Northumbria more successful?

[Lindseyman]

Constantine VII of Rheged

Domestically the rule of Constantine VII was remarkable in that, unlike the rest of Europe, there was no unrest or discord. Constantine basically allowed the Seneth free rein to govern the country.

He only interfered in two areas. The first to ensure the upkeep of the road system. This had fallen slightly into disrepair during his father’s and grandfather’s rules. Constantine insisted on the roads being kept in good repair and that the land either side of the roads was kept clear to two bowshots. This last part had been disregarded in the last twenty years even when the roads themselves were kept in good order and there had been a slight rise in brigandry which was now stamped out. The second area in which Constantine interfered was the Navy. He insisted on it being expanded.

This was in part because he had received the Orkneys and Shetlands as part of the dowry for his wife and he wished them to be fully a part of Rheged and in part because he wished to keep the chaos which was engulfing parts of Northern Europe in Northern Europe. Scandia although it had settled down was still in a state of upheaval and the less said about the North German Plain the better. However even here matters were settling down.

Diplomatically Constantine maintained excellent relations with both England and Hibernia and established good working relationships with the other nations on the Atlantic seaboard of Europe. It was during Constantine’s rule that the fishing grounds to the south west of Iceland began to be fully exploited. It was only towards the end of his rule that questions began to be asked about why so much of the catch from these grounds was already smoked on its arrival at the fishing ports!

Rheged was prosperous and stable, although it was nowhere near as wealthy as England, as indeed it had been since the rule of Artair. However there were some clouds on the horizon. Constantine outlived his only son Owain who died from illness. Unfortunately Owain and his wife Matilda of Flanders had twin sons Constantine and Artair and both were gathering supporters to claim the throne. Constantine managed to keep this in check during his rule but he feared what would happen when he died.

His fears came to pass in 1291 when he died following a fall from his horse.

 

[Lindseyman]

The rise to power of Ottokar of Bohemia

Ottokar was the son of Duke Wenceslaus of Bohemia and Hedwig, daughter of Count Ulrich of Kyburg, and was born in Prague in 1226. In 1243 Ottokar fought alongside his father and Heinrich of Ostreich against the Mongols at Poznan and had been seriously wounded. However his retainers and bodyguard had managed to flee with the badly wounded Ottokar and reached Bohemia. Ottokar took the best part of two years to recover from his wounds and so took no further part in the wars against the Mongols.

In 1245 Ottokar, as one of the last remaining nobles of the Ostreich, married Gertrude, the elder sister of Wilhelm the new King of Ostreich. As a result, he became the most important noble in the rump kingdom. Ottokar was both intelligent and had a political awareness which enabled him to rapidly become the power behind Wilhelm.

He managed to avoid making enemies of any of the other remaining nobles in the north of Ostreich (they were too aware of the threat of the remaining Mongols in Poland). However the next ten years or so were spent in bringing the southern nobles into line. The young Duke of Bavaria especially objected to this Bohemian nobody having so much power. However by adroit political manoeuvring, Ottokar managed to isolate the southern nobles one by one and by 1265 the Ostreich was at peace with itself and Ottokar and Wilhelm were able to start considering recovering the lost northern lands.

Slowly but surely the Ostreich extended its control northwards and by 1272 Ottokar had seen most of the old Ostreich back under Wilhelm’s control. However Wilhelm was becoming increasingly unstable, both in health and mentally, and in 1273 he died after having had a fit. He left no male heirs and although he had had a daughter she had never married having been sent to a nunnery at the age of 13 (on Ottokar’s advice).

Ottokar held the reins of power and he was crowned Otto I (he accepted the germanification of his regnal name as the price he would have to pay) on 1 October 1273. There was remarkably little opposition to his accession to the throne. This was due to the other nobles realising that he held the power anyway and he was acknowledged as the driving force behind the recovery of the north. Also they were disturbed by the chaos which was now engulfing the Roman Empire and realised that the Ostreich needed a firm and experienced man in charge.

This was the start of the golden age of Germany under the Premyslid dynasty.

 

[Lindseyman]

Edward IV of England

Edward had been the son of Robert’s old age and was much younger than his brothers. He was unfortunately very much the “runt of the litter” in his father’s eyes, being very sickly and displaying no interest in the martial arts. However he was very pious so Robert committed him to the church at an early age.

Edward was in his element he was, despite his almost continuous illnesses, very intelligent and studious. Indeed he was probably the most intelligent scion of the House of Wessex since Elfred the Great. He rose rapidly through the hierarchy of the church and was made Bishop of Southwark in 1251. Robert began to have high hopes for Edward, his becoming Archbishop of Westminster, and a Cardinal of the church or even in his wildest dreams Pope!

However events would conspire otherwise. Edward’s three older brothers all fell in battle defending their uncle’s lands in Flanders. This left Edward as the heir to the throne, so much against his will he was pulled out of the church and married to Alienor, daughter of the King of Catalunye. It was not a happy marriage. Alienor was very high spirited and despised the bookish (and therefore weak in her eyes) Edward. The feelings were reciprocated! However they both knew their duty and had children, unfortunately the first two were both daughters.

It was then 1261 and Robert died, so Edward ascended the throne. If anything this made the relationship worse and they very rarely spent any time together. This made for a fraught situation when in 1265 Alienor gave birth to a healthy son! People could do the maths and the child must have been conceived during the latest of Edward and Alienor’s periods apart. There was no way that the boy could be Edward’s! To make matters worse it was strongly suspected that the father was actually the Captain of Alienor’s bodyguard, a noble from Catalunye who had been one of Alienor’s friends from childhood.

Edward had no choice, he repudiated Alienor and sent her back to her brother who was now King of Catalunye. Luckily the Pope Victor V fully supported Edward’s decision as surprisingly did her brother! The boy was sent away to Flanders and was brought up as a minor noble of that court. In later years he would become a very successful mercenary commander but that was years in the future.

In the present Edward knew that his position was almost fatally wounded as nobles who had claims to the throne began to jockey for position and influence. Edward spent most of the rest of his rule trying to keep a lid on the situation and in the main he was successful. In later years he was recognised as having reorganised the governance of England, having given the Justices of the Peace more powers, stabilised the economy (it had been through what would now be termed a recession) and have introduced, albeit in a much weaker form a version of the Regatian Siarter Cifryfoldebo which was known in England as the Magna Carta.

However at the time he was regarded as a weak and ineffectual king who surrendered much of his power to stay on the throne. He married his elder daughter, Mathilde, to Edmund of Abertawe who became the effective heir to the throne. His younger daughter Alienor was widowed (her husband the Earl of Lincoln had died under very mysterious circumstances (Mathilde and Edmund were suspected but nothing could be proved)) when he died, finally succumbing to one of the illnesses that had plagued him all his life in 1292.

Edward’s death sparked a civil war in England as although Edmund claimed the throne through marriage to Mathilde he was very unpopular, being seen as Welsh despite his ancestry, and various other claimants to the throne appeared, the most powerful being Robert of Flanders. Alienor disappeared, it was assumed that she had fled the country to Flanders to seek the protection of her cousin.

 

[Lindseyman]

The Maurician Plague

Maurice II succeeded his father Andronikos I in 1259. The Roman Empire was at peace. It had successfully seen off the Mongols and was at its widest extent since the 7th Century. However due to circumstances beyond his control, his rule was remembered for the near collapse of the empire. It was during his rule that one of the worst outbreaks of the plague took place, claiming the lives of millions of people. The plague arrived in Constantinople in 1265 AD, almost a year after the disease first made its appearance in the outer provinces of the empire. The outbreak continued to sweep throughout the Mediterranean world for another 50 years.

Thought to originate in China and northeast India, the plague was carried to the Great Lakes region of Africa via overland and sea trade routes. The point of origin for the Maurician plague was Egypt. The historian Constantine of Eork, writing over a 100 years later but using sources from Constantinople, identified the beginning of the plague in Pelusium on the Nile River’s northern and eastern shores (as had the Plague of Justinian). According to him, the disease spread in two directions: north to Alexandria and east to Palestine. The means of transmission of the plague was the grain ships and carts sent to Constantinople as tribute. North Africa, in the 13th century, was the primary source of grain for the empire, along with a number of different commodities including paper, oil, ivory, and slaves.

According to Constantine, the weather at the time was unusually warm and wet and ordinary diseases were becoming rampant. The wetter than usual weather affected crop harvests, leading to food shortages that resulted in the movements of people throughout the region. Accompanying these reluctant migrants was the plague. This created the perfect conditions for an epidemic. Constantinople, the political capital of the Roman Empire, doubled as the centre of commercial trade for the empire. The capital’s location along the Black and Aegean seas made it the perfect crossroads for trade routes from China, the Middle East, and North Africa. Where trade and commerce went, so did the plague.

Following the established trade routes of the empire, the plague moved from Ethiopia to Egypt and then throughout the Mediterranean region. The disease penetrated neither northern Europe nor the countryside. This was seen in the North, as the judgement of God saving the true Catholic faith as preserved at Canterbury. The outbreak lasted about four months in Constantinople but would continue to persist for roughly the next fifty years, with the last outbreak recorded in 1311 AD. There would be no more large-scale outbreaks of plague until later in the 14th century with the outbreak of the Black Death.

The plague was so widespread that no one was safe; even the emperor caught the disease, though he did not die. Dead bodies littered the streets of the capital. Maurice ordered troops to assist in the disposal of the dead. Once the graveyards and tombs were filled, burial pits and trenches were dug to handle the overflow. Bodies were disposed of in buildings, dumped into the sea, and placed on boats for burials at sea. And it was not just humans who were affected: animals of all types, including cats and dogs, perished and required proper disposal.

The plague contributed to a weakening of the Roman Empire in political and economic ways. As the disease spread throughout the Mediterranean world, the empire’s ability to resist its enemies weakened, the inability of the Roman army to resist outside forces, was largely due to its inability to recruit and train new volunteers due to the spread of illness and death. The decrease in the population not only impacted the military and the empire’s defences, but the economic and administrative structures of the empire began to collapse or disappear.

Trade throughout the empire became disrupted. In particular, the agricultural sector was devastated. Less people meant fewer farmers who produced less grain causing prices to soar and tax revenues to decline. The near collapse of the economic system did not dissuade Maurice from demanding the same level of taxes from his decimated population.

In his determination to maintain the might of the Roman Empire, the emperor continued to wage wars on the Turks and Persians on his eastern boundaries lest his empire disintegrate. The emperor also remained committed to a series of public work and church construction projects in the capital.

Constantine reported that nearly 10,000 deaths per day afflicting Constantinople. His accuracy has been questioned by modern historians who estimate 5,000 deaths per day in the capital city. Nonetheless, 20-40% of the inhabitants of Constantinople would eventually perish from the disease. Throughout the rest of the empire, nearly 25% of the population died with estimates ranging from 25-50 million people in total.

It was now that the Mongols returned.

 

[LeCHVCK]

The Mongols return just after a plague hit Byzantium? East Rome will suffer and the empire will shatter.

 

[Lindseyman]

The Mongols to 1270 AD

Guyuk didn’t survive long after Batu. He died in 1251. There followed yet another prolonged period of disagreement, during which Guyuk's widow, Oghul Khaimish, was accepted as regent of the empire. But eventually the choice went in 1257 to Mangu, son of Genghis Khan's youngest son, Tului.

Mangu (sometimes written Möngke) entrusted to two of his brothers the campaigns to extend Mongol power east and west. In each direction a large and prosperous area awaits attention. Mongol armies have had no further success against the Song since Subodai’s invasion of 1250, which only conquered some small portions of the north of Song territory. In the west the Turks and Persians had taken advantage of the recent strife to reassert their independence.

In 1258 Mangu gives command over the eastern frontiers of the empire to his brother Hulagu. In 1259 he instructs Kublai, his other brother, to subdue Islamic central Asia and to see what, if anything, can be done against the Roman Empire (although re-exerting Mongol control of Persia is the main priority).

From 1259 Hulagu pressed south through the mountainous western regions of China, into Szechwan and Yünnan. His attention was distracted by the death of his brother, the great khan Mangu, in 1263. Hulagu is elected khan in his place by the Mongol nobles campaigning with him in China. But the same position is claimed by a younger brother, Ariq Böge, at Karakorum (Kublai accepts his brother becoming Great Khan despite his being younger, not wishing to cause further discord in the Empire).

Hulagu defeated his brother in 1267. As Hulagu Khan, ruler of the Mongol empire, he was now free to give his full attention to China. In 1269 he revealed the seriousness of his ambitions when he moved the imperial capital south from Karakorum to Beijing - a town severely damaged by his grandfather, Genghis Khan, in 1215. He immediately starts to rebuild Beijing into a city fit to be capital of the Mongol Empire.

Kublai had crossed the Amu Darya River in January 1260, beginning the Mongol campaign to reconquer Persia. The region had been terrorized in recent years by the Assassins, but this extremist Ismaili sect meets its match in the Mongols. One by one Kublai takes the Assassin fortresses, including the supposedly impregnable Alamut.

At the end of 1268, after firmly establishing Mongol rule in Persia, Kublai presses further to the west, into even richer lands. He and his horde move into Mesopotamia - the territory of the Caliph, and as such the ostensible centre of the Islamic world.

The Caliph in Baghdad, al-Musta'sim, risked the seemingly impossible. His realm, only recently re-established has been devastated by the Plague (which is now starting to devastate the Roman Empire). In January 1269 he sends an army (or at least what he can raise of an army) against the approaching Mongols. The Muslim army is routed by Kublai, who orders the caliph to appear before him and to destroy the walls of the city. When the Caliph declines, Kublai besieges and sacks Baghdad. The Caliph is killed in the sack of the city.

Control of the plague decimated Turkish lands, also weakened by Roman attacks, was quickly established. News of the effects of the plague on the Roman Empire made Kublai decide that now was the time to attack and take revenge for the defeat by Andronikos.

 

[Lindseyman]

The fall of the Empire

During the rest of 1269 Kublai established firm control over the recently conquered Persia and Turkish lands. He noted that the Roman Empire was struggling because of the devastation caused by the Plague but also that Maurice was beginning to bring some sort of order through some adroit reorganisation. Kublai decided to strike before the Maurician reforms could take effect.

So in 1270 the Mongol forces proceeded into Syria. Most of the Levant was still under the control of local city governors apart from the Kingdom of Jerusalem which had managed to retain its centralised (well for Teutons!) control of its lands. The Mongols first captured Damascus and then on March 1, 1270, under General Kitbuqa, took Aleppo. They rapidly took control of the Roman Territories north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem but each individual town and city took time to subjugate. Even so mounted raids were undertaken into Anatolia on a regular basis.

Kublai's intention at that point was to continue south through Palestine to Egypt, to engage the one remaining strong Roman Army under the command of Theodore Kontastephanos. However, Maurice, somehow managed to pull together an army from the remaining troops in Anatolia reinforced by some troops from the Balkans. This army under the command of Maurice’s brother John marched east to confront the Mongols. Kublai turned to deal with this new threat. The two armies met at Antioch in January 1271. Unfortunately John was not a good general and allowed himself to be outflanked. The battle at Antioch turned into a massacre of the Roman troops, although Michael Palaiologus managed to get a fraction of the army away.

This disaster destroyed Roman authority in Anatolia as well as the Levant. There were few troops, apart from the battered remnant army under Michael Palaiologus which took refuge in Nicaea, between Kublai and Constantinople. Kublai left a screening force under the command of Kitbuqa to keep Kontastephanus from interfering and marched west. Constantinople was in a state of panic, Maurice fearing all was lost had fled to Rome. There was no one left whom all would accept as being in control. To make matters worse, the Golden Horde in the Ukraine seeing that the Romans were on the point of disintegration struck south.

However all was not lost, a Commander of Bulgarian descent in Thrace, Constantinios Asenios, pulled together most of the remaining forces in Thrace and Bulgaria and reinforced by the Hungarians under Bela VII met these Mongols at , firstly, Tarnovo and then at Nilkopol in June 1272. He won a big victory at Tarnovo and then a decisive one at Nikopol. The Golden Horde pulled back beyond the Danube and had been driven back to the Ukraine within 5 years by the Hungarians.

Meanwhile, Kublai had established his army on the banks of the Bosporus and was planning to land troops in Europe to besiege Constantinople. The infighting which followed the flight of Maurice had ceased and Maurice’s cousin Nikephorus had become Emperor. He had no option but to sue for peace. Kublai demanded similar terms to those which he asked the Caliph of Bagdad although he did not insist on the destruction of the walls. Nikephorus acceded to these and also accepted Kublai as his overlord.

The news caused outrage when it reached Constantinios, he would have been willing to accept Nikephorus as Emperor but not to have a Mongol overlord, especially after he had just defeated the Golden Horde. The result was that he declared himself Emperor of Bulgaria. He controlled most of the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire although Stephanos Dragutinios seized control of the old Serbian lands. Similarly Michael Palaiologus in Nicaea, Theodore Kontastephanos in Alexandria and most surprisingly Manuel Komnenos in Trebizond also declared themselves Emperor. Added to which Maurice was still alive and ruling the Roman lands in Italy and North Africa!

Only Constantinople, and parts of Greece recognised Nikephorus as Emperor. Within 3 years Constantinople had gone from ruling the largest empire of its history since Justinian to just being a struggling minor state in the Balkans!

 

[Lindseyman]

Europe in 1273 AD


1. Alba
2. Hibernia
3. Jutland
4. Flanders
5. North German States
6. Various Russian States
7. Brittany
8. Anjou
9. Roman Empire (Constantinople)
10. Roman Empire (Nicaea)
11. Roman Empire (Trebizond)
12. Disputed Mongol Lands
13. Roman Empire (Alexandria)
14. Kingdom of Jerusalem
15. Emirate of Cordoba
16. Gwynedd

35000 views. Thank you

 

[Lindseyman]

Rudolf of Hapsburg

Rudolf was the son of Count Albert IV of Habsburg and was born at Limburg Castle near Sasbach am Kaiserstuhl in the Breisgau region. At his father's death in 1239, he inherited large estates from him around the ancestral seat of Habsburg Castle in the Aargau region.

He was one of the few surviving Sudreich nobles in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion of the Dreikonigsbund, having had a lucky escape at the Battle of Hannover. In 1245 Rudolf married Gertrude, daughter of Duke Freidrich of Swabia. As a result, he became the second most important noble in Swabia all that survived of the Sudreich.

The disorder in Germany afforded an opportunity for Count Rudolf to increase his possessions. His wife was a Hohenberg heiress; and on the death of his childless maternal uncle, Count Hartmann IV of Kyburg in 1264, he also seized his valuable estates. Successful feuds with the Bishops of Strasbourg and Basel further augmented his wealth and reputation, including rights over various tracts of land that he purchased from abbots and others.

These various sources of wealth and influence rendered Rudolf the most powerful prince and noble in Swabia (indeed, in many ways, he was more powerful than the Duke). When in the autumn of 1267, Freidrich died in a hunting accident, Rudolf became Duke of Swabia as there were no other nobles with a strong enough claim to the Duchy.

Rudolf's attention next turned to the various small Lordships to the South of Swabia which were taken into the royal domain. In the main this was done peacefully as these minor Lords did not wish to be swallowed up by the Roman Empire. He spent a few years establishing his authority there and was able to reclaim some lands which had been originally part of the Sudreich during the period when Maurice was establishing his rule over Italy. After this Rudolf spent his time fully integrating these lands into the Duchy and preparing for the succession of his son Albert.

In 1281 Rudolf's first wife died. On 5 February 1284, he married Isabella, the niece of Peter V of Catalunye in order to maintain good relations with his more powerful western neighbour.

Rudolf was very successful in restoring internal peace. Despite lacking many resources he built Swabia up into a power of which the other countries in the area had to take into consideration. Indeed it is likely that it was his lukewarm reception to Peter V’s suggested invasion of Italy that enabled Andronikos II to partially rebuild his empire.

Rudolf died in Stuttgart on 15 July 1291. Although he had a large family, he was survived by only one son, Albert, afterwards the Swabian King Albert I. Most of his daughters outlived him, apart from Katharina who had died in 1282 during childbirth and Hedwig who had died in 1285/6.

 

[Lindseyman]

Maurice survives in Italia

In later years the survival of Maurice Komnenos as Emperor in Rome was seen as an instance of divine intervention. Later still it was seen as Maurice being incredibly lucky as circumstances just fell right for him. Logically, although all accept that he could have survived as Emperor in Southern Italia (as after all it had been in East Roman hands for centuries), he should not have been able to maintain control in Northern Italia nor on the Dalmatian coast.

Northern Italia had been in a state of virtually constant turmoil since the conquest of the early 1200s until the 1240s. However as years went past and the Romans continually exerted their control and generations grew up who had known nothing but Roman rule these troubles had died down although there were still occasional uprisings especially in Milan and Turin.

Italia had been ruled as two provinces, Neapolis in the south and Venetia in the north. Rome itself was under the direct rule of the Emperor with the Patriarch of Rome acting as his representative (the Patriarch still claimed the position of Pope of the Catholic Church but his claim was ignored by all but Castille and Portugal, even Catalunye had recognised the Pope in Canterbury as being the true Pope by the 1270s).

When Maurice arrived in Rome in 1271 fleeing from the Mongol onslaught Neapolis was being ruled by his cousin Theodore Komnenos and Venetia by his younger cousin Alexios Komnenos. Neither were temperamentally the type to claim the throne especially as Maurice was still alive and in Rome. So all three pulled together to stabilise Italia. There were once again major uprisings in Milan and Turin but these were brutally put down by the army which stayed loyal mainly because Maurice had managed to bring a fair chunk of the treasury with him and so was able to keep paying them.

It also helped that the Ostreich was in slight turmoil because of Wilhelm’s increasing instability and Catalunye was engaged in border skirmishes with Castille, Brittany and the Frankenreich. So with no external forces intervening Maurice was able to maintain control and stabilise Italia.

In later years he did lose some minor areas which had previously been part of the Sudreich to Swabia, but as Roman control had never been really effective in those areas even before the Mongols, Maurice did not feel the need to wage war to reclaim them (the richer areas around Massilia were still firmly under his control). He was also able to extend his rule in Dalmatia as the new Serbian leader was unable to maintain effective control over non Serbian areas and was himself under pressure both from a resurgent Hungary and Bulgaria.

By the time that Maurice died in 1284, Italia was at peace and was recovering in prosperity as trade links with Aegyptos and the Germanic nations were re-established.

It was this prosperity that had caused Peter V of Catalunye to consider invading to at least gain the area about Massilia. However Maurice had managed to pay for the upkeep of a large army and it was this that made Rudolf of Swabia lukewarm about the idea and indeed made Peter reconsider!

So Maurice’s son became Andronikos II and was able to start thinking about reclaiming other parts of the Empire, especially in the Balkans where Serbia and Bulgaria were beginning to splinter into feuding lordships.

 

[Lindseyman]

Regatian Literature

An excerpt from an article found on the Gwithiondur Ar-Lein

After the collapse of Roman authority in the early fifth century, four major circles of political and cultural influence emerged in Northern Britain. In the east were the Picts. In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata, who had close links with Ireland, from where they brought with them the name Scots. In the south were the British (Brythonic-speaking) descendants of the peoples of the Roman-influenced kingdoms of "The Old North", the most powerful of which became Rheged. Finally, there were the Saecsoniaid and Onglau, Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia (later the northern part of Northumbria and later still part of Rheged). To these Christianisation, particularly from the sixth century, added Latin as an intellectual and written language. Modern scholarship, based on surviving place names and historical evidence, indicates that the Picts spoke a Brythonic language, but none of their literature seems to have survived into the modern era. However, there is surviving literature from Rheged in Brythonic, Gaelic, Latin, Northumbrian and German.

Much of the earliest Gwyneddian literature was actually composed in Rheged, in the Brythonic speech, from which the language of Gwynedd would be derived, although it was only written down in Gwynedd much later. These include The Gododdin, considered the earliest surviving verse from Rheged or Alba, which is attributed to the bard Aneirin, said to have been resident in Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin in the sixth century. It is a series of elegies to the men of the Gododdin killed fighting at the Battle of Catraeth around 600 AD. Similarly, the Battle of Gwen Ystrad is attributed to Taliesin, traditionally thought to be a bard at the court of Rheged in roughly the same period.

There are religious works in Gaelic including the Elegy for St Columba by Dallan Forgaill, c. 597 and "In Praise of St Columba" by Beccan mac Luigdech of Rum, c. 677. In Latin they include a "Prayer for Protection" (attributed to St Mugint), c. mid-sixth century and Altus Prosator ("The High Creator", attributed to St Columba), c. 597. What is arguably the most important medieval work written in Rheged, the Vita Columbae, by Adomnán, abbot of Iona (627/8–704), was also written in Latin.

In Onglau there is The Dream of the Rood, from which lines are found on the Ruthwell Cross, making it the only surviving fragment of Northumbrian from early Medieval Rheged It has also been suggested on the basis of ornithological references that the poem The Seafarer was composed somewhere near the Bass Rock in East Lothian. There is also the great body of work attributed to St. Caedmon which has been preserved in St. Hilda’s Abbey in Streanall.

Beginning in the later eighth century, Norse raids and invasions in what is now northern Rheged may have forced a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns that culminated in the rise of Cíonaoath in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin and the creation of the Kingdom of Alba. Historical sources, as well as place name evidence, indicate the ways in which the Pictish language in the north was overlaid and replaced by Gaelic and Norse. The Kingdom of Alba was overwhelmingly an oral society dominated by Gaelic culture. Our fuller sources for Hibernia of the same period suggest that there would have been filidh, who acted as poets, musicians and historians, often attached to the court of a lord or king, and passed on their knowledge and culture in Gaelic to the next generation.

In southern Rheged, literature was initially dominated by Northumbrian idioms, reflecting the power structure of the times. However after the accession of Constantine the Wise, Brythonic idioms took over and there was a resurgence in poetry written about great Brythonic leaders of the past especially the near mythic Artair who led the most successful resistance to the encroaching Saecsoniaid.

From the eleventh century Middle Regatian became the main language, although there was still some use of the Bernician and Deiran dialects as well as German. In the twelfth and thirteenth century, Middle Regatian flourished as a literary language, and produced the Prethuidia am Myrddin, the longest piece of Regatian vernacular literature to survive. Many other stories of the Mater o Prydain, written both in Regatian and German were also produced.

There is some Norse literature from areas of Scandinavian settlement, such as the Northern Isles and the Western Isles. The famous Orkneyinga Saga however, although it pertains to the Earldom of Orkney, was written in Skane. In addition to Regatian, Latin too was a literary language, with works that include the "Inchcolm Antiphoner", a hymn in praise of St. Columba.

 

[Lindseyman]

Any comments on the last post? It was just a tad out of my comfort zone so don't worry about upsetting me! (I am still struggling with the Hibernian Church reorganisation that occurs after the Popes relocate to Canterbury and decide that they can't let that mess go on any longer).
Also any other comments? I am surprised that no one has said anything about the collapse of the Roman Empire happening so quickly but anyway "Thank You" to everybody who has read this thread.

 

[idumea]

Rome gets to that size again that relatively quickly, it is more fragile than Justinian I's empire and they barely held it then. No-one has the strength to take on all the others at once, the units are disparate enough to compete but large enough to make Maurice think twice about quick reconquest.

I liked the last post, beginning to get a feel for what "modern" Reghed will look and sound like (and how it has got there) compared to the initial ideas from last year.

 

[Lindseyman]

Rome gets to that size again that relatively quickly, it is more fragile than Justinian I's empire and they barely held it then. No-one has the strength to take on all the others at once, the units are disparate enough to compete but large enough to make Maurice think twice about quick reconquest.

I liked the last post, beginning to get a feel for what "modern" Reghed will look and sound like (and how it has got there) compared to the initial ideas from last year.

Thank you for your kind words.

Caedmon was canonised ITTL (unlike OTL) when Victor succeeded Innocent as Pope. St Hilda's Abbey in Streanall is of course the Abbey in OTL Whitby. There won't be a dissolution of the monastries ITTL so it's not the ruin that we know.(Nor are the ITTL equivalents of Fountains, Jervaulx and Rievaulx) As to what happens in England.....
Also Maurice had no intention of reconquering the Empire. Not entirely sure of Italia and the Mongols would take advantage of such attempts. His son Andronikos however...

 

[Lindseyman]

The Church in Hibernia

The church in Hibernia was very different in organization to the church in the rest of Europe. There had been various attempts at reorganization but all had failed due to the special circumstances which pertained in Hibernia. The disquiet felt by the church in the rest of Europe is shown by this excerpt from a letter from Stigand then Archbishop of Canterbury to the then King of Leinster in 1065 (just before the takeover of England by Henry the HRE.

"...some things have been reported to us that displease us: namely that in your kingdom every man abandons his lawfully wedded wife at his own will, without the occasion of a canonical cause; and with a boldness that must be punished takes to himself some other wife who may be of his own kin or of the kindred of the wife whom he has abandoned, or whom another has abandoned in like wickedness, according to a law of marriage that is rather a law of fornication...Bishops are consecrated by one bishop, several bishops are ordained in towns and cities; infants are baptised in baptism without chrism; holy orders are given by bishops for money...All these practices and many others like them are contrary to the authority of the gospels and the Apostles, contrary to the prohibitions of the holy canons, contrary to the teaching of all orthodox Fathers who have gone before us, as is well known to all who have even a little knowledge of theology."

So the three defective areas that Stigand highlighted were:
(a) the native laws of marriage,
(b) liturgical and administrative irregularities concerning baptism and Episcopal consecration
and - closely connected with the latter –
(c) simony. `Holy orders are given by bishops for money' complains Stigand.

The comments on native marriage practices obviously reflect the great gulf that existed between the canon law of the Roman Church and the native law. Between the ninth and the first half of the eleventh century, the Latin Church established itself as the central authority in western society on marriage. Canonical legislation in this area was developed and collected. This was increasingly accepted as normative and legally binding throughout Western Europe. Concubines and divorce were prohibited and innovative legislation on consanguinity and affinity was introduced.

It is not surprising then that the Latin reformers should find the situation obtaining in Ireland undesirable. Hibernian society was still regulated by the ancient Brehon laws. These laws permitted divorce and remarriage on a number of grounds. A woman could divorce her husband for sterility, impotence, being a churchman (whether in holy orders or not), discussing the marriage bed, wife-beating, repudiation (including taking a secondary wife) homosexuality, failure of maintenance. A man could divorce his wife for abortion, infanticide, infidelity, infertility, and bad management. Insanity, chronic illness, a wound that was incurable in the opinion of a judge, retirement to a monastery or going abroad on pilgrimage were all regarded as adequate grounds for divorce. Furthermore, the fact that the canonical prohibitions regarding consanguinity or affinity were generally ignored in Hibernia can only have compounded the poor image of Hibernia in the eyes of the reformers. Nevertheless, those practices which they condemned as degenerate, barbaric and corrupt were merely anachronistic.

The method of Episcopal consecration practised in Ireland was at odds with the Roman system. The latter required a minimum of three bishops present at Episcopal consecration. This had been a bone of contention between the Roman and Celtic Churches since the seventh century. His complaint that `several bishops are ordained in towns and cities' relates to the fact that Celtic bishops were not assigned to specific territorial sees. In other words, a diocesan episcopate of the Roman variety was lacking. However this was an adaptation to the fact that political boundaries in Hibernia were to say the least fluid. A diocese that made sense in say 1100, as it followed the political boundaries of the time, could be complete nonsense only 5 years later!

Similar letters were sent by subsequent Archbishops of Canterbury and Eork over the next 200 years. However during this time some changes were made. The lands of Ulaidh and that of the U’neills was brought into the Regatian Church and under the control of the Archbishop of Eork although the Archbishop of Armagh was still always a Cardinal and it became the third highest position in the church after Eork and Caerluel. In the briefly English occupied lands to the south dioceses were established all owing allegiance to Canterbury. These dioceses remained even after the Anglo-German Lords ceded power to the High King as their lands were relatively stable.

When Innocent established the Papacy in Canterbury the mess that the Church had become in Hibernia worried him with three different systems operating in the same island, however he had more pressing problems so the situation continued. It was the election of Victor IV who had been Archbishop of Armagh to the Papacy that produced the reorganisation..

By now the ancient Brehon laws had been superseded by German influence and the Hibernian Church had become more doctrinally consistent with the rest of Europe. Victor summoned a great Synod to be held in Armagh in 1230 in which the organization of the Church in Hibernia would be reorganized.

This Synod lasted for over 5 years! However at the end by common agreement the governance of the Hibernian Church was brought into line with that of Rheged. Victor would have preferred the organization to be that of the Church in England (and elsewhere in Europe) but realized that the Hibernians would have enough problems keeping to even the looser Regatian structure let alone that of the rest of the Church! There would be 4 major suffragan provinces (Armagh, Cobh, Limerick and Dublin) with 12 bishops and an Archbishop. Armagh was to be the senior Hibernian Archbishop on a par with the Archbishops of Eork and Westminster. All priests in Hibernia owed their Church allegiance to Armagh regardless of their secular allegiance (This was less of a problem now that Hibernia was divided between Rheged in the North and the High Kingdom).

Armagh and its hinterlands would be part of neither Rheged nor the High Kingdom but Church run lands. Unsurprisingly neither Rheged nor the High Kingdom were too enamored with this but they accepted it with relatively good grace.

This new structure survives until the present day with only minor changes due to changing political circumstances.

NOTE: This is even more out of my comfort zone Stigands letter is that written OTL by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1074.

 

[idumea]

Pretty bold to say that the Holy See or its successor churches in Ireland manage to hold on to the Armagh diocese (or just the town?) to the present day - I look forward to seeing that one develop, Dundalk is ideally sited for commerce and industry if Belfast and Dublin don't develop as much so could become a city state. Its potentially indicative of a long-lasting detente between Regat and England that neither take control of the area during centralisation and secularisation?

EDIT: Or I have gotten carried away and ignored "minor changes due to changing political circumstances" yeah, at some point one of the 2 is going to try and reintegrate it.

 

[Lindseyman]

More from the Synod of Armagh

The Synod of Armagh as well as the reorganisation of the Church in Hibernia also agreed some reorganisation of the Church in both England and Rheged.

England was reorganised into 3 Archdioceses
1. Westminster which was now formally recognised as the Primary Archdiocese of England now that Canterbury was the seat of the Pope.
2. Wells with authority over the Earldoms of Winchester and Exeter
3. St Davids with authority over the Earldoms of Abertawe and Tamworth and also Gwynedd

Rheged was also reorganised into 3 Archdioceses
1. Eork which was the primary Archdiocese (Deira and Bernicia)
2. Caerleul with authority over Old Rheged and those areas up to the Abhainn Cluaidh and Uisge For not in Eork
3. Rigmonaid (OTL St Andrews) north of the Abhainn Cluaidh and Uisage For including Alba.

This reorganisation survives to the present day in England and Gwynedd. There was a further reorganisation in Rheged in the 17th Century.

 

[Lindseyman]

Gwynedd

Gwynedd had led a precarious existence since the Romans had left the island. Despite this it had always existed to some extent or other. By 1200 it was a small but relatively prosperous (in general European terms) country which had weathered the occupation of Mona and several coastal areas by the Norse, endured the continuing raids by the Hiberno-Norse which had finally died out with the occupation of Southern Hibernia by the English and which didn’t resume on the High Kingdom taking control, and also the occupation and integration of southern Wales into England.

Gwynedd had survived because it had always maintained an alliance with Rheged against the Hibernian raiders and also because it always paid any tribute/reparations that the English demanded. The major City of Gwynedd was Caerlion (OTL Chester) which had been recaptured by Rhodri Mawr in the ninth century and been held ever since. However the capital and main royal residence was Caersegeint (OTL Caernarfon) in the west of the country. There was always some dispute over the succession as Gwynedd maintained an elective kingship, although the new King was always chosen from close relatives of the previous monarch.

By 1205 Llywelyn ap Iorwerth was sole ruler of Gwynedd, and he made a treaty with the recently crowned King Edward III of England. Llywelyn's relations with Edward remained good for the next ten years. He married Edward's illegitimate daughter Joanna, in 1207. Llywelyn was determined to enforce the right of legitimate sons in Welsh succession law to bring Gwynedd in line with other Christian countries in Europe. However, by promoting his younger son Dafydd he encountered considerable support for his elder son Gruffudd from traditionalists in Gwynedd, as well as dealing with his acts of revolt. But if he held him prisoner, the support for Gruffudd could not be transformed into anything more dangerous. Although Dafydd lost one of his most important supporters when his mother died in 1241, he retained the support of Ednyfed Fychan, the Seneschal of Gwynedd and the wielder of great political influence. After Llywelyn suffered a paralytic stroke in 1241, Dafydd took an increasing role in government. Dafydd ruled Gwynedd following his father's death in 1244.

Dafydd ap Llywelyn had a peaceful rule mainly because his elder brother Gruffudd died in 1245 whilst trying to persuade the English to invade and put him onto his father’s throne. Robert I wasn’t interested as he had enough on his plate dealing with his brothers and the Mongol invasion of Europe. Indeed was widely believed that Robert had Gruffudd killed as he believed that Gruffudd had designs on Abetawe whilst Dafydd had no such intentions.

Indeed Dafydd’s rule saw him completely reform the way Gwynedd was ruled and this is now known as the Dafyddian Reformation. Dafydd chose the Regatian way of government as his model and established a Seneth and held a great convocation at which most of the land disputes between the nobles of Gwynedd were settled. Although there were some border disputes between nobles these no longer threatened the security of the realm and Gwynedd began to prosper on trade with Rheged, England and Hibernia. Dafydd also had roads based on the English model built throughout Gwynedd tying together all the major centres of population such as Caerlion, Caersegeint, Croessoswallt (OTL Oswestry), and Aberystwyth. He was succeeded by his son Llywelyn in 1281.

 

[Lindseyman]

Alba to 1291AD

Alba had gone through 40 peaceful years under the rule of Eanrig mac Uillem and he was followed by his son Alasdair mac Eanrig in 1250. Alasdair was in his late forties when he ascended the throne and was faced with a challenging set of circumstances. The Orknies and Shetlands had become part of Rheged and his kingdom was tied to Rheged by its road system (such as it was). It was after all the only way south!

As a result Alba was in danger of splitting into two. The southern part of his realm had become Regatian in culture and outlook, whereas the north was still Gaelic. Alasdair had to continually maintain a balancing act between the wishes of the two parts of Alba. The south wanted even closer ties with Rheged whilst the north, whilst not anti-Rheged wanted to maintain a distance from it not wishing to be subsumed by their more powerful southern neighbour.

Alba reacted as many small countries do in such circumstances (and indeed as Rheged would do in the 17th and 18th Centuries when faced with a more powerful economy in England) it retreated inwards and made the point of its independence from its more powerful southern neighbour at every opportunity.

Much to the Alban Gaelic nobility’s irritation, Rheged just treated these displays with indifference. It had no intention of invading and occupying Alba when it was obvious that Alba would join Rheged at some point in the not too distant future. The more Alba “Kicked” the less notice that Rheged took! Even when in 1256 Alasdair made Gaelic the official language and discouraged the use of Regatian and started taxing Regatian merchants more than Alban merchants, Constantine shrugged his shoulders and just increased the tariffs on Alban goods coming south. However this badly affected Alba’s economy and some of the border lairds took to raiding across the border.

These raids by what became known as Circhiaid got no reaction from Constantine but did provoke some tit for tat raids from the local Regatian nobility. As the raids never amounted to more than nuisance raids the situation continued for the rest of Alasdair’s rule and that of his son Alasdair mac Alasdair (Alexander II) when he came to the throne in 1283. However they petered out and had virtually ceased by 1290.

However the Alban economy continued to worsen so the end result was that Alasdair became increasingly nationalistic, which he had to, to maintain any semblance of authority in the Gaelic parts of Alba but this increasingly alienated the more prosperous south which depended on the movement of goods to and from Rheged.

It is likely that there would have been war between Alba and Rheged but for Constantine’s increasing preoccupation with keeping the peace between his two grandsons. It was Constantine’s death in 1291 and the outbreak of civil war in Rheged that prompted Alasdair to take a calculated gamble. Unfortunately it backfired in a spectacular fashion!

 

[Lindseyman]

The Fall of Song China

The Song proved to be an almost intractable problem for Hulagu. Although their military leaders tended to be incompetent their junior officers and troops were both brave and lucky and managed to turn what were becoming catastrophic defeats into fighting retreats. This situation continued throughout Hulagu’s rule. He appealed to his brother Kublai for additional forces however Kublai, although willing, was never able to supply many due to increasing hostilities with the Golden Horde, which was ruled by descendants of Batu Khan, in the Caucasus.

In 1272 Hulagu again attempted to conquer the Southern Song. He gained a temporary foothold on the southern banks of the Yangtze. He then made preparations to take Ezhou, but a revolt broke out in the former Jin lands forcing Hulagu to move with the bulk of his forces back north. In Hulagus absence, the Song forces were ordered by Chancellor Jia Sidao to make an opportune assault, and succeeded in pushing the Mongol forces back to the northern banks of the Yangzi. There were minor border skirmishes until 1275, when Hulagu won a significant battle in Sichuan.

From 1278 to 1283, Hulagu blockaded the Yangzi River with his navy and besieged Xiangyang, the last obstacle in his way to invading the rich Yangzi River basin. In 1285, a Song force of 130,000 troops under Chancellor Jia Sidao was defeated by Hulagu's newly appointed commander-in-chief, general Bayan. By 1286, most of the Song territory had been captured by Mongol forces led by Bayan.

However in the Battle of Yamen on the Pearl River Delta in 1289, a Mongol army, led by the general Zhang Hongfan, finally was surprisingly defeated by the Song army. The Song Emperor, the 22 year-old emperor Gong tried to press home the advantage thus gained. However the Mongols regrouped under the recalled commander Bayan and won a decisive victory at Jingning. The Song resistance collapsed and Bayan was finally able to occupy all the Song territory. Gong committed suicide, along with Prime Minister Lu Xiufu and 800 members of the royal clan.

On Hulagu's orders, carried out by his commander Bayan, the rest of the former imperial family of Song were unharmed. The younger brother of Emperor Gong, Huaizong (who had been imprisoned), was given the title 'Duke of Ying', but was eventually exiled to Tibet where he took up a monastic life. The former emperor would eventually be forced to commit suicide under the orders of a subsequent Khan, out of fear that he would stage a coup to restore his reign. Other members of the Song Imperial Family continued to live under the Momgol dynasty like Zhao Mengfu and Zhao Yong.