Could any medieval European state have rejected the legacy of Rome?

But the Christian theological perspective is that this death (and subsequent resurrection) was essential to happen, hence the name "Good Friday".

A church would have to develop a very different perspective of the Crucifixion to fully reject Roman heritage. The Protestant perspective in general is not that the Roman church was bad from the start, but that it lost its way over the centuries.
The Roman Empire persecuted the early Christians for quite some time until tolerance set in. Maybe there’s a way to spin the modern church as regressing back to the Romans who sent believers to be martyred in the Coliseum, who imprisoned Paul.
 
I didn’t see any mention of Celts. Could there be a Christian but non-Roman identity in Ireland and elsewhere without legitimacy derived from being connected to the legacy of Rome at all?

I just think it’s weird how the entire continent traced their strength to a long-gone empire, whose remnants were far away.
 
I didn’t see any mention of Celts. Could there be a Christian but non-Roman identity in Ireland and elsewhere without legitimacy derived from being connected to the legacy of Rome at all?

I just think it’s weird how the entire continent traced their strength to a long-gone empire, whose remnants were far away.
A pro Celtic Church ruling at the Synod of Whitby might do the trick. If the Norse later also adopt Celtic instead of Roman rites, this could reinforce an Anti-Roman north-west Europe. Let the Rome-supported Norman invasion fail and the anti-Roman stance would be reinvigorated.
 
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A anti-roman equivalent of Arianism or Islam for Atila's empire might also work
I think Arianism would need to make a clean break with its roots in Roman Christianity, which I don't see why they couldn't find a way to justify it. The Germanic Church would be Arian in doctrine and centered at whatever the initial capital of the Hunnic Empire is and would regard Rome as no more important to Christianity than distant Jerusalem. The liturgical language would be the Gothic of Ulfilas's Bible and eventually all written languages (besides whatever Greek and Latin remains in use) would be written with Gothic.

A Germanic "Islam" is popular but it's hard to see it happen without at least some roots from Greco-Roman philosophy. Like I suppose the Hunnic ruler could invite pagan scholars being kicked out of the Roman Empire perhaps out of a desire to have smart people around to help him maintain the always uneasy rule over the Germanic kings, but that leads right down the path toward claiming Rome's legacy, just with an emphasis on the pagan and anti-Christian parts. I guess there's always another Abrahamic religion emerging in the area but I think a 7th century Germany that's been ruled by Attila's descendents for nearly 2 centuries would be quite different than OTL 7th century Arabia in terms of social conditions so I don't know if that would work.
 
Like I said before there is a difference and the way you are defining terms is frankly completely useless to the discussion at hand.
Using that logic adopting the lightbulb in the late 19th century meant "embracing the legacy of the United states" or adopting Arabic numerals meant "embracing the legacy of Muslims/Arabs/Indians". The comparison can be extend to cultural osmosis happening between clearly separate societies and communities.

In reality to actually embrace someone's legacy you have to consciously do it, being inspired by others while clearly separating yourself from them is different.
You're making a distinction without a difference and adding into the mix irrelevancies.
 
I didn’t see any mention of Celts. Could there be a Christian but non-Roman identity in Ireland and elsewhere without legitimacy derived from being connected to the legacy of Rome at all?
As far as I'm aware, not really. Despite not being part of the Roman Empire, Ireland extensively interacted with the Roman Empire (Western and Eastern) through trade and the like to such a level that it fused Roman elements into its culture and society - helped, of course, with the arrival of Christianity and its adaptation to local circumstances. While there were some differences in organization and the like, that was not sufficient to break any Roman connection. Not only is legitimacy from Roman legacy necessary to make Christianity start to work before being adapted to local circumstances, it's also necessary to make the sea-based trade networks work in the first place, in order to have Ireland as part of a common European cultural network in the first place.
 
I think you could have a couple non-european christian states in the East that dont take from Rome, maybe even getting into Europe later on(like say the arabs and/or turks went christian)
But a european state not being influenced by Rome is very difficult, specially if they adopt Christianity
 
I don't think it is possible to completely excise Roman culture and influence from Europe, even if the Roman Empire was completely obliterated in a worse case scenario of the Crisis of the Third Century, resulting in Christianity being far weaker and disconnected from the legacy from Rome. Vulgar Latin is still spoken and Roman culture is still widely practiced along with local beliefs. Won't be long before someone tries to claim the mantle of Rome itself, perhaps as a way to bolster his claim over formerly Roman provinces.
 
I'd say the worst case scenario for Rome(after already becoming an empire) is the gauls accepting to join Arminius's rebellion and sacking Italy together
Not a Rome fell per see, as I think they would recover from this and strike back, but it would sure do enough damage for the Empire to collapse way way before the Third Century
 
Does the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba count? Since it claims Arab-Muslim heritage, and that too leadership of the Islamic world? That is very contrary to Roman culture and ideology.
How about the Golden Horde Khanate, as it claimed a Chinggisid lineage of legitimacy and was largely non-Roman in heritage.
How about the Avar khaganate in Pannonia? Similar reasons as above.
 
For centuries, and even to the modern day maybe, the legacy of Rome looms large. So many polities and kings have derived their legacy to that empire and its precursor republic. So how could a European country reject that legacy in favor of either some other tradition to base off of (besides nomadic horse archer peoples from the east), or in favor of inventing a new one entirely? I guess doing it off of a new Christian tradition would've been more possible by the time of the Reformation.

A less radical idea I still remember from @Faeelin's old Mustafa the Pretender TL that I used to obsess about:



But, that's still a Roman Catholic empire, with all that entails, and will still hearken back to Rome at some level.

I'm somewhat amused that the timeline was probably written before Crusader Kings was popular (definitely pre-CK II), and the concept of medieval kingdoms forming ahistorical empires based on conquered lands was popular. I think there were CK I mods that did allow that to happen, though.
What I don't get is what exactly we mean by "legacy of Rome", many people here use it to mean ANY kind of influence, is that also your definition?
Is adopting some Roman architectural styles and dresses, being inspired by Roman institutions or Roman technologies the same as claiming to be the successor of Rome, consciously using Latin or elevating Rome above anything else?
 
What I don't get is what exactly we mean by "legacy of Rome", many people here use it to mean ANY kind of influence, is that also your definition?
Is adopting some Roman architectural styles and dresses, being inspired by Roman institutions or Roman technologies the same as claiming to be the successor of Rome, consciously using Latin or elevating Rome above anything else?

Claiming legitimacy on the basis of spiritual or cultural succession from Rome. Why does every empire in Europe have to claim to be a descendent of Rome.
 
Why did they always have to tie their civilization to the Romans and not be able to start their own empires without paying lip service to how they were a caesar of some kind and the nth Rome
 
It helps to characterize what the phrase "legacy of Rome" actually means.
Problem is that I think it means different things to different people at different times.

I'm most familiar with Scandinavian history, their attempts to harkon back to old Germanic tribes that interacted with the Roman Empire was an attempt to integrate themselves into a larger European history and community, and to become less of a peripheral region. That's not the purpose Roman legacy served in regions that had formed core parts of the Roman Empire and already were integral parts of Europe, like France or Italy.
 
Why couldn’t they declare legitimacy on the basis of something new.

What legitimacy did the Romans themselves claim? Descent from Troy? Wolves?
 
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