Byzantines reconquer southern Italy and Rome by 1100, how does Christendom develop from there?

[Vitalis]

Let's just assume that the above happens. It isn't important how it happens. Just that the Byzantines succesfuly reconquer Sicily, and then go about and expand into southern Italy, up to Rome during the Macedonian era.

How would Latin Christendom develop? Papacy as an independent power worked as a stabilizing factor for Catholic world. With Pope under Roman thumb, how would the inter-Catholic relations be?Would the Popes flee Rome to some other place? How would Christiamity as a whole develop? Would there be more heresies appearing, or less?

 

[Dominic]

Hard to really see the Romans being able to hold Rome without a lot of difficulty. Central Italy is a long way from their power base and they have plenty of bigger fish to fry in the mid-long run. The Papacy quite possibly sets itself up elsewhere regardless.

 

[NotAMyth]

It might not be as hard as a cursory reading of OTL history may suggest. The great schism though building on for quite a while, hadn't solidified. It certainly wasn't acknowledged as a formal division as say, we would of Berlin after WW2. A strong ERE might even be attractive to the Papacy as a protector of its rights against any North Italian, German or Norman aggression.

Similarly the HRE might prefer an accommodation with ERE on reigning in the Papacy, allowing it to dominate it's own powerful clergy.

Without the Crusades the ERE would certainly be held in higher regard, and if this is pre-Manzikert, then it would also be viewed as the premier power of Southern Europe, able to project force across the Mediterranean.

It's a lot of mights, but we may end up with Orthodox Christianity centered around the Mediterranean and heresies appearing as one goes further North or East.

 

[Avrorrange]

Question is will the ERE implode?The ERE has a penchant of reconquering some land and then implode and lose even more land.

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

Question is will the ERE implode?The ERE has a penchant of reconquering some land and then implode and lose even more land.

It was a whole series of gradual and specular sets of failures which eventually led to Manzikert. If you have Basil II sire an heir Sicily's conquest is likely done by him upon Basil's death. From there the Catepenate of Italy will likely focus on reconquest.

Without the shenanigans of the later macedonians, the Empire's treasury isn't spent senselessly and the army and frontiers aren't neglected. With the succession and the government secure under Basil II's son, the Empire's prosperity/golden age likely continues for much longer. The dynatoi are probably still kept in check and don't run roughshod over the peasantry in Anatolia leading to the slight depopulation of its interior as they tried to consolidate into larger estates.

 

[Avrorrange]

It was a whole series of gradual and specular sets of failures which eventually led to Manzikert. If you have Basil II sire an heir Sicily's conquest is likely done by him upon Basil's death. From there the Catepenate of Italy will likely focus on reconquest.

Without the shenanigans of the later macedonians, the Empire's treasury isn't spent senselessly and the army and frontiers aren't neglected. With the succession and the government secure under Basil II's son, the Empire's prosperity/golden age likely continues for much longer. The dynatoi are probably still kept in check and don't run roughshod over the peasantry in Anatolia leading to the slight depopulation of its interior as they tried to consolidate into larger estates.

There is no reason why you can't have another Yarmouk/Fourth Crusade/Palaiologian mismanagement type of situation here. The emperors also aren't guaranteed to be good. We have seen all kinds of shit emperors in the empire's +1400 year old history.

 

[TheCataphract]

There is no reason why you can't have another Yarmouk/Fourth Crusade/Palaiologian mismanagement type of situation here. The emperors also aren't guaranteed to be good. We have seen all kinds of shit emperors in the empire's +1400 year old history.

Yeah that's the problem with any sort of autocracy. A spectacularly bad leader is bound to come along at some point. That the Empire lasted as long as it did is pretty incredible, but to make it last in the longer term will require a refined succession to limit civil wars and a degree of power placed in hands other than the Emperor's. Perhaps a powerful cabinet drawn from around the Empire or some at least vaguely meritocratic system to limit the effect of a single bad Emperor.

 

[Xenophonte]

Well, if it would be a more or less permanent Byzantine rule there, then one of its main consequences could be a permanent North -South linguistic and religious split of the Italian peninsula between the orthodox Greek speaking south and the Romance speaking Roman Catholic Central and Northern Italy...

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

Yeah that's the problem with any sort of autocracy. A spectacularly bad leader is bound to come along at some point.

I mean the problem is not necessarily exclusive with Autocracies/monarchies. The Roman Republic had basically a century of anarchy and instability from years of bad leadership which led to Augustus. He was an autocrat, but after him no one wanted to go back to the older system.

erhaps a powerful cabinet drawn from around the Empire or some at least vaguely meritocratic system to limit the effect of a single bad Emperor.

This already was in practice. The aristocracy, the bureaucracy, and the army served as checks to the Emperor. The Emperor's power while more absolute than most of his peers in Europe was not unquestionable. He needed the support of the facets of government and Roman society. After all many Patriarchs have made or broken Emperors. The army for one preferred peaceful hereditary succession. It made the line of succession clear and ensured that there was some stability.

The problem with the Empire was that it was always dealing with various enemies on the frontier which left it highly militarized. This necessitated soldier-emperors to take throne, so any form of weakness, or passivity was really looked down upon. If you have a dynasty that occupies the throne long enough, the matter of succession could be smoothed out as various dynasties like the Macedonians or the Heraclians came quite close to this. The Empire had over a century of peaceful succession actually going back to Anastasius which was undone by Phocas' idiocy.

Perhaps a powerful cabinet drawn from around the Empire or some at least vaguely meritocratic system to limit the effect of a single bad Emperor.

This also is a double-edged sword as it could prevent the Emperor from implementing necessary reforms. The Kings of France found out this lesson as the Ancien Regime experienced growing pains as it tried to consolidate and expand. This led to a lot of conflicts with the nobles and long periods of reform which spiraled into the Revolution.

Well, if it would be a more or less permanent Byzantine rule there, then one of its main consequences could be a permanent North -South linguistic and religious split of the Italian peninsula between the orthodox Greek speaking south and the Romance speaking Roman Catholic Central and Northern Italy...

Though I doubt the schism here would be permanent. Not with the Pope being so close to Roman territory. If anything he'd walk back on talk on schism now with a Roman garrison aimed as a dagger towards Latium. He'd more likely try to play off the Romans and Germanic HRE against each other. This was what the pope did with the Komnenoi and Hohenstaufens. I think at one point he offered the Sicilian or Crown to Manuel which spurred his campaign in Southern Italy.

 

[Lady Visenya]

Yeah that's the problem with any sort of autocracy. A spectacularly bad leader is bound to come along at some point. That the Empire lasted as long as it did is pretty incredible, but to make it last in the longer term will require a refined succession to limit civil wars and a degree of power placed in hands other than the Emperor's. Perhaps a powerful cabinet drawn from around the Empire or some at least vaguely meritocratic system to limit the effect of a single bad Emperor.

I think the problem here is a serious case of presentist thinking.

"Byzantium fell, and these nations with radically different circumstances didn't, ergo Byzantium had to be like these nations even when the situations aren't the same or even applicable."

It's like saying "Every nation should be like the USA or China because these states are the most powerful right now."

and then you get weird stuff like making Rome just the USA with serial numbers filed off.

 

[M79]

If the Byzantines retake Rome in this era the Papacy likely flees to France unless Henry IV and/or Henry V of the Holy Roman Empire decide to make peace with the Papacy. Byzantium likely restores the Pentapatriarchy and continues with business-as-usual while Italy becomes a target for either a Crusade or perhaps directed raiding/privateering by Normans et al. If the Byzantines can hold it there is little to stop them taking the Balerics, Corsica, Sardinia, and perhaps Tunisia as well. The Empire almost certainly avoids Manzikert and fares better into the 12th and 13th centuries, especially if it can restore or (re)build some of the Roman sanitation infrastructure before the equivalent of the Black Plague returns to Europe.

 

[Cymry-Korean]

I mean the Normans were successful in holding Southern Italy and Sicily in the face of Byzantine, Papal, and Arab opposition, so I don't think it's impossible for such a situation to occur with Roman resurgence. Would the Papacy be as unsuccessful combating Roman success as they were initially against the Normans?

 

[I HAVE BECOME GOD]

I mean the Normans were successful in holding Southern Italy and Sicily in the face of Byzantine, Papal, and Arab opposition, so I don't think it's impossible for such a situation to occur with Roman resurgence. Would the Papacy be as unsuccessful combating Roman success as they were initially against the Normans?

The normans were only around for a few generations and had plenty of trouble with keeping control, losing plenty of land to invasions and rebellions. Though sicily would be much, much easier to control and keep than rome would be in this scenario.

 

[Cymry-Korean]

The normans were only around for a few generations and had plenty of trouble with keeping control, losing plenty of land to invasions and rebellions. Though sicily would be much, much easier to control and keep than rome would be in this scenario.

Ohhh. Interesting. I didn't realize there was that little time between Roger II and Frederick II Hohenstaufen.

 

[TheCataphract]

I mean the problem is not necessarily exclusive with Autocracies/monarchies. The Roman Republic had basically a century of anarchy and instability from years of bad leadership which led to Augustus. He was an autocrat, but after him no one wanted to go back to the older system.

That is definitely true and one of my favorite realizations in my studies of Roman history was that the fall of the Roman Senate was a largely popular revolution against tyrannical rule. (Edit: I should probably clarify that I don't mean that it was a popular revolt as in the French Revolution, but popular as in the average people were generally supportive of the move.)

Though I do remember that at least in part, even when offered the authority the Senate wouldn't take it back after a certain point, having grown used to being a social club with no real responsibility. Though I could be misremembering. It has been a while.

This already was in practice. The aristocracy, the bureaucracy, and the army served as checks to the Emperor. The Emperor's power while more absolute than most of his peers in Europe was not unquestionable. He needed the support of the facets of government and Roman society. After all many Patriarchs have made or broken Emperors. The army for one preferred peaceful hereditary succession. It made the line of succession clear and ensured that there was some stability.

The problem with the Empire was that it was always dealing with various enemies on the frontier which left it highly militarized. This necessitated soldier-emperors to take throne, so any form of weakness, or passivity was really looked down upon. If you have a dynasty that occupies the throne long enough, the matter of succession could be smoothed out as various dynasties like the Macedonians or the Heraclians came quite close to this. The Empire had over a century of peaceful succession actually going back to Anastasius which was undone by Phocas' idiocy.

I've wondered if stability through hereditary succession was the wrong goal. The stability was definitely critical, but what I wonder is if there could have been a way to limit the Emperor's powers primarily to military concerns, and placing a civilian authority in charge of other concerns with the idea of both making the seat of the Emperor somewhat less desirable while retaining the benefits of central military leadership.

This way, they could theoretically treat the office of Emperor as a non-hereditary military office, hopefully just appointing capable generals in the position, perhaps as coemperor to ensure someone capable is always leading the defense, and a more dedicated civil authority runs things on the home front.

I'm just spitballing ideas right now because I don't have access to any of my books right now, but I mostly want to try to think of a way limit the violent civil wars and occasional complete incompetent in the Empire's leadership, while retaining the Empire's remarkable ability to find capable leaders in times of crisis. I feel like a true hereditary succession would break that.

This also is a double-edged sword as it could prevent the Emperor from implementing necessary reforms. The Kings of France found out this lesson as the Ancien Regime experienced growing pains as it tried to consolidate and expand. This led to a lot of conflicts with the nobles and long periods of reform which spiraled into the Revolution

That is fair. There is potential for disaster I suppose in any system. Nothing is perfect after all, but it would be very nice to limit the potential damage of poor leadership, even at the cost of slower reforms.

I think the problem here is a serious case of presentist thinking.

"Byzantium fell, and these nations with radically different circumstances didn't, ergo Byzantium had to be like these nations even when the situations aren't the same or even applicable."

It's like saying "Every nation should be like the USA or China because these states are the most powerful right now."

and then you get weird stuff like making Rome just the USA with serial numbers filed off.

I would never try to apply US ideals to the Eastern Romans. They are coming from completely different circumstances and traditions.

That's why I wasn't very specific with my ideas. I don't really know for sure exactly what would work for their situation, I am just reasonably certain that in order for the Empire to hold Southern Italy, and prevent catastrophic collapses in general, some meaningful changes to their system of governance and especially succession would be necessary.

 

[Silver01]

There is no reason why you can't have another Yarmouk/Fourth Crusade/Palaiologian mismanagement type of situation here. The emperors also aren't guaranteed to be good. We have seen all kinds of shit emperors in the empire's +1400 year old history.

1) yarmourk was after a long series of events
2) the fourth crusade under after a bad defeat and the worse dynasty
3) sure
I mean the Romans already had the string of terrible emperors from 1025 to 1071 the situation was rather good that 5/10 heirs would have done ok but rome got a series of 2 and 3 .

 

[Lady Visenya]

1) yarmourk was after a long series of events
2) the fourth crusade under after a bad defeat and the worse dynasty
3) sure
I mean the Romans already had the string of terrible emperors from 1025 to 1071 the situation was rather good that 5/10 heirs would have done ok but rome got a series of 2 and 3 .

On Yarmouk? It's worth a mention that in James Howard-Johnston's reconstruction of events, the decisive battle was not at Yarmouk (which he suggests may be a minor battle), but a later battle near Damascus.

And that what happened was a *series* of battles between the exhausted Byzantines and the fresh vigorous Arabs (who were also deeply familiar with the area and not aliens who came from out of nowhere) who won repeated victories under capable commanders and some good luck.

 

[Avrorrange]

I think the problem here is a serious case of presentist thinking.

"Byzantium fell, and these nations with radically different circumstances didn't, ergo Byzantium had to be like these nations even when the situations aren't the same or even applicable."

It's like saying "Every nation should be like the USA or China because these states are the most powerful right now."

and then you get weird stuff like making Rome just the USA with serial numbers filed off.

1) yarmourk was after a long series of events
2) the fourth crusade under after a bad defeat and the worse dynasty
3) sure
I mean the Romans already had the string of terrible emperors from 1025 to 1071 the situation was rather good that 5/10 heirs would have done ok but rome got a series of 2 and 3 .

On Yarmouk? It's worth a mention that in James Howard-Johnston's reconstruction of events, the decisive battle was not at Yarmouk (which he suggests may be a minor battle), but a later battle near Damascus.

And that what happened was a *series* of battles between the exhausted Byzantines and the fresh vigorous Arabs (who were also deeply familiar with the area and not aliens who came from out of nowhere) who won repeated victories under capable commanders and some good luck.

This phenomenon is actually well explained in The Prince. The Roman Empire, as a centralized state lacks localized resistance whenever the Roman army fails to win battles, which is in turn influenced by Imperial leadership. Many of the dynatoi for example fled Anatolia when the Turks invaded instead of actually leading local resistance and hindering Turkish invasion. During the actual Arab/Persian invasions, many of the local leaders in the ERE were either apathetic to foreign invasion or outright supported them because they felt oppressed by Orthodox rule.In feudal states by contrast, winning pitched battles hardly leads to the end of enemy resistance because the defenders can just wear the invaders out through sieges of different castles. I would also say that centralized rule also requires much more active governance by good rulers to be effective--much more compared to feudal governance because a lot of things are decided by people very far away with little understanding of what's happening on the ground, and you have governors who for the most part are mostly content to only get rich in the provinces so that they can progress their careers in the capital. The vaunted East Roman Army for the most part did not really have a more successful performance in the field compared to other opponents. Even under very capable emperors, losing was still a frequent occurence and even when they won, they were often worn off in frequent sieges by more feudal enemies.Prior to the development of gunpowder, I would actually say that feudal states performed better in general to centralized states in terms of staying power.

 

[Pauh the federalist]

If Papacy tries to maintain the Roman link they might flee to the most northern reaches of their realm and reestablish themselves around Ravenna (the capital of the Western Roman empire)

Ravenna - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The biggest divergence I could see from this is a altering of the scales between the holy roman empire and a damaged Papacy who's position is physically closer and metaphorically wonded which may allow the emporor to win out over the Papacy in power struggles by having them on a shorter leash.

 

[Silver01]

During the actual Arab/Persian invasions, many of the local leaders in the ERE were either apathetic to foreign invasion or outright supported them because they felt oppressed by Orthodox rule

This a myth the only thing that happened like that was the jewish in the byzantine sassanid war of 602-628 and the jews were not polítical leaders
As for centralization vs feudal the early theme system goes against this the themes had a disturbing tendency to revolt against central authority which solution was counter balance them with the tegma and even make more themes so that the strategos would have less power .