Could you quote the law of Iceland forbidding towns?
Norway has always had separate farms, and no villages except towns. Iceland simply followed suit. Whereas Denmark had villages, and so did much of Sweden.
Iron and Longships, A Vinland TL
- Thread starter Evilprodigy
- Start date
Norway has always had separate farms, and no villages except towns. Iceland simply followed suit. Whereas Denmark had villages, and so did much of Sweden.
Evilprodigy
Donor
It's unfortunate you missed that until now, it's a main part of the TL.
Oh well, it's too late now, I would need to re-write so much of this that I'm just not going to bother.
Pretend Vinlandic people just didn't find it out of dumb luck or something
Pretty absurd.
While Iceland did accord privileged legal position to Greenlanders, treating them as less alien than other Norse, Iceland never claimed Greenland as extension of Iceland, and Greenland was never represented on Alting of Iceland. And Erik never acted as a ruler of Iceland either. Both Iceland and Erik accepted that the settlers of Greenland were emigrants from Iceland.
Vinland will be completely independent on Greenland from the start. Probably more independent than the Western Settlement from Eastern. (BTW, how exactly was the Western Settlement participating in the Greenland thing?)
Evilprodigy
Donor
Iceland wasn't mentioned at all in the post you quoted. Why are you talking about it?
Because the OTL, and TTL 985-1000, relationships between Greenland and Iceland will be the precedent Vinland and Greenland will look at to decide how to get along.
Evilprodigy
Donor
I see.
Well Vinland did act independently of Greenland as per the post you quoted. It's just the difference of De Jure and De Facto, especially since Leif Eriksson's the 'royalty' of Greenland, claiming land and making settlements and all that stuff would be an expansion of his and his family's domain, especially if they want more money and power.
Even the Spanish who were crazy Holier-Then-Thou named things in their native tounge. Its like this period the only ones who actually knew Latin were priests.
Evilprodigy
Donor
Oh shit you are right about that, priests were very adamant about Latin being the language of the lord and all that jazz.
Dammit stop being right you guys
I'll just call it Nyrland, its the same thing, just in Old Norse.
No. I'm sure it was in Íslendinga Saga
http://books.google.com/books?id=tu...&resnum=7&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false
I have (or had) a copy, but I don't think I've seen it since we moved and may have been destroyed in a flood.
The Vikings are nowher that dumb! Cartier wasn´t, either. The Vikings are no stranger to chains of big lakes - Thingvallavatn in Iceland, Öyeren and Mjösa on Glomma, Vänern, Mälaren, Vättern, Ladoga, Ilmen, Onega, Belozero, etc.
The Norse are used to following rivers inland, and the shallow draught longships got pretty far up the rivers of Western Europe without any portaging at all. They got up Neva without stopping till the rapids of Volkhov. They will figure out they have a big river by the time they reach Quebec Narrows (and they will not miss the fresh water, they will check whether they need to go ashore to find drinking water from the tributaries). So no portages before Lachine rapids.
Portages will come between Montreal Island and Galop Island.
Lake Ontario is no bigger than Ladoga.
As far as travel options go, it would seem to me that Cape Breton Island would be a central place good for further exploration and trade. Especially Boularderie Island....
Evilprodigy
Donor
STATE OF EUROPE FROM 1028 TO 1078
North Sea Empire
This Empire was founded by King Cnut the Great who united the crowns of England, Denmark, and Norway under one ruler and vassalized the rest of Britannia as well as Sweden and Pomerania. The actual name of this state is the Kingdom of England, Denmark, the Norwegians and some of the Swedes after the title of the King. It is called the North Sea Empire to give it a simpler name even though the leader is not an Emperor but a King.
In the years since Cnut the Great’s founding of the Empire it has gone through 2 civil wars, both having to do with the succession of the King. When Cnut died in 1037 his son Harthacnut easily gained England, Denmark, and the British vassals. However Sweden and Norway did not obey his rule. The death of the Norwegian Royal family led to infighting in the nation as lords bickered over who would become king and Harthacnut easily defeated the fragmented rulers and removed them from their positions, replacing them with more loyal Anglo-Saxon and Danish lords.
In Sweden Harthacnut led both a land campaign and a sea one to take down the nation. The land based one overran much of south and western Sweden while the Sea one took the capital in the east and the Swedish King Anund Jakob capitulated. Cnut’s son took vassalage of Sweden as his prize, taking from Sweden its right to do anything as a nation, especially foreign policy, and when its king died in 1050 Harthacnut took its crown by force.
When Harthacnut got married to an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman and had a son they named John he secured the inheritance of his kingdom and when he died in 1057 John had to deal with Sweden rebelling and an invasion from Wales. King John I dealt with the invasion from the rebellious Welsh vassals by new cavalry tactics to subvert the advantage they had in archers. John annexed Wales and Cornwall and replaced their lords with Anglo-Saxon ones as had become a trend with the kings of the North Sea Empire. He then ordered his men to go and subvert Sweden again and they did just that after 5 years of war and John also removed the lords from power but he let them live, they moved across the Baltic to Finland and established their own independent nation by taking over the Finns there. The Swedes, being lords, had money and weaponry and armour to take over Finland but not enough to take anything more so they spend the rest of their time establishing their rule while John did the same in his Empire other than when the ruling Dynasty of Normandy died out, resulting in John claiming it’s throne due to his grandfather Cnut’s wife Emma of Normandy. It was a weak claim but he did take it over and the instability in France made that easy to do.
Kingdom of France
France was the successor state to West Francia, a successor state to the empire of the great Charlemagne. France however was perhaps one of the most decentralized states in Europe and the ‘King’, if you could even call him that, was the count of Paris and commanded loyalty of De Facto independent lords across the region of France and part of Iberia. Every new king would normally try to increase their personal power somehow and then the lords would revolt and go back to the way it was before. This created political deadlock in France where nothing could be done and it wasn’t too uncommon for lords to invade other nations independently of the King. In particular was an attempted invasion of the Caliphate of Córdoba by Catalonia that resulted in them being annexed into the Muslim nation due to the King not wanting to go to war over it, but he was able to get payment from the Muslims for avoiding war.
When France had a king die it slowly became common for some lord to do something stupid, like invade Córdoba, or even declare independence. It was during one of these times that Brittany declared independence of France and actually won it by beating back armies from Normandy led by the Duke, who was killed in the battle of Rennes in 1059. Around 1072 the king of France died again but this time there was no stupid thing although Normandy’s dukes also died out around this time and while the French king was still getting into his position and dealing with his rebellious lords John I invaded Normandy and took it from France, claiming himself as it’s Duke but cutting that title’s ties with France.
Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba is a Muslim ruled nation in Iberia that also commands the loyalty of Morocco. By the 1000’s Córdoba was starting to get a bit unstable but that trend went away rather quickly when the Caliph al-Hakam II didn’t die like people thought he would (OTL difference from ITTL) and continued to rule until his son Hashim II came of age. When his son took leadership of the nation he led it to go and take over Morocco and gain more access to trade from it. At the time they already had vassalage from parts of Morocco as well as ownership of important ports there like Tangiers. The invasion succeeded in establishing Córdoba’s direct rule over Morocco and they started to get more involved in the Trans-Sahara trade routes than they were already.
During this invasion Catalonia tried to invade them when France was going through instability from the death of their King and it was annexed after a quick war due to Catalonia’s incompetence on the field and their failure to get any help from other nations, although the Caliph of Córdoba had to pay the King of France for the title to rule Catalonia since he did not want an invasion from France while they were busy subjugating Morocco.
Córdoba (the city) is the largest one in the world with a population of around 450,000 with an economy based off of trade in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Sahara. They have some of the largest gold reserves in Europe from mines in Iberia and from the Sahara trade routes. The nation is very multi-ethnic and multi-religious for the time period. Al-Andalus, the European part of the Caliphate, had a more than 80% Muslim population in around 1000 Anno Domini (OTL statistic), before the annexation of Catalonia gave them more Catholics. The nation had a 5% Jewish population that lived mostly segregated from the Muslim and Catholic population in their own communities. Catholics were rather quick to convert to Islam to get away from paying the Jizya tax or because of the splendor and grandeur that Islam was being shown in inside the Caliphate. Even Christians that did not convert became more and more Arabized in either culture and came to be known as Mozarabs which directly translates to Arabized, meaning they had adopted the Arabic language and it’s customs.
The Royalty of the Caliphate was originally of Arabic-Berber descent but all later rulers were the sons of harem wives and concubine slaves that were almost always taken from northern Al-Andalus. The tenth ruler of the Umayyad Dynasty, Hashim II, was of no more than 0.1% Arab descent but his Y chromosome would still be fully Arab in origin. The Kingdom of Leon-Castile to the north by 1078, in the rule of Hashim IV, was divided and raids were crossing the border regularly as the kings of the region lost control of their subjects.
Kingdom of Leon-Castile
This Kingdom was made up of several kingdoms (not just the two in the name) and was of questionable stability. In 1034 the King died without and heir and the kingdom split in two, both rule by separate illegitimate brothers. They were the kingdom of Leon and the Kingdom of Castile. When the King of Leon died on 1047 his brother claimed his throne and invaded but in doing so the County of Portugal and the Duchy of Galicia declared independence and beat back the armies of the brother. When he died in 1059 the kingdom split again between brothers and within the span of two rulers the Kingdom of Leon-Castile was fractured into 4 separate nations all fighting and arguing with each other. These nations were some of the poorest and least populated in Europe, battles that decided the fates of these kingdoms often came down to the hundreds of men as a testament to how little they could afford militarily. As the century dragged on the kings slowly lost control of their subjects and there were many raids across the border into the Caliphate of Córdoba by the year 1078.
Holy Roman Empire
While not Holy or Roman or even an Empire the Holy Roman Empire was the strongest Christian nation in continental Europe. However the nation was plagued with decentralization, succession issues, and racial tensions. Eventually the Holy Roman Emperor William ‘the compromiser’ from the Liudolfing dynasty that ruled the Empire decided that the only way for the nation to be stable and strong was to further centralize it to be De Jure hereditary, rather than De Facto hereditary. He passed the law of Erbkaisertum that made the nation hereditary in the 1030’s after lengthy debates with the nobility and The Pope. The Pope only agreed on the condition that he gains some of the Empire’s territory in Italy under direct control of the Papal States. The Pope gained control of Romagna, Pentapolis, and Spoleto but the Holy Roman Empire has a duty to protect the Papacy. There were many revolts in the empire over the past 50 years and Bohemia declared independence as a result, which the Empire allowed due to rebellions in the Netherlands, and they inherited the Obotrites to the north as well. It’s still rather unstable and Italy isn’t very happy due to its focus on Germany but it could go either way in terms of stability or collapse.
Byzantine Empire
Otherwise known as the East Roman Empire, Rhomania, or just the Roman Empire this Empire (lots of Empires huh?) was in the middle of a period of resurgence and revival under the Macedonian Dynasty that gave them a succession of able emperors. The nation had taken over the Empire of Bulgaria fully and reconquered most of the Balkans by 1028. It continued to do that, taking over regions in OTL Serbia and Montenegro from the small fragmented nations there, some of them vassals. The Empire sponsored colonization efforts in Vallachia and the Crimea to bring the regions under control of the empire to produce more food for the growing Constantinople. The Roman Empire is the most urbanized of any nation in Europe as well as one of the strongest in terms of cultural and artistic influence. The nation was able to vassalize and eventually annex southern Italy due to the events in the Holy Roman Empire with the exception of the Emirate of Sicily who they were only able to take Malta from. Sicily turned to Tunis for protection and it was enough to prevent them from being annexed by the resurgent Romans.
Kievan Rus’
The Kievan Rus’ isn’t exactly the best place on earth with its treatment of its population. You wouldn’t want to live in this place that’s for sure. The nation is very sparsely populated, filled with nomads, and in the middle of its conversion to Orthodox Christianity. This country is extremely isolationist as well and normally doesn’t conduct diplomacy with any nation other than the Romans for the appointment of bishops. They are mostly focused on colonization in areas north and east. It is also slowly but surely veering towards a trend of its nobility being more and more independent to the point that it’s more decentralized as France.
Kingdom of Hungary
The Magyars don’t normally do too much but they were able to invade the Croatians in 1056, giving them a coast in the Adriatic and as a result fell under the influence of Venice, gaining a significant amount of trade deals with the nation. Venice is using its trade deals with Hungaria to expand their coffers to make their navy stronger to keep their trade routes clear of pirates. Hungaria also took over the two nations to their east, Ahtum and Ardil, in quick wars and is now dealing with the revolts that followed until even now in 1078. This gave them access to silver mines in Transylvania and has allowed the nation to increase its economy massively.
Fatimid Caliphate
This nation is practically not a nation anymore as it is in the middle of its decline period. Turkic invasions of Syria, Berber revolts in Tunisia and Libya, and Abbasids fighting for Sunni rule over the region, not Shia rule over it. Egypt however is more stable but suffering from political discontent as the Shia rulers of the nation are dealing with the Sunni population growing more and more religiously aware of their rulers.
North Sea Empire
This Empire was founded by King Cnut the Great who united the crowns of England, Denmark, and Norway under one ruler and vassalized the rest of Britannia as well as Sweden and Pomerania. The actual name of this state is the Kingdom of England, Denmark, the Norwegians and some of the Swedes after the title of the King. It is called the North Sea Empire to give it a simpler name even though the leader is not an Emperor but a King.
In the years since Cnut the Great’s founding of the Empire it has gone through 2 civil wars, both having to do with the succession of the King. When Cnut died in 1037 his son Harthacnut easily gained England, Denmark, and the British vassals. However Sweden and Norway did not obey his rule. The death of the Norwegian Royal family led to infighting in the nation as lords bickered over who would become king and Harthacnut easily defeated the fragmented rulers and removed them from their positions, replacing them with more loyal Anglo-Saxon and Danish lords.
In Sweden Harthacnut led both a land campaign and a sea one to take down the nation. The land based one overran much of south and western Sweden while the Sea one took the capital in the east and the Swedish King Anund Jakob capitulated. Cnut’s son took vassalage of Sweden as his prize, taking from Sweden its right to do anything as a nation, especially foreign policy, and when its king died in 1050 Harthacnut took its crown by force.
When Harthacnut got married to an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman and had a son they named John he secured the inheritance of his kingdom and when he died in 1057 John had to deal with Sweden rebelling and an invasion from Wales. King John I dealt with the invasion from the rebellious Welsh vassals by new cavalry tactics to subvert the advantage they had in archers. John annexed Wales and Cornwall and replaced their lords with Anglo-Saxon ones as had become a trend with the kings of the North Sea Empire. He then ordered his men to go and subvert Sweden again and they did just that after 5 years of war and John also removed the lords from power but he let them live, they moved across the Baltic to Finland and established their own independent nation by taking over the Finns there. The Swedes, being lords, had money and weaponry and armour to take over Finland but not enough to take anything more so they spend the rest of their time establishing their rule while John did the same in his Empire other than when the ruling Dynasty of Normandy died out, resulting in John claiming it’s throne due to his grandfather Cnut’s wife Emma of Normandy. It was a weak claim but he did take it over and the instability in France made that easy to do.
Kingdom of France
France was the successor state to West Francia, a successor state to the empire of the great Charlemagne. France however was perhaps one of the most decentralized states in Europe and the ‘King’, if you could even call him that, was the count of Paris and commanded loyalty of De Facto independent lords across the region of France and part of Iberia. Every new king would normally try to increase their personal power somehow and then the lords would revolt and go back to the way it was before. This created political deadlock in France where nothing could be done and it wasn’t too uncommon for lords to invade other nations independently of the King. In particular was an attempted invasion of the Caliphate of Córdoba by Catalonia that resulted in them being annexed into the Muslim nation due to the King not wanting to go to war over it, but he was able to get payment from the Muslims for avoiding war.
When France had a king die it slowly became common for some lord to do something stupid, like invade Córdoba, or even declare independence. It was during one of these times that Brittany declared independence of France and actually won it by beating back armies from Normandy led by the Duke, who was killed in the battle of Rennes in 1059. Around 1072 the king of France died again but this time there was no stupid thing although Normandy’s dukes also died out around this time and while the French king was still getting into his position and dealing with his rebellious lords John I invaded Normandy and took it from France, claiming himself as it’s Duke but cutting that title’s ties with France.
Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba is a Muslim ruled nation in Iberia that also commands the loyalty of Morocco. By the 1000’s Córdoba was starting to get a bit unstable but that trend went away rather quickly when the Caliph al-Hakam II didn’t die like people thought he would (OTL difference from ITTL) and continued to rule until his son Hashim II came of age. When his son took leadership of the nation he led it to go and take over Morocco and gain more access to trade from it. At the time they already had vassalage from parts of Morocco as well as ownership of important ports there like Tangiers. The invasion succeeded in establishing Córdoba’s direct rule over Morocco and they started to get more involved in the Trans-Sahara trade routes than they were already.
During this invasion Catalonia tried to invade them when France was going through instability from the death of their King and it was annexed after a quick war due to Catalonia’s incompetence on the field and their failure to get any help from other nations, although the Caliph of Córdoba had to pay the King of France for the title to rule Catalonia since he did not want an invasion from France while they were busy subjugating Morocco.
Córdoba (the city) is the largest one in the world with a population of around 450,000 with an economy based off of trade in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Sahara. They have some of the largest gold reserves in Europe from mines in Iberia and from the Sahara trade routes. The nation is very multi-ethnic and multi-religious for the time period. Al-Andalus, the European part of the Caliphate, had a more than 80% Muslim population in around 1000 Anno Domini (OTL statistic), before the annexation of Catalonia gave them more Catholics. The nation had a 5% Jewish population that lived mostly segregated from the Muslim and Catholic population in their own communities. Catholics were rather quick to convert to Islam to get away from paying the Jizya tax or because of the splendor and grandeur that Islam was being shown in inside the Caliphate. Even Christians that did not convert became more and more Arabized in either culture and came to be known as Mozarabs which directly translates to Arabized, meaning they had adopted the Arabic language and it’s customs.
The Royalty of the Caliphate was originally of Arabic-Berber descent but all later rulers were the sons of harem wives and concubine slaves that were almost always taken from northern Al-Andalus. The tenth ruler of the Umayyad Dynasty, Hashim II, was of no more than 0.1% Arab descent but his Y chromosome would still be fully Arab in origin. The Kingdom of Leon-Castile to the north by 1078, in the rule of Hashim IV, was divided and raids were crossing the border regularly as the kings of the region lost control of their subjects.
Kingdom of Leon-Castile
This Kingdom was made up of several kingdoms (not just the two in the name) and was of questionable stability. In 1034 the King died without and heir and the kingdom split in two, both rule by separate illegitimate brothers. They were the kingdom of Leon and the Kingdom of Castile. When the King of Leon died on 1047 his brother claimed his throne and invaded but in doing so the County of Portugal and the Duchy of Galicia declared independence and beat back the armies of the brother. When he died in 1059 the kingdom split again between brothers and within the span of two rulers the Kingdom of Leon-Castile was fractured into 4 separate nations all fighting and arguing with each other. These nations were some of the poorest and least populated in Europe, battles that decided the fates of these kingdoms often came down to the hundreds of men as a testament to how little they could afford militarily. As the century dragged on the kings slowly lost control of their subjects and there were many raids across the border into the Caliphate of Córdoba by the year 1078.
Holy Roman Empire
While not Holy or Roman or even an Empire the Holy Roman Empire was the strongest Christian nation in continental Europe. However the nation was plagued with decentralization, succession issues, and racial tensions. Eventually the Holy Roman Emperor William ‘the compromiser’ from the Liudolfing dynasty that ruled the Empire decided that the only way for the nation to be stable and strong was to further centralize it to be De Jure hereditary, rather than De Facto hereditary. He passed the law of Erbkaisertum that made the nation hereditary in the 1030’s after lengthy debates with the nobility and The Pope. The Pope only agreed on the condition that he gains some of the Empire’s territory in Italy under direct control of the Papal States. The Pope gained control of Romagna, Pentapolis, and Spoleto but the Holy Roman Empire has a duty to protect the Papacy. There were many revolts in the empire over the past 50 years and Bohemia declared independence as a result, which the Empire allowed due to rebellions in the Netherlands, and they inherited the Obotrites to the north as well. It’s still rather unstable and Italy isn’t very happy due to its focus on Germany but it could go either way in terms of stability or collapse.
Byzantine Empire
Otherwise known as the East Roman Empire, Rhomania, or just the Roman Empire this Empire (lots of Empires huh?) was in the middle of a period of resurgence and revival under the Macedonian Dynasty that gave them a succession of able emperors. The nation had taken over the Empire of Bulgaria fully and reconquered most of the Balkans by 1028. It continued to do that, taking over regions in OTL Serbia and Montenegro from the small fragmented nations there, some of them vassals. The Empire sponsored colonization efforts in Vallachia and the Crimea to bring the regions under control of the empire to produce more food for the growing Constantinople. The Roman Empire is the most urbanized of any nation in Europe as well as one of the strongest in terms of cultural and artistic influence. The nation was able to vassalize and eventually annex southern Italy due to the events in the Holy Roman Empire with the exception of the Emirate of Sicily who they were only able to take Malta from. Sicily turned to Tunis for protection and it was enough to prevent them from being annexed by the resurgent Romans.
Kievan Rus’
The Kievan Rus’ isn’t exactly the best place on earth with its treatment of its population. You wouldn’t want to live in this place that’s for sure. The nation is very sparsely populated, filled with nomads, and in the middle of its conversion to Orthodox Christianity. This country is extremely isolationist as well and normally doesn’t conduct diplomacy with any nation other than the Romans for the appointment of bishops. They are mostly focused on colonization in areas north and east. It is also slowly but surely veering towards a trend of its nobility being more and more independent to the point that it’s more decentralized as France.
Kingdom of Hungary
The Magyars don’t normally do too much but they were able to invade the Croatians in 1056, giving them a coast in the Adriatic and as a result fell under the influence of Venice, gaining a significant amount of trade deals with the nation. Venice is using its trade deals with Hungaria to expand their coffers to make their navy stronger to keep their trade routes clear of pirates. Hungaria also took over the two nations to their east, Ahtum and Ardil, in quick wars and is now dealing with the revolts that followed until even now in 1078. This gave them access to silver mines in Transylvania and has allowed the nation to increase its economy massively.
Fatimid Caliphate
This nation is practically not a nation anymore as it is in the middle of its decline period. Turkic invasions of Syria, Berber revolts in Tunisia and Libya, and Abbasids fighting for Sunni rule over the region, not Shia rule over it. Egypt however is more stable but suffering from political discontent as the Shia rulers of the nation are dealing with the Sunni population growing more and more religiously aware of their rulers.
Evilprodigy
Donor
1: I am never doing this again, too much info in too little time, I am going to be more focused on a single nation or two when talking about Europe in the future.
2: Please excuse as many inaccuracies as you can, doing this was rather overwhelming and partway through I stopped being as thorough in my research and more or less just wanted to say what happened in the time between 1028-1078 and get it over with rather than make it a detailed story.
2: Please excuse as many inaccuracies as you can, doing this was rather overwhelming and partway through I stopped being as thorough in my research and more or less just wanted to say what happened in the time between 1028-1078 and get it over with rather than make it a detailed story.
I like your TL pretty much but not the part concerning Kievan Rus.
I can't see how a diverging point so par away managed to change the course of Russian history so drammatically. There are a lot of differences with OTL because in OTL:
1) The treatment of population was not as bad as you imagine. At least it was much better than in most parts of Europe. There was no serfdom and the magority( or at least large parts) of population were literate and had the terrible habit to wash themselfs. Say Anna Yaroslavovna who married a French king wrote that Paris was a dirty village comparing to Kiev or any other major Russian town. In fact the middle of 11th century is the golden age of Rus history.
2) The density of population is indeed not too high but the territory is not "filled with nomads". In fact nomads while raiding Rus were succesfully beaten in most cases and Russians expanded into steppes quite rapidly. Say borders of Prinsipality of Pereyaslavl ( which helds the most of Rus borders with nomads) moved from Sula river to Samara River( the one that is Dniepr tributary) in the course of 11th century. And the main way to distinguish Russian terriory from steppes in fact was that nomads were not present on Russian territory.
3) This country wasn't isolationist. In fact it was one of very few periods when Russian had a lot of foreign contacts. Say Russian ruling hose in this period was married to most of ruling dinasties in other Europe. Say the three daughters of Yaroslav the Wise married three different Kings. One became the Wife of Henry I of France( the alreadymentioned Anna Yaroslavovna), the other one married the Hungarian King Andrew I and the last one Harald Hardrada( which can be butterflied). One of Yaroslav's sons married the sister of Casimir I of Poland, the other three were married on German, Austrian and Bythantine princesses. And yaroslav himself was married on the daugter of Olaf Eriksson of Sweden. And the trend of marrying European princes and princesses was due all the time before mongols came. Doesn't look too isolationistic for me.
4)While Kievan Rus indeed colonised the north-east( area around Vladimir) the most efforts of the state were concentrated in the South- cleaning steppes from nomads and settling them.
5)The middle of 11th century is the most centralised period of Rus history. And the state was pretty centralised before the death of Mstislav The Great (1132). And even after that you can't say that nobility took the power. The state dispersed but all the power was held in the hads of descendants of Vladimir Monomakh.
Of course some of the facts can change in your TL( say marriage with Harald Hardrada). But I don't see who the emergance of Vinland colony could change Russian history THAT much.
Evilprodigy
Donor
You clearly know far more about Russian history than I do and as i said in the post above yours, partway though I stopped being as thorough in my research and more just wanted to say what happened as a mater of fact rather than explain the whole thing in detail.
My point for the Kievan Rus' is that they are being more decentralized and splitting up into multiple nations sooner than OTL. How would you suggest I go about doing that then? Since by OTL 1100 that was the state of Russia, multiple nations, and I want to continue that.
My point for the Kievan Rus' is that they are being more decentralized and splitting up into multiple nations sooner than OTL. How would you suggest I go about doing that then? Since by OTL 1100 that was the state of Russia, multiple nations, and I want to continue that.
What exactly is the POD then? I thought it was the colonization of Vinland, but I don't see how all these changes are occuring because of that.
If you're going to do multiple divergences that aren't related to each other then maybe they should be seperate stories. I'm not saying this to be a prick or anything, but I don't believe that you should just change anything you like because it's cool and what not. Just focus on Vinland and the changes that are a result there of.
This is just my opinion. It is, of course, your story.
If you're going to do multiple divergences that aren't related to each other then maybe they should be seperate stories. I'm not saying this to be a prick or anything, but I don't believe that you should just change anything you like because it's cool and what not. Just focus on Vinland and the changes that are a result there of.
This is just my opinion. It is, of course, your story.
That's my point though, if these are butterflies, then how did the POD cause them. So far there are butterflies in Spain and Russia and I didn't really see how the colonization of Vinland led to them. If a butterfly did not cause the change then the change in history is called a point of divergence. I think there are three and counting in this story.
Evilprodigy
Donor
It has been 78 years since the initial POD's in Scandinavia that made Vinland succeed, Cnut make his Empire stable, and all that stuff. Most of what I stated is OTL with minor differences due to butterflies that became big changes overtime. In particular the redistribution of Viking raids away from England and towards France, Germany, and Iberia.