Just a thought I've had while talking with a friend of mine - that lives in Romania, a country whose relationship with the Romani dates back quite a while:
Had the Romani come to Europe in the centuries immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire, even as late as the 10th century, they would've found a continent where the borders of ethnicities and kingdoms were in a constant state of flux, and they could've done what the Magyars did, and found a sedentary kingdom of their own with the assent of the Church; however, they made their way to Europe in an era where every bit of land had already been taken, and the divide between nomadic and sedentary peoples had been established quite firmly.
Cue the following centuries of anti-Ziganism.
However, there was one area in Europe that would've seen its first efforts towards stable settlement only in the 18th and 19th century, the so-called Wild Fields under the nominal suzerainty of Poland-Lithuania, that make up most of eastern Ukraine today. In OTL, the Cossacks were to adopt them (and the surrounding areas) as their homeland, more or less, but what if the Cossacks' niche had been filled by the Romani instead, if not under the PLC and in the Wild Fields, under some other crown and in another place?
Hell, they could've even leaned in on their claimed (and false) origin as a group of repenting Christian pilgrims from Egypt to seek employment in Iberia - the lords of the Reconquista would've loved to have a bunch of mounted, semi-nomadic warrior "pilgrims" at their service, and they could've caused some serious damage during the Crusades, too.
What do you think?
Had the Romani come to Europe in the centuries immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire, even as late as the 10th century, they would've found a continent where the borders of ethnicities and kingdoms were in a constant state of flux, and they could've done what the Magyars did, and found a sedentary kingdom of their own with the assent of the Church; however, they made their way to Europe in an era where every bit of land had already been taken, and the divide between nomadic and sedentary peoples had been established quite firmly.
Cue the following centuries of anti-Ziganism.
However, there was one area in Europe that would've seen its first efforts towards stable settlement only in the 18th and 19th century, the so-called Wild Fields under the nominal suzerainty of Poland-Lithuania, that make up most of eastern Ukraine today. In OTL, the Cossacks were to adopt them (and the surrounding areas) as their homeland, more or less, but what if the Cossacks' niche had been filled by the Romani instead, if not under the PLC and in the Wild Fields, under some other crown and in another place?
Hell, they could've even leaned in on their claimed (and false) origin as a group of repenting Christian pilgrims from Egypt to seek employment in Iberia - the lords of the Reconquista would've loved to have a bunch of mounted, semi-nomadic warrior "pilgrims" at their service, and they could've caused some serious damage during the Crusades, too.
What do you think?
