Christianity without the Eastern Roman empire?
- Thread starter Pachac
- Start date
Depends.
If the Eastern Empire collapses in the 600s, it could be an Arab field day in broken, battered, and largely pagan Europe. Catholicism is left at most with Italy
If the Eastern Empire deteriorates in Europe, but holds out in the East, Christendom will have sharper internal contrasts, but the Latin Rite will win out in Europe.
If the Eastern Empire collapses in the 600s, it could be an Arab field day in broken, battered, and largely pagan Europe. Catholicism is left at most with Italy
If the Eastern Empire deteriorates in Europe, but holds out in the East, Christendom will have sharper internal contrasts, but the Latin Rite will win out in Europe.
I think Christianity will still survive- an Arab conquest of the Balkans probably means no Arab conquest of North Africa and Spain, for simple regions of overstretch. The Arabs will have enough on their plate dealing with the Slavs and Bulgars in the Balkans, not to mention putting down revolts in Persia and Egypt, to really focus on cracking the west.
So I think we'll see North African Christianity surviving. Italy, as the front line against Islam, will be impacted upon by this, whereas Spain, by contrast, will become something of a safe haven for the faith, as will Gaul. Expect to see fierce Christian vs. Islamic attempts to convert the Bulgars, Avars, and Slavs.
So I think we'll see North African Christianity surviving. Italy, as the front line against Islam, will be impacted upon by this, whereas Spain, by contrast, will become something of a safe haven for the faith, as will Gaul. Expect to see fierce Christian vs. Islamic attempts to convert the Bulgars, Avars, and Slavs.
I don't see the link that demonstrate Arab conquest of Balkans will going to negate Islamic North Africa though. With Egypt in Islamic hands, the poor, lightly populated North Africa is just to vulnerable. Without the Rhoman navy, there is no more worthy contender for the Islamic navy, which formation was certainly motivated by ambition to contest domination of Rhoman navy in Mediterranean at that time.
As to OPs question, certainly that Christianity will survive, within and outside of Islamic realm. Its spread though will experience a pretty big setback compared to OTL case. No Christian Russia for sure. And in general, smaller Christendom. Arab conquest of Balkans won't going to directly limit Islamic expansion westward. But say, if you would see Islamic Balkans this early as to much overkill in favor of Islam, you can always butterfly Julian of Ceuta's plea to the Islamic army in Morocco to invade Spain. I don't see any submissive/interdependent connection between the two so both of them can go their own ways.
The Moslems only have so many soldiers and so on to go around. Spending them on the Balkans makes them unavailable for a western push into the exarchate of Carthage.
Roman Africa did have a decent sized force OTL,if memory serves, so if the Muslims are busy fighting everywhere else, it might not be as badly off as its present condition would imply it was in those times.
Roman Africa did have a decent sized force OTL,if memory serves, so if the Muslims are busy fighting everywhere else, it might not be as badly off as its present condition would imply it was in those times.
Did Islamic division in Egypt that execute the invasion into North African Exarchate, receive any meaningful infusion of reinforcement form elsewhere, primarily from Syrian division, beforehand IOTL ? If yes, I guess there will probably some delay, but I cannot see North Africa lasting Christian once Islam has Egypt.
It has to be noted that early Caliphate fought many fronts simultaneously for several times, so the question of overstretch really depends on the timing of the PoD being proposed.
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I think, regarding the original premise, the question is how the Eastern Ottoman Empire collapses, and also when. Assuming it's collapse occurs contemporary to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, there is certainly the possibility of Islam getting butterflied away altogether (as a rule of thumb, I would say there, the question would be: is the POD before or after the Plague of Justinian?)
Depending on the POD, we might have a scenario in which Arianism becomes the main brand of Christianity, at least in the western Euro-Mediterranean area (I'm think about a surviving Vandal kingdom here, assuming that the Eastern Roman Empire collapses too early
).
Arguably, the Umayyad Caliphate did overstretch in OTL, but that only occured in the 730s.
Depending on the POD, we might have a scenario in which Arianism becomes the main brand of Christianity, at least in the western Euro-Mediterranean area (I'm think about a surviving Vandal kingdom here, assuming that the Eastern Roman Empire collapses too early
).Arguably, the Umayyad Caliphate did overstretch in OTL, but that only occured in the 730s.
1) I think, regarding the original premise, the question is how the Eastern Empire collapses, and also when. Assuming it's collapse occurs contemporary to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, there is certainly the possibility of Islam getting butterflied away altogether (as a rule of thumb, I would say there, the question would be: is the POD before or after the Plague of Justinian?)
Depending on the POD, we might have a scenario in which Arianism becomes the main brand of Christianity, at least in the western Euro-Mediterranean area (I'm think about a surviving Vandal kingdom here, assuming that the Eastern Roman Empire collapses too early
2) Arguably, the Umayyad Caliphate did overstretch in OTL, but that only occured in the 730s.
1) The OP said that s/he wants Eastern Empire to collapse in the 600s. But yes, no specs for the PoD for it
2) Every empire can and will overstretch, however doesn't only depend on internal factors for this. Elimination of a big, competent neighbor will contribute positive number to the "elasticity" of the empire in question, not negative.
1) The OP said that s/he wants Eastern Empire to collapse in the 600s. But yes, no specs for the PoD for it
Yeah, but I'm not sure if this is doable without a POD before the 540s.
Very true, I agree on that. The Islamic expansion should obviously be definitely farther, at least in the direction of Anatolia/the Balkans.
I don't know if they did or not, but I very much doubt that the same number of troops will be present in Egypt in this timeline as OTL because Muslim attention will be on securing Anatolia and the Balkans, which takes away resources that would otherwise be pushing into Africa and around that way.
And occupation of a large amount of additional territory will suck up resources and attention.
Eliminating the ERE will certainly be an asset in some regards, but it will not make up for the fact there's only so much, in a word, effort, to go around.
As BG said, they'll be tied up in the Balkans and Anatolia as well as the areas they were OTL (in the East) and spending the finite supply of "effort" on controlling that.
Its not so much about being elastic or not as spreading too little butter over too much bread*. That will doom any sufficiently aggressively empire and limit those which aren't to what they can viably cover.
If you choose to spread it over Anatolia and the Balkans, it isn't available for Africa and Hispania.
*: With apologies to Tolkien's ghost for misusing poor Bilbo's description of what the Ring was doing to him.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
This is likely. I don't think the Arabs would go for conquering the Bulgars and Slavs; they would probably at least wait a couple of decades. There is only so many Muslim Arabs you can throw at Europe.
Christianity will survive for the most part as it did in the Islamic realms. I would like to see how the Ummayads would do in making Constantinople much more of a beautiful city than it was in the 600s.
This is likely. I don't think the Arabs would go for conquering the Bulgars and Slavs; they would probably at least wait a couple of decades. There is only so many Muslim Arabs you can throw at Europe.
Christianity will survive for the most part as it did in the Islamic realms. I would like to see how the Ummayads would do in making Constantinople much more of a beautiful city than it was in the 600s.
The Arabs would most likely try to convert the Slavs, actually. It seems sort of interesting to have an Arab-Catholic conversion race instead of an Orthdox-Catholic conversion race.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Yeah. That's pretty much likely to happen. The Arabs won't waste much men in conquering them; they will be competing with whatever Christian missionaries that come from western Europe though it's worth noting that it was Byzantine missionaries that aided in the conversion of the Slavs and Bulgars. So it's likely they'll convert to Islam.
The Slavs could also play a role like the Turks did if a "Ruman" Caliphate arises.
Indeed. I don't think the Arabs would bother with the inland areas of the Balkans; the Aegean islands, Greece, and Thrace will be enough for them. Regarding the conversions,I think that if the Arabs start attempting to convert them in the 700s-800s They could have most of the Balkans as Islamic. Russia's a wild card, though.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
I always wondered: who's going to cave in terms of conversions? The Eastern Roman nobility and whatever's left of the imperial family and military? The peasantry?
It really depends, I think. Considering Arab tendency to adopt the bureaucracy of conquered areas I think many in the nobility may 'convert' to hold positions of power. I don't think the peasantry has much reason to convert, but again, I don't think the Arabs have ran into this problem before. Eastern Rome has a much stronger religion in regards to conversion than Zoroastrianism.