Challenge: City-states dominate medieval europe

The challenge is that City-states are the dominant political forces in Europe, not only in Italy.
 
Collapse the culture of clerical celibacy, allowing (important for you) bishops to marry and you will fundamentally destroy the authority of kingship in favor of the authority of noble-born bishops who hold both sacred and secular power at the level of provinces and cities. And the Pope a middle-of-the-road figure head.
 
The challenge is that City-states are the dominant political forces in Europe, not only in Italy.
The problem is that the whole reason that Kings and lords became the rulers after Rome fell was because they were able to control and protect vast swaths of countryside. Most of Europe was not metropolitan so cities were few and far between.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
it will need a lot of POD :
- no Justinian plague and continuing dense population of Europe
- lack of Med piracy and continued functioning of Med trade network
- mass die off of horse due to disease
- earlier spread of crossbow in late Roman Empire

its need analysis of why North Italian Cities (not Italian knight in castle) is the one who dominate and control Italian countryside.
 
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