WI: The Vandals destroy Rome in 455 and kill the Pope and all the Curia

The Vandals sacked Rome during 14 days in 455 after they agree with Pope Leo I to do not destroy the city completely and respect their inhabitants, something that they only partially accomplished.

What could have happened if there is no agreement and the Vandals destroyed Rome (= their most symbolic and relevant buildings), including St Peter, and kills most of the nobility, the Pope and the Curia?

Would a new Pope and Curia appointed elsewhere (i.e. Ravenna)? What would be the fate of the moribund WRE then?
 
The Vandals sacked Rome during 14 days in 455 after they agree with Pope Leo I to do not destroy the city completely and respect their inhabitants, something that they only partially accomplished.

What could have happened if there is no agreement and the Vandals destroyed Rome (= their most symbolic and relevant buildings), including St Peter, and kills most of the nobility, the Pope and the Curia?

Would a new Pope and Curia appointed elsewhere (i.e. Ravenna)? What would be the fate of the moribund WRE then?

Rome was important enough to the Church that I'd imagine the new Pope would move back there, at least after the immediate danger passes. IOTL the Papacy stayed in Rome even in the 7th century when it had become more or less a ghost town. The fate of the WRE would probably be much the same; it was, as you point out, moribund already, and its fall was pretty inevitable sooner or later.
 
Then there are no more Popes. Ever. And no one builds a church on the site of St. Peters.

Do they go after the other historic basilicas too? Remember St. Peter's actually has never been Rome's cathedral.

The Mongols destroyed Baghdad and killed the Caliph and while it turned out to be a big set-back to Baghdad, there were pretty much no long term implications.

Probably what happens is that "vandal" becomes a term for people who wantonly destroy things and some expedition from a more powerful nation takes them out within a century.
 
The Vandals sacked Rome during 14 days in 455 after they agree with Pope Leo I to do not destroy the city completely and respect their inhabitants, something that they only partially accomplished.

What could have happened if there is no agreement and the Vandals destroyed Rome (= their most symbolic and relevant buildings), including St Peter, and kills most of the nobility, the Pope and the Curia?

Would a new Pope and Curia appointed elsewhere (i.e. Ravenna)? What would be the fate of the moribund WRE then?

Pope was at the time the generic term for Bishop so if the Bishop of Rome is murdered and the Diocese is abandoned then the problem of primacy is solved given that now no one can deny the supremacy of Constantinople. Also if the Western Bishops for some reason decides to appoint another Bishop to claim the supremacy the main dioceses were Mediolanum, Carthage, Augusta Treverorum, Burdigalia, Londinium and Emerita Augusta so these were the main successors to the Roman Diocese. Creating a new Diocese based in Racenna would be useless given that Ravenna was part of the Diocese of Mediolanum.

For an Arian to kill a Bishop it was still a very stupid move. If they just murdered him in cold blood the Vandals have just managed to antagonized all the Nicenes because they are now murdering Nicene Bishops so expect mass unrest in their North African Domain.

By Curia I think you mean the Roman Curia Right? If so they are killing smoke because the Roman Curia is a medieval invention and at the time the Curia, Council, was made up of Bishops from the Italian Diocese that aided the Bishop of Rome and was of temporary nature.

By Nobility you mean they kill the Senate right? At that point the Senate was useless and all the important persons were already in Ravenna so all it would do was shock the Roman World but they had bigger problems other than the sack of a city even if it's as iconic as Rome.

455 too late to save the Empire so I doubt that a more brutal sack would change anything other than maybe the "The Visigoths are at the Gates" is replaced by "The Vandals are at the Gates".
 
Pope was at the time the generic term for Bishop so if the Bishop of Rome is murdered and the Diocese is abandoned then the problem of primacy is solved given that now no one can deny the supremacy of Constantinople. Also if the Western Bishops for some reason decides to appoint another Bishop to claim the supremacy the main dioceses were Mediolanum, Carthage, Augusta Treverorum, Burdigalia, Londinium and Emerita Augusta so these were the main successors to the Roman Diocese. Creating a new Diocese based in Racenna would be useless given that Ravenna was part of the Diocese of Mediolanum.

For an Arian to kill a Bishop it was still a very stupid move. If they just murdered him in cold blood the Vandals have just managed to antagonized all the Nicenes because they are now murdering Nicene Bishops so expect mass unrest in their North African Domain.

By Curia I think you mean the Roman Curia Right? If so they are killing smoke because the Roman Curia is a medieval invention and at the time the Curia, Council, was made up of Bishops from the Italian Diocese that aided the Bishop of Rome and was of temporary nature.

By Nobility you mean they kill the Senate right? At that point the Senate was useless and all the important persons were already in Ravenna so all it would do was shock the Roman World but they had bigger problems other than the sack of a city even if it's as iconic as Rome.

455 too late to save the Empire so I doubt that a more brutal sack would change anything other than maybe the "The Visigoths are at the Gates" is replaced by "The Vandals are at the Gates".

That bolded bit is kinda technically true, but at the same time potentially extremely misleading.

"Pope" (Papa) was used for a few of the important Bishops (IIRC of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria [the head of the Coptic Church is called "Pope" to this day], and possibly Jerusalem), but the Church in Rome was widely acknowledged as the most important Church, even if there was some dispute as to how much, if any, authority its Bishop had over the others. So no, I don't think that the notion that everybody would just abandon the diocese just because of a bit of barbarian murder and pillaging is particularly plausible. Aside from anything else, various Popes had been killed by the Romans back in the day, and the Church in Rome been forced to go underground to avoid persecution, without people shrugging and saying "Oh well, guess we'd better find someone else to be in charge now."
 
How would this affect the Visigoths? I mean with the Roman aristocracy destroyed, how would it affect the rest of Italy, how much of the Italian land was owned by landowners living in Rome? Would we see a consolidation of estates in Italy, would the Ostrogoths move earlier into Italy etc.
 
With the aristocracy out of the way,this might mean the emperor's able to consolidate his authority.Unlike the aristocracy of the east,the aristocracy of the west were largely those from ancient families and lacked competence--they were also less involved in actual government and were against taxation despite their hoarding of land.The remaining aristocracy might be more willing to contribute towards building a regular army in order to protect themselves against the barbarians,seeing that the barbarians are indiscriminatory and will kill even nobles.This will probably end any thoughts of collaborating with the barbarians,which would be a good thing since a lot of nobles seemed to be in cahoots with the barbarians during this period.
 
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With the aristocracy out of the way,this might mean the emperor's able to consolidate his authority.Unlike the aristocracy of the east,the aristocracy of the west were largely those from ancient families and lacked competence.The remaining aristocracy might be more willing to contribute towards building a regular army in order to protect themselves against the barbarians.

Interesting so we may see the Italian Peninsula develop into some kind of centralised Roman kingdom (still a empire in name), while the Ostrogoth instead set up their kingdom in Pannonia and Dalmatia. As the Goths was a pretty large tribe, this could result in this area being Gothified.
 
That bolded bit is kinda technically true, but at the same time potentially extremely misleading.

"Pope" (Papa) was used for a few of the important Bishops (IIRC of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria [the head of the Coptic Church is called "Pope" to this day], and possibly Jerusalem), but the Church in Rome was widely acknowledged as the most important Church, even if there was some dispute as to how much, if any, authority its Bishop had over the others. So no, I don't think that the notion that everybody would just abandon the diocese just because of a bit of barbarian murder and pillaging is particularly plausible. Aside from anything else, various Popes had been killed by the Romans back in the day, and the Church in Rome been forced to go underground to avoid persecution, without people shrugging and saying "Oh well, guess we'd better find someone else to be in charge now."

I think you missunderstood me. I just pointed out that if the OP's scenario would for some reason become true they wouldn't elevate Ravenna to seat of a Diocese.

I honestly think that even if Rome was just a bunch of ruins they would had keep the diocese there.
 
How would this affect the Visigoths? I mean with the Roman aristocracy destroyed, how would it affect the rest of Italy, how much of the Italian land was owned by landowners living in Rome? Would we see a consolidation of estates in Italy, would the Ostrogoths move earlier into Italy etc.

TBH I doubt the aristocracy would be destroyed: even if the ones in Rome were all killed, the major landowners all had estates in the country, so a large proportion would probably be away from the City at any given time.
 
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