feels a bit jumbled, but basically my point is that mere application of force in key areas at certain times (Angevin armies in this case) won't be enough to stem the continent-wide tide of Protestant theology, especially as capitalist development deepens and finds the shackles of the Roman Church too much to bear.
North of Italy was one of the most capitalist areas in Europe and never converted, the richest man in Europe (Fugger) during the reform period remained Catholic.
Why did Austria, which had a Lutheran majority, convert back to Catholicism?, Bavaria became half and half And then it was converted , Bohemia remained Hussites for more than 100 years and after the White mountain It was reconverted by the Habsburgs? No one is saying that Protestantism will die, And that, it would be weakened, we have examples to say that if the ruler is strong enough, his kingdom will follow his religion, The south of France is also an example, The vendee during the Reformation was a Protestant point, centuries later it rose against the French Republic due to anti-Catholic policies
The merchant republics of Italy were indeed the tip of the spear of capitalist development in Europe… up until the Italian Wars of the 16th century absolutely smashed the place up as the large feudal states sought to leech off the coffers of the prosperous area. After that, the locus of capitalist development shifted to the North Sea and concentrated around the Low Countries, the Rhine region, and England. Coincidentally, or not (!), these areas heavily overlapped with both the spread and popularity of the Reformation and subsequent attempts at expanding urban bourgeois power at the expense of hereditary elites. This thesis, as far as I’m aware, is relatively non-controversial among those who study the Early Modern period and the Reformation. Fugger remaining Catholic isn’t much of an argument against that thesis - it’s simply the observation that the Reformation and the development of powerful bourgeois institutions tended to go hand in hand during the Early Modern Period.
Previous heretical sects and confessional groups were acting on similar impulses that the groups of the Reformation were launching their critique from, but I don’t believe you can remotely make a 1:1 comparison. This is purely because the technology of the printing press and resulting revolution in communication as well as the increasing unstableness of the feudal economic order made the Reformation’s challenge vastly more viable and effective than previous groups. The printing press itself made something like the Reformation overdetermined because you could actually print vernacular Bibles and notice the contradictions inherent to what the word says versus what the practice of the church actually was. By being able to disseminate tracts to an increasingly literate audience at the same time as an urban bourgeois class was rising that directly benefitted from disestablishing Church and feudal institutions, this means that the power of the Reformation is just not comparable to previous heretical groups which either were made of small groups of dissident elites and their parishes (Arianism for example) or grassroots democratic critiques of church hierarchy and power (Catharism for example, sort of). I’m not arguing that the Reformation will happen because these groups will always come and go - I’m saying the material circumstances of the area made the Reformation’s partial success a near inevitability as opposed to earlier attempts.
Well no, the original person I was responding to in this thread said exactly this. And you yourself said the Angevins could “completely subjugate” Protestant reform. It’s unclear to me whether you meant throughout Europe or just in their realm, but my entire original objection here was against people saying that the Angevins would prevent or destroy Protestantism somehow.
