Emperor Constantine of the Empire of Rhomania was two things above all else: young and militant. He sought to assert his Empire’s position as a Balkan power, having asserted Anatolia as belonging to his new realm. Between 1316 and 1320, the young Emperor’s control over his Empire was only asserted; he personally ruled most of the Bosphorus and had a system of governors whose term only lasted a few years scattered throughout most of Anatolia and the like. The only nobles with proper bases of power were the King of Thessaloniki, the Duke of Antalya, and the governor of Syria. Most others were reliant on his whims to remain in power. However, this was not to say there weren’t problems. The clergy were not fans of the Emperor, and indeed many of his nobles detested him, though most of the governors in Anatolia and even northern Syria were quite content. Ironically, it was his center of power that saw the most issue with the Emperor. While they could hardly do anything to him individually, there were conspiracies. One of the most potent was mainly in Greece, as King David of Thessaloniki wanted to reassert feudal rights. To this end, he allied with the Duke of Antalya, Micheal I, as well as a few governors. Constantine, however, was mainly focused on military matters (as well as eroding the other nobility in very overt shows of power and strength) and was not adequately aware of the ideas.
On January twentieth, 1321, David and his retinues entered the palace, demanding the end to most of the governorships and creation of “proper duchies,” or the death of the Emperor. When Constantine refused, a skirmish broke out between the Duke and the Imperial Guards. Constantine was able to escape the palace but was intercepted by Governor Philip of Epirus, who now styled himself as King and Duke of Epirus. Constantine was not able to escape this. With the death of the emperor, David declared himself Emperor on a questionable claim. However, when word of this coup got out, almost immediately several governors declared for Theodora, Constantine’s older sister, and wife of King Conrad V of Sicily. The reason for this was simple- none of them had been in on the original plan, and thusly when the usurpers were confident in their ability to do so, they would begin making designs and carving away at the governor’s lands. Meaning their best chance at retaining power was Theodora. While there were some machinations in Avignon and the Papacy (due mostly to where they were nominally supposed to rule), the resulting Nobles War was fairly swift. Caught between mostly loyal Anatolians and the Kingdom of Sicily, the mostly greek based rebels (bar one guy in Ankara whose name was lost), lasted only three short years. The turning point is mostly regarded as the battle of Sparta, where Sicilian reinforcements prevented the Empress from being captured and likely slain.
Regardless, with the capture of Thessaloniki, David surrendered. Theodora succinctly executed him and anyone else who joined the revolt and brought in Sicilian second and third sons to act as her new governors. This, of course, brought some grumbling, but it was largely accepted as a consequence of the revolt. Her coronation was one of the most extravagant since the fall of the Byzantine Empire as well, with festivities lingering on throughout Thrace for what some estimate to be an entire year. Theodora’s titles at the time of her crowning were thus: “Empress of the Eastern Romans and Constantinople, Queen of Greece, Anatolia, Jerusalem, Syria, Lady of the Balkans,” as well as several other minor honors. There were two things of note here- the dissolution of Thessaloniki (despite her ancestors not holding the title either, there was no one else to do so, meaning she could have claimed it herself) and “Lady of the Balkans,” which was a deliberate addition to legitimize the plans for the subjugation of Serbia and Bulgaria in their entirety.
The Holy Roman Empire was in a spot of turmoil (as it often was) due to the election of Louis IV being contested by a Hapsburg prince, the Emperor’s cousin. However, by the end of 1326, the Hapsburgs had either surrendered or died off. However, Louis IV was still feuding with the Pope, John XXII due to matters the pope considered heretical (due to challenging how much the church was allowed to own…) and later on, in 1328, the German marched his army into Rome and forced a coronation from a senator. That notion intrigued Empress Theodora, though she was generally on better terms with the Pope. Under the advice of her husband, and even the religious authorities of the Metropolitan of Athens, and even the Patriarch of Constantinople (who hoped that severing ties between the Roman Catholic Church and their Empire in the east would bolster his authority long term) the Empress recognized the move and Louis IV as the King of the Western Romans. This incensed the Papacy and John XXII almost excommunicated her, but was talked down…. Barely.
Engaging in the new conflict was not just to win her friends in Germany. Theodora was firmly of the opinion that, even if she were in agreement with the Pope spiritually, she should not be beholden to him politically, similar to the conflict that was still raging in the Western Empire. After all, she was the Eastern Roman Empress,
her empire directly controlled most of the Pentarchy. Much of her views were supported by her husband, Emperor Consort Conrad. Conrad was a Hohenstaufen, and like most of his family was a Ghibelline, or part of the dynastic power struggle that supported the Holy Roman Emperor as the supreme power within his Empire, and that the Papacy was to be reallocated to the theological matters and sidelined politically. As a result, he made his kingdom of Naples a haven for many philosophers that the Papacy considered heretical, such as the Fraticelli. The Fraticelli, like many before them, and some who would come later, argued the church was far too wealthy and powerful to be a proper spiritual guide to anyone. This of course, caught the attention of John XXII, who sent the Imperial couple a demand to cease harboring the heretics and let them stand trial. The King acquiesced… and sent them to Constantinople, where the clergy of the Empire found them not guilty.
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for John XXII, who excommunicated Conrad, Theodora, and the entirety of the council involved. The problem for him arose, however, when the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Alexander Maçon, challenged the verdict, claiming “can the Bishop of Rome claim moral authority while the Eternal City gathers dust and he feasts in the fields of France?” Pope John XXII was already controversial for this, but to have it thrown in his face like this effectively killed his political career. For the rest of his life he would be quite a lame-duck Pope. Regardless, the philosophers that Conrad had harbored would spend much of the next few decades as expert propagandists for the regime. To most historians, the two were successful. A few years later, in 1328, Pope John XXII died somewhat mysteriously; while an assassination was hardly out of the question before that, given that he had stopped being useful to France and had the ire of two of the most powerful Empires in Europe, no one was really surprised. What did catch their surprise was when Cardinal Jean-Raymond de Comminges managed to win despite being in favor of returning to Rome. Many chalk this up to reformers wanting to return to the appropriate tradition in order to reassert moral authority. It is, however, debated.
Regardless, the Cardinal took the name Innocent VI and quickly began making attempts to move away from Avignon. When he did so, he found the city effectively in ruins and desperately needing to be rebuilt due to the few decades of negligent and distant rule. As a result, Innocent quickly began looking into how to increase the funding for the Papacy and the city of Rome. Knowing that the Fracticeli and their sponsors remained powerful, he sold off some rather prestigious art (amusingly, one of his most enthusiastic buyers was Theodora.) However, this was wildly controversial due to the vary
of selling art so closely tied to the Papacy. As a result, the Pope decided to instead widen the use of, and what could be used to acquire, an indulgence from a sin. While this would later go on to become insanely controversial in its own right, it worked for its purpose; granting the church the money to rebuild and properly care for Rome, getting the city back on its feet within the next few years.
Regardless, in 1326, Theodora had given birth to a son, named Charles. The boy’s birth is considered a bit of a turning point, as it secured the Hohenstaufen Dynasty would rule Constantinople for at least a while. Around the time of Charles’s birth, Constantinople also began to have a more distinguished dialect of French than in the past. The Flemish and Burgundian dialects had already somewhat merged, but the use of greek was growing more common among the ruling classes, and thusly was beginning to blend with the Imperial language. While it would take time to really distinguish itself, this was the beginning of what some would call Rhomanian dialect. The proto-dialect was, as of yet, mostly, if not entirely spoken within the major cities or administrative centers such as the capital or Ankara. But linguistics, of course, was rather far off from becoming a widely understood field.
With the birth of Charles, Theodora began looking to reclaim certain lands from the Serbians. However, first she wished to complete her brother’s schemes of a professional army to maintain and hopefully expand her empire. Firstly, she had scholars devise the formula for the black powder that filled the canons that were becoming used in Muslim armies (she was rather proud of her brother and father for having the sense to allow Muslims to remain in Asia Minor- it made spying on rivals in the east so much easier.) Canons, of course, were hoped to smash through any walls that might stand in sieges, thus they were considered vital to her hopes of a standing army. Importantly, she emphasized quantity and mobility, as she was working on having the core of her army be her cavalry, not any form of imperial infantry. It would be vital, of course, but she wanted the mobility that only horses could provide.
Thus, she worked from 1327 to 1334, designing her Ippilerie forces, with the name being a corruption of the greek and french words for cavalry. The Ippilerie were given horses that were meant to be a little faster than the average knight’s steed, but still able to support quite the weight. While the armor was lighter than most knights in the west, the units were, as a result, a fair bit faster, giving them extra mobility. This, along with the presence of scimitars in addition to the typical french style of bow, showed the unique influence of the Latin Empire’s heritage and location. There was another reason that Ippilerie horses were bred for mobility rather than size; they were used to transport the canons that the army would use. While most Muslim armies saw canons only for busting down walls, Theodora had come to another conclusion- if the fighters in the front were able to create effective pincers around the enemy forces, they would be able to be quite effectively battered with the artillery.
Finally, in 1335, the Latin Empire marched into Serbia, hoping to reverse the humiliation of their last encounter. While the Serbian army knew something of the Ippilerie armies, as they were spying on Constantinople just as Rhomania was on Persia and Egypt, it was still rather difficult to train the soldiers to counter the armies on just word of mouth from said spies. As a result, the war was rather swift. Theodora’s armies were quick and patently effective. However, she was not her brother, and she was nowhere near as pointlessly cruel in her conquests as he could be (and often relished in it.) She forced her commanders to accept any peaceful surrender with only so much looting as to feed the armies. Likewise, she did not slaughter any town that dared stand against her, as she wanted to integrate the Serbians peacefully. Over the next six years, the Ippilerie would blitz around the Serbian empire, before they surrendered. In order to prevent conflict with Hungary, Rhomania did leave a rump serbia, who had fallen from Balkan King to little more than a buffer state. Bulgaria fell similarly quickly in the next few years, but this time, Theodora did decide to take over the entirety of the country, which was much smaller.
Out west, France and England were at war over Aquitaine. Again. This time, however, despite the English having Scotland in a personal union, there were very few forces sent from Edinburugh down to the continent due to the more decentralized nature of the state making mounting offensive wars a bit of a…. Challenge, one could say. The twenty-year-old Edward III (and also Edward I of Scotland) was having trouble amassing all his soldiers, and his coordination with the nobility was dubious. This was for a number of reasons, chief among them money. Edward III was not a poor king by any means, but he was opulent and fond of large buildings and public works and had struggled to reverse any of the moves made by the nobility and barons against his father. As a result, he was forced to cede Aquitaine to the French begrudgingly.
