Who was the best European monarch before the French Revolution and after Charlemagne.

Rate your nomination out of 5, 1 for meh and 5 for world beater and give your reasons.

Categories:
1. Administrative ability
2. Diplomatic prowess
3. Military prowess
4. Ability to lead reform
5. Cult of personality
6. Legacy

My candidate is Frederick II of Prussia 4/5/4/3/4/5 before him Prussia was a second rate power but after he left it was a one of the powerhouses of the continent.
 
Sorry but the question does not make sense.

Countries are so different on size and strength that it' sur like asking who is the greater sports competitor between the top 20 football players, the top 20 baseball players, the top 20 swimmerd, the top 20 F1 drivers ans the top 20 tennis players.
 
Impossible to answer when between Charlemagne and French Revolution was hunders of European monarchs whose had totally different countries and eras.
 
Some of the greats:
Sueliman the Magnificent, Elizabeth I, Maria Theresia, Joseph II, Frederick II, Charles XII, Gustavus Adolphus, Louis XIV. But really, far too many to list.
 

libbrit

Banned
Id say Elizabeth I is up there, and not for nationalistic reasons.

  • She effectively governed a religiously fractious realm and avoided full scale religious civil war.
  • She managed to ride diplomatic storms relatively adeptly, although `she` is probably more accurately attributed to her choice of courtiers. England was never, until the late 1600s, strong enough to face down Spain and France-but through adept diplomacy, Elizabethan England didnt have to make that choice. Spain and France were never to my knowledge part of a united front against Protestant England....luckily.
  • Partly by luck, partly by strategy, England under Elizabeth England successfully challenged the greatest existential threat since the Norman Conquest and until 1940-the Spanish Armada. Considering the consequent impact English political and cultural thought had on a multitude of areas; political, economic and cultural amonst many other things, across Europe and the world in the coming centuries, the impact of holding off the Armada and the Inquisition it was bringing along for the ride cannot be underestimated. Enough said
  • `I will not make windows into mens souls`. The relative success in balancing protestant AND anglo-catholic tendencies in establishing a Church of England which in a great many aspects still survives to this say, cannot be ignored (relative to other places at least)
  • Personality Cult? Has there ever been a monarch who so completely infused her country with her imagery and legend-the whole `Virgin Queen` thing.
  • The Elizabethan renaissance, Shakespeare etc, and all the impact that had upon the future.
 
Someone from among the leaders of the First Crusade (even though none of them were Kings)? They managed to pull off what is IMHO the most ambitious and epic military campaign the Middle Ages saw. But they were a council rather than a single leader, so it can be a little tricky to pick just one, and a lot of them were less successful later in life.

I guess I tentatively pick Godfrey de Bouillon from among their number, as he was one of those who led the crusaders to victory, did a pretty good job of upholding the Christian values of the time, and set the stage for the expansion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem across Palestine after his death. Not to mention he actually declined the title King of Jerusalem because of his beliefs, which I always found pretty cool. And he's the only one of the Nine Worthies to have lived during the time period specified in the OP.
 
Alfred the Great


1) Reforms on defense halted and then threw back Viking expansion.
2) Made temporary diplomatic peaces that bought him time to save his kingdom.
3) Pretty good general, able to rally his forces at a point where the war seemed lost.
4) Legacy: there would probably be no England without him, which is kinda important in future history. Possibly, English would be dead or up there with with Welsh in the the list of important languages. Important to the Christianization of Scandanavia as Christianized Danish settlers of England provided the most effective missionaries to the Norse.
5) Would you rather give credit to England becoming what it was to William the Bastard or Henry the 8th?
 
I'd give mad props to Charles V.

He managed to more or less control Germany, Burguntherlands, Spain and Italy, without giving serious ground on any front (save on religion in Germany). He also sensibly split his realm, leading to one of the most persistent alliances in European history.

Sure, what he left was still not good enough for Philip II to keep it ALL, but Philip wasn't as far from success as is sometimes made out (a bit more luck with Mary, the Armada delayed enough for Parma to decisively defeat Holland, ...).

1. Administrative ability - 5
2. Diplomatic prowess - 5
3. Military prowess - 4
4. Ability to lead reform - 4
5. Cult of personality - 2 (mostly by comparison to Philip, in the Netherlands)
6. Legacy - 5
 
Id say Elizabeth I is up there, and not for nationalistic reasons.

  • She effectively governed a religiously fractious realm and avoided full scale religious civil war.
  • She managed to ride diplomatic storms relatively adeptly, although `she` is probably more accurately attributed to her choice of courtiers. England was never, until the late 1600s, strong enough to face down Spain and France-but through adept diplomacy, Elizabethan England didnt have to make that choice. Spain and France were never to my knowledge part of a united front against Protestant England....luckily.
  • Partly by luck, partly by strategy, England under Elizabeth England successfully challenged the greatest existential threat since the Norman Conquest and until 1940-the Spanish Armada. Considering the consequent impact English political and cultural thought had on a multitude of areas; political, economic and cultural amonst many other things, across Europe and the world in the coming centuries, the impact of holding off the Armada and the Inquisition it was bringing along for the ride cannot be underestimated. Enough said
  • `I will not make windows into mens souls`. The relative success in balancing protestant AND anglo-catholic tendencies in establishing a Church of England which in a great many aspects still survives to this say, cannot be ignored (relative to other places at least)
  • Personality Cult? Has there ever been a monarch who so completely infused her country with her imagery and legend-the whole `Virgin Queen` thing.
  • The Elizabethan renaissance, Shakespeare etc, and all the impact that had upon the future.

I'm a fan of Elizabeth I, but she deserves a few points docked for her actions in Ireland; at least Basil II's actions had both short-term and long-term benefits.

Speaking of Basil II, I reluctantly pick him or John I Tzimiskes, aka the Byzantine Emperor who flipping took Nazareth.
 
I'm a fan of Elizabeth I, but she deserves a few points docked for her actions in Ireland; at least Basil II's actions had both short-term and long-term benefits.

Speaking of Basil II, I reluctantly pick him or John I Tzimiskes, aka the Byzantine Emperor who flipping took Nazareth.

The trouble with picking John I Tzimiskes is that he was riding a wave originally stirred up by his predecessor, Nikephorus. It was his reforms to the old Maurician army that made it the beastly war machine Tzimiskes took down the Levantine Coast and Basil rode into Bulgaria. He was also a wildly successful general in his own right.
 

Abhakhazia

Banned
Rate your nomination out of 5, 1 for meh and 5 for world beater and give your reasons.

Categories:
1. Administrative ability
2. Diplomatic prowess
3. Military prowess
4. Ability to lead reform
5. Cult of personality
6. Legacy

My candidate is Frederick II of Prussia 4/5/4/3/4/5 before him Prussia was a second rate power but after he left it was a one of the powerhouses of the continent.

I would have to say Peter the Great for basically the same reason. When Peter took control of Russia, it was the ultimate backwater, stymied by a superstitious fear of technology and cut off from the world by an aggressive neighbor and a separate religion. While Peter's reign certainly had its ups and downs, he managed to completely turn around the fortunes of Russia in just a brief period of time.

For your rankings, I would have to go 4(Peter was mainly unsuccessful at domestic reforms due to corrupt subordinates, not so much his own ideas)/5/5/5/3(Peter wasn't popular for high taxes through much of his reign, but there was somewhat of a foreign personality cult around him)/5.
 

libbrit

Banned
Considering the various mediums available to them, i have to say that when it comes to personality cults, there is nothing IMO to compare to Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth_I_c_1600.jpg


2120f88b-b480-4d32-9ecf-dbca46cd0798.jpg


One might say its all about the Ruffs

101494_008.jpg



One doesnt even need to know her name in order to recognise these images. Publicity was probably one of her best skills

These two clips, although its just from a movie, is a pretty good clip demonstrating the almost religious levels the cult of `Gloriana` reached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jniUBhuJSuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mnLbhHR6-g
 
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@ManintheField, true, but John I was still awesome.

My personal favorite is John II Kommenos, if only because he never ordered a mutilation or execution during his reign, but his legacy was misspent by his son, who wasted the Empire's resources in multiple fronts.
 
I'm not too certain of second half of the standards. Reform being necessary is really questionable depending on the history. I'm not fond of cults of personality, especially when it's obfuscates serious flaws in the monarch, or contributes to questionable historiography. Legacy is the same as above, as someone who doesn't buy into Russia as being largely backwards for most of it's history I find Peter the Great overrated.

That being said I would argue for Ferdinand II of Aragon who reunited the Two Sicilies, and help lay the foundation for Spain to actually mean something more than a geographic term.
 
Those who come from the Anglosphere (probably 90% of AH) will say Elizabeth. Louis IX and Henri IV of France are the best kings to me. And that comes from a republican.
 
Those who come from the Anglosphere (probably 90% of AH) will say Elizabeth. Louis IX and Henri IV of France are the best kings to me. And that comes from a republican.

I agree - for France Louis IX and Henri IV are the standards (to the point later generations tried to emulate them or bask in their accomplishments).
In terms of England/UK its hard to deny Alfred the Great, he set the stage for making Wessex a power and it his descendants that still reign. I'd even put Alfred's grandson, Athelstan, over Elizabeth I.

In the rest I think in terms of Habsburgs there is Charles V and Maria Theresa. Peter the Great dramatically changed Russia permanently and Frederick the Great made a minor power in Prussia into a force to be reckoned with.
 
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