The United West...or the Middle Ages without Byzantium TL

I got one thing that kinda annoys me. Its the netherlands. Back then the water mass in the middle was a normal lake and not a sea. between 800 and 1200 a hot period in the middle ages there were many storms that slowly bashed the coast away from the north. it was around 1100 when the lake became truly connected with the north sea. you can ignore this if you want. If you want to know more I post a link that goes a bit more in depht on it.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee I recomment you use google translate for this because the English version goes barely into it.
 
I got one thing that kinda annoys me. Its the netherlands. Back then the water mass in the middle was a normal lake and not a sea. between 800 and 1200 a hot period in the middle ages there were many storms that slowly bashed the coast away from the north. it was around 1100 when the lake became truly connected with the north sea. you can ignore this if you want. If you want to know more I post a link that goes a bit more in depht on it.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee I recomment you use google translate for this because the English version goes barely into it.

Thanks for the clarification.

It is not easy to get an accurate blank map with the right coastline. I will use this info for creating a detailed map of the Netherlands that I need for an upcoming chapter.
 
Thanks for the clarification.

It is not easy to get an accurate blank map with the right coastline. I will use this info for creating a detailed map of the Netherlands that I need for an upcoming chapter.
I know this wiki was the only thing I could find about the subject
 
ANNEX: THE GRAND DUCHY OF THE NETHERLANDS

This map depicts the complex organization created by Edwacer II in the Netherlands by 775.

The Frisians were all confined in the semi-independent and underpopulated county of Frisia (green), while the rest was divided in counties ruled by either Franks (pink) or Saxons (orange). The rebellious Pagan Saxons were mostly confined in the county of Holland, while the other Saxon county (Toxandria) was settled by loyal Saxon warriors who prevented the others to riot again.
The Franks also confined later other problematic peoples (like pro-Roman latin-speakers) in Hainaut (GS Henegau) and Wallonia. The settlement of Hameland with southern Franks caused frictions with neighbouring Frisians.

While only the Pagan Saxons were coerced to embrace christianism under the mission of the bishopric of Utrecht, Frisians also gradually embraced the new faith as long as they started to found cities and trade with the other Netherlandic counties was boosted.

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ANNEX: THE VISIGOTHIC KINGDOM DURING THE 8th CENTURY

While Francia and Saxony achieved the hegemony in the Germanic Europe, the Visigothic Kingdom kept a low profile for most of the century, mostly due to the continued internal fights for a very fragile central power.

The main highlights were the compromise with the Franks and Lombards about the religious independence of the Germanic national churches. The expansion of the Franks into the area of Tolosa helped to build a more tight religious interrelation and opened the Gothic Spain to the influence of the Germanic Standard language by the end of the century.

The Goths also gained an increasing political influence over Vasconia after the Frankish conquest of Aquitaine. This balanced the final independence of the Second Swabian Kingdom in northwestern Spain after the Peace of Braga (763), which ended decades of war. The relations with the Vandal Kingdom were also tense as the Goths proceeded their expansion by Moerland (Mauritania) in order to secure the area of the strait of Gibraltar.

Hispania by 780:

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CHAPTER 12: FRAGMENTATION OF THE GERMANIC WORLD. RISE OF BAVARIA


The prosperity and stability of the Twin Kingdoms abruptly ended in the fall of 786. The Frankish King Edwacer II died in a mysterious accident during a hunting journey near Cologne and this, added to the also obscure death of his only son Prince Edwacer just six months earlier, meant that the throne of Francia became vacant. The loyal men of Edwacer II accused some nobles of plotting about the deaths of the King and his heir and soon the ancient internal fights resumed in the Kingdom.

The disputes in Francia resulted in the proclamation of Hubert, a distant relative of Edwacer II, as the new King of the Franks in 788. Hubert was considered a tyrant by many Frankish people, noble or not, and the Dukes of both Alamannia and Burgundy did not accept his election. The semi-independent duchies repealed the Hubertian troops and became Kingdoms with full sovereignty in 790 (Burgundy) and 792 (Alamannia); the anti-Hubertian uprising in Aquitaine however, was brutally repressed and many Latin-speaking peasants abandoned the region escaping from the bloodbath and settling later in other countries, mainly in Vasconia and Brittany.

The change of rulers in Francia deeply affected this 'twin' Kingdom of Saxony. The King Ricbert relied in his elder brother for keeping the peace and stability in the convulse Saxony; once his brother was dead, he struggled to keep his power and he finally fled to his loyal Thuringia in 789, while the rest of the Kingdom was a field of war between Christian Saxons opposed to Ricbert and Pagan Saxons who wanted to revert the official status of the Christianity in Saxony and recover the Pagan cults. Thus, Saxony was finally split in two parts since 796: a Christian West and a Pagan East (called Wendish Saxony). Thuringia kept his independence, ruled by Ricbert under the protection of the neighbouring Kingdom of the Great Moravia (his wife Kristina was the queen of Great Moravia and his son Arnulf inherited it in 802 after the death of his mother), while the Danes and their Jute allies established their own Kingdom in 804, occupying Rugia and other Northern Saxon regions in 806-808.

In 805 Ricbert died and his eldest son Theoderic was proclaimed King of Thuringia. His younger brother ruled the Great Moravia and he managed to forge and anti-Hubertian alliance with him along with the Danish Kingdom, Alamannia, Burgundy and the Great Lombardy; meanwhile, the King of Francia still controlled the Netherlands and he later built an alliance with the new (Western) Saxon Kingdom. Theoderic and his allies realized that their alliance was far weaker than the Frankish-Saxon one, so he decided to start an approachment to their former rival, the powerful Kingdom of Bavaria, in order to balance the power in the Germanic Europe.

Bavaria was a rising power since the previous century, but under King Theobald (crowned in 792) it had reached the maximum of its territorial power after defeating the last Kingdom of the Avars in 795. Through the new duchy of Avaria they managed to connect with the formerly isolated Kingdom of the Gepids, which became a loyal ally of Bavaria, expanding their borders into former Avar lands as well. In 802, Theobald imposed his nephew Grimoald as new King of Croatia, thus puppetizing the Slavic country, and shortly after the new King as his uncle won two border wars with the Chalcedonians for the control of the march of Weissenburg (former region of Sirmium).

Theoderic requested Theobald twice for exploring an alliance between their two political blocks against Francia and his allies. The first time, in 807, Theobald refused the meeting because he was not interested in that matter as he was still busy campaigning against Chalcedon but the second time, in 810, he was more interested because the Frankish troops of Hubert had been harassing Bavarian merchants in the Mainfranken and threating to raid the northern half of Alamannia (considered a buffer state by Bavaria). Theobald finally accepted and the royal meeting was set for March 811 in Regensburg.

Map of Germanic Europe in 810

The coloured states are ruled by a Germanic monarch.

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Seems possible. Especially at times like these, the success of kingdoms often came down to their ruler. One's death often resulted in breakups of larger kingdoms.

The vikings should probably have started appearing about now, although I assume England will have been getting the worst of it. With the Danes, arguably the main faction of Norse vikings, semi-affiliated with the Saxon groups, they'll probably have looked elsewhere. Really looking forward to any butterflies in England.
 
Seems possible. Especially at times like these, the success of kingdoms often came down to their ruler. One's death often resulted in breakups of larger kingdoms.

The vikings should probably have started appearing about now, although I assume England will have been getting the worst of it. With the Danes, arguably the main faction of Norse vikings, semi-affiliated with the Saxon groups, they'll probably have looked elsewhere. Really looking forward to any butterflies in England.

Yes, you are right. Vikings are now showing up by Britain (I will explain the situation in the Isles in an upcoming Annex), but by the moment they have no major role in this TL. The involvement of the Danes in northern Germany keep them out of this area, but probably they will become a problem for rival Francia in the future.
 
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