I have seen a lot of threads on here about the Norman conquest of England failing, but what if the Norman conquest of Sicily/Southern Italy fails or never happens in the first place? How might Italian/Sicilian culture, language, and religion change?
I have seen a lot of threads on here about the Norman conquest of England failing, but what if the Norman conquest of Sicily/Southern Italy fails or never happens in the first place? How might Italian/Sicilian culture, language, and religion change?
The South remains fragmented and in danger of being attacked by the East Roman Armies. It may develop on parr with the North.
Sicily remains divided between Islamic Emirates until it unites or gets conquered by A). The East Romans, B). The Moors or C). The Holy Roman Emperor. As a united Island it can withstand outside conquest by operating as a vassal. But being close to the Papacy makes them a potential target. They NEED a North African Protector. Or their life is cut short.
Greek Orthodoxy may survive as late as the 17th century in Italy. Greek as a language may survive in the region as long as the religion. A permanent Arabic mark may be left in Sicily, depending on how long the Maghrebis rule.
Well, no Normans in Southern Italy is good for the Romans since Byzantium was constantly having to deal with Norman Invasions at the same time that they were trying to deal with Turks and Bulgars.
The Crusades might be preempted or redirected to Sicily. The Pope will try to assemble a Christian coalition at some point to defeat Islamic Sicily. (Or mainly to increase his temporal power over kings and the Islamic presence in Sicily is just an excuse) This probably occurs in the 12th century.
However, it would be VERY GOOD to see an independent islamic Sicily using the old doctrine of "We are an island, then we will have a navy" repulsing various invasions and who knows, ends up with a leader who is a military genius and kicks the door of Catholic Italy.
"HERE'S SICILY" been heard in Naples
A neo-Carthage with the same borders as the Aghlabids seems plausible.
However, it would be VERY GOOD to see an independent islamic Sicily using the old doctrine of "We are an island, then we will have a navy" repulsing various invasions and who knows, ends up with a leader who is a military genius and kicks the door of Catholic Italy.
"HERE'S SICILY" been heard in Naples
It also doesn’t help when they are a quite small ruling minority which too my understanding pulled reasouces away to keep the island functional and in lineThe emirate never attempted to build a navy of any importance for reasons unknown; for some reason I seem to recall the island having a timber shortage, but that might be untrue.
I'd say that Sicily would remain out of the Catholic sphere of influence for longer, but we're in the early XI century, so a Crusade-like expedition does not look impossible.
The rest of the South would be divided in many small states*, threatened by a possible foreign imperial invasion (Byzantium.), politically influenced by the near presence of the Papacy and, maybe, split in warring factions (Maybe two like Guelphs and Ghibellines.)… This looks like Northern Italy.
* Free cities? Maritime Republics? (Amalfi technically was one.)