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So I have read many times about Emperor Alexios I. having the leaders of the First Crusade swear him fealty. Finally I started to think: Oath of fealty?
Wasn't that a legal concept of the West, where Roman and Germanic laws had fused?
Was Byzantium sufficiently "Germanized" by the Ostrogoths to employ a similar structure?
Or did Alexios refer to (an advanced version of) the Roman concept of patronage? This would mean an implicit misunderstanding ...
Or was it generally agreed that the Western and Eastern concepts were sufficiently comparable to be equated for practical purposes?
Or did the Basileus just charge something from the foreigners they would understand? This seems rather unlikely, as he would rather not embrace foreign legal concepts for his own Empire ...

Gratefully a-waiting your advice!


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