Can the HRE/Frankish Kingdom ever be united with Byzantium?

Is it possible for the Frankish Kingdom or the HRE and Byzantium to ever be joined through either a personal union or something like the later Austro-Hungarian empire?
 

Clibanarius

Banned
Well it would have happened back in the 9th century RL IIRC.

Emperor Otto wanted to unite and proposed to marry the Emperor's daughter.

But he died before it could happen.
 
Probably not. The capital in this scenario would have to be Constantinople, and an Emperor in Constantinople is going to have precisely zero influence over the lords and princes of Germany. A united Italy + Byzantium is doable, but beyond this, the scenario becomes unlikely.
 
It's not impossible, but difficult. It's hard to say which is the better route: absorption by exploiting balkanization in one country, or an informal union of the thrones.

Avoiding the religious split is imperative I think, but it's going to be hard to do that with the Pope in Rome but the $$$ from the Silk Road pouring right through Constantinople.
 
Having a functional Byzantium and a functional HRE isn't going allow a merger. The Byzantines are going to look down on the barbarian westerners, and the rising West will a) despise the effete easterners and b) resent the condescension.

OK. So possible scenarios.
1) Byzantium is almost entirely over run by Turks, leaving only a rump state. The West comes in and 'saves the day' and keeps the Turks out of the Balkans and takes over Byzantium and the Orthodox church is forceably submitted to the Popes authority. While there is general grief among the Byzantine population, it's (marginally) being better than swamped by the turks

2) Hmmm... I thought I had another, but I just can't see the HRE subsumed into Byzantium after the HRE existed.

Edit: Resurgent Islam somehow avoids Byzantium (Turks go Christian???), but swarms out of Spain to take (much of France). the HRE swallows its pride and asks for help. (Sort of a reverse crusade.) Pretty darn improbable.

3) Oh, a different, functional 4th Crusade (sort of a variant on 1, but less polite)
 
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That's really difficult. I say the best chance is to have imperial marriage, best a series of marriages, cementing a strong dynastical claim of either the Western or Eastern Emperor on its counterpart. Then have a war of succession which ends in the Emperor ruling both.

Now if this is difficult, keeping both parts together and truly uniting them is even more difficult. If the HRE stays in Constantinople, we can take as granted that some counter-Emperor and the pope will cause trouble in Germany - and if the Emperor is in Germany or Italy, there'll be some Byzantine general or noble trying to go for the throne.

I'd say that several preliminary conditions have to be fulfilled:
- HRE should be by far more centralized, allowing an absent Emperor to hold it safe.
- Italy is the link between the Empires. So the whole of Italy should be firmly in the hands of the Emperor (may be HRE or Byzantine or both).
- that quite likely implies no pope in Italy or a pope firmly in control of the Emperor or no pope altogether, but merely the eastern patriarchical system throughout christendom.
- weak exterior enemies. In particular, no Avars, no Hungarians, no French no Ottomans, no Arabs, no Vikings being a truly lethal thread to either part of the Empire. Even if they are not powerful, they'll surely ally themselves against the Imperial behemoth.

I already read timelines for most of these points in this board - but never a timeline which required all of these...
 
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