Crusades without Viking invasions

Let's say that for some reason the Viking invasions don't occur and the Norman kingdoms aren't created as a result. Does this butterfly away the Crusades or any similar possible war around the 11th century between Western Europeans and Middle Eastern Arabs?
 
Why would it? Of course, probably Byzantine Empire would be better off without its OTL Norman neighbors but that's pretty much it.
 
The Crusades probably wouldn't happen because they arose in the pretty unique situation of the Byzantine Empire's near-fall and Alexios Komnenos' restoration. However, Catholic military adventurism wasn't completely unprecedented, and the First Crusade was also convenient for Pope Urban II's aims. We would still see something like the Northern Crusades and (at least a partial) Reconquista without major changes, but the Crusades in the Levant may or may not happen in a similar form.

It also depends on what you mean by Viking invasions. To some extent, the realignment of Mediterranean trade and the Silk Road after the rise of Islam, existence of Iron Age thalassocracies in Northern Europe and emergence of the emporia system in the North Sea, made some sort of Viking Age inevitable after a certain point. The POD that would prevent the Viking invasions would have to be rather drastic and it might prevent Islam and the rise of the Franks as well.
 
WI the Norse are less violent and focus more on trade and possibly mercenary work, and less on raiding and especially conquering? Seems unlikely but not impossible.

I'd think that crusader focus would be more on the Reconquista and maybe even Northern/Baltic crusades than on Outremer. However the French and Germans will still answer Urban II's call to crusade though without Normans they'd be less effective.
 
Why would it? Of course, probably Byzantine Empire would be better off without its OTL Norman neighbors but that's pretty much it.

This completely changes Byzantine history.

Without the Normans, Alexios' attempt to reclaim Anatolia from the Seljuks Turks isn't delayed until 1097, but can possibly begin 16 years earlier, in 1081. That's only ten years after Manzikert, meaning the Turks are less well established. By 1097, it has been 26 years, a whole generation has passed and arguably it's too late.

What's more, the battle of Dyrhachium never happens, meaning the professional Byzantine army isn't destroyed. This in turn means Alexios isn't reduced to rounding up Balkan peasants and creating a new army from scratch. It also means that the Pecheneg invasion of the Balkans may not happen, freeing up the gold that Alexios was forced to spend on hiring a Cuman army to defeat them.

The upshot of all this is that the Byzantines will have a substantially more powerful army and more gold, as well as a 16 year head start, to take back Anatolia. Their enemy will be fewer and less well entrenched. Obviously, this will affect the frontiers in favour of the Byzantines, most likely with critical results. I predict the empire reclaims Anatolia.

This then totally changes later history. Istanbul may well be the capital of Greece today, and the nation of Turkey will not exist. The modern world is unrecognizable, because the Ottomans also never happen. That totally changes the middle east. Israel is never created. Syria, Iraq and Jordan don't exist either. Nor does Saudi Arabia. Nor Kuwait. The impact is vast and incalculable.
 
But no Vikings in Italy means more intens attack of Muslims from Sicily and North Africa. So the Normans are replaced with Saracens

Would the Saracens target mainland Greece over Italy, though? That was the whole problem with the Norman expeditions later on, threatening the Byzantine heartlands...
 
But no Vikings in Italy means more intens attack of Muslims from Sicily and North Africa. So the Normans are replaced with Saracens

Good point but I think that they could be squeezed out of the Italians or Byzantines. By the time of Guiscard's conquest there were 2 quarreling emirs in Sicily which seemingly indicates that their state there was in a process of disintegration. Then again, it does not look like the Muslims in Sicily had been able of any significant conquest outside the island even before the Normans became a factor.

300px-Italy_1000_AD.svg.png
 
Would the Saracens target mainland Greece over Italy, though? That was the whole problem with the Norman expeditions later on, threatening the Byzantine heartlands...
The real one you want to get rid of if you want continued Muslim adventurism in Italy is to not only get rid of the Norse and therefore the Normans, but to butterfly or redirect the Fatimids. Once the centre of power in North Africa shifted from Kairwan to Fustat, there went any hope of naval support for Muslim Sicily.

Muslims actually did make it onto the continent - Calabria and Bari were Muslim emirates for a time in the 9th century, and the Lombards generally did not do all that great against them. Those gains started to vanish in the late ninth century. Then in the early 10th, the Fatimids show up, displace the Aghlabids and move the capital to Egypt, and with it the Fatimid navy, removing any hope of supporting Sicily or managing any serious conquests in the boot itself.

Ultimately, no Norse and no Normans means someone else gets the job of reclaiming southern Italy from the Muslims, and it'll likely be either the ERE or the Italian communes. Pisa and Genoa already did that to an extent in terms of kicking the Umayyads out of Sardinia. That said, the ERE wasn't averse to cutting deals with the Muslims to counterbalance the Empire's rivals on the boot, to the point that the Kalbids actually beat the Holy Roman Empire in a battle in the late 10th century on behalf of the ERE. There's theoretically room for the Muslims to stick around as a Roman client and/or buffer.

Either way, no Norse means someone else gets a crack at the Boot.
 
Top