The Sixth Age of the World - a Medieval Europe TL

I'm not really impressed. It looks like the Lombards completely wasted the window of opportunity offered by the death of Charlemagne and the unsettled situation in the ERE after the death of Leo IV. For some reason difficult to identify, Desiderius has done nothing to properly prepare the invasion of Spoleto and Benevento in 794. It's difficult to believe that a canny ruler who has had 20 years to prepare has not been able to do better. After the defeat, Adelchis waits more than 20 years to go back for a re-match: again difficult to believe, the more so because after 750 things go to hell for the kingdom.

The relation with the pope have not improved either: it looks like we're back to the situation of the 750s, while one would have expected that the papacy (and Rome populace too) should be completely tamed. If nothing else, northern Italy (in particular the Milanese church and the patriarch of Aquileia) were quite recalcitrant to provide more than lip obedience to the pope: it should be easy enough to play these differences in the church to put pressure on Rome.

Another surprise is the amount of piracy,both in the Adriatic and Thyrrenian seas: in IOTL 9th century Pisa is already a significant naval player, and Genoa too should be starting to throw some weight around; same thing is happening in the Adriatic with Venice and Ancona. ITTL the more stable situation in Italy should improve the situation, and at the same time provide more gold for the royal coffers.

The alliance between Benevento and the Saracens is also scarcely credible: in this time and age it's a very bad thing to do, and it would immediately result in excommunication of the ruler and interdict on his territories.

Even the Hungarian invasions should not be a given: IOTL the Hungarian nomads entered Pannonia because were pressured by the Bulgars, but the Pannonian marches were scarcely settled after Charlemagne had broken the Avars. ITTL the Avars should be still around, although slowly declining; it is likely that the Avars are under the influence of Bavarians and Lombards, who should be able to support them. It might be a smart move to incentivate the Hungars to move back against Bulgarians and Byzantines, or maybe settle part of them in the newly conquered lands of Sclavonia. Incidentally, I believe that the so-called Hungar invasions were a bit overrated: they were raids for plunder, and certainly were destructive enough, but no walled city was ever taken by storm. The fact that they were able to penetrate deeply into western Europe should be proof enough that they were fast raiders looking for loot, and certainly not an invasion army.

The second half of TTL 9th century as you describe it resembles too much OTL, while the POD should have resulted in a much more stable and prosperous Lombard kingdom.

First of all, thank you for the constructive criticism, you raised really good points, LordKalvan. I admit this part immediately following Charlemagne's death was a bit sketchy, but I'll try to explain what I had in my mind.

1) I confess outright that Desiderius' (failed) campaign in Spoleto was explained with such vague points because I didn't think about details. I understand your skepticism. There was indeed a large window of opportunity to act, but even finely prepared military campaigns can fail due to a multitute of factors, from terrain, to internal divisions, and so forth. As Desiderius approached old age, his poor health diminished his interest in campaigning, that's why I jumped to Adelchis' reign afterwards.

My point is that the fact the Lombards managed to expel the Franks did not create (at least not immediately) a more stable kingdom, as there are still powerful centrifugal forces opposing the rule of the Kings. Also, Italy is not necessarily more prosperous, as the trade in the Mediterranean has been stunted, and until recently the political disunity of the Italian regions, divided between (feudal) Lombards and the isolated Byzantines prevented a more effective or centralized administration.

2) Regarding the Papacy, they were somewhat tamed, as you pointed out, but IMHO this wouldn't be a permanent situation, as there was still a significant social, political (and perhaps cultural) divide between the Lombard court and the native Roman-Latin aristocracy. Even if the Lombard court managed to rig consecutive Papal elections to ensure a compliant Holy See, this arrangement was precarious at most, as there was indeed a significant fraction of the aristocracy that opposed the Lombard interference in Rome. Even with a weakened Frankish kingdom, though, it became part of the Lombard policy to maintain a tight-leash over the Papacy, but without so far that a pressured Pope tries yet another time to provoke a foreign invasion.

I'm aware that this might be a poor comparison (due to the different period), but I was thinking about the Holy Roman Emperors' approach to the Papacy before the Investituture Controversy: they claimed to be the protectors of Rome, but if an opposing faction came to power in the Papacy, they would descend the Alps and root him out.

3) Arabic piracy was in its apogee in this time, after the Byzantine dominion over the Mediterranean Sea waned. I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment regarding Genoa and Pisa. It seems that the Saracen pirates managed to attack even Amalfi and Gaeta, which were developed and well protected cities in Campania, and even sacked Rome in the 9th Century. Perhaps they might have enough nerve to attack Genoa and Pisa, at the time shipbuilding was at its mininum. Anyways, despite what might have been understood, the Saracen piracy was usually a short-sighted affair: excepting Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, they only established temporary beach-heads along the coasts to raid during the campaigning seasons. You are absolutely correct regarding Venice and Ancona, soon enough they will rise to become one of the most prosperous cities in Italy.

4) I agree in part about what you said regarding the alliance between Benevento and the Saracens. I probably described it badly, but my original intent was to depict it as a mere convenient defensive alliance than anything else. However, I'm positive that there is historical precedents that make this possibility at least plausible. After OTL break-up of the Duchy of Benevento in the Principalities of Salerno and Benevento (in the 850s), both princes usually employed the Saracens pirates as mercenaries, so it's not a stretch to imagine a more "realpolitik" minded ruler could seek a temporary agreement with an "infidel" (for example, the Castillians had no qualms in allying with the Muslim Banu Qasi to fight against the Caliphate of Cordoba). Anyways, even in this TL the "alliance" is supposed be a very short-lived affair.

5) I entirely agree with your assessment on the Hungarian invasions, but I think you misundertood what I said. ITTL they did not settle in Pannonia, but rather migrated from Crimea to the central region of modern Ukraine. As you said, in our History the Hungarians only managed to go to Pannonia because they exploited the power vaccuum resulting from Charlemagne's destruction of the Avar Khanate. In this ATL, the Avars are in decline, but they still rule over the whole Pannonian Plain. What happened in the late Alt-9th Century is that the Magyars invade the Byzantine Balkan provinces, but are actually repelled after some campaigns, and they then migrate to central Ukraine, near Kiev. So what we know as "Hungary" is actually a kingdom on the other side of the Carpathians, and it will become heavily influenced by the East Slavic peoples and the Varangians inhabiting the region.

I'm not sure if my points might convince you, for I myself am sketching this timeline to focus on future events (specifically in the 11th Century!). If there are inconsistencies and implausibilities, I apologize in advance, but will try to learn with my mistakes. And thank you for taking your time to write this criticism, I know that of all the members in this board you are one of the most knowledgeable
 
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My initial inclination was that this was just another Crusader Kings 2 timeline, but I'm glad that it had actual depth to it. Keep it up!
 
My initial inclination was that this was just another Crusader Kings 2 timeline, but I'm glad that it had actual depth to it. Keep it up!

Do I still get the cookie if I admit that a bit of inspiration came from a few Crusader Kings' campaigns? :p

Thanks for the support, Draeger, I hope you keep enjoying it.
 
SCANDINAVIA | 1. SCANDINAVIA IN THE LATE 8TH CENTURY

Very well, as I said in an earlier post, my next focus in on Scandinavia during the 774 - 1000 timeframe. In this ATL, the Saxon conquest is much less violent than it was IOTL, but the Franks opt to continue their "missionary" work by sword into Denmark, which consequently puts them at odds with the Scandinavian peoples as a whole through the alt-9th Century. The result: different countries are formed in Scandinavia and Christianity spreads among the Germanic and Finnish peoples in the north much quickly (and bloodily) than our History.
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1. The Frankish Conquest of Saxony​

In the year of 772 A.D., after the then pagan Saxons raided and destroyed a church in the Frankish settlement of Deaventer [‘Deventer’], King Karolo I of the Franks directed a punitive expedition in Saxony. His forces invaded the territory of the Engrians – one of the four grand tribal confederacies – and torched the Irminsul, an ash tree regarded as a sacred symbol by the natives. A series of destructive campaigns were then incessantly prosecuted during a period of seven years. Only in 779, when the four peoples – the Westphalians, the Engrians, the Nordalbingians and the Eastphalians – had all recognized the Frankish supremacy and their warchiefs baptized in Paderborn - including Widukind, the paramount leader of the Saxon resistance - did the war came to an end.

This devastating conflict is historically important not only because it brought the then isolated Saxon peoples to the sphere of the Frankish realm, but also because it was perhaps the first military struggle in which the conversion of a heathen people to Christianity was the main motivation – or at least the most suitable pretext. Until then, the faith in Christ had expanded, from the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantinus, through missionary work among the barbarian invaders. The successful conquest of Saxony, thus, would be used in the future as a convenient precedent to justify a whole age of religious conversions by fire and sword, including the "Scandian Wars" that resulted in the Christianization of Scandinavia.


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2. Scandinavia during the Saxon War

Of all the Scandinavian countries, that of the Danes was obviously the one that had most contact with the continental polities, owing to the geographic proximity. Even so, until the Saxon War, the Danes had little intercourse with the Frankish kingdom, excepting trading enterprises in the northern reaches of the realm. After Frisia and Saxony were annexed to the Frankish monarchy, however, almost immediately a new period began in the history of the Danes – aptly named “the post-Frankish period” – of direct social and political interaction.

The other Scandinavian peoples had little to no contact with the Christian peoples, and their seaborne expansion through the North Sea was yet to start.
The very southern parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula, which have since ancient times been called “Scandia” were inhabited by Danish tribes.

Just north of Scandia, there is the ancestral homeland of the Goths, whose name – Götaland – still invokes the name of this indomitable people that caused the downfall of Rome, and it there still lived the pagan people descending from the Goths – nowadays called the “Gautar”, or “Geats”.

Beyond the wild frontiers of the two great lakes in the heart of Scandinavia – the Vänern and the Vätern – the grassy hills, tranquil rivers and green pastures provided for the stalwart Swedish people, on whose country lay the most important religious center of the traditional Norse religion, the temple of Uppsala.

The western half of the peninsula, where the earth was sculpted into an immense range of towering snow mountains, defiantly intruding the domain of the heavens, and then befalling into the blue sea, cracked into various ravines known as fjords, it is to this day a hard home to an even harder race called the Norwegians.


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Distant from the coastal regions, in the unknown wilderness of black forests and rugged hills, sparse settlements of reindeer hunters and sheepherders called the Sámi can be found until the frigid boreal lands where the sun doesn’t sets during various months, and where the last cursed giants of the Old Testament still live.

On the other side of the Baltic Sea lay the vast and frigid country of the Finns, tribal peoples whose language, customs and gods were entirely alien to those of the Scandinavians.


3. First Phase of the Scandian Wars – the Subjugation of the Danes

In the year of 776, the outlawed Saxon leader Widukind was welcomed in the stronghold of his ally, Sigurðr Hringr [1], the ruler of Jutland who claimed to be the King of the Danes. In the same year, the Danes launched a series of raids through the northern coastal cities of Frankia, while some dissatisfied elements of the Saxon nobility rose in revolt and besieged Frankish fortresses. The Saxons were butchered in the outskirts of Minden, and a punitive expedition under Count Bernhard (Karolo’s uncle) went to Denmark in 777 and defeated King Sigurðr Hringr. Suing for peace, the Danish warchief agreed to convert to Christianity and to build a church in Haithabu [‘Hedeby’].

It’s certain that Sigurðr’s conversion wasn’t sincere, as he restricted missionary work and had animosity towards Christians. Nevertheless, he only felt secure to take action against the Franks in late 785, when King Karolo was campaigning in the Iberian Peninsula and a minor revolt occurred in Nordalbingia because the Franks had rewarded their allies, the Slavic Obodrites, with expansive fiefs in the Elbe valley. The Danish ruler expelled the Christians from Haithabu and demolished its church, started building a series of fortifications in the frontier region of the Jutland peninsula [‘Danevirke’], and to gain the support of the Saxons he staged raids against the Obodrites, and even plundered the market city of Reric.

Chief Witzan II of the Obodrites [2] called the Franks to war in retaliation. Acting as the King’s envoy, his cousin Adalhard (son of Count Bernhard) [3] marched north. He convinced the agitated Westphalians to attack the Nordalbingians and the Danes. The combined Frankish, Saxon and Slavic army quenched the Nordalbingian revolt by late 786, and immediately crossed the Ejder River – the border with the Danes. King Sigurðr sued for peace, but was rebuked. The southern force was now determined to do with the Danes what they did with the Saxons. The Danish King was deposed and had to escape from Jutland, which was entirely conquered. The church in Haithabu was rebuilt, and new ones were built in Ribe, Arhus and Viborg, and the Danish leaders are coerced into baptism and the payment of tribute. A client ruler called Olaf – one who voluntarily accepted the new faith – was installed, with a minor Saxon garrison in Arhus.

In 790, when the realm of Frankia was in turmoil due to the bastard Pippin the Hunchback’s war for the throne, the sons of King Sigurðr – Gudrød and Ragnarr [4] – invaded Jutland with a Danish army from Scandia. Olaf was slain by his bodyguards before the invaders arrived in his stronghold, and the enraged pagan populace rose against the Christian minority, again destroying the churches and slaughtering those who abandoned the old gods. With a fleet of almost two hundred ships, they raided Nordalbingia and Frisia, and forced the cities to pay tribute. Dokkum in Frisia is razed to the ground, and its population is deported to Jutland (791). The enraged Frisian administrators send an embassy to King Karolo II in Aachen and demand Danish blood.

King Karolo II personally marched with a large army in 792 to Jutland, reestablishing the border defenses, and expels the pagan Danish regiments from Ribe and Arhus. Resolved to punish the transgressions against the Christians, he orders the execution of almost a thousand Danish prisoners in Jelling and the destruction of sacred places. As a compensation to the sack of Dokkum, five thousand Danes are deported to Frisia as slaves and many others are forced to baptize. Insisting on church building, the ruined sanctuaries in Haithabu, Ribe, Arhus and Viborg are reconstructed, and foreigners such as Franks, Frisians and Saxons are encouraged to settle in Jutland. King Karolo II then returns to the court, but his relative Adalhard is ordered to bring the whole Danish people in communion with Frankia and with God.

In 793, ferried by a Frisian fleet, the Franks take the islands of Fyn, Lolland and Sjælland, and a fortress is built in Roskilde. After securing the Kattegat strait, the Franks rapidly invade Scandia to persecute the main forces of Sigurðr’s kinsmen. After the walled town of Lund is captured and set ablaze, the near settlement of Uppkåra surrenders peacefully and its people agree to convert.

In 795, Adalhard was called back to the continent, and the war was afterwards directed by the Austrasian noble Dagobert, who would later become the first Duke of Scania. Dagobert’s sought to divide and conquer the small Danish tribes – whose resistance against the Frankish advance inspired them to coalesce in larger federations – using their own petty hatreds and disputes to obtain the favor of some less hostile groups and attack others. A few leaders even embraced the Christian faith, convinced that their opponent’s might could only be explained by the patronage of their own deity, and afterwards a number of missionaries, mainly from Frankia, but also from Britain (employed by the Frankish court), would be operate in Scandia.

Gudrød and Ragnarr, the main leaders of the resistance, were finally beaten by a Frankish and Danish company in the margins of the Lagan River in 797 A.D.. Gudrød is slain, and Ragnarr agrees to baptize along with various tribal leaders.

Designing a network of smaller client tribes along the frontier, Dagobert officially establishes the new border of the Frankish kingdom along the Lakes Bolmen, Mökeln and Asnen, and there to the North and Baltic Seas. In reward, King Karolo II creates him the Duke of Scania in 799, and the ducal seat is installed in Uppkåra.

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[1] IOTL There was a Danish ruler named Sigfred that was an ally (possibly the father-in-law) of the Saxon leader Widukind, and during the Saxon Wars he really hosted Widukind after he escaped from the Franks in Saxony. There was also a (semi)legendary King of the Danes called "Sigurd Hring", and the Wiki says that they possibly were the same person, so I conflated the characters.

[2] Charlemagne was indeed allied to the "prince of the Obodrites", named Witzlaus or Witzan and he IOTL provided integral assistance against the Saxons during the middle phase of the war.

[3] Both Adalard and his father Bernard are historical characters, and were respectively cousin and uncle of Charlemagne.

[4] "Gudrod" is the old Norse name for Gudfred, successor of Sigfred as King of the Danes, and he succeeded his father. "Ragnarr" is the legendary Danish hero Ragnar Lodbrok (the main character of the History Channel series "Vikings"). According to the legend, he was a relative of Gudfred and the son of Sigurd Hring, so I tried to play along and put them in the same context.
 
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I'm really enjoying this so far! Really good work! We always need more TLs that focus on the west in this time.
 
I'm really enjoying this so far! Really good work! We always need more TLs that focus on the west in this time.

Thanks, I really appreciate it! Indeed, there is a shortage of TLs in the Early Middle Ages that don't focus on Byzantium. This is a period that always fascinated me!
 
SCANDINAVIA | 2. THE DANES (800 - 1000 A.D.)

1. The Danish "Lost Century"​

9th Century witnessed the nadir of the Danish geopolitical influence in Europe. Their population had been disastrously reduced by warfare, by forced migration (notably to Frisia and Austrasia) and famines in the late 8th Century resulting from this demographic loss. Thereafter their political affairs, their commerce – the backbone of economy in a land with poor agricultural yield – and even religion became dominated by foreign interests. It was not the case of the Saxons and Geats, for example, as these peoples actually prospered by the increased contact with the main socioeconomic system inaugurated by the Karoling domination. This scenario would only reverse by the middle 10th century, as the Frankish realm gradually collapsed into the “Age of the Dukes” [1], and the Danes caught up with the recent colonial drift by founding settlements in the Finnish littoral.

In the political aspect, what today is regarded as the core lands of the “Danish Nation” was divided in various proto-feudal groups. The earlier ethnic denominations existing during the period of the Barbarian Invasions – mainly the Angles and Jutes – had already been incorporated into the Danish group (whose ancestors inhabited the islands between Jutland and Scandinavia) by the Frankish conquest. After the First Scandian War, the Danish peoples as a whole became divided into two different provinces: the Duchy of Dania (comprising Jutland and the archipelago) and the March of Scania (comprising the mainland provinces in southern Scandinavian Peninsula), both ruled by Frankish nobles from Austrasia. This division would serve to bring the Jutlanders much more closely to the Saxon sphere of influence, while Scania at first had a closer relationship with the Geats after they converted to Christianity and rose to be the hegemonic polity in eastern Scandinavia).

Speaking of Christianity, its traumatic penetration into the Danish culture was also a defining mark of the so-called “Lost Century”. One can only wonder how those men and women living at the time of the conquest felt when they were told by men with so alien costumes that the gods worshipped by their forefathers – those which had created the world, that had given laws to the universe and that protected their kin – were actually devils, and that the sole deity worthy of adoration was a strange persona nailed to a cross, hailing from a faraway land. The sacred spots were now buried under churches, places in which the black robed men came to chant and proclaim mystic formulae in the language of the long-dead Romans. The due sacrifices to the gods were now forbidden under pain of death, as was the atavistic joy of war and of going viking, condemned by a deity who expected their subjects to be as feeble as a flock of sheep.

The conquest also practically extinguished the runic script in the Danish core region, as data recording would thereafter follow the Franco-Saxon pattern, using Latin, due to the obvious fact that it would be written by the Christian preachers (mainly Austrasians, but later Saxons) with little interest in the elder Norse beliefs. Those authors were also the main responsibles for the approximation of the fledgling Northmen scholarship with the cultural renaissance sponsored by the Karoling dynasty in Frankia.

Beyond the demographic catastrophe, the most ill-fated revolution that delayed the Danish recovery to the middle of the 10th Century was economic. The Danes were for a long time removed from the blooming economic scenario that followed the opening of new trade venues through the Baltic Sea, which were (and are to this day) their main source of wealth. After the Frankish conquest, the Frisian merchant class (at the time the most developed in the whole of Frankia) rapidly monopolized the commerce and mining operations in the whole span of southern Scandinavia. Valuable goods such as amber, wax, fur, iron and timber were formerly brought to western markets by Danish entrepreneurs were now transported by the Frisians, exploiting the vacuum after the weaking of the competition. This owed to the fact that the fleets responsible for the transport of Frankish troops in the northern maritime areas were almost wholly Frisian, and the successive monarchs of the Franks granted the savvy Frisian pioneers various benefices in the recently conquered provinces, including coastal towns from which they could administrate their seaborne enterprises. As early as the 830s trading outposts had been inaugurated in the Pomeranian and Lithuanian coasts, administrated by the Guildmasters of Kalmar, the main Frisian-controlled city in the Baltic Sea.

This mercantile reorientation also explained the fact that the earliest missionary ventures to the Polabians, the Lithuanians and the Finns were undertaken by Frisian preachers, who usually accompanied the business crews, so they were somewhat recognized in the western part of the Baltic Sea as the representants of the Frankish dominion.


2. The "Vagrant Generation"​

This rather biased term was coined in scholarship to design the Danish migration movements through the Frankish kingdom and beyond after the middle 9th Century. The name comes from the fact that the most notable archetypes of the period were mercenary companies of Danes who wandered through northern and central Europe attached to the feudal armies and participated in various wars during the period, seeking to obtain riches and fiefs. This paradigm became very noticeable in the later phase of the Frankish Civil Wars, as it became usual to find Danish warbands serving in opposing sides on the battlefield.

To this day, the reasons for this movement, that became very frequent by the end of the 9th Century, are not entirely understood by the scholars. Contemporary sources proclaim that the younger Danish generations, animated by the love of Christ, sought to employ their arms in the name of God. This assessment can hardly satisfy us. As it was said, even after becoming Christians those Northmen warriors had no qualms in fighting against brothers in faith. It also cannot be due by the same reasons that explained the Scandinavian Diaspora [2] – that is, mainly demographic pressure and newfound commercial prospects in the North Sea – as by this time the Danish population was diminished and their merchant class had been curbed by the Frisian interference. Perhaps the simplest explanation ought to be the most reasonable – a new generation of disillusioned youths, whose worldview, despite the infusion of Christian values, was still very war-like and violent, sought easy ways of ascending into the Frankish society: by military fame and battle spoils.


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Danish Mercenaries attack a castle in Frankia


As the reputation and influence of these isolate bands and of their chiefs increased, this “profession” became the favorite for Danish youths as the 9th Century ended. Some of them rose to positions of power, the most notorious example being Sveinn of Viborg who became a vassal of the Count of Champagne and whose lineage would later (in the 12th Century) dethrone the ruling dynasty of the region. Also, there are fascinating reports of various women – known in the Scandinavian custom as “shield-maidens” – serving in the sellsword regiments, and the Norse women were interpreted by the later Frankish tradition as legendary beauties, and became highly-sought as wives. Amazingly, there are surviving evidences of Christian Danish presence in places as far as Sicily, northern Iberia and Dalmatia. A most remarkable piece that survived to our times is the “Saga of Egil and Rolf”, a Norse-language composition based on the ancient Germanic poetry that chronicled the most significant campaigns of the Bavaro-Lombard campaigns to annex the Greek and Muslim territories in southern Italy, in which served various Danish mercenary companies.

Nevertheless, it’s a mistake to assume that this trend had a purely military expression. Even if the trading prospects through the Baltic route had been thwarted by the Frisians, the inwards venues through the Frankia itself presented very interesting opportunities. After a certain stability was obtained in central Europe in the middle 10th Century with the independence of Saxony and the personal union between Italy and Bavaria, a steady course of wealth exchange was restored between the northern seas and the Mediterranean Sea. To cite the most remarkable examples: the fledgling goldsmith guild in Minden would soon enough behold the famed works of recent Danish arrivals, while it were Danish carvers who inspired a whole generation of novel shipbuilding techniques in Neustria, Brittany and Aquitaine (the so-called "Danian generation" of ships).


3. The Slow Recovery through the 10th Century A.D.​

By the middle 10th Century, the Danish core lands hosted a very different people, more adapted to Christianity, and profoundly influenced by the Frankish connection, including an equestrian and Latin-speaking aristocracy mainly settled in the region of the River Ejder and in central Scania. The territory of the March of Scania had been increased through various military adventures undertaken by the Frankish feudal lords, and had its western border in the fortress of Gothburg [‘Goteborg’], and in the east included the islands of Öland and Gotland.

Frisian monopoly had been gradually been foiled by the Geatish expansion, a resourceful and eager rival for the control of the Baltic trade. The Geats founded colonies mainly in Pomerania and Prussia to directly harness the trade of amber and timber, and effectively cut the intermediary Frisian merchants. This was positive to the Danes, as the Geats were friendlier to them than the contentious Frisians, and the Danish merchants resumed a more participative action in the Baltic commerce.

After Frankia finally broke apart, starting the “Age of the Dukes”, Duke Hotger of Harzgau became the sole ruler east of the Ruhr River and was crowned King of the Saxons. The Duchy of Jutland and the March of Scania almost immediately fell into the sphere of Saxony, as the Danish bellicose manpower had served them well in their wars against their common foes: the Polabian confederations east of the Elbe River, which were had been forcibly baptized by the 980s and later reduced to clientage of the new Saxon kings. Albeit without granting genuine independence to the Danes, the Saxon kings respected their national autonomy and customs, and in this new regime, the peoples north of the Ejder border prospered.

In the later phase of the Scandinavian Diaspora, the Danes started their own colonization wave, establishing outposts in the eastern Baltic coast (mainly in the lands of the Lettigallians and Eestians). The native Balts, however, already hostile to the former Frisian and Geatish encroachment, quickly repelled the Danish attempts of colonization, and their interests eventually diverted to a northern country, hitherto unexplored by the Germanic peoples, the future realm of Finland, then fractured in a constellation of tribal nations.

Even if Christianity had already been presented to the southwestern Finnish peoples as early as the 850s by Frisian adventurers, its penetration among the Finns was negligible, and by the time of the papal-sanctioned Danish and Geatish missions in the 970s, however, it had largely been forgotten. The Christian Scandinavians endeavored to bring their own new faith to their neighbors beyond the Baltic Sea, and to this day History regards it as one of the most successful religious conversion processes. Even if slowly, the Finns in general (at least those inhabiting Finland proper, that is, the southwestern regions, on the very entrance of the Gulf of Finland) were receptive of the foreign preachers. In many tribes the “God-Christ” was properly introduced as a powerful deity inside their own pantheon, in others it actually came to overthrow the native mythology by the petty king’s conversion.

The most astucious Finnish tribal lords rapidly realized that the adoption of Christianity was a reasonable compromise to obtain the allegiance of the Scandinavian and Saxon polities in their ferocious conflict with Garðaríki [3] – a large and wealthy kingdom founded by Norse adventurers and whose armies contained by the finest Slavic and Magyar warriors in the far northeast. On the other hand, the Scandinavian and Saxon missions used this circumstance to their own favor, as the ruin of Garðaríki seemed to benefit all of them, because the prospect of reopening the Varangian trade routes to the Black Sea seemed to be a commendable purpose for the allying parties.

In Finnish historiography, this new period of foreign presence and the introduction of Christianity is commonly inaugurated by the conversion of “Duke” Hyvälempi of Turku (called by the Latin chroniclers “Dux” in the ancient meaning of “war leader”) to Christianity. His descendants became the most devoted evangelizers in the whole country, and eventually would play a significant role in the unification of Finland in the 11th Century. To the Christian Scandinavians, this process actually yielded into a favorable arrangement, as Finland would in the next few centuries prove to be a reliable ally and counterpoint to the inimical Varangians of the northern reaches.

The regions of Dania and Scania by the late 10th Century had their population levels from the pre-Frankish period restored, and the foreign minorities (mainly Saxons) would later be gradually integrated, as were their crafts and activities, and later the Danish cities would house important artisan guilds and shipbuilding factories.

Probably the most significant development, besides the Finnish contact, was the opening of the western route of commerce linking Scandinavia with the Irish princedoms and the distant colonies in Þýli [4], and, thereafter, with VesturÞýli [5]. These islands had recently been discovered by Norwegian pioneers in the 10th Century, a staunchly pagan people, but by the end of the 10th Century, the Christian Danish traders would be allowed to transport their wares to neutral colonies in Þýli – because the natives were too isolated to depend solely on the resources brought by the uninterested Norwegian travelers. Afterwards, through the 11th and 12th Centuries, the lucrative networks of fishing and transporting of codfish in the western hemisphere would be gradually overtaken by Danish brokers established in Ireland and Þýli.

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[1] "Age of the Dukes" is the name used ITTL to refer to the period of largest feudal fragmentation of the Frankish kingdom, in which the Frankish royalty was weakened by various civil wars and the monarchy was temporarily reduced to a cerimonious role, similar to Shogunate Japan (but don't take this comparison too seriously). The kingship would eventually de-evolve (through the 11th and 12th centuries) into an elective office, similar to OTL Holy Roman Empire. At this time, Aquitaine and Saxony became de iure independent and recognized by the pro-Lombard Papacy, while Bavaria entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Lombardy, escaping from the political sphere of Frankia.

[2] "Scandinavian Diaspora" is TTL name for the "Viking Age", and it serves to illustrate that the sudden Scandinavian expansion through Christendom was less violent (mainly due to the fact that the worst culprits - the Danes - had been taken off the equation), and the Swedes focused to much in Russia to care about Frankia, while the Norwegians failed their attempts of conquering Britain, establishing stronger bases in Ireland before departing for a more thorough colonization of Iceland and Greenland.

[3] "Garðaríki" is the Old Norse name for the region of Novgorod (while the city of Novgorod itself was called "Holmgardr") in northwestern Russia. I chose to remain for some time with the Norse spelling to stress the more significant Varangian/Swedish presence in the country - that is a Scandinavian warrior-elite ruling over mostly Slavic, but also Finno-Ugric subjects. They will be largely influenced by the Magyar kingdom settled in OTL Ukraine, along the River Dnieper course.

[4][5] "Þýli" and "VesturÞýli" are Icelandic language terms (the closest language to Old Norse spoken during the Viking Age), meaning literally "Thule" (refering to Iceland) and "West-Thule" (refering to Greenland). While the term Iceland exists ITTL, is used by the mainly pagan (and illiterate) Norwegians, while the Danish scholarship, mirroring the influent Saxon and Frankish traditions, refers to this big northern island by the name of "Thule", used by the ancient authors such as Ptolemy. Greenland, on the other hand, is known simply as the even bigger island "west of Thule", thus its exotic name. Considering that OTL name was possibly a propaganda stunt by Erik the Red (the "green land") to attract colonists to this new discovered place, I avoided using the current name. Oh, and there will be an alt-Vinland, wait for it.
 
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I'm really interested in seeing how the Scandinavian butterflies will affect the rest of Europe, specially the British Islands now that it doesn't looks like they will be that affected by Scandinavian raids and invasions
 
I'm really interested in seeing how the Scandinavian butterflies will affect the rest of Europe, specially the British Islands now that it doesn't looks like they will be that affected by Scandinavian raids and invasions

You are right. There will be Viking raids in Britain, but they will be on much smaller scale than IOTL. Due to the relative strength of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, these heathen raids will gradually focus more on Ireland, still divided in various princedoms, and to the colonization of Iceland.

There won't be, however, raids like those of Bjorn Ironside in the Mediterranean, and the Norsemen won't be established in northern Frankia, so Normandy will be butterflied away.
 
SCANDINAVIA | 3. THE GEATS AND THE SVEAR

1. The Second Scanian War

In 837 A.D., a Geatish warlord named Styrbjörn, ruler over the southern part of Värend, appeared before the court in Ingelheim to pay homage to King Adalhard of the Franks, who had defeated his brothers and his uncle, becoming the sole king. Styrbjörn’s father had converted to Christianity after being defeated in battle by the Frankish Marquis of Scania, and became a nominal client ruler, but resented the foreign interference and still worshipped the old gods. Styrbjörn himself saw a way to improve his own standing in the precarious stalemate that occurred between the mutually inimical Geatish peoples after the Frankish conquest. King Adalhard I accepted his proposal of assisting in his campaign against the pagan Geats. Styrbjörn was baptized in Ingelheim and adopted the name “Stephanus” in devotion to the first Christian martyr (also due to the vague phonetic approximation – as from this name came the modern version by which he is widely known “Styffein of Värend”).

Thus, due to the ambition of Styffein, the Second Scanian War began in 839 A.D., initially as a gamble to unite the independent nations of Småland [1] into a single realm under the God-Christ. Eight thousand men-at-arms and four hundred knights from Austrasia and Neustria, Saxony and Thuringia, Burgundy and Provence marched north, joined by Slavic mercenaries and by the native Danish and Geatish feudal levies and lordly retinues, comprising about eleven thousand men. This vast army was at first commanded by the King himself, and in the later stages by his nephew Hlothar the Bold.


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Map of Smaland during the Viking Age


The first phase of this war lasted until 842 when the defeated and intimidated tribal leaders agreed to a general truce in a diet presided by King Adalhard in Växjö. Styffein was created “Duke of Gothia”, securing the coastal regions (Möre, Handbörd, Aspeland and Sevede) for himself while the hinterland peoples, mainly in Finnveden, Njudung and Tveta accepted clientage, and their warlords baptized in Lake Helgasjön, with the King as their godfather.

During the brief peace between 842 and 845, Duke Styffein fulfilled his promises to the suzerain and invested his own family heirloom in the building of churches, including the Basilica of Väjxö, inaugurated by the Bishop of Lund; granted fiefs to landless Frankish and Saxon nobles in his country; enforced the King’s charters granting rights to the Frisian and Anglish merchants (mainly in a district of Kalmar); and stimulated proselytizing missions through the country of the Geats. By cunning diplomacy, he isolated the largest Geatish nations, favoring the weakest, and smartly brought them into his own vassalage. It is said, after all, that Duke Styffein when he was a young man had received a prophecy foreboding that he would be the progenitor of kings, and knew that the submission to the Franks was but a means to a far more exceptional purpose.

Whatever were his plans, however, they could have been undone in 845 and the following years, because his ambitions became all too clear to his rivals in Småland, and they finally obtained the support of the mighty Svearish chieftains. Even a perceptive man like Duke Styffein might have been surprised by this new alliance, for the race of the Geats and of the Svear had been bitter enemies for countless generations. It seems that the Frankish threat – which might extinguish their own independence and destroy their customs – warranted the dismissing of old hatreds in favor of a coalition.

Duke Styffein tried to muster the assistance of the Svearish and Geatish federations living around the great Lake Vänern, as they rivalled with those living around the Lake Vätern – his enemies – but they were uninterested in participating. It took two campaigns (845 and 846) for pro-Frankish forces to be routed on the battlefield or to defect to the enemy, as many of his new vassals actually frowned upon the foreign interference and saw the presence of the God-Christ in their country an offense to their own gods of the sky, the earth and the seas.

If Duke Styffein’s defeat at first seemed obvious, due to the immense numerical advantage of the contenders, his dominion survived because of the recently built motte and bailey forts in the southern frontier and in the coastal regions. The Svear had no patience for sieges, and preferred to plunder the countryside.

Responding to Duke Styffein’s call to arms came his son-in-law, the Hermann of Bremon [‘Bremen’] (a relative of the Saxon Duke) with about 1.200 infantrymen and 180 horsemen. He relieved the siege attempt of Väjxö, thus rescuing Styffein in late 846, but in his overconfidence advanced deep into enemy territory and was ambushed and made a prisoner with most of his battalion.


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Prince Hermann of Bremon's forces are ambushed in Scandinavian woodlands[2]​


In that very year, the pagans ritualistically sacrificed him with a few other highborn prisoners in the winter’s festival in Uppsala. Hermann would much later be canonized as a martyr, but not even this circumstance could have appeased his father’s hatred – the Duke of Saxony – towards the pagans. He went personally to the royal court of Hugh of Austrasia - one of King Adalhard’s sons and the most favored pretender to the throne of Frankia - to demand vengeance against the pagans. At the time, with tied hands in a war with his cousin Hlothar the Bold for the control of Neustria, King Hugh reluctancly detached a force of 3.000 levied men to march north.

By now, the Northmen had offered terms for a truce in a meeting in Väjxö with Duke Styffein and Marquis Liutpold of Scania. The Geatish lord, however, had little interest in peace, and purposefully thwarted the negotiations, insulting the enemy and threatening them, which resulted in the continuation of hostilities. His strategy was to create such an enmity between the Svearish coalition and the Franks that only the destruction of the pagans would suffice to bring peace to the country. The gamble at first did not pay off. The forces of King Hugh repeated the same mistake of young Hermann and, after minor victories, were broken (847) by the sudden attack of the heathen guerrilla in the wilderness. The scattered forces were mustered again by Duke Styffein, but they refused to leave the safety of the fortresses in northern Scania.

This embarrassing blunder cost the reputation of King Hugh, and Saxon and Danish vassals threatened to defect to his rival’s faction. Realizing that a victory in the far north was the only way of salvaging his own cause inside the convoluted affairs of Frankia, he concluded a hasty truce with his cousin Hlothar, and immediately navigated from Frisia to Scandinavia with 6.000 troops.

Disembarking in Kalmar, they quickly advanced against the myriad of Geatish tribes, as their forces had been separated from the more numerous Svearish raiding parties. The heathens had captured but a few castles in Värend (Duke Styffein’s fief) and it was easy to isolate them and pursue the Geats in open field. They were quickly repelled from the whole of Värend and King Hugh organized a strategic pincer attack to subjugate Finnveden: (1) the forces of Marquis Liutpold came from the southwest and (2) his own Royal army from the east. In a single month, the whole province had been conquered, and their leaders baptized in the Lake Bolmen. Afterwards, King Hugh awaited the arrival of the Saxon reinforcements from the continent.

A grand army of pagan Geats and Svear reunited in a village near the Solgen Lake (848). King Hugh refused their offers of truce, and met them in battle in September, 848 A.D., in the Day of St. Hyeronimus, and the pagans were defeated. Duke Styffein’s diplomatic cunning convinced the Geats – who suffered greater losses –that bowing to a distant king was better than recognizing the hegemony of their former (and still despised) enemies, the Svear, and the coalition broke apart. Some Geatish nobles agreed to convert to Christianity, on the condition that they preserve their own holdings. The Svears, cursing their hitherto allies, retreated back north, but were pursued and cornered on the shores of Lake Sonnen. The exhausted men offered little resistance, and after the initial bloodbath, it became a large-scale enslavement. Some two thousand Svearish warriors were deported to Austrasia and some of them recruited into King Hugh’s army.

The Geatish princedoms were now at least nominally Christian, and their suzerainty was partitioned between Duke Styffein and Marquis Liutpold. The southern Svearish lords were forced to acknowledge Frankish supremacy over the parts of Scandinavia belonging to King Hugh.


2. The Geatish Hegemony​


After the Second Scanian War, another phase of the conquest began, but instead of a single, large war to annex a whole country, it would consist of decades of localized campaigns, skirmishes and raids, conducted mainly by the Geats, but also by the Danes of the March of Scania. Even as the Kings of Frankia lost their interest in Scandinavia, the Geatish domination became an unpleasant fact, and they at least nominally represented the weakening Frankish kingdom. Duke Styffein was an opportunistic ruler, and was perfectly content in waving the Frankish standards in battle, and paying homage to the successive rulers of Frankia – indeed, his own long rule in Geatland outlived that of various Frankish monarchs – because he knew he was the de facto Prince of Scania. In the future, his successors would proclaim their independence and claim the whole of Scania to their fledgling kingdom, but this concerns a future chapter.

Through the late 9th and first half of the 10th Century, the Geats, replicating the example of the Frisians and the Danes before the conquest, endeavored to expand in the Baltic coast, mainly in Pomerania and Prussia.

The West Slavic peoples living east of the Elbe River by now had a direct contact with Latin Christianity, and the circumstances of the Saxon War transformed their relationship with Frankia. Until the reign of King Karolo I of the Franks, the Obodrite confederation was allied to the Franks against the Saxons. After the Saxons baptized and their territory converted into a duchy, the Christian Saxon Dukes took to themselves the task of subduing those peoples through the 10th Century, whom they called “Wends”. For this reason, the arrival of the Geats, whose penetration in the country was less violent and more trade-oriented, provided a useful prospect of alliance. Even if the Saxons and Geats were both part of the same realm, and vassals to the same monarch, a situation that prohibited war between them, this hardly prevented the generations of skirmishes and small-scale conflict east of the Elbe River, waged between autonomous longboat crews and lesser Saxon lords.

By the end of the 10th Century, however, it became clear that the Saxons had the upper hand: they dedicated their whole resources and manpower to the enlargement of their fiefs in the Slavic frontier. The Wagrians were the first to fall, in the 930s, and Liubice became a Saxon stronghold. Afterwards, the Polabians would gradually be pushed to the east. The Geatish alliance became less useful as their dukes became embroiled in the wars of conquest in Scandinavia itself. The fate of the Pomeranians was sealed when Duke Lukas the God-Lover, an ardent enemy of paganism, changed their national policy to wage a war of conquest against the weakened Slavic peoples in that country. The bitter resistance of the pagans became legendary, but as the 11th Century began, the patterns of the unofficial partition of Polabia could already be seen: between the Saxons, until the border of the River Oder, and the Geats, who took for themselves various coastal settlements, including the island of Rügen.

In the uncharted country of the Prussians, a raiding crew led by the pagan Gústafr Gústafrson established a stronghold named after his father – or himself, perhaps – Gústengarðr, inside the Vistula Lagoon (950s), and from there launched seasonal raids through the Rivers Elbing and Pregel. The settlement of Gústengarðr, despite founded by pagans, would quickly welcome Christianity, and for a long time it was a neutral haven for both pagans and baptized people, until the middle 11th Century, when paganism was finally outlawed.


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Map of Medieval Prussian peoples


In the eastern Baltic coast, the Geatish raids were much less successful. Despite various generations of attempting to build a network of fortified markets in the country inhabited by the Eestians [‘Estonians’], Lettigalians and Samogitians, the indigenous peoples, who worshipped strange gods, unknown to even the Slavs and the Scandinavians, and were covetous of their miserable freedom, waged a determined resistance, and despite their internal disunity, had a greater capacity of amalgamating in temporary coalitions to repel the invaders.


3. The Third Scanian War


Some generations after Duke Styffein’s voluntary conversion to Christianity, his grandson, the powerful Eirikr of Värend, became the godfather of Jarl Torsten of Söderköping in his baptism in 928, thus becoming the first Svearish ruler to voluntarily convert to Christianity. Besides being an historical landmark, dividing “pre-Christian” and “Christian” Svealand, this conversion provoked a noticeable domino effect, inspiring the baptism of minor lords, and the consequent recognition of the Geatish suzerainty.

By this time, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of pagans from south and eastern Scandinavia had migrated to Garðaríki, and the weakened remnants in the homeland were gradually overwhelmed by the violence of the Geats and the Danes. Even if the fear of the Frankish arms was now but a distant memory, the Geats themselves had become the most formidable bulwark of Christianity inside Scandinavia. While Duke Styffein adopted a tolerant policy towards pagans, his successors, like his grandsons Karell and Styffein, were ardent Christians, and condemned the worship of the ancient idols.

The tensions had mounted up during the 940s, during the reign of Eirikr’s son, Duke Lukas "God-Lover" Eirikson, intensified the raids against the pagan Svear beyond the border fixed in the Braviken bay and forced the communities of Södermanland to abandon the old gods. Until then, the border had been grudgingly respected by both sides, Christian and pagan, and these peoples enjoyed a tense peace. The Geatish aggression, even if anticipated by the northern pagans, was even more violent than foreseen, as Duke Lukas mustered an immense army of Geats, Danes and even Saxon and Pomeranian mercenaries, numbering about 5.000 men-at-arms, and 600 heavy cavalry, a numerical record in Scandinavian military conflicts, all joined not only by the promise of plunder, slaves and the most fertile fiefs in Scandinavia, but also of religious salvation. After all, this war was the first one to be sanctioned directly by the Pope, after the Archbishop of Lund had corresponded with him regarding the righteousness of such a violence. The seating Pope at the time was *Gregorius IV [3], and he responded by enthusiastically supporting the “holy war” against the heathens, and even furnished a standard representing the triple-tiered Papal Cross, proudly waved by Duke Lukas. This symbol would in the centuries following become the national flag of the Geatish kingdom, a white triple cross upon a burgundy field (the color of the Styffeinling Dynasty).


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Modern Flag of the Kingdom of Geatland, adopted in the late 13th Century


The news that the pagans had formed a coalition to oppose Duke Lukas Eirikson gave him the convenient pretext to launch a grand-scale war of conquest. His decisive victory in near the shores of the Lake Örebro (949) apparently demonstrated the righteousness of their sanguinary enterprise.

Through the next four years, Duke Lukas tirelessly waged a bloody war of conquest, breaking the Svearish confederation by attrition and by exploiting its internal divisions. Like his forefather, Duke Styffein, he used the strategy of divide and conquer, knowing that many of the allied Svearish tribes actually harbored ancient feuds between each other, while some others were more tolerant towards Christianity. His army’s discipline and organization became proverbial, restrained from their basest vices by his iron-fist and will, even as more and more bands of adventurers arrived from Frankia, determined to fight against what they believed to be Christ’s enemies in exchange for promised forgiveness.

The famous siege and later destruction of Uppsala, in 954, would be propagated by countless poems and chronicles, and by the 13th Century would be regarded as the Christian Trojan War. It became notorious for uniting under the same cross-banner a multitude of nations, as if the whole Christendom had come to destroy a notorious center of paganism, an ancient temple near a tremendous oak tree that the Scandinavians believed to be the representation of the world-tree, Yggdrasil. A serious historian, however, can hardly be persuaded by these romantic exaggerations. If there were indeed foreigners in Duke Lukas Eirikson’s army, they were mostly mercenaries interested in the legendary riches hidden in mounds protected by dragons and demons in the Scandinavian wilderness, although there might be indeed a few contingents of fanatical Franco-Germanic groups seeking indulgence by battle, a pattern that would reach entirely new proportions in the 11th Century, as Papal-sanctioned holy wars became frequent. Regarding the numbers, instead of the alleged 100.000 soldiers figure presented by the Gesta Gautorum [4], its likely that the Geatish troops were about 6.000 fighting men, mostly feudal levies of peasants and fishermen. It is an amazing number in its own right, of course, especially considering that at the time the Scandinavian population had diminished by the diaspora.

The razing of the fortified temple in Uppsala by Duke Lukas Eirikson marked the decline of Norse paganism in eastern and central Scandinavia. Afterwards, most of the Svearish jarls baptized (955), and only a few, more remote warlords remained to provide sacrifices to the national deities. In Norway, as already said, paganism remained strong, as the Christian expeditions were more successfully opposed by the unforgiving wilderness and rugged mountains.

This period also marked the apogee of the Geatish hegemony, as Duke Lukas Eirikson was recognized as the overlord above various Geatish and Svearish petty lords, and it was this mighty principality that would give birth to the Kingdom of Geatland in the late 11th Century.

_________________________________

[1] "Småland" is a region in southern Sweden. The name used is anachronistic, but I preferred to use it because its more widely known. During the Viking Ages, these lands were inhabited by the Geats, a people descended from the ancient Goths, but historically they were conquered and assimilated by the the Kingdom of Sweden.

[2] Art by Ethically Challenged from Deviant-Art

[3] This is an ALT-Gregory IV. Due to butterflies, some Papal names will be repeated, but they will be different from OTL persons.

[4] "Gesta Gautorum" is a Latin name meaning (loosely) "Deeds of the Geats", and its a fictional TTL chronicle of the History of the Geats, like OTL Gesta Dannorum and Gesta Francorum.
 
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I'm not that familiar with the time period so I need to ask if the eastern Christian drive and the Papal approval for the holy war are results of the Frankish conquest of Scania?
 
I'm not that familiar with the time period so I need to ask if the eastern Christian drive and the Papal approval for the holy war are results of the Frankish conquest of Scania?

Indeed, the conquest of Saxony, Denmark and Scania were convenient precedents for the future religious wars to convert the Slavic and Norse pagan peoples, so this movement becomes more frequent by the end of the 10th Century, and will be definitely consolidated in the late 11th Century, when we will see movements similar to the Crusades (but more focused on the Iberian Peninsula than on the Holy Land itself). We'll get there.

The Papal sanction for a war of conquest IOTL was one of the pretexts used by William the Conqueror to invade England in 1066, for example. If the Papacy was willing to support an expedition against another Christian polity, he would certainly be more inclined to do it against a heathen nation.

Its interesting to note that the Papacy was directly involved in the Christianization movements of the late 10th Century. The Kings of Poland and Hungary, for example, received Papal envoys before and after their conversion, so we have evidence to demonstrate that even in distant Italy the Papacy was informed of the transformations occurring even beyond Christendom.

(I hope to have answered your question. My point was that the religious wars will indeed become more frequent by the 11th Century, and they have historical plausibility by a series of episodes that occurred IOTL)
 
4. SCANDINAVIA | THE NORWEGIANS

1. The Norwegian Voyages to the West

The Norwegians, on the other hand, preferred to sail westward, raiding the prosperous cities of Britain. After successive generations of coastal attacks, the Mercian monarchs – who had since the reign of Offa the Great become the royal overlords of the princes of Wessex, Cornwall, Essex, East Anglia, Sussex and Kent – inspired by the example of the Karolings, invested in a “march system”. Some of the Kings’ most trusted men received the task of building forts along the coasts and river mouths (from whence the Norsemen penetrated to attack the heart of Britain), and were allowed to train and equip larger levies than any thegn in the realm (especially the West Saxons, whose rebellious sentiment constantly defied the Mercian hegemony). By the 880s, this defensive system had proved more effective than the disconcerted efforts of the Northumbrians to repulse the invaders [1].

Northumbria almost collapsed in the early 10th Century, when a large army of Norwegians led by Hákon Haraldson of the Ynglings marched south from their main base in Monkceaster [‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’] plundering many wealthy temples and enslaving hundreds of Angles. The King in Mercia agreed to provide his assistance against the pagans on the condition that the monarch in Eoferwic recognized his suzerainty. After the famous Anglo-Saxon victory in Dearthington [‘Darlington’] in 914, the Norwegians were destroyed as a political player in northern Britain, and weakened Northumbria was gradually brought inside the Mercian dominion.

After being repulsed from the lands of the Anglo-Saxons, the invading pagans directed their expeditions against Scotland, Wales and Ireland, whose political fracturing allowed for easier conquests.

The Faroe and Shetland Islands – until then barely inhabited – were colonized by Norwegians, and their travels took them as far as Þýli [2], the remote land which the ancient authors considered to be a semi-mythical place. Indeed, in the days that the Norwegians arrived, the years were milder, and the earth could afford to sustain a larger population near the coasts than today.

At first, they attracted only the colonists born in Norway, attracted by the reports of fertile farms, plenty of game and fish, as well as hidden riches in ancient hoards, built by the long-extinct giants. The Saga of Harald Thorvaldson tells us about the larger-than-life exploits of Harald, an adventurous pagan who led a group of warriors to plunder the lair of a dragon living inside a volcano. During the 10th Century, however, the communities of Þýli had closer contact with Hiberno-Norse princedoms than Norway itself, and gradually the missionaries affiliated to the famous traditions of St. Pádraig [‘Patrick’] and St. Colmcille [‘Columba’] gained their foothold in the fledgling colony. Motivated by their religious fervor, they insisted on their missionary work even after the hostility of the pagan inhabitants created so many martyrs. Their effort paid, in the long run, by the late 11th Century, Þýli’s population was entirely Christian. The remote location of the island and the hard life during the frigid seasons became an attractive for the severest monastic groups that desired even more segregated retirement.

Wales and Ireland, in particular, due to its internal divisions, experienced various generations of colonization by the Norwegians, who founded cities such as Dyflin [OTL Dublin] and Veisafjǫrðr [OTL Wexford]. Distinct races emerged from this cultural merging: the Cambro-Norse and the Hiberno-Norse, respectively, and this contact provoked the peculiar result of approximating the new immigrants to Christianity, a religion that in their own homeland was abhorred.

Their farthest voyages, now conducted by the Norwegian-born Thulians themselves, led to the discovery of VesturÞýli [3], an even vaster realm on the Arctic Circle, whose land freezes almost entirely in winter – similar to the brisk wastes of Lappland – but in that place the communities were short-lived and smaller, mostly composed by seasonal groups of fishermen, timber harvesters and fur trappers who voyaged in spring and summer to collect those natural goods.

Soon enough these adventurous travelers came to find an entire new world in the very western edge of the universe: which came to be known as Sólarglaðanland [4] – the “land of the sunset”, in the middle 10th century. At the time, they didn’t knew, of course, that their small fishing trips to hunt cod – plentiful in the seas south of VesturÞýli – caused them to find, by happenstance, such a vast continent. Perhaps they imagined that Sólarglaðanland was but a tiny island, a convenient and providential piece of land where their expeditions could pass the worst seasons before they returned to their homeland. Only when they found that strange race of men, whose skin, eyes, clothes and customs – called skraelings – were so different from their own, did they realized that perhaps this great western island had its own secrets.

In any event, of course, the dedicated exploration of Sólarglaðanland’s coast only happened in already in the 12th Century, when the tireless Hiberno-Norse and Basque traders from northern Iberia formed their commercial networking linking the North Sea to the Western Sea, capitalizing in the plentiful sources of timber, fish and fur. The region would only awake some interest from continental adventurers (mainly Danes) after St. Erik of Þýli’s papal sponsored mission to the “western island” catechized and brought back the first skraelings to Frankia in the late 12th Century.


2. The Realm of a Hundred Kingdoms​

As said before, the land that today belongs to the Kingdom of Norway didn’t exist as a single polity until some centuries after the Frankish conquest of the Danes. The most populous regions, located in the very southwestern tip of the peninsula – the land between Gulaþing and Víkin – were in constant conflict with the Christianized Danes, Frisians and, after the reign of Duke Styffein, with the ambitious Geats, but they stalwartly refused the advance of the foreign traditions and cults inside their own country.

The Norwegian princes ruled tiny countries, and those who held to larger fractions of the territory – like the king of Hålogaland – actually had a handful of subjects, for most of the non-coastal territories were sparsely inhabited.

The Norwegians were the most dedicated adventures and explorers of the North Sea, but their diaspora and colonizing enterprises to take more fertile lands (mainly in Ireland) took its toll in the homelands, as they lost a significant fraction of the fighting population. We cannot fathom numerical estimates of this emigration from such a distant past, but suffice to say that until the Scandinavian Diaspora, the Norwegian population, like that of the other Scandinavian peoples, had experienced a very significant growth, possibly to the breaking-point of provoking a centrifugal migratory movement. Norwegian communities from the 9th Century onwards suddenly appear beyond the kingdoms of Norway, and witness quick expansion, not only by the arrival of adventurers, but mainly by the miscegenation with the native populations, especially the Irish and the Welsh, and, to a lesser extent, the Bretons. These distinctive marks of the northern Germanic cultural penetration into the fairly isolated Celtic nations were mostly noticeable between the 9th and 13th Centuries, but, afterwards, the culture and languages of these Celtic peoples developed and effectively absorbed the ancient traits inherited

Through the 9th Century, the rapidly expanding Frisian trading monopoly in the Baltic Sea sought to secure their interests in southern Norway, at least on the littoral of the Kattegat strait, so as to prevent any embarrassment to the flow of commerce between western Europe with the Baltic realms. As it had happened in Scania and Geatland, the safety of the North Sea was also a very interesting prospect for the Frankish monarchy, and some of the more conscious kings in Aachen financed small-time maritime expeditions to conquer whatever fortified positions there were in the Skagerrak coast.

A group of about 40 Frankish and Saxon adventurers led by the infamous warlord Gaucelm of Toul took the walled town of Líðandi and claimed it for the King of the Franks in 841. They held it for barely a season before being ousted by the local jarl, but in the next year he returned with a more sizeable force, and seized the stronghold again. The religious and cultural tolerance that he imposed in his city-state was notoriously progressive by the time, of course, but it was more a measure of necessity than of humanity, and the locals, after the deposition of the local Norwegian lord, were allowed to continue the sacrifices to their own deities and to oblige to their own customs and laws, on the condition that the Christians were respected. It was not an isolated case, of course, as we have some fragmentary notice of other like-minded bands of adventurers – mainly from Neustria – that sought to craft their own petty realms, likely inspired by the example of the Frisian colonies in southeastern Scandinavia. “Gaucelm’s princedom”, as it became known, would be the longest living of the “colonial fiefs” and in the long run would prove to be the most reliable point of contact between the aggressive Christian kingdoms in the Frankish sphere and the gradually more sequestered pagan nations of western Scandinavia.

After even the Norwegian homeland became more favorable to Christianity, the communities founded by their emigrants in Þýli would became the ultimate safe havens for ancient paganism, whose faithful went as far as the unknown continent in the farther western edge of the universe.

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[1] ITTL, the rise of Wessex that occurred after Offa's death is butterflied away. Mercia continues being the paramount Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and it will eventually become the responsible for uniting the whole of England, especially considering that there won't be any "Great Heathen Army" to create the mess that OTL witnessed in the late 8th Century. Instead of outright annexation, as it had occurred with Alfred the Great and his descendants, the Mercian unification will be more hegemonic, based on marriage ties (like the Iberian Union), but the local Saxon elites will retain some regional power.

[2] "Þýli" (meaning "Thule" in Old Norse) is TTL Iceland, and known even on the official Norse chronicles by the ancient name of Thule. The name "Ísland" will exist, but it won't be the official name, but rather a common geographic reference to the island on the North Sea.

[3] "VesturÞýli" ("West Thule" in Old Norse) is TTL Greenland. I know the name is not the most creative, but considering the "Greenland" came as a propaganda stunt by Erik the Red to attract settlers to the newly discovered place, I avoided using this name.

[4] "Sólarglaðanland" (literally "Land of the Sunset") is TTL Vinland. The general colonization patterns will be similar to OTL, with the main explorations being carried out by Greenlanders and Icelanders to collect timber, fur and fish.
 
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