Grey Wolf said:
I think one needs more details before getting into a debate on these details
It sounds fascinating and I hope you do post your fulll thoughts
Your questions imply a good understanding of potential parallels etc
Grey Wolf
huh. ok then. with KoS1, it was basicly a 'low density tl', that is not much thought was put into it, such as the differences between Islamic and Christian slavery, etc. in KoS2, however, i will be doing alot more indepth stuff, and the end result will be quite different to KoS1. just a brief rundown off KoS1, so that we are all on the same playing feild...
POD: 481: the Burgundians loose the Provencal coast to the Visigoths. thus Soissons survives for a bit longer, until the Visigoths conquor it. the Franks are confined to Germany, Netherlands and belgium. Charlamange dies by falling of his horse at a young age, and the Frankish kingdom splits into two kingdoms, Neustria and Austrasia. the Saracens conquor the Visigoths, which is all of Spain, Portugual, and roughly France. latter the Ummayads conquor England. that is about all that is needed for now. i have done some research on my own, and come up with a few hypothesies.
1. the reconquisting (or Zurückeroberung, which is just German for 'reconquest') would be done by three/four main groups;
-1. the Bretons. this would be a slow conquest, kinda town by town through North-Western France, culminating in the great campaigns of King Choliux (Who has ambitions of conquest based on a misinterpritation of a document about Rome) in the late 12th Century. By the time of Choliux the Bretons cover most of Northern France, with its eastern boarder at roughly the site of Paris, its southern boader near the city of ?Burgundy?
Bretonies only contact with the Christian world comes from England, so thier tactics, armour and weaponary would be mimiced from the English. the Bretons will conquor most of France, and led by Choliux will take most of italy to. Italy incidently is much poorer, because of a lack of Cruisades. Genoa, for example is just a small port town on the mediteranian cost, soon to be eaten up by the Bretons. the Bretons are holding onto thier language, Latin-Arabic dialect of the conquored lands be damned! were in charge now!
-2. the Basque and Asturii. isolated on the far corner of the Iberian peninsula, these reconquista states go roughly as OTL, but with one notable difference. there is no Pyranees block, that is the future kingdoms of Aragorn and Narvarre. the Pyranees are surounded on either side by muslim states, and they would be important for keeping trade between Iberia and France alive, so there would be a strong military precence there.
-3. Inhabitants of the Alps. basicly like the Pyranees from OTL, the Swiss and Italian alps host a series of small, expansionistic Christian states, the only problem being there is not much room to expand due to a unified Al-Andulus/al-Soisson.
-4. Frankish states/Friscans. as per KoS1, the Franks are 'relitivley' weak. an oppertunistic land grab in northern Al-Soisson as the small states collapse?
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apart from that, islam is more successful in Europe in the early stages, to the point that they take Rome in the 11th Century, and for 3 centuries Christianity is without a widley recognised pope, so there are some strange forms of Christianity practiced in some places. Arian christianity survives in the Visigoth Kingdom, as well as in Asturii and Basque.
thoughts please.
