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Let's assume a TL where both the Angevin Empire (Britain, Ireland, and France) and the Hohenstaufen HRE (Germany, Italy, Low Countries, Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia-Moravia, and Western Poland) successfully evolve into centralized unitary monarchies by 1300-1400. About the Angevins, Henry II gets a crop of talented sons instead of the horrible Richard and John, who successfully manage to entrench their control over Western France, and their descendants gradually cut down the Capetian demesne and Burgundy to insignificance and absorption. About the Hohenstaufen, Barbarossa and his son are more longeve and successful against German princes and Italian city-states, so the Erbreichsplan is passed and the Kingdom of Sicily is consolidated with the Empire. By 1300 both states have laid down the sturdy basis of a centralized monarchy and by 1400-1450 internal consolidation is done and both empires are ready and eager for expansion both in Europe and beyond. Both empires find a (temporary) common interest in crushing the theocratic aspirations of the Papacy, so the Investiture Controversy is settled with the victory of the secular monarchies, and power within the Church is concentrated in the various national episcopates, under the control of the emperors.
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