Maybe you could do a Russia-related list? Maybe something about a lasting Godunov Dynasty?
List of monarchs III
- Thread starter Shiva
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This thread is wayyy too christian-centric, so i choose something different.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
Why was a "vote" on what the next thread should be posted, but then the votes/opinions summarily ignored?
POD: Theodora Porphyrogenita born a boy and succeeds Constantine VIII after he dies
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
[6]
Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform _____________, Alexios' successor of his death.
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
[1]Emperor Romanos III was born in 980 as the only son of Constantine VIII, the younger brother of Basil II. From a young age, he displayed a great deal of intelligence and strength with Basil II taking a strong interest in his nephew, well-aware owing to his reluctance to marry that he would one day take the throne. As a young man, Romanos would be at Basil's side both at war and at peace with the young man "learning the ropes" at the side of his uncle during the last 30 years of his reign.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2]
Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's succcesor....
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislations of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, railled to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days suceeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsucessfull. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall hells over for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil_____________ would be the new Emperor.
[5]
Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2]
Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's succcesor....
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislations of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, railled to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days suceeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsucessfull. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall hells over for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil_____________ would be the new Emperor.
[5]
Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
[6]
Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform _____________, Alexios' successor of his death.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007-1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor ________.
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007-1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor ________.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by __________.
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by __________.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, ____________ would see the conclusion of the North African War.
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, ____________ would see the conclusion of the North African War.
POD: Theodora Porphyrogenita born a boy and succeeds Constantine VIII after he dies
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1150-1209: Isaac I 'Moor-Killer' (Macedonian Dynasty) [7] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
[7] Born in the first years of the marriage of Emperor Alexios and Zoe Komnene's marriage, Isaac of Macedonia was a brash child that developed into an agressive, head-strong adult, known for his martial ability. A man of war, Isaac was taking part of the military apparatus of his father's Empire at a young age, but the strict nature of his mother guaranteed the Empire would have an Emperor that at least knew his letters and numbers, and the basis of administration. Just a year before the death of his father, young Isaac would marry Maria of Jerusalem, sister of young Baldwin the II of Jerusalem. Their marriage would prove quintessensial to Isaac's reign, as it would be Maria that would rule the Empire day-to-day, especially during the first decades of Isaac's reign.
Known for his ferocious temper, Isaac's reign started with a shake-up of the military when during a meeting he was so angered at what he felt was the incompetence of his generals that he almost strangled one on the spot. After being calmed down by his wife and widowed mother, Isaac would go through one of his rare moments of administrative genius' and re-worked the Rhoman military system from top to below, reforming the Themes and re-establishing permanent armies, who were constantly reinforced by trainees coming from the Themata system. This gave Constantinople a military edge over it's neighbours, whom would soon see the new system of the Empire put to test. An avid patron of military reformists, inventors and strategists, he would reform Byzantine military leadership to a level of talent not seen in many years, with himself at the helm. His patronage of arsenals, armories and foundries over his Empire would see the introduction of new ways of crafting weapons, alongside the introduction of crossbows, longbows and mongol bows into the Byzantine military system. Byzantine inventors would also discover ways to standardize the use of Greek fire and ease it's use in both naval and land battles, and would copy Chinese recipes to invent gunpowder.
Isaac's reign, however, is more know for his military achievements than his military reforms. Isaac's first major war was his invasion of the Principality of Jerusalem in 1157, to make sure that his wife was not passed over and the Franco-Levantines would not elect one of their own as Prince of Jerusalem. In the battles of Caesarea and Hebron, Isaac would handily defeat the Crusader lords who opposed his and his wife's joint ascention, securing Jerusalem proper in 1158. Despite protests from the papacy, Byzantine coin and Isaac's generosity and similarity in temperament to much of the Frankish lords eased the integration of the Crusader state into the Eastern Roman Empire, of which many Crusader lords would rise to important posts in the next years.
In Damascus, the only Syrian major city to remain in infidel hands, Nur ad-Din, a Turkish emir who claimed the title of Sword of Allah to bring down the Christian Empire in the levant, attempted to support the anti-Isaac coalition of Frankish nobles to make sure that the Empire and the Principality could never unite, but in his quest fell under the attention of Isaac, who invaded Nur ad-Din's Emirate in 1160, sieging down Damascus and killing the man, and when his sons and officers retreated to Mosul in Upper Mesopotamia, Isaac followed, annexing the region wholesale and destroying whatever Islamic resistance remained in Syria, Assyria (Upper Mesopotamia) and Palestine. Not blind to the necessity of force in pacifying the region, Isaac revoked Basil the IV's edict of tolerance, going on campaign of essentiall extermination against the Bedouin tribes that inhabited the Syrian desert, chasing them down so they would not be able to form the backbone of any Islamic revolt in the near future. With his campaigns of "pacification" mostly ended five years into the second decade of his reign, Isaac's patronage of local Christians (Greeks, Maronites, Franks, Armenians, the ocasional Turkopole or Slav) and his harsh conversion measures (Harsh taxes on muslims, various societal limitations such as being forbidden from owning weapons or horses) served to stabilize the region, which grew more Christian by the year.
Isaac didn't sit on his laurels, however. When the Fatimid Caliphate fell to infighting, Isaac immediatelly pounced on the opportunity to reconquer Egypt, which he would do in 1176, usually with the support of local Sunni muslims and Coptic christians, whom became an important class in the new Byzantine Egypt. All of these conquests helped to propell the Byzantine economy to greater levels than before, something that would serve him greatly in the coming years.
Forced by his wife (and his nobility) to keep the Empire at peace at least for some years, Isaac returned to Constantinople, where he reunited with his wife and allowed his administrators some time to incorparate the new lands to proper Byzantine governance. In 1183, however, Maria of Jerusalem died giving birth to hers and Isaac's eight child, something that greatly agrieved the Emperor, who delegated what had once been Maria's responsability to the next people he trusted the most, his younger brothers Alexander, John and Andronikos, who, surprisingly for Byzantine standards, stayed loyal to their brother. At the insistence of his court, however, Isaac was forced to remarry. After failed negotiations with Sicily, Hungary and even with far off Castille failed, Isaac turned his eyes to the East and South, where he searched for a new wife. He eventually settled on Princess, ironically, Maria of Makuria, a very controversial choice at the time as contact between African and European Christians had been cut off for centuries now, but Isaac's reign is considered the beggining of Rhoman-Nubian-Abyssinian raproachement. Maria of Makuria, conscious of her delicate status to her utterly foreign appearance and culture, her different race and her Coptic christianity, remained a quiet Empress, but she proved a good support for Isaac, especially when his failures to invest lower Mesopotamia failed in 1193 and during his campaigns afterwards. Maria of Makuria would give birth to four children.
Isaac's final wars, however, were very late into his reign, where he decided to expand Byzantine power in the Black Sea. He held various diplomatic meetings with various Circassian tribes and the ruler of Alania, David Soslan, who, both being Christian and wishing for protection against the steppe peoples from the North, accepted Byzantine suzerainty peacefully, but to make up for it, Isaac would be forced to make war in the Steppe. After organizing an expedition against the Cumans from Crimea, Isaac stayed more than four years in the steppe, upon which he forced the Cumans to recognize his authority, but they never quite accepted it and they often non-commited their tribute to Constantinople.
Isaac died a tired man in 1209, ruler of a tired, but rejuvenated and organized Empire. He was succeeded by ___________.
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1150-1209: Isaac I 'Moor-Killer' (Macedonian Dynasty) [7] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
[1]Emperor Romanos III was born in 980 as the only son of Constantine VIII, the younger brother of Basil II. From a young age, he displayed a great deal of intelligence and strength with Basil II taking a strong interest in his nephew, well-aware owing to his reluctance to marry that he would one day take the throne. As a young man, Romanos would be at Basil's side both at war and at peace with the young man "learning the ropes" at the side of his uncle during the last 30 years of his reign.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2]
Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's succcesor....
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislations of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, railled to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days suceeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsucessfull. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall hells over for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil_____________ would be the new Emperor.
[5]
Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
[6]
Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform Isaac, Alexios' successor of his death.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2]
Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's succcesor....
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislations of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, railled to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days suceeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsucessfull. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall hells over for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil_____________ would be the new Emperor.
[5]
Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
[6]
Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform Isaac, Alexios' successor of his death.
Known for his ferocious temper, Isaac's reign started with a shake-up of the military when during a meeting he was so angered at what he felt was the incompetence of his generals that he almost strangled one on the spot. After being calmed down by his wife and widowed mother, Isaac would go through one of his rare moments of administrative genius' and re-worked the Rhoman military system from top to below, reforming the Themes and re-establishing permanent armies, who were constantly reinforced by trainees coming from the Themata system. This gave Constantinople a military edge over it's neighbours, whom would soon see the new system of the Empire put to test. An avid patron of military reformists, inventors and strategists, he would reform Byzantine military leadership to a level of talent not seen in many years, with himself at the helm. His patronage of arsenals, armories and foundries over his Empire would see the introduction of new ways of crafting weapons, alongside the introduction of crossbows, longbows and mongol bows into the Byzantine military system. Byzantine inventors would also discover ways to standardize the use of Greek fire and ease it's use in both naval and land battles, and would copy Chinese recipes to invent gunpowder.
Isaac's reign, however, is more know for his military achievements than his military reforms. Isaac's first major war was his invasion of the Principality of Jerusalem in 1157, to make sure that his wife was not passed over and the Franco-Levantines would not elect one of their own as Prince of Jerusalem. In the battles of Caesarea and Hebron, Isaac would handily defeat the Crusader lords who opposed his and his wife's joint ascention, securing Jerusalem proper in 1158. Despite protests from the papacy, Byzantine coin and Isaac's generosity and similarity in temperament to much of the Frankish lords eased the integration of the Crusader state into the Eastern Roman Empire, of which many Crusader lords would rise to important posts in the next years.
In Damascus, the only Syrian major city to remain in infidel hands, Nur ad-Din, a Turkish emir who claimed the title of Sword of Allah to bring down the Christian Empire in the levant, attempted to support the anti-Isaac coalition of Frankish nobles to make sure that the Empire and the Principality could never unite, but in his quest fell under the attention of Isaac, who invaded Nur ad-Din's Emirate in 1160, sieging down Damascus and killing the man, and when his sons and officers retreated to Mosul in Upper Mesopotamia, Isaac followed, annexing the region wholesale and destroying whatever Islamic resistance remained in Syria, Assyria (Upper Mesopotamia) and Palestine. Not blind to the necessity of force in pacifying the region, Isaac revoked Basil the IV's edict of tolerance, going on campaign of essentiall extermination against the Bedouin tribes that inhabited the Syrian desert, chasing them down so they would not be able to form the backbone of any Islamic revolt in the near future. With his campaigns of "pacification" mostly ended five years into the second decade of his reign, Isaac's patronage of local Christians (Greeks, Maronites, Franks, Armenians, the ocasional Turkopole or Slav) and his harsh conversion measures (Harsh taxes on muslims, various societal limitations such as being forbidden from owning weapons or horses) served to stabilize the region, which grew more Christian by the year.
Isaac didn't sit on his laurels, however. When the Fatimid Caliphate fell to infighting, Isaac immediatelly pounced on the opportunity to reconquer Egypt, which he would do in 1176, usually with the support of local Sunni muslims and Coptic christians, whom became an important class in the new Byzantine Egypt. All of these conquests helped to propell the Byzantine economy to greater levels than before, something that would serve him greatly in the coming years.
Forced by his wife (and his nobility) to keep the Empire at peace at least for some years, Isaac returned to Constantinople, where he reunited with his wife and allowed his administrators some time to incorparate the new lands to proper Byzantine governance. In 1183, however, Maria of Jerusalem died giving birth to hers and Isaac's eight child, something that greatly agrieved the Emperor, who delegated what had once been Maria's responsability to the next people he trusted the most, his younger brothers Alexander, John and Andronikos, who, surprisingly for Byzantine standards, stayed loyal to their brother. At the insistence of his court, however, Isaac was forced to remarry. After failed negotiations with Sicily, Hungary and even with far off Castille failed, Isaac turned his eyes to the East and South, where he searched for a new wife. He eventually settled on Princess, ironically, Maria of Makuria, a very controversial choice at the time as contact between African and European Christians had been cut off for centuries now, but Isaac's reign is considered the beggining of Rhoman-Nubian-Abyssinian raproachement. Maria of Makuria, conscious of her delicate status to her utterly foreign appearance and culture, her different race and her Coptic christianity, remained a quiet Empress, but she proved a good support for Isaac, especially when his failures to invest lower Mesopotamia failed in 1193 and during his campaigns afterwards. Maria of Makuria would give birth to four children.
Isaac's final wars, however, were very late into his reign, where he decided to expand Byzantine power in the Black Sea. He held various diplomatic meetings with various Circassian tribes and the ruler of Alania, David Soslan, who, both being Christian and wishing for protection against the steppe peoples from the North, accepted Byzantine suzerainty peacefully, but to make up for it, Isaac would be forced to make war in the Steppe. After organizing an expedition against the Cumans from Crimea, Isaac stayed more than four years in the steppe, upon which he forced the Cumans to recognize his authority, but they never quite accepted it and they often non-commited their tribute to Constantinople.
Isaac died a tired man in 1209, ruler of a tired, but rejuvenated and organized Empire. He was succeeded by ___________.
POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1041 - 1074: Iskender I (House of Umayyad) [5] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[5] Caliph Iskender was born as the younger brother of Abd Al-Rahman in 1024 and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong young man, distinguishing himself as a warrior during the final years of the North African War both as heir to the Caliphate and Caliph with the North African War being a decisive victory for the Andalusi, securing Andalusi control over the Maghreb with Morocco being annexed directly into Al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghreb being placed under the control of client emirs who maintained notional independence but were under Qurtubah's thumb.
In peace, Iskender's rule as Caliph would be marked by a continuation of his father's domestic policies with Mullwadi Islam being a faith which was defined during the rule of Iskender with, in addition to the use of Mozarabic in Al-Andalus, Berber being promoted in North Africa as part of the faith's emphasis on having the word of Allah be preached in the local language. In addition, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence would be associated with the Mullwadi sect, especially with its prominence in the areas ruled by the Umayyads and realms recognizing the Caliph of Qurtubah as the leader of the faith. In addition to formalizing and codifying the Mullwadi form of Islam, Iskender's reign would be marked by administrative reforms to centralize the government and strengthen the bureaucracy and a golden age of art and scholarship during his reign.
Iskender would marry the daughter of the Emir of Tunis with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1074 with ___________ succeeding him.
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1041 - 1074: Iskender I (House of Umayyad) [5] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by ________ with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] - Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, Iskender would see the conclusion of the North African War.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, Iskender would see the conclusion of the North African War.
[5] Caliph Iskender was born as the younger brother of Abd Al-Rahman in 1024 and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong young man, distinguishing himself as a warrior during the final years of the North African War both as heir to the Caliphate and Caliph with the North African War being a decisive victory for the Andalusi, securing Andalusi control over the Maghreb with Morocco being annexed directly into Al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghreb being placed under the control of client emirs who maintained notional independence but were under Qurtubah's thumb.
In peace, Iskender's rule as Caliph would be marked by a continuation of his father's domestic policies with Mullwadi Islam being a faith which was defined during the rule of Iskender with, in addition to the use of Mozarabic in Al-Andalus, Berber being promoted in North Africa as part of the faith's emphasis on having the word of Allah be preached in the local language. In addition, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence would be associated with the Mullwadi sect, especially with its prominence in the areas ruled by the Umayyads and realms recognizing the Caliph of Qurtubah as the leader of the faith. In addition to formalizing and codifying the Mullwadi form of Islam, Iskender's reign would be marked by administrative reforms to centralize the government and strengthen the bureaucracy and a golden age of art and scholarship during his reign.
Iskender would marry the daughter of the Emir of Tunis with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1074 with ___________ succeeding him.
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POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1041 - 1074: Iskender I (House of Umayyad) [5] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1074-1111: Omar II (House of Umayyad) [6] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by his son, Idris with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, Iskender would see the conclusion of the North African War.
[5] Caliph Iskender was born as the younger brother of Abd Al-Rahman in 1024 and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong young man, distinguishing himself as a warrior during the final years of the North African War both as heir to the Caliphate and Caliph with the North African War being a decisive victory for the Andalusi, securing Andalusi control over the Maghreb with Morocco being annexed directly into Al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghreb being placed under the control of client emirs who maintained notional independence but were under Qurtubah's thumb.
In peace, Iskender's rule as Caliph would be marked by a continuation of his father's domestic policies with Mullwadi Islam being a faith which was defined during the rule of Iskender with, in addition to the use of Mozarabic in Al-Andalus, Berber being promoted in North Africa as part of the faith's emphasis on having the word of Allah be preached in the local language. In addition, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence would be associated with the Mullwadi sect, especially with its prominence in the areas ruled by the Umayyads and realms recognizing the Caliph of Qurtubah as the leader of the faith. In addition to formalizing and codifying the Mullwadi form of Islam, Iskender's reign would be marked by administrative reforms to centralize the government and strengthen the bureaucracy and a golden age of art and scholarship during his reign.
Iskender would marry the daughter of the Emir of Tunis with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1074 with his son, Omar succeeding him.
[6] Omar had barely become Caliph when he was facing a crusade, brought on by the Christian Kings of Europe who wanted the peninsula of Iberia back. Omar was a young man in his early twenties, reader to prove himself as a warrior. However, his glory hand nature was temped by the the political sensibilities his father had hammered him in his head. He would gather the support of the other Islamic Caliph and Emirs. He even reached out to the Byzantine Emperor---who rudely rebuffed him, reminding him that he was still a Christian and would not ally with a "Moorish Savage".
Omar had little time to seethe about that insult as he was currently being attacked by the combined army of France, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and Poland. The war was fought long and hard with the capital city almost being taken but Caliph Al-Muqtadi of the Abbasid dynasty came at the nick of time. The two men would fight side by side and a friendship that would last two decades was born.
The crusade would last for almost ten years with the Muslims gaining an unlikly ally in England who were still smarting from the attempted Norman invasion. Omar would marry Gytha of Wessex, sister of King Godwin of England. The marriage would produce nine children.
With civil war breaking out in the Holy Roman Empire and a rebellion lead by Robert of Normondy in France, Omar and his allies were able to end the war in a victory for his empire.
For the rest of his reign, Omar would focus on consolidating his power in the Christian regins of his empire. He would die at age sixty, leaving his throne in the hands of____
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1041 - 1074: Iskender I (House of Umayyad) [5] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1074-1111: Omar II (House of Umayyad) [6] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by his son, Idris with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, Iskender would see the conclusion of the North African War.
[5] Caliph Iskender was born as the younger brother of Abd Al-Rahman in 1024 and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong young man, distinguishing himself as a warrior during the final years of the North African War both as heir to the Caliphate and Caliph with the North African War being a decisive victory for the Andalusi, securing Andalusi control over the Maghreb with Morocco being annexed directly into Al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghreb being placed under the control of client emirs who maintained notional independence but were under Qurtubah's thumb.
In peace, Iskender's rule as Caliph would be marked by a continuation of his father's domestic policies with Mullwadi Islam being a faith which was defined during the rule of Iskender with, in addition to the use of Mozarabic in Al-Andalus, Berber being promoted in North Africa as part of the faith's emphasis on having the word of Allah be preached in the local language. In addition, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence would be associated with the Mullwadi sect, especially with its prominence in the areas ruled by the Umayyads and realms recognizing the Caliph of Qurtubah as the leader of the faith. In addition to formalizing and codifying the Mullwadi form of Islam, Iskender's reign would be marked by administrative reforms to centralize the government and strengthen the bureaucracy and a golden age of art and scholarship during his reign.
Iskender would marry the daughter of the Emir of Tunis with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1074 with his son, Omar succeeding him.
[6] Omar had barely become Caliph when he was facing a crusade, brought on by the Christian Kings of Europe who wanted the peninsula of Iberia back. Omar was a young man in his early twenties, reader to prove himself as a warrior. However, his glory hand nature was temped by the the political sensibilities his father had hammered him in his head. He would gather the support of the other Islamic Caliph and Emirs. He even reached out to the Byzantine Emperor---who rudely rebuffed him, reminding him that he was still a Christian and would not ally with a "Moorish Savage".
Omar had little time to seethe about that insult as he was currently being attacked by the combined army of France, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and Poland. The war was fought long and hard with the capital city almost being taken but Caliph Al-Muqtadi of the Abbasid dynasty came at the nick of time. The two men would fight side by side and a friendship that would last two decades was born.
The crusade would last for almost ten years with the Muslims gaining an unlikly ally in England who were still smarting from the attempted Norman invasion. Omar would marry Gytha of Wessex, sister of King Godwin of England. The marriage would produce nine children.
With civil war breaking out in the Holy Roman Empire and a rebellion lead by Robert of Normondy in France, Omar and his allies were able to end the war in a victory for his empire.
For the rest of his reign, Omar would focus on consolidating his power in the Christian regins of his empire. He would die at age sixty, leaving his throne in the hands of____
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POD: Theodora Porphyrogenita born a boy and succeeds Constantine VIII after he dies
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1150-1209: Isaac I 'Moor-Killer' (Macedonian Dynasty) [7] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
1209-1212: Issac II "the Unfortunate" (Macedonian Dynasty) [8] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
[8] Named for his grandfather, Isaac was often seen as the golden prince. Intelligent, handsome, young and strong. He was sixteen when he succeeded his grandfather and many were eager to see how he would raise to the occasion. One of the first things he did was arrange a marriage for himself and the princess of France in hopes of making a new alliance.
The wedding was held on 1212, celebrated with a feast and a tournament. It was then when tragedy struck. Isaac was toasting his new bride when he started choaking. It wouldn't be long before the royal physicians discovered posion had been slipped into his drink. The young emperor died without having made his mark on the world. His murder would be blamed on several suspects, mostly enemies of his grandfather, it would left up to____to solve it.
Emperors and Autocrats of the Romans
1025-1028: Constantine VIII (Macedonian Dynasty)
1028-1056: Romanos III (Macedonian Dynasty) [1]
1056-1070: Basil III "the Wasteful" (Macedonian Dynasty) [2]
1070-1112: Alexander II 'The Crusader' (Macedonian Dynasty) [3] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia and the Principality of Jerusalem.
1112-1134: Constantine IX (Macedonian Dynasty) [4] - Surezain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem, and the Republic of Venice
1134-1137: Basil IV "the Temporary" (Macedonian Dynasty) [5] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1137-1150: Alexios I (Macedonian Dynasty) [6] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, the Principality of Jerusalem and the Republic of Venice
1150-1209: Isaac I 'Moor-Killer' (Macedonian Dynasty) [7] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
1209-1212: Issac II "the Unfortunate" (Macedonian Dynasty) [8] - Suzerain over the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, Venice, Circassia, Alania and the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation.
[1] Emperor Romanos III was born in 980 as the only son of Constantine VIII, the younger brother of Basil II. From a young age, he displayed a great deal of intelligence and strength with Basil II taking a strong interest in his nephew, well-aware owing to his reluctance to marry that he would one day take the throne. As a young man, Romanos would be at Basil's side both at war and at peace with the young man "learning the ropes" at the side of his uncle during the last 30 years of his reign.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2] Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's successor, his grandson, Romanos.
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislation of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic Christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, rallied to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the Muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days succeeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsuccessful. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall head over heels for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil would be the new Emperor.
[5] Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
[6] Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform Isaac, Alexios' successor of his death.
[7] Born in the first years of the marriage of Emperor Alexios and Zoe Komnene's marriage, Isaac of Macedonia was a brash child that developed into an agressive, head-strong adult, known for his martial ability. A man of war, Isaac was taking part of the military apparatus of his father's Empire at a young age, but the strict nature of his mother guaranteed the Empire would have an Emperor that at least knew his letters and numbers, and the basis of administration. Just a year before the death of his father, young Isaac would marry Maria of Jerusalem, sister of young Baldwin the II of Jerusalem. Their marriage would prove quintessensial to Isaac's reign, as it would be Maria that would rule the Empire day-to-day, especially during the first decades of Isaac's reign.
Known for his ferocious temper, Isaac's reign started with a shake-up of the military when during a meeting he was so angered at what he felt was the incompetence of his generals that he almost strangled one on the spot. After being calmed down by his wife and widowed mother, Isaac would go through one of his rare moments of administrative genius' and re-worked the Rhoman military system from top to below, reforming the Themes and re-establishing permanent armies, who were constantly reinforced by trainees coming from the Themata system. This gave Constantinople a military edge over it's neighbours, whom would soon see the new system of the Empire put to test. An avid patron of military reformists, inventors and strategists, he would reform Byzantine military leadership to a level of talent not seen in many years, with himself at the helm. His patronage of arsenals, armories and foundries over his Empire would see the introduction of new ways of crafting weapons, alongside the introduction of crossbows, longbows and mongol bows into the Byzantine military system. Byzantine inventors would also discover ways to standardize the use of Greek fire and ease it's use in both naval and land battles, and would copy Chinese recipes to invent gunpowder.
Isaac's reign, however, is more know for his military achievements than his military reforms. Isaac's first major war was his invasion of the Principality of Jerusalem in 1157, to make sure that his wife was not passed over and the Franco-Levantines would not elect one of their own as Prince of Jerusalem. In the battles of Caesarea and Hebron, Isaac would handily defeat the Crusader lords who opposed his and his wife's joint ascention, securing Jerusalem proper in 1158. Despite protests from the papacy, Byzantine coin and Isaac's generosity and similarity in temperament to much of the Frankish lords eased the integration of the Crusader state into the Eastern Roman Empire, of which many Crusader lords would rise to important posts in the next years.
In Damascus, the only Syrian major city to remain in infidel hands, Nur ad-Din, a Turkish emir who claimed the title of Sword of Allah to bring down the Christian Empire in the levant, attempted to support the anti-Isaac coalition of Frankish nobles to make sure that the Empire and the Principality could never unite, but in his quest fell under the attention of Isaac, who invaded Nur ad-Din's Emirate in 1160, sieging down Damascus and killing the man, and when his sons and officers retreated to Mosul in Upper Mesopotamia, Isaac followed, annexing the region wholesale and destroying whatever Islamic resistance remained in Syria, Assyria (Upper Mesopotamia) and Palestine. Not blind to the necessity of force in pacifying the region, Isaac revoked Basil the IV's edict of tolerance, going on campaign of essential extermination against the Bedouin tribes that inhabited the Syrian desert, chasing them down so they would not be able to form the backbone of any Islamic revolt in the near future. With his campaigns of "pacification" mostly ended five years into the second decade of his reign, Isaac's patronage of local Christians (Greeks, Maronites, Franks, Armenians, the occasional Turkopole or Slav) and his harsh conversion measures (Harsh taxes on muslims, various societal limitations such as being forbidden from owning weapons or horses) served to stabilize the region, which grew more Christian by the year.
Isaac didn't sit on his laurels, however. When the Fatimid Caliphate fell to infighting, Isaac immediately pounced on the opportunity to reconquer Egypt, which he would do in 1176, usually with the support of local Sunni muslims and Coptic christians, whom became an important class in the new Byzantine Egypt. All of these conquests helped to propell the Byzantine economy to greater levels than before, something that would serve him greatly in the coming years.
Forced by his wife (and his nobility) to keep the Empire at peace at least for some years, Isaac returned to Constantinople, where he reunited with his wife and allowed his administrators some time to incorporate the new lands to proper Byzantine governance. In 1183, however, Maria of Jerusalem died giving birth to hers and Isaac's eight child, something that greatly agrieved the Emperor, who delegated what had once been Maria's responsibility to the next people he trusted the most, his younger brothers Alexander, John and Andronikos, who, surprisingly for Byzantine standards, stayed loyal to their brother. At the insistence of his court, however, Isaac was forced to remarry. After failed negotiations with Sicily, Hungary and even with far off Castille failed, Isaac turned his eyes to the East and South, where he searched for a new wife. He eventually settled on Princess, ironically, Maria of Makuria, a very controversial choice at the time as contact between African and European Christians had been cut off for centuries now, but Isaac's reign is considered the beginning of Rhoman-Nubian-Abyssinian rapprochement. Maria of Makuria, conscious of her delicate status to her utterly foreign appearance and culture, her different race and her Coptic christianity, remained a quiet Empress, but she proved a good support for Isaac, especially when his failures to invest lower Mesopotamia failed in 1193 and during his campaigns afterwards. Maria of Makuria would give birth to four children.
Isaac's final wars, however, were very late into his reign, where he decided to expand Byzantine power in the Black Sea. He held various diplomatic meetings with various Circassian tribes and the ruler of Alania, David Soslan, who, both being Christian and wishing for protection against the steppe peoples from the North, accepted Byzantine suzerainty peacefully, but to make up for it, Isaac would be forced to make war in the Steppe. After organizing an expedition against the Cumans from Crimea, Isaac stayed more than four years in the steppe, upon which he forced the Cumans to recognize his authority, but they never quite accepted it and they often non-commited their tribute to Constantinople.
Isaac died a tired man in 1209, ruler of a tired, but rejuvenated and organized Empire. He was succeeded by his grandson Issac.
In many ways, when Romanos III acceeded to the throne of Rhomania in 1028, the enthronement of Romanos III was a mere formality as he was already a prominent figure in the last years of the reign of Basil II and the short reign of Constantine VIII and was already well-prepared for the position. As ruler, Romanos III's rule was marked by effective rule and in many ways would be a continuation of his uncle's rule with Romanos taking Sicily and making advances in Armenia and Syria during his rule. In addition, Romanos would marry Sophia Doukaina, with whom he would have six children. However, one of the things which marked Romanos III's rule was the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Romanos III would die at the age of 76 in 1056, leaving behind a stable and prosperous Empire with his eldest son Basil as his successor.
[2] Basil, eldest son of Romanos III, born in 1006 had been an seemingly unremarkable man during the reign of his father. He was always fulfilling his duties as prince, but nothing more than expected of the man of his position. He was said to fear his father more than anything else in this world.
Thus, no one expected tragedy which awaited Roman Empire when Basil started to reign. When his father died, Basil began to expell his men from court. He filled the court with his own, not always competent, sycophants. He also massively reduced budget for the army and chose to spend it on feasts, wine and royal palaces instead.
Initially that policy only initiated discontent among the ones who were expelled from service, but after three years of reign, in 1059, one Michael, allegedly a soldier expelled from the army attempted to kill the emperor and his family. He didn't succeed in killing Basil himself, but his killing blow took life of Constantine, Basil's only son whom Basil, by all available accounts loved the most in this world.
Basil after seeing his own son die became increasingly paranoid and blamed the conspiracy of his brothers, especially one Constantine, the succesful general with many years of experience in Syria.
At the beginning he removed his brothers from all military and governmental posts which they had occupied previously and summoned them to capital. All of them, except the youngest, Michael (who fled to Kiev) did so and in Basil blinded and gelded all of them and placed them under arrest.
Without Constantine's guidance, army in Syria started to lose to Turks and by 1061, Byzantines were expelled from all of Syria and their hold on Armenia was pretty dubious.
Basil attempted to lead the campaign himself and in 1062 he entered Syria with great army and faced Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (Seljuks took advantage of Romanos III weakening Fatimid presence in Syria and took the parts of Syria which weren't already taken by Fatimids) in battle near Aleppo, which he humiliatingly lost, losing Syria and Armenia to Alp Arslan. Basil returned home in early 1064, after making peace with Alp Arslan after which he gave Syria and Armenia to Seljuks, and he saw the riot in Constantinople. Rioters freed his blinded and gelded brothers and place Constantine on the imperial throne. Basil upon entering Constantinople massacred people of the city and killed all his remaining brothers, except Michael who still was out of the country.
Basil believed that the loss is all the fault of the "traitors" and not only he intended to purge all commanders suspected of "disloyalty" but also sought to kill all remaining brother's families, up to innocent children (which earned him nickname of "New Herod" used interchangeably with "the Wasteful").
Hearing that, one Samuel Alusianos, descendant of Samuel, tsar of Bulgaria, rose up in the rebellion in northwestern Macedon, believing he'll be killed by paranoid Emperor anyways.
He gained some followers and conquered the town of Ohrid.
Basil sent his maternal cousin, Romanos Doukas (the nephew of Sophia Doukaina) to deal with rebellion and named him his heir to bolster his authority.
Romanos was in Balkans for a year, but he lost Thessaly and half of Macedon to the rebel and Basil called him back to Constantinople. He intended to weed out more "traitors before he could deal with Samuel and thus he managed one-year-truce with self-proclaimed "Emperor of Bulgaria" with all parties retaining what they have.
Basil than personally went in 1067 to Anatolia and supervised beheading of every single Anatolian governor.
In 1068, after the truce expired he returned to Balkans and took back Thessaly.
In 1069 he attempted to invade Macedon, but Samuel prevailed, taking most of the province apart from Thessaloniki.
In early 1070, Basil was captured by Samuel's forces while crossing mountainous passage in Thessaly. Upon hearing of Basil's captivity, Anatolian soldiers almost unilaterally declined allegiance to government, declaring Michael their Emperor, almost all Balkans joined Samuel's forces and katepanos of Italy, one Constantine of Latin origin (probably romanized Lombard) proclaimed himself true Emperor of Rome.
Basil, hearing about all of this, suicided in Bulgar captivity in March 1070.
Upcoming civil war would decide upon the name of Basil's successor, his grandson, Romanos.
[3] Born in Constantinople as the eldest grandson of Emperor Romanos the III by his second son, Michael and his wife, Maria of Kiev, much of Alexander's early childhood was defined by the exile of his family to the Grand Principality of Kiev, the domain of his maternal grandfather. As his father, Michael, had held a post in the bureaucratic apparatus of Constantinople's treasury, much gold left the coffers of his mad uncle Basil before their escape, and this money paid for an estate and land in Kiev, on which Alexander grew upon, surrounded by tutors, teachers and exiled Greeks and Russians noblemen trying to curry favour with a potential Rhoman Emperor. This education served him well, for when Basil' eventually died over in the golden horn, Alexander, his father now dead, rallied an army of Russian supporters and Cuman and Pecheneg auxiliaries, paid by the riches of Kiev. Securing Crimea in May of 1070, the Rhomano-Russian force marched and sailed at considerable speed, landing in Constantinople before other claimants could reach it.
A painting of Emperor Alexander and a personal guard during the Rhoman campaign in the Danube of 1098-1099.
The support of his foreign retainers and the Anatolian armies proved enough for the Emperor to maintain his hold on Thrace against Samuel, who recognized the urgency of destroying Alexander as soon as possible. Alexander's aunts, Zoe and Sophia, whom had dominated the Constinopolan court during the days of Basil, were given as offerings to the Doukas and Komnenos clans of Rome, securing the allegiance of these two discontented groups against the Bulgarians. With money flowing from these parties into his coffers, Alexander managed to ship over the Anatolian themic armies over to Europe, starting a destructive campaign against Samuel of Bulgaria, where he would prove a brilliant commander, defeating Samuel battle after battle until finally taking Tarnovo and Samuel with him. The would-be Emperor of the Bulgarians was executed, with his sons, still young, sent to Constantinople as his wards to be raised as Rhomans. Samuel's only daughter, Sophia, Alexander would take as his bride. Not only was she beautiful, she was a way to reconcile with the rebels, and the Emperor and the Empress' marriage would go steadily, providing Alexander with five children before the eventual death of Sophia from childbirth in 1779.
With his Empire secured, Alexander settled his Russians and Cumans in Anatolia, to cement control of it's unruly central parts and stabilize the war-torn Eastern one. A strong proponent of meritocracy whom did not want to depend too much on the old aristocratic families, Alexander was a strong proponent of meritocracy, and many of the highest generals and officials of the Byzantine state during his reign would be new-blooded men whose only loyalty was to him. Alexander also focused on the recovering economy of Rome, becoming a great legislator like the lines of Justinian, creating perhaps the first legislation of economic and property law de jure of a state. This very much eased the commerce with Italy and the rest of the Meditterean, and made Byzantine commercial tarrifs much more standard and easier to apply. Native Byzantine industries, such as silk, food and all others also greatly expanded. Alexander would make great use of this economic prosperity in the days forward, as he would lead the Byzantine world into a resurgence quite never seen before.
With the death of Alp Arslan and his principal heir, Malik Shah, his sons, brothers and uncles all proceeded to divide the Seljuk state at their will, throwing the once prosperous Empire into a humongous set of bloodied warfare that Alexander would be only too happy to interfere with, stoking tensions in much of Syria and Mesopotamia. When one of Alp Arslan' lead an army of Turks to carve out a new state in Central Anatolia, Alexandros, who had wanted and expected this opportunity all his reign, marched against' them, defeating them heavily. Claiming the Seljuks were intent on attacking Rome again, and, a new for the Christian world of the time, holy war, Alexander would enter the war with a victory, besieging and conquering Aleppo in early 1089. Sending out diplomats to Rome in the West, he requested the pope use his spiritual power amongst the Catholic Christians of the West for the "Reconquest of the Holy Sites". Surprisingly, this provided Alexander with better results than he ever expected. Peasants masses from Germany, especially, rallied to the call, followed by many Frankish princes from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Dominating the new-comers and inserting them into the hierarchy of command proved difficult, but Alexander's good personal relationship with many of the Crusader leaders eased the process.
Defeating the Muslims hand in hand, Alexander and the crusaders of the days succeeded in reconquering Armenia, and went even as further to conquer the whole of Syria and Assyria. Alexander, feeling overstretched, would allow the Crusaders to continue on their own to Palestine, where they would carve out for themselves many new fiefsdom, establishing the Principality of Jerusalem under a strange mix of temporal and spiritual authority. Greatest of Alexander's achievement, behind the massive recovery and expansion of land, was the recognition of his standing as overlord of said Principality.
Alexander would fight other wars, most succesful and some, sadly, unsuccessful. His campaigns in the war of Croatian succession saw Croatia wholesale annexed to the Byzantine state, reaching the gates of Venice in Istria and the Holy Roman Empire in Carniola. Lajos of Hungary, whom fought Alexander in his attempt to conquer Croatia, would be forced to recognize Constantinopolan overlordship and pay tribute to the City of the World's desire. Alexander would also take a second bride from the House of Arpad, Mary of Hungary. The much younger Empress would fall head over heels for the aging Emperor, and the two would have a loving relationship. Maria, greatly fertile, would provide Alexander with a children almost every year from the year of their marriage (1098) until 1110. Other campaigns in the East would be the submission of Georgia, but Alexander would stumble in his reconquest of Sicily and the South of Italy, whom the Normans had conquered all of during the civil war after Basil' death. Alexander, would, however, manage to secure a lasting peace, which included many reparations and the turning of Norman attention to Africa and Italy itself.
Alexander would eventually die in 1112 from heart failure, having never had a co-emperor in his whole reign, Alexander would give to his heir the title of Sebastokrator, Constantine, who would suceed him upon his death.
[4] Constantine IX was born on March 5, 1076 as the second son of Alexander and Sophia (even if he would be the only one of Alexander's sons with her to make it to adulthood) and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong prince, a worthy heir to his father, often accompanying his father on campaign with Constantine distinguishing himself during the campaign in Croatia which resulted in it falling under the suzereinty of Rhomania. During the last years of Alexander's reign, Constantine would be increasingly be at his father's side with succession passing smoothly after Alexander's death, especially as Alexander had named him Sebastokrator during his final years as Emperor.
Constantine's reign from 1112 to 1134 would in many ways be marked largely by Constantine's domestic policies as Constantine IX would be an Emperor who would fight the influence of the dynatoi during his reign with the reign of Basil III being a reign which had seen the aristocracy gain more influence at the expense of the central government and Constantine IX continuing his father's policies in that respect. In this, Constantine IX would be a ruler who would assert the control of the central government during his rule and engage in large-scale reforms to the military and administration with a goal of strengthening the imperial government at the expense of the dynatoi. In addition to centralizing power, Constantine would focus on a strong emphasis on meritocracy with many "new men" rising in the ranks of government and military during his reign. While the nobility grumbled at this with rebellions seeking to install a younger brother of his as puppet Emperor, by the end of his reign, the nobility had largely been broken in terms of their previous powers being taken away from them. In terms of foreign policy, Constantine's reign would largely be quiet in the East but would see energetic efforts in the West to attempt to regain Apulia and Sicily and a war with Venice seeing Roman suzeraintly imposed on the Republic after the Venetians tried to demand more trade privileges from the Romans.
In his personal life, Constantine IX would marry Bertha of Jerusalem, daughter of the Prince of Jerusalem, with the two having eight children. Constantine would die on May 1, 1134 at the age of 58 from what future historians would deem would be cancer. In the aftermath of his death, _his half-brother Basil would be the new Emperor.
[5] Basil, eldest among Constantine's half-brother born from Alexander's marriage to Mary of Hungary was known as sickly, pious man since his childhood. He preached values of compassion and eteranal peace, making fine poetry (he is known as one of the most talented poets of Byzantine empire). Many did not expect him to live long and with all his ilnesses, it was a miracle that he lived to the age of 39, to which he survived.
However, he was notable for two events which happened during his reign:
a) when governor of Croatia complained to him about Croatian exiles leaving Byzantine territory for Hungary and demanded him to take action against subjects leaving for depopulated by Alexander's wars lands of Hungary, where king Vladislaus of Hungary, first cousin of Basil, son of Lajos encouraged Croatian settlement to replace the subjects which his father lost by war (it's often stated that 30% of Hungarian population died in that wars, with 50%-60% ratio in southern part of the country), Basil did nothing about that and simply said that if they're leaving than it's good for empire, because less would join upcoming rebellions.
That decision is often cited as cause why Proto-Hungarian (OOC: OTL Hungarian) was slowly replaced by Slavic language known as Hungarian, because Alexander's wars depopulated parts of the country inhabited by ethnic Proto-Hungarians the most and the Croatian exiles mixed with Slavs who lived there pre-Conquest and thus became majority among commoners and the nobility of the state, with Hungary firmly solidifying it's place as one of the Western Slavic nations.
b) issuing edict of absolute religious tolerance towards monotheists. Basil's piety was unorthodox and he believed that followers of another religion simply seek God by the other ways and that duty of good Christian is not to harm their fellow human brothers.
5 days after issuing edict about tolerance, Basil died at 1st April of 1137.
[6] Emperor Alexios I was the oldest son of Constantine IX, being born on March 1, 1099. While he was passed over as Emperor after his father's death, Alexios I would grudgingly accept Basil IV's accession to the throne, biding his time until Basil IV's death, upon which he, along with his main supporters, would launch a palace coup and name Alexios I the new Emperor.
As Emperor, Alexios' reign was marked by a period of relative stability and prosperity, especially as Alexios focused more on consolidating his empire than going on large-scale expeditions during his reign. Alexios I would be an Emperor more notable for his poetry or his commentaries on Aristotle than his military adventures, with his reign remembered as part of a general golden age for the Empire as a result of his interest in scholarship and poetry as opposed to military combat.
Alexios would marry Zoe Komnene, daughter of one of the major dynatoi families, in 1126 with the couple having nine children, four of which would survive adulthood. It would be Zoe who would find Alexios I dead of a stroke on December 1, 1150 and inform Isaac, Alexios' successor of his death.
[7] Born in the first years of the marriage of Emperor Alexios and Zoe Komnene's marriage, Isaac of Macedonia was a brash child that developed into an agressive, head-strong adult, known for his martial ability. A man of war, Isaac was taking part of the military apparatus of his father's Empire at a young age, but the strict nature of his mother guaranteed the Empire would have an Emperor that at least knew his letters and numbers, and the basis of administration. Just a year before the death of his father, young Isaac would marry Maria of Jerusalem, sister of young Baldwin the II of Jerusalem. Their marriage would prove quintessensial to Isaac's reign, as it would be Maria that would rule the Empire day-to-day, especially during the first decades of Isaac's reign.
Known for his ferocious temper, Isaac's reign started with a shake-up of the military when during a meeting he was so angered at what he felt was the incompetence of his generals that he almost strangled one on the spot. After being calmed down by his wife and widowed mother, Isaac would go through one of his rare moments of administrative genius' and re-worked the Rhoman military system from top to below, reforming the Themes and re-establishing permanent armies, who were constantly reinforced by trainees coming from the Themata system. This gave Constantinople a military edge over it's neighbours, whom would soon see the new system of the Empire put to test. An avid patron of military reformists, inventors and strategists, he would reform Byzantine military leadership to a level of talent not seen in many years, with himself at the helm. His patronage of arsenals, armories and foundries over his Empire would see the introduction of new ways of crafting weapons, alongside the introduction of crossbows, longbows and mongol bows into the Byzantine military system. Byzantine inventors would also discover ways to standardize the use of Greek fire and ease it's use in both naval and land battles, and would copy Chinese recipes to invent gunpowder.
Isaac's reign, however, is more know for his military achievements than his military reforms. Isaac's first major war was his invasion of the Principality of Jerusalem in 1157, to make sure that his wife was not passed over and the Franco-Levantines would not elect one of their own as Prince of Jerusalem. In the battles of Caesarea and Hebron, Isaac would handily defeat the Crusader lords who opposed his and his wife's joint ascention, securing Jerusalem proper in 1158. Despite protests from the papacy, Byzantine coin and Isaac's generosity and similarity in temperament to much of the Frankish lords eased the integration of the Crusader state into the Eastern Roman Empire, of which many Crusader lords would rise to important posts in the next years.
In Damascus, the only Syrian major city to remain in infidel hands, Nur ad-Din, a Turkish emir who claimed the title of Sword of Allah to bring down the Christian Empire in the levant, attempted to support the anti-Isaac coalition of Frankish nobles to make sure that the Empire and the Principality could never unite, but in his quest fell under the attention of Isaac, who invaded Nur ad-Din's Emirate in 1160, sieging down Damascus and killing the man, and when his sons and officers retreated to Mosul in Upper Mesopotamia, Isaac followed, annexing the region wholesale and destroying whatever Islamic resistance remained in Syria, Assyria (Upper Mesopotamia) and Palestine. Not blind to the necessity of force in pacifying the region, Isaac revoked Basil the IV's edict of tolerance, going on campaign of essential extermination against the Bedouin tribes that inhabited the Syrian desert, chasing them down so they would not be able to form the backbone of any Islamic revolt in the near future. With his campaigns of "pacification" mostly ended five years into the second decade of his reign, Isaac's patronage of local Christians (Greeks, Maronites, Franks, Armenians, the occasional Turkopole or Slav) and his harsh conversion measures (Harsh taxes on muslims, various societal limitations such as being forbidden from owning weapons or horses) served to stabilize the region, which grew more Christian by the year.
Isaac didn't sit on his laurels, however. When the Fatimid Caliphate fell to infighting, Isaac immediately pounced on the opportunity to reconquer Egypt, which he would do in 1176, usually with the support of local Sunni muslims and Coptic christians, whom became an important class in the new Byzantine Egypt. All of these conquests helped to propell the Byzantine economy to greater levels than before, something that would serve him greatly in the coming years.
Forced by his wife (and his nobility) to keep the Empire at peace at least for some years, Isaac returned to Constantinople, where he reunited with his wife and allowed his administrators some time to incorporate the new lands to proper Byzantine governance. In 1183, however, Maria of Jerusalem died giving birth to hers and Isaac's eight child, something that greatly agrieved the Emperor, who delegated what had once been Maria's responsibility to the next people he trusted the most, his younger brothers Alexander, John and Andronikos, who, surprisingly for Byzantine standards, stayed loyal to their brother. At the insistence of his court, however, Isaac was forced to remarry. After failed negotiations with Sicily, Hungary and even with far off Castille failed, Isaac turned his eyes to the East and South, where he searched for a new wife. He eventually settled on Princess, ironically, Maria of Makuria, a very controversial choice at the time as contact between African and European Christians had been cut off for centuries now, but Isaac's reign is considered the beginning of Rhoman-Nubian-Abyssinian rapprochement. Maria of Makuria, conscious of her delicate status to her utterly foreign appearance and culture, her different race and her Coptic christianity, remained a quiet Empress, but she proved a good support for Isaac, especially when his failures to invest lower Mesopotamia failed in 1193 and during his campaigns afterwards. Maria of Makuria would give birth to four children.
Isaac's final wars, however, were very late into his reign, where he decided to expand Byzantine power in the Black Sea. He held various diplomatic meetings with various Circassian tribes and the ruler of Alania, David Soslan, who, both being Christian and wishing for protection against the steppe peoples from the North, accepted Byzantine suzerainty peacefully, but to make up for it, Isaac would be forced to make war in the Steppe. After organizing an expedition against the Cumans from Crimea, Isaac stayed more than four years in the steppe, upon which he forced the Cumans to recognize his authority, but they never quite accepted it and they often non-commited their tribute to Constantinople.
Isaac died a tired man in 1209, ruler of a tired, but rejuvenated and organized Empire. He was succeeded by his grandson Issac.
[8] Named for his grandfather, Isaac was often seen as the golden prince. Intelligent, handsome, young and strong. He was sixteen when he succeeded his grandfather and many were eager to see how he would raise to the occasion. One of the first things he did was arrange a marriage for himself and the princess of France in hopes of making a new alliance.
The wedding was held on 1212, celebrated with a feast and a tournament. It was then when tragedy struck. Isaac was toasting his new bride when he started choaking. It wouldn't be long before the royal physicians discovered posion had been slipped into his drink. The young emperor died without having made his mark on the world. His murder would be blamed on several suspects, mostly enemies of his grandfather, it would left up to____to solve it.
There's no Christian Kingdoms left by this point beside the Galician Principality and the County of Barcelona. That happened almost all the way at the start of the list. How else would have Navarre had been conquered if you didn't conquer Aragon and Castille first, whom Navarre stands behind?POD: Caliph Al-Hakam II's prodigal son, Abd Al-Rahman does not die at 8 and succeeds his father as Caliph of Cordoba
Caliphs of Cordoba & Emirs of Al-Andalus
929 - 961: Abd Al-Rahman III (House of Umayyad)
961 - 976: Al-Hakam II (House of Umayyad)
976 - 1007: Abd Al-Rahman IV (House of Umayyad) [1]
1007 - 1024: Idris I (House of Umayyad) [2]
Caliphs of Cordoba & Maliks of Al-Andalus
1024 - 1035: Omar I (House of Umayyad) [3] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1035 - 1041: Abd Al-Rahman V (House of Umayyad) [4] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1041 - 1074: Iskender I (House of Umayyad) [5] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
1074-1111: Omar II (House of Umayyad) [6] - Overlord over the County of Barcelona.
[1] - Born in 946 AD, Abd Al-Rahman IV was born as the first son of Caliph Al-Hakam II of Cordoba. Since a small age, he was shown to be extremely talented in mathematics, and applying mathematics into warfare. In 967 he was given to the great general Almanzor as a student. Almanzor took great care of Abd Al-Rahman IV, and Abd Al-Rahman IV learned many things about warfare from Almanzor. From 967 - 976, Abd Al-Rahman IV joined Almanzor in his invasions of Leon and Castille, both of which succeeded, expanding the border further north up to the Ave River. Abd Al-Rahman IV was at the Siege of Salamanca (976) when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Qurtuba immediately and was crowned as both Caliph of Qurtuba and Emir of Al-Andalus.
From 976 - 990, Abd Al-Rahman IV allowed Almanzor to do his thing autonomously in the north, expanding the border, and generally bringing chaos to the northern Christian realms of Iberia. In that time, Abd Al-Rahman IV married Richilda, the daughter of Count Borrell II of Barcelona. Though cross-religious marriages were not unknown in Iberia, the scale of the diplomatic marriage meant that all of the Christian realms were alarmed when the marriage took place in 979 AD. Richilda and Abd Al-Rahman IV got along famously well, with the only hiccup being their differing religions. The couple would have nine children, with six surviving to adulthood. Barcelonan merchants began to filter into Al-Andalus, setting up private ventures for the first time since the Muslims arrived in Iberia, enriching the trade of Al-Andalus. Abd Al-Rahman IV used his mathematical genius to invest into several manufactories, and trading missions through the Mediterannean and European worlds. Almanzor's military conquests and Abd Al-Rahman IV's economic policies allowed Al-Andalus reach a new golden era.
In 990 AD, he passed several laws that cemented the tolerance of Jews in the Caliphate. At the same time, conflict brewed with Bermudo II of Leon, who had started to probe into Andalusian frontiers after Almanzor returned to Qurtuba after his successful campaigns. Almanzor was an old man by this point, but his disciple, Abd Al-Rahman IV was not going to disappoint either. From 991 - 999 AD, he warred with the Leonese, successfully defeating the Christian coalition at the Battle of Braga, which destroyed the military power of the Leonese and killed Bermudo II. Bermudo II's five year old successor, Alfonso V, was not properly equipped to control his destabilized realm, allowing Abd Al-Rahman IV to sweep into Leon and Galicia by 1000 AD, annexing the entire Kingdom whole. Though, empathetic to the pleas of the young Alfonso V, who wrote to Abd Al-Rahman IV from his castle aided by his mother, Galicia was allowed to remain autonomous (though it was demoted from Kingdom to Grand Duchy), with Alfonso V ruling it as his own domain as a vassal of Abd Al-Rahman IV with Alfonso V betrothed to one of Abd Al-Rahman IV's daughters. In 1001 this was formalized by the Treaty of Al-Lisbuna.
In 1007, at the age of 61, Abd Al-Rahman IV died peacefully in his sleep, having contracted passive camp fever that ate his life away in private. He was succeeded by his son, Idris with his death mourned by most in the ascendant Caliphate.
[2] Idris I would succeed his father at the age of 27 already long educated in the art of rule having been allowed to accompany his father in matters of both state and war from a young age. He would find success continuing where his predecessor left of in his economic reforms and the trade would continue to flourish. Idris would expand diplomacy further south by marrying a daughter of the Emir of Nekor eventually siring five children. This union would allow influence of Cordoba to begin trickling beyond Tangier into the Eastern Tribes of the Zenata.
Idris would not immediately resume his father's conquests as he wanted to avoid any growing pains the Caliphate may experience. He would oversee almost personally the integration of his new Christian subjects working closely with Alfonso V in a velvet glove approach. Finally Idris believed that enough time had gone by to see the climax of his father's ambitions and to finalize the conquest of the peninsula with an invasion of Navarre. The suddenness of the invasion would catch Sancho III by surprise and seeing his realm be ever more consumed he would send a plea for aid North.
While relations with the Christian realms had cooled under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman IV, Robert II of France would find the notion of sharing a border with the Caliphate intolerable, and would declare an intervention on Navarre's behalf. This would spark what would be known as the First Pyrenees War beginning in 1020. While the military reforms of Almanzor would keep the Caliphate armies from retreat the war would ground down to an eventual stalemate with neither side gaining a greater edge for many years of fruitless skirmishes. Fates would not change until a decisive victory for the Caliphate in 1024 would finally see the Fall of Pamplona and death of Sancho III. Idris' plans to capitalize on the victory with a campaign into southern France however would however never see fruition. A wound he took during the storming of the city would fester and he would die of from the infection not long after. The conclusion of the war,along with his throne would have to be inherited by his successor, his brother Omar.
[3] Omar was a younger son of Abd Al-Rahman by a young Christian concubine, a woman of Mozarabic origin named Teresa which has been lost to the histories. However, her ideoligies and her strong Christian faith would imput a mark on young Omar - while he kept strict adherence to the muslim faith, due to the rather stern efforts of his father, Omar would prove to be a great patron of Andalusia's historic Mozarabic communities and the purely Hispanophone new communities in the North, who, mixed together, constituted the vast majority of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and whom Omar, as a General and Prince of the Caliphate, considering that keeping happy was a priority. This patronage is one of the first critics Islamic Scholars have about Omar, that his patronage with the remnants of the church of the Christian Kingdoms of the North and his close cooperation with them allowed them to strongly reinforce their positions amongst the newly conquered provinces and even in the old Mozarabic provinces as major land-owners and their close link to the commonfolk.
Omar would prove to be a talented commander under his father and brother, although his relationship with Idris was rather shaky. As Idris' wife proved unable to give birth to a son, and Idris refused an harem, the succession of the Caliphate fell to Omar, and Omar was Idris' legal successor for most of his reign. This did not mean the two brothers had an understanding relationship at all, however, as Idris' was strongly backed by the southern arab nobility whom dominated much of Al-Gharb and south Andalusia. Omar, however, kept butting heads with them, not really due to their diverging theologies and ambitions, but also because of a wish to establish a power-base amongst the more stable parts of the Caliphate, whom he would suceed to do, gaining rights and titles over much of the area of Lisbon and Badajoz. Omar was forced by his brother to marry a Sevillese noblewoman, Zaida of the Abbadid family, to unite the various factions of Al-Andalus against Robert of France in the war over the Pyrenees.
Becoming Caliph of Cordoba in the aftermath of Idris' death, Omar's throne was shaky and thus he did not wish to continue the war with France- Al-Andalus was exhausted and already the various noble factions were conspiring against Omar. Thus, he decided to make peace as fast as possible with the French, who agreed under these terms:
- A guarantee that the Andalusi would not attempt to expand the Dar-al-Islam over the Pyrenees.
- Reparations to be paid by a cadre of southern French nobles over previous raiding expeditions over the mountains.
- The County of Barcelona to become a Christian vassal state of Al-Andalus. France claimed a rightful casus-belli if the autonomy of Barcelona was to be threatened by Omar or his successors.
- The recognition of the annexation of the Kingdom of Navarre. Sancho's daughter Jimena was to be married to Omar himself.
Content with the victory, Omar remained in Pamplona for a short while. There, his wife Zaida joined him and acquaintaced herself with Omar's second wife, Jimena of Navarre. The two women, despite being very different religiously, would go on considerably well, often showing off their often common pregnancies to the Pamplonan and later Cordoban court. They headed Omar's rather large harem, that consisted of at least twelve different women of origins as far as Kiev in the East and the Ghana Empire in the South, although at least eight were Andalusian women (Both Christian and Muslim) from various different provinces of the Peninsula, some part of defeated families. During his long reign, Omar proved himself a rather vigorous procreator, whom was fascinated by his wives and concubines, paying a great deal of attention to them and being much closer to them that what was common in the epoch. His first wife, Zaida of Seville, birthed Omar six children while Zaida of Navarre, despite her strong Christianity, would end up falling in love with her husband, giving birth to at least seven recorded children. From his harem, Omar has at least 29 recorded children.
Returning to Pamplona, there Omar had himself oficially crowned as Caliph, but in a change to his ancestors, Omar had himself crowned Malik of Al-Andalus, in this case, the King of Andalusia, both as a nod to his Christian subjects who switched from calling their previous rulers to the now Ummayads as their monarchs and as a way to increase his prestige. This heavily disgruntled the Arabic nobility whom dominated much of the Andalusi apparate of state, and the Berber mercenaries whom had dominated the Cordoban military for generations also grew greatly unhappy at Omar for refusing to recognize them hailing him Sultan.
This would all eventually collapse into what Andalusi historians call the first Andalusian Fitna, as Omar distanced himself from the Arabs and Berbers to depend more heavily on the groups who he considered the most loyal to himself, the Mullawads, the Mozarabs and the Christians of the North. A palace coup was attempted in 1029 to crown one of Omar's younger brothers as Caliph, but Omar strangled the would-be assassin, confronting the conspirators half-naked as he returned from his harem. Greatly infuriated, Omar called upon all his subjects to defend him, and a longer than expected civil war started that would see many rebel Emirs flee to North Africa when it ended by 1032. A new, more centralized state apparatus was introcuded in Andalusia, greatly renovating it's administrative and economic systems, and much of the historic Arab and Berber nobility which had dominated Andalusian history was replaced by a new cadre of majority Muwallad officers and bureaucrats, whom in his view treatly understood the essence of the peninsula and could preserve his reign.
Thus, Andalusia became a rather unique place in the Islamic (and Arabic) world as it largely disadopted Arabic as a language, switching it instead with Mozarabic, which was codified and adopted by Omar as the official language of his court and Andalusia in 1033. In something that greatly exhasperated the rest of the Islamic world, the Caliph even ordered that Muslims pray in Mozarabic instead of Arabic. Mullwadism as a school of Sunni Islam was birthed during Omar's reign. Omar's reforms and reign were however cut short, when the Caliph, preparing his veteran native armies for conflict with the many North African tribes and Emirates that hosted the exiles, fell to an assassins blade in the streets of Granada. He was suceeded by Abd Al-Rahman V.
[4] Abd Al-Rahman was born in 1022 as the first child of Omar I and his wife Zaida of Seville and grew up living with his many siblings in the harem. Becoming Malik of Al-Andalus at the age of 13 in 1035, all of Abd Al-Rahman's reign occurred during the North African War, which saw Al-Andalus fight against the tribes and Emirates that were along the Mediterranean coast. Near the war's end in 1041, Abd Al-Rahman was mysteriously found dead in his bedroom, with this leading o many conspiracy theories being created about what happened to the Malik. His successor, Iskender would see the conclusion of the North African War.
[5] Caliph Iskender was born as the younger brother of Abd Al-Rahman in 1024 and would grow up to be an intelligent and strong young man, distinguishing himself as a warrior during the final years of the North African War both as heir to the Caliphate and Caliph with the North African War being a decisive victory for the Andalusi, securing Andalusi control over the Maghreb with Morocco being annexed directly into Al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghreb being placed under the control of client emirs who maintained notional independence but were under Qurtubah's thumb.
In peace, Iskender's rule as Caliph would be marked by a continuation of his father's domestic policies with Mullwadi Islam being a faith which was defined during the rule of Iskender with, in addition to the use of Mozarabic in Al-Andalus, Berber being promoted in North Africa as part of the faith's emphasis on having the word of Allah be preached in the local language. In addition, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence would be associated with the Mullwadi sect, especially with its prominence in the areas ruled by the Umayyads and realms recognizing the Caliph of Qurtubah as the leader of the faith. In addition to formalizing and codifying the Mullwadi form of Islam, Iskender's reign would be marked by administrative reforms to centralize the government and strengthen the bureaucracy and a golden age of art and scholarship during his reign.
Iskender would marry the daughter of the Emir of Tunis with the two having seven children. Iskender would die in 1074 with his son, Omar succeeding him.
[6] Omar had barely become Caliph when he was facing a crusade, brought on by the Iberian Christian Kings who wanted the Muslims out and Navarre back. Omar was a young man in his early twenties, reader to prove himself as a warrior. However, his glory hand nature was temped by the the political sensibilities his father had hammered him in his head. He would gather the support of the other Islamic Caliph and Emirs. He even reached out to the Byzantine Emperor---who rudely rebuffed him, reminding him that he was still a Christian and would not ally with a "Moorish Savage".
Omar had little time to seethe about that insult as he was currently being attacked by the combined army of Castile and Aragon with France and the Holy Roman Empire besieging his countries. Smashed between two enemies, Omar knew that things were looking dire, but Caliph Al-Muqtadi of the Abbasid dynasty came at the nick of time. The two men would fight side by side and a friendship that would last two decades was born.
With the Holy Roman Empire occupied with civil war and France dealing with a rebellious Robert of Normandy, the war took a turn in Omar's favor and he soon succeeded conquering Aragon. It was there he met Sancha of Aragon, daughter of the recently deceased King Sancho. Stories and legends would either portray the meeting as a great tragedy where the evil Muslim Caliph raped the good Christian princess and forced her to marry him. Others would show it as an epic romance where the couple fell in love at first sight. The truth is somewhere in between. Omar was certainly attracted to Sancha and wanted her as his wife, Sancha was more reluctant for several reasons chief of all being that it was Omar's men if not Omar himself who had killed her father and sacked her home.
However, over the years Sancha would fall in love with her husband and they would have eight children.
For the rest of his regin, Omar would focus on consolidating his power in the Christian regins of his empire. He would also try to make peace with Castile, the sole remaining Christian Kingdom in Iberia. He would die at age sixty, leaving his throne in the hands of____