Crusade!? immediately after schism? I can't believe it working that fast. One day Hans is told to love his Eastern brothers, and the next to raise troops against the heretical miscreants? ??? I really think you need to let the hostility build. Also, just 'cause the Pope has a bee in his bonnet doesn't mean that 10s of thousands of people will sign up.Information about the Pope’s half-brother Harald (OTL Harald III of Norway)
John XX’s brother, Harald, was a wanderer to whatever his fancy was. At first, he was a warrior like his half-brother with the Jomsvikings. Next, he was a priest under Óláfr in Níðárós. After that began to bore him, he decided to go to Constantinople to join the Varangian Guard with a group of men in 1033. He makes that his living for 9 years, until he is imprisoned by Empress Zoe (who doesn’t know who his brother is) for misappropriation of funds. Her husband, Constantine IX, lets him go, but won’t let him leave the country after Harald asks to go home. Hatred develops between the two parties, and eventually Harald secretly escapes in the dead of night and travels disguised as a merchant until he reaches Saxony. He then rights a letter to his half-brother </SPAN>Óláfr who is now a Cardinal Protopriest. He tells him of his time in Constantinople, and his half-brother begins to despise them for their deeds, unbeknownst to his fellow clergy. Harald becomes a Jarl in Norway after the letter and a bodyguard for King Tryggve and his son Óláfr II.
Pope John XX’s Papacy
When Óláfr becomes Pope John XX in 1047, he is looking for any excuse to excommunicate the Byzantine Empire, not only for their treatment of his family, but also for the differences between their churches. For the beginning of John’s pontificate there is no reason, and instead he restructures the Church. He gives the Pope more power, and sends a lot of missionaries to what we now call Finland, and also the Middle East in Jerusalem and other important cities.
However, eventually the Pope gets a reason to excommunicate the Byzantines in 1054. When the Patriarch of Constantinople writes a letter to the Western Church condemning them for their “Judaist” practices and their use of unleavened bread, John XX feels that this is sufficient enough for even to call a Crusade against the heathens, saying “The infidel will keep converting honest Christians into so called “Orthodox” Christians. We must destroy them before they do so in the name of God. I ask all of the true Christendom to fight the Byzantines and enforce Catholicism on their heretical views.” While some of the western clergy feels this has gone too far, most of Europe is ready to fight the non-Catholics as a way to get back at the major superpower of the day and vengeance for their earlier invasions i.e. Justinian I’s invasion. The armies of Christendom ignore Novgorod, (who has also joined the Byzantines in becoming Orthodox) leaving the Norse to deal with them, as they aren’t as important.
The First Crusade and Events Right Afterwards
The biggest major world leader supporter of the First Crusade is Duke William of Normandy, who is a friend of the Pope’s. (Instead of Pope Leo IX, who didn’t approve of William in his marriage to the Princess of Flanders Matilda. Pope John XX tends to be friendlier to the Viking nations during his Papacy, and Normandy is one of those nations.) Duke William amasses an 18,000 (16,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry) man Crusader army to fight the infidels, while the rest of Christendom amasses 14,000 under various kings. The next biggest army is the French army under King Henry I, whom has an 8,000 man army. The two leaders have had an unstable relationship in the recent past, but the Crusade brings back their friendship that they had in 1047, and the two work closely together. Other participants include a Norwegian-English coalition of 4,000 men under Jarl Harald (given permission to have the funds for the army by King Óláfr II of Norway) and the Anglo-Saxon Prince Edward II (brother of Edmund II and uncle to King Edward III, or Edward the Exile in OTL), the Pope’s half-brother, and a Kievan Rus-Polish-Hungarian coalition army with another 2,000 under Mieszko II’s son Mieszko III. The Holy Roman Empire is the only Catholic country that decides not to participate at all in the Crusade; even the Spanish kingdoms lend funds to the Pope for the Crusade. (Likely due to the presence of the Empress Theodora)
The crusader armies reach Constantinople in a year. The Norman army during the journey conquered Byzantine Italy, and the Rus-Polish-Hungarian forces conquer much of Greece. The Crusader armies have over double the military force outside of Constantinople than the Byzantines have in it; 32,000 to around 15,000. However, this balance is near equaled when they have to face the prospect of their walls. Many perish, including Mieszko III of Poland. (His son Boleslaw II is now King of Poland) The unquestionable leader of the force is William, and slowly he leads them to victory in Constantinople. The losses: the Crusaders 25,000, the Byzantines 12,000.
After the victory, almost all of the Crusader armies leave, except for William and his Normans, and Jarl Harald, who became a friend of William as well during the Crusade, partly because of their viking heritage. William wishes to rebuild the Byzantine Empire into a Catholic Empire, breathing life back into the dying Empire. With Papal support he is allowed to rebuild Byzantium as a completely Catholic nation again, with all of the conquered Crusader territories except for Southern Italy, which is now ruled by the Norman Kingdom of Naples. He first systematically murders all of the major Greek Orthodox leaders and all of the members of the Macedonian dynasty within the empire, sparing just Theodora, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.
Almost ironically, two weeks after hearing of Catholicism’s victory in the First Crusade, Pope John XX dies at age 60. His successor is Pope Honestus I, who was a minor Italian supporter of Pope John XX.
On a different note, I will update my previous post to include a brief history of Poland during Tryggve’s reign, which I realized I forgot while in the middle of writing this one.
Please give me comments!![]()
OTL the Crusades were all about 'reclaiming the Holy Land'. Suppressing heresy was the Inquisition's job (to oversimplify). Even the 4th Crusade, which took Constantinople wasn't about heresy - originally, it was about the Italian transport refusing to take them to the Holy Land until they'd taken Jerusalem.
I'm not saying you can't have a Crusade (you do have the example of the Albigensian crusade in OTL, although wasn't structured like the Outremer ones), what I am saying is you can't have one so fast. The pope has to get people behind him.