Constantinople
Banned
This is the uncompleted next chapter:
------------------------------------------------
Empty America: Part 37 - My Big Fat Greek Wedding
(Europe, 1242-63)
They were achingly close. They really were. But some things just aren't meant to be, not in the Middle Ages, anyway.
Let's briefly recap.
In ATL 1255, Pope Gregory X fled Lyon, under threat from Batu's Khan's legions, to the Latin Empire of Constantinople (See Part 22). Firmly ensconced in Constantinople, he vigorously undertakes to win the affection of the remaining Orthodox population of the city (which admittedly is not great). Given custody of the St. Sophia by the Venetian Podesta who rules that portion of the city, he promptly turns it over to the Greek church. On top of this magnificent gesture of reconciliation, his obvious and sincere piety, and his dedication of papal resources to alleviate the sufferings of Constantinople's poor and infirm establish Gregory's reputation among the Orthodox as a great Pope, a very different creature than the hostile and overbearing Latin Christians that they had become accustomed to dealing with.
Gregory also undertakes some liturgical outreach - saying a Latin service in Greek and omitting the contentious "filioque," an abstruse but important theological dispute between Latin and Orthodox Christianity. It has something to do with whether the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father THROUGH the Son or from the Father AND the Son. Or something like that. For medieval Christians, it is frightfully important, since it goes to the nature of the Trinity, and this is still a period in which people actually care about that sort of thing.
Gregory's efforts, while making him friends and admirers among the Greeks, also succeed in alienating the Latin Emperor Baldwin II and his immediate circle. Gregory is not unduly concerned about that - the adjective most frequently applied to Baldwin is "hapless." Whatever haps are, he doesn't have any. But more importantly for Gregory's purposes, the real power in Constantinople - the Venetians - are not unduly concerned Hellenophilic tendencies. The Venetians focus more on Gregory's friendliness to the Crown of Aragon, which under its expansionist King Jaime I has seized Sicily with papal blessing and now threatens the Venetian position in the western Mediterranean (See Part 30). Gregory accomplished one goal of his papacy with the Aragonese conquest of Sicily - he uprooted the Staufen heir Conrad - and he took a big step towards accomplishing another - breaking the power of the Lion City. Gregory, for all his cooperation with Sartak, has never forgiven Venice for betraying Christendom and assisting the Tatars in their conquest of Central and Southern Europe.
And if it takes him the rest of his life, he will crush Venice for its monstrous greed.
Gregory, you see, has made a secret offer to the Nicean co-Emperors, John IV Laskares and Michael VIII Palaeologos - bring the Orthodox Church into the Catholic fold, and he will open the gates of Constantinople for them. In addition to uniting the Latin and Greek Churches in a time of great religious upheaval, handing Constantinople back to the Byzantines will also expel the Venetians from the city, its greatest and most prestigious commercial holding outside the Ursulines.
The leaders of the Nicean Empire consider Gregory's proposal. Of course they want Constantinople back, but after years of being a punching-bag for the Latin powers, the Orthodox Empire is doing fairly well on its own. Nicea had come a long way since its beginings as a refuge for the remnants of the Byzantine state. By 1260, it ruled much of the Balkan peninsula and held a great deal of the Aegean, as well as a significant swath of eastern Anatolia. John Vatatzes, the greatest of the Nicean emperors who preceded John IV and Michael VIII had done a lot to restore Byzantium's former strength. Most recently, in 1258, the Niceans had smashed an expedition against Thessalonica (the European capital of the Nicean Empire) by the combined forces of Despot Michael of Epirus and William of Villehardouin, the Latin Prince of Achaia. (Conrad of Sicily is, in this ATL, unavailable to form the third leg of the alliance as he did in OTL). Nicean forces then marched into Epirus and seized its capital at Arta.
In other words, Nicea is doing very well, thank you very much, and is not exactly desperate for Papal assistance at this point.
On the other hand ...
Michael Palaeogos is, like almost all of Christendom, thoroughly impressed by the extroverted but humble piety and sheer goodness of Gregory X. His magnanimity in giving over the St. Sophia did not go unnoted in Nicea. It would seem as if anyone could be the spiritual head of a united Church, it would be him. But Michael is no fool - this Pope is not immortal and the next could be in the more usual mold - an arrogant, bigoted Latin, with no respect or care for the Orthodox.
Gregory has other, less-spiritual, attributes that Michael takes note of. The message, while steeped in Christian friendship, conceals a blade. The Byzantines can be welcomed into Constantinople either as "communicants of the one, true Church," or they can try to take the city by "main force."
Michael Palaeogos has no doubt that his armies, once they are within the city's walls, can crush whatever feeble resistance that Baldwin could mount, but Gregory? Great armies march forth to do Gregory's bidding. The Sythians [Mongols, thanks Faelin] invade Egypt and Syria under his banner. Jaime I obtains Gregory's sanction to take Sicily from the Staufen. Michael is not particularly concerned about Sartak - he has established good relations with both the Khan of the Franks and the il-Khan Hulegu. But Jaime I of Aragon is another story. Jaime's ambitions seem to be boundless. He has constructed a formidable fleet and, with the fall of Sicily, now has a major presence not far from Nicean lands. Not to mention the fact that there are a variety of local rulers who would provide him with a beachhead from which to attack Byzantine territory.
No, Gregory's offer cannot be dismissed out of hand. But neither can it be accepted. The recovery of Constantinople is seen as a divine mission for the Orthodox, and subjecting them to the dominion of the red-hatted cardinals at their moment of triumph would cause morale to collapse and sink the faithful into a sea of discord. Not just among the rank-and-file, either. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Arsenius Autoreianus, currently in self-imposed exile (for reasons too peripheral to go into detail here), would certainly condemn any move towards union with the Latins. Arsenius was violently anti-Catholic and Gregory's attempt at reconciliation between the two Churches had not softened his attitude. So, Michael could count on the Patriarch leading the resistence. He just did not need this kind of headache, not now when he was on the verge of having it all.
But he needed to tread carefully. In his reply, he thanks His Holiness the Pope for his good wishes. He also praises Gregory for all his efforts on behalf of the Orthodox of Constantinople, particularly the return of St. Sophia. After winding his way through a lot of flowery verbage, he gets to the point - although he can promise that representatives the Orthodox Church would attentively and respectively attend the Great Council that Gregory has planned, with an eye towards reconciliation, he cannot promise to bring the Church under Latin authority at this point. His response is sealed and sent, and he awaits a response with some trepidation.
Pope Gregory X is disappointed but not suprised by the Emperor's response. The Latin Kingdom of Constantinople is very clearly on its last legs, and the keys to a city that will inevitably fall is not much of an incentive to deal. He needs to salvage something out of this, so he does - he sends a reply to Michael which emphasizes his joy at the Orthodox acceptance of a place at the Great Council table while downplaying Michael's rejection of the offer of Constantinople.
After that, all he can do is wait. It is not a comfortable wait. There are no secrets in Constantinople, and word of Gregory's offer soon reaches Baldwin's ears. After much dithering, he starts making oblique suggestions to his entourage (by now not much more than a corporal's guard) that someone rid him of Gregory, but he is greeted with silence and embarassed coughs. Nobody is going to risk that kind of heat for Baldwin.
Finally, the day comes. In July of 1261, General Alexius Strategopolous [now _that's_ a name for a general] leads a Nicean army to the walls of Constantinople. His men infiltrate the city and open the postern gate. The Byzantines pour into the city. Baldwin, true to form, flees for his life, escaping with his retinue in a Venetian merchantman. The Venetians feel the wrath of the vengeful Greeks, who burn them out of their houses and godowns. There is, however, no general massacre, no matter how much the Latin occupiers have brought it on themselves. Venetian ships carry the Latin refugees to safety.
Pope Gregory, for his part, stands on the steps of the church of St. Irene in his simple white cassock and awaits the conquerors with the serenity of a man who is at peace with God. Despite the dire warnings of what could happen to him if he falls into Greek hands, he refuses to leave Constantinople. For one thing, he has decided that he will be safer in Michael Palaeogos' hands than in the care of the Venetians. Also, if there is to be any hope of reconciliation between the Western and Eastern Churches, he must show that he trusts the Orthodox.
The first Byzantine soldiers who encounter the Pope, upon being told who he is, fall to their knees to pay him awestruck homage, until rousted to their feet by angry officers. The meeting between General Strategopolous and Pope Gregory X is respectful, but cool on both their parts. The Latin Pope does not pretend that he is a supplicant in Constantinople, present by the leave of anyone, and the Greek General does not pretend that the Pope has any claim to his allegiance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is what was going to be the answer to the cliff hanger at the end of ch 36:
The Doge asked the Khan to invade Sicily, to take it from Aragon, and the Khan does. This sets off a nasty chain of events. The Pope, who authorized King Jaime of Aragon to take it in the first place, writes a blistering letter to Sartak, condemning his action. Sartak, goaded by conservative Mongols who say "I told you so" over the Pope's "arrogance" in thinking he can judge a Khan, breaks with the Pope, severing the Catholic church within the Empire and directing the election of a more compliant Pope, who will preside in Rome, in kind of a Vatican City type arrangement. Sartak also cancels the Great Council, ending any prospect of reconciling the Reformed Church with the Catholic Church. Isolated in Constantinople, Gregory starts drifting even closer to the Greeks, desperate to form some kind of unified front against the schizmatic in Rome. This sets off events that leads the French to call a council and declare Gregory deposed and elect their own Pope. in the process, they declare that the King of France is the heir of the HR Emperor, and grant the King of France a power once purportedly held by the Emperor - to cast the first vote for Pope. So now there are three popes, with no signs that the situation will end any time soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is some continuation on the future:
where I was going generally ... kind of a multipolar world, without western hegemony. A Chinese Pacific, with at least 2 Chinese decended states in the Americas and a sparsely-populated Chinese Australia. An Islamic Brazil spun off of al-Andalus, which also endures as an Islamic 'Portugual'-type state.. A bunch of small states east of the Mississippi, a mixture of monarchies and Norse Commonwealths. several Vinlandic commonwealths through the Great Lakes region, down to the Ohio river. The Genoese Vivaldi brothers circumnavigate Africa and South America in the 1290s, breaking the Venetians' trade monopolies. the Venetians react (as they thought about doing OTL) by reviving the ancient Suez canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea.
the eventual downfall and diaspora of pagan Domstolland. same thing, but sooner, with Welsh Annwyfn (OTL's Alabama). Islamic Empire of Mali based on the slave trade in Western Africa. Byzantine power sustains itself in the Balkans and western Anatolia and owns a single valuable colony in the Ursulines - Argos, OTL's Greneda. no Ottomans - eastern and central anatolia is devastated by a series of wars between the il-Khanate and the Khanate of the Franks, and does not turn into a threat against the Byzantines.
reversal of the unification of France after a Mongol invasion, with Castille ruling Gascony and Aragon ruling Languedoc. can't decide if I was going to give Normandy back to England or not. Joan of Arc winds up driving the Mongol occupiers out, but not reunifying the country.
An English commonwealth or severely limited monarchy developing after Simon de Montforte. the collapse of the Khanate of the Franks as a unified entity once the Black Plague hits. Pagan Lithuania endures and expands in the Baltic and Eastern Europe. Resurgence of republican ideas in Europe in the 14thC, with a Roman Republic covering all of Italy. Unified Irish commonwealth by the end of the 14thC. Enduring and larger Christian presence in Northeast Africa - alt-Ethiopia includes much of OTL's Somalia and Sudan.
technology advances at a substantially faster clip in some areas. instead of an agricultural revolution based upon American crops as OTL, we have Chinese agricultural tech driving it. bronze and iron cannon are commonplace in the west by the mid 14thC, small arms - flintlock muskets by the end of the 14thC. the Scientific Revolution gets started with the collapse of Aristotle's worldview at the begining of the 14thC and the collision of ancient western learning and Chinese knowledge. steam engines in the 15thC, internal combustion in the 15th-16th. nuclear weapons in the 18th.
Christianity never re-unifies and is disestablished as a state religion pretty much everywhere by the 15thC, to the eventual relief of both the Churches and States.
eventually, the papacy in Constantinople is abandoned, and we are down to two popes - a French one and one obedient to the Khan. the remainder of the Catholic world (Iberia, England) has fluctuating allegiances, largely depending upon how their relations with the Khanate are at the moment. the Khanate collapses among Mongol nobles, much like the Golden Horde did in OTL, and some European control - primarily commonwealths and republics. the old noble families, and even some up and comers like the Hapsburgs, can no longer command any allegiance.
European states are powers in the world, England has a couple of colonies on the E. Seaboard of UT, and the Iberian powers have a major presence in the Ursulines, UT and Terranova. Venetian power fades as the English and Iberians, and later the Italian Republic, rise. they are very active in overseas trade, but no one is in a position as OTL to try to dominate the Indian Ocean or impose themselves upon China. Japan, BTW, is conquered by the Mongols - the first invasion by Khubilai succeeds.
The crusader states are eventually overrun by the il-Khanate. the same problem as OTL - not enough manpower. once the Khanate of the Franks collapses, they no longer have the support from Europe that they need. When the Khanate fragments, the Mongol rulers in Egypt happen to be Islamic, so they simply rule in their own name.
Islam is complicated - the center of the religion shifts to al-Andalus. It is the richest and most cosmopolitan part of dar al-Islam. sustained contact with the Christians and Chinese and the end of the reconquesta leads to the mellowing of Andalusian Islam. more reconciled to science and pluralism.
Christianity benefits from the Constantinople papacy - it conducts aggressive missionary activity in southern India, which by the late 14thC has a very substantial Christian population.
------------------------------------------------
Empty America: Part 37 - My Big Fat Greek Wedding
(Europe, 1242-63)
They were achingly close. They really were. But some things just aren't meant to be, not in the Middle Ages, anyway.
Let's briefly recap.
In ATL 1255, Pope Gregory X fled Lyon, under threat from Batu's Khan's legions, to the Latin Empire of Constantinople (See Part 22). Firmly ensconced in Constantinople, he vigorously undertakes to win the affection of the remaining Orthodox population of the city (which admittedly is not great). Given custody of the St. Sophia by the Venetian Podesta who rules that portion of the city, he promptly turns it over to the Greek church. On top of this magnificent gesture of reconciliation, his obvious and sincere piety, and his dedication of papal resources to alleviate the sufferings of Constantinople's poor and infirm establish Gregory's reputation among the Orthodox as a great Pope, a very different creature than the hostile and overbearing Latin Christians that they had become accustomed to dealing with.
Gregory also undertakes some liturgical outreach - saying a Latin service in Greek and omitting the contentious "filioque," an abstruse but important theological dispute between Latin and Orthodox Christianity. It has something to do with whether the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father THROUGH the Son or from the Father AND the Son. Or something like that. For medieval Christians, it is frightfully important, since it goes to the nature of the Trinity, and this is still a period in which people actually care about that sort of thing.
Gregory's efforts, while making him friends and admirers among the Greeks, also succeed in alienating the Latin Emperor Baldwin II and his immediate circle. Gregory is not unduly concerned about that - the adjective most frequently applied to Baldwin is "hapless." Whatever haps are, he doesn't have any. But more importantly for Gregory's purposes, the real power in Constantinople - the Venetians - are not unduly concerned Hellenophilic tendencies. The Venetians focus more on Gregory's friendliness to the Crown of Aragon, which under its expansionist King Jaime I has seized Sicily with papal blessing and now threatens the Venetian position in the western Mediterranean (See Part 30). Gregory accomplished one goal of his papacy with the Aragonese conquest of Sicily - he uprooted the Staufen heir Conrad - and he took a big step towards accomplishing another - breaking the power of the Lion City. Gregory, for all his cooperation with Sartak, has never forgiven Venice for betraying Christendom and assisting the Tatars in their conquest of Central and Southern Europe.
And if it takes him the rest of his life, he will crush Venice for its monstrous greed.
Gregory, you see, has made a secret offer to the Nicean co-Emperors, John IV Laskares and Michael VIII Palaeologos - bring the Orthodox Church into the Catholic fold, and he will open the gates of Constantinople for them. In addition to uniting the Latin and Greek Churches in a time of great religious upheaval, handing Constantinople back to the Byzantines will also expel the Venetians from the city, its greatest and most prestigious commercial holding outside the Ursulines.
The leaders of the Nicean Empire consider Gregory's proposal. Of course they want Constantinople back, but after years of being a punching-bag for the Latin powers, the Orthodox Empire is doing fairly well on its own. Nicea had come a long way since its beginings as a refuge for the remnants of the Byzantine state. By 1260, it ruled much of the Balkan peninsula and held a great deal of the Aegean, as well as a significant swath of eastern Anatolia. John Vatatzes, the greatest of the Nicean emperors who preceded John IV and Michael VIII had done a lot to restore Byzantium's former strength. Most recently, in 1258, the Niceans had smashed an expedition against Thessalonica (the European capital of the Nicean Empire) by the combined forces of Despot Michael of Epirus and William of Villehardouin, the Latin Prince of Achaia. (Conrad of Sicily is, in this ATL, unavailable to form the third leg of the alliance as he did in OTL). Nicean forces then marched into Epirus and seized its capital at Arta.
In other words, Nicea is doing very well, thank you very much, and is not exactly desperate for Papal assistance at this point.
On the other hand ...
Michael Palaeogos is, like almost all of Christendom, thoroughly impressed by the extroverted but humble piety and sheer goodness of Gregory X. His magnanimity in giving over the St. Sophia did not go unnoted in Nicea. It would seem as if anyone could be the spiritual head of a united Church, it would be him. But Michael is no fool - this Pope is not immortal and the next could be in the more usual mold - an arrogant, bigoted Latin, with no respect or care for the Orthodox.
Gregory has other, less-spiritual, attributes that Michael takes note of. The message, while steeped in Christian friendship, conceals a blade. The Byzantines can be welcomed into Constantinople either as "communicants of the one, true Church," or they can try to take the city by "main force."
Michael Palaeogos has no doubt that his armies, once they are within the city's walls, can crush whatever feeble resistance that Baldwin could mount, but Gregory? Great armies march forth to do Gregory's bidding. The Sythians [Mongols, thanks Faelin] invade Egypt and Syria under his banner. Jaime I obtains Gregory's sanction to take Sicily from the Staufen. Michael is not particularly concerned about Sartak - he has established good relations with both the Khan of the Franks and the il-Khan Hulegu. But Jaime I of Aragon is another story. Jaime's ambitions seem to be boundless. He has constructed a formidable fleet and, with the fall of Sicily, now has a major presence not far from Nicean lands. Not to mention the fact that there are a variety of local rulers who would provide him with a beachhead from which to attack Byzantine territory.
No, Gregory's offer cannot be dismissed out of hand. But neither can it be accepted. The recovery of Constantinople is seen as a divine mission for the Orthodox, and subjecting them to the dominion of the red-hatted cardinals at their moment of triumph would cause morale to collapse and sink the faithful into a sea of discord. Not just among the rank-and-file, either. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Arsenius Autoreianus, currently in self-imposed exile (for reasons too peripheral to go into detail here), would certainly condemn any move towards union with the Latins. Arsenius was violently anti-Catholic and Gregory's attempt at reconciliation between the two Churches had not softened his attitude. So, Michael could count on the Patriarch leading the resistence. He just did not need this kind of headache, not now when he was on the verge of having it all.
But he needed to tread carefully. In his reply, he thanks His Holiness the Pope for his good wishes. He also praises Gregory for all his efforts on behalf of the Orthodox of Constantinople, particularly the return of St. Sophia. After winding his way through a lot of flowery verbage, he gets to the point - although he can promise that representatives the Orthodox Church would attentively and respectively attend the Great Council that Gregory has planned, with an eye towards reconciliation, he cannot promise to bring the Church under Latin authority at this point. His response is sealed and sent, and he awaits a response with some trepidation.
Pope Gregory X is disappointed but not suprised by the Emperor's response. The Latin Kingdom of Constantinople is very clearly on its last legs, and the keys to a city that will inevitably fall is not much of an incentive to deal. He needs to salvage something out of this, so he does - he sends a reply to Michael which emphasizes his joy at the Orthodox acceptance of a place at the Great Council table while downplaying Michael's rejection of the offer of Constantinople.
After that, all he can do is wait. It is not a comfortable wait. There are no secrets in Constantinople, and word of Gregory's offer soon reaches Baldwin's ears. After much dithering, he starts making oblique suggestions to his entourage (by now not much more than a corporal's guard) that someone rid him of Gregory, but he is greeted with silence and embarassed coughs. Nobody is going to risk that kind of heat for Baldwin.
Finally, the day comes. In July of 1261, General Alexius Strategopolous [now _that's_ a name for a general] leads a Nicean army to the walls of Constantinople. His men infiltrate the city and open the postern gate. The Byzantines pour into the city. Baldwin, true to form, flees for his life, escaping with his retinue in a Venetian merchantman. The Venetians feel the wrath of the vengeful Greeks, who burn them out of their houses and godowns. There is, however, no general massacre, no matter how much the Latin occupiers have brought it on themselves. Venetian ships carry the Latin refugees to safety.
Pope Gregory, for his part, stands on the steps of the church of St. Irene in his simple white cassock and awaits the conquerors with the serenity of a man who is at peace with God. Despite the dire warnings of what could happen to him if he falls into Greek hands, he refuses to leave Constantinople. For one thing, he has decided that he will be safer in Michael Palaeogos' hands than in the care of the Venetians. Also, if there is to be any hope of reconciliation between the Western and Eastern Churches, he must show that he trusts the Orthodox.
The first Byzantine soldiers who encounter the Pope, upon being told who he is, fall to their knees to pay him awestruck homage, until rousted to their feet by angry officers. The meeting between General Strategopolous and Pope Gregory X is respectful, but cool on both their parts. The Latin Pope does not pretend that he is a supplicant in Constantinople, present by the leave of anyone, and the Greek General does not pretend that the Pope has any claim to his allegiance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is what was going to be the answer to the cliff hanger at the end of ch 36:
The Doge asked the Khan to invade Sicily, to take it from Aragon, and the Khan does. This sets off a nasty chain of events. The Pope, who authorized King Jaime of Aragon to take it in the first place, writes a blistering letter to Sartak, condemning his action. Sartak, goaded by conservative Mongols who say "I told you so" over the Pope's "arrogance" in thinking he can judge a Khan, breaks with the Pope, severing the Catholic church within the Empire and directing the election of a more compliant Pope, who will preside in Rome, in kind of a Vatican City type arrangement. Sartak also cancels the Great Council, ending any prospect of reconciling the Reformed Church with the Catholic Church. Isolated in Constantinople, Gregory starts drifting even closer to the Greeks, desperate to form some kind of unified front against the schizmatic in Rome. This sets off events that leads the French to call a council and declare Gregory deposed and elect their own Pope. in the process, they declare that the King of France is the heir of the HR Emperor, and grant the King of France a power once purportedly held by the Emperor - to cast the first vote for Pope. So now there are three popes, with no signs that the situation will end any time soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is some continuation on the future:
where I was going generally ... kind of a multipolar world, without western hegemony. A Chinese Pacific, with at least 2 Chinese decended states in the Americas and a sparsely-populated Chinese Australia. An Islamic Brazil spun off of al-Andalus, which also endures as an Islamic 'Portugual'-type state.. A bunch of small states east of the Mississippi, a mixture of monarchies and Norse Commonwealths. several Vinlandic commonwealths through the Great Lakes region, down to the Ohio river. The Genoese Vivaldi brothers circumnavigate Africa and South America in the 1290s, breaking the Venetians' trade monopolies. the Venetians react (as they thought about doing OTL) by reviving the ancient Suez canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea.
the eventual downfall and diaspora of pagan Domstolland. same thing, but sooner, with Welsh Annwyfn (OTL's Alabama). Islamic Empire of Mali based on the slave trade in Western Africa. Byzantine power sustains itself in the Balkans and western Anatolia and owns a single valuable colony in the Ursulines - Argos, OTL's Greneda. no Ottomans - eastern and central anatolia is devastated by a series of wars between the il-Khanate and the Khanate of the Franks, and does not turn into a threat against the Byzantines.
reversal of the unification of France after a Mongol invasion, with Castille ruling Gascony and Aragon ruling Languedoc. can't decide if I was going to give Normandy back to England or not. Joan of Arc winds up driving the Mongol occupiers out, but not reunifying the country.
An English commonwealth or severely limited monarchy developing after Simon de Montforte. the collapse of the Khanate of the Franks as a unified entity once the Black Plague hits. Pagan Lithuania endures and expands in the Baltic and Eastern Europe. Resurgence of republican ideas in Europe in the 14thC, with a Roman Republic covering all of Italy. Unified Irish commonwealth by the end of the 14thC. Enduring and larger Christian presence in Northeast Africa - alt-Ethiopia includes much of OTL's Somalia and Sudan.
technology advances at a substantially faster clip in some areas. instead of an agricultural revolution based upon American crops as OTL, we have Chinese agricultural tech driving it. bronze and iron cannon are commonplace in the west by the mid 14thC, small arms - flintlock muskets by the end of the 14thC. the Scientific Revolution gets started with the collapse of Aristotle's worldview at the begining of the 14thC and the collision of ancient western learning and Chinese knowledge. steam engines in the 15thC, internal combustion in the 15th-16th. nuclear weapons in the 18th.
Christianity never re-unifies and is disestablished as a state religion pretty much everywhere by the 15thC, to the eventual relief of both the Churches and States.
eventually, the papacy in Constantinople is abandoned, and we are down to two popes - a French one and one obedient to the Khan. the remainder of the Catholic world (Iberia, England) has fluctuating allegiances, largely depending upon how their relations with the Khanate are at the moment. the Khanate collapses among Mongol nobles, much like the Golden Horde did in OTL, and some European control - primarily commonwealths and republics. the old noble families, and even some up and comers like the Hapsburgs, can no longer command any allegiance.
European states are powers in the world, England has a couple of colonies on the E. Seaboard of UT, and the Iberian powers have a major presence in the Ursulines, UT and Terranova. Venetian power fades as the English and Iberians, and later the Italian Republic, rise. they are very active in overseas trade, but no one is in a position as OTL to try to dominate the Indian Ocean or impose themselves upon China. Japan, BTW, is conquered by the Mongols - the first invasion by Khubilai succeeds.
The crusader states are eventually overrun by the il-Khanate. the same problem as OTL - not enough manpower. once the Khanate of the Franks collapses, they no longer have the support from Europe that they need. When the Khanate fragments, the Mongol rulers in Egypt happen to be Islamic, so they simply rule in their own name.
Islam is complicated - the center of the religion shifts to al-Andalus. It is the richest and most cosmopolitan part of dar al-Islam. sustained contact with the Christians and Chinese and the end of the reconquesta leads to the mellowing of Andalusian Islam. more reconciled to science and pluralism.
Christianity benefits from the Constantinople papacy - it conducts aggressive missionary activity in southern India, which by the late 14thC has a very substantial Christian population.
).