If any other has to comment, since my updates are rare and precious...
It was good. I'm wondering if Germany is going to throw off the Khan's shackles soon.
Basileus' Interference Timeline
- Thread starter Leo Caesius
- Start date
It was good. I'm wondering if Germany is going to throw off the Khan's shackles soon.
Max Sinister
Banned
Thank you very much for the update! Great to see that your TL isn't dead. Now I hope to see the next update soon...
I hope we don't have to wait another year for the next one.If any other has to comment, since my updates are rare and precious...
Now some questions / comments:
Is the Ilkhanate going to become Zoroastrian?
Jewish Septimania is all kinds of awesome, IMO.
Nogai's chief advisor is a rabbi? I wonder if he will become a Jew ITTL.
How did the Teutonic Order lose its Germanic characteristics?
I would be fascinated to read some of the tales of John the Norman. That would make a good story, IMO.
Lastly... this timeline is probably the best on the forum. It's almost more detailed than OTL, and it is one of the few timelines that is a pleasure to read. I get excited when I see you post here because there is the possibility of an update to Interference. Keep up the stellar work, basileus.
Zoroastrian Ilkhanate? Yes and no, For the rulers to come, there will be at least one (as of now, I'm at 1326. I only post sections at least thirty years "old", so as to minimize retcons). For the populace, I still can't figure the whole picture, though certainly in some regions (around the southern Caspian Sea, Fars, parts of Khorasan and Sistan) there will be a strong presence of Zoroastrians. With a kind of cult, I believe, quite different from the Parsis of India OTL.
Nogai already IS a convert to Judaism since 1281. Which doesn't imply obligation to do so for his vassals and subjects, as long as they keep loyal.
The Teutonic Knights have been thrashed and vassalized in the first years of Berestia, the "Mongol Greater Poland". In time, less German knights have come and the ranks have slowly filled with Poles and Balts (Prussians). They have the right to maintain their nominal Catholic stance despite the outright hostility of the Papacy (who has de facto disowned them) towards the Mongols. In echange, they serve the Mongol khan as pirates in the Baltic, paying tribute and offering heavy cavalry for campaigning. Prussia is less Germanized than OTL, Germans have been however brought East in considerable numbers as serfs, partly assimilating to Poles, some even intermarrying with Turko-Mongols (Hitler would love it); some millions of them have made a "Drang nach West" towards Holland, Flanders, "France" whose consequences I'm still pondering in their depth and duration.
As for Jean le Normande, well, here wou'd need a true writer, which I am not, This is not my language and I have VERY LITTLE spare time from work.
Constantinople
Banned
I love this timeline. Just bumping it.
Is Rome to be abandoned forever?
Will the Western Roman Empire come to dominate Italy?
Is Rome to be abandoned forever?
Will the Western Roman Empire come to dominate Italy?
Questions to which only the future will be able to answer. The TL lives an own life, I merely unveil it veeery slowly, as the body of a beautiful girl.
I've just spent the last couple of days reading through the timeline and I love it! Takes a lot of dedication to follow a project through for this long
1296-1300
1295-1299
Northern Europe:
The Rurikid Ivan Andreasson begins to exert his never forgotten rights over Russia by attacking his cousin Birger Wolksson/Fyodor Volkov, the popular knyaz (prince) of Pskov. After the natural death of Birger/Fyodor the city falls to Ivan: the deceased ruler's heirs find refuge in Novgorod, establishing there in time the Volkov clan as a paramount influence in the local republic's affairs.
1296
Northern Europe:
Magnus III the Red of Norway dies. His brother Sverre II the Wolf usurps the throne slaying Magnus' young sons Magnus and Haakon. When Sverre himself is later murdered, the crown is bestowed by nobility and Church upon his only son, 7-year old Arne I.
British Isles, Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
A hundred-men strong English expedition to New Palestine (*OTL Massachussets, New Hampshire and Maine) ventures into the Atlantic trying a direct (non-Icelandic) route. Only a single ship with 13 men under the leadership of Piers LaVerne survives the terrible oceanic gales to reach Vinlandria (*OTL Newfoundland). They are the first officially recorded crew to complete a straight crossing of the Atlantic, though the feat had actually been accomplished several times in in the last century by unnamed Coghound vessels from the Canaries and the Atlantides (*OTL Azores). The survivors won't try the way back to Europe, though, for a long time. LaVerne will reach back England as a captain only in 1310, and by the usual Greenland-Iceland route, eventually dying in his home country.
Western Europe:
Peyre Berenger, the Fois (*OTL Foix) claimant to the Aquitanian crown, is enthroned with Gadarian benediction. In exchange, both Fois (*OTL Foix) and (much reduced) Aquitaine have to acknowledge the formal suzerainty of Gadary/Languedoc. Bordèu (*OTL Bordeaux) takes note and prepares to switch side if need arises, negotiating with the Navarrese.
Byzantine Empire:
Basileus Arsenius I Constantine dies leaving no male heirs of his own. A civil war erupts between the Jeremite and Stemmarioi factions, supporting respectively Arsenius' son-in-law, general Theodore Navilas (ironically a Batiturk by origin) and the deceased basileus' nephew by maternal side, Belisarius Leontinus, a very distant relative of the Sicilian emperors of the West and direct descendant of Conrad Vilphiotis. Thanks to the steady support of megastratopedarch Alexander Philantropene and the decisive aid given by Alan contingents, courtesy of king Velizari I of Iberia/Georgia, Belisarius is able to prevail and slay the rival at the battle of Rhodostos. His enthronement as Belisarius VI Constantine sees the confirmation of the new Byzantine style of assuming Constantine as second name for the basileus thenceon. The new dynasty, considered a legitimate successor of the Megas Branas (whose surviving branches will keep on assuming important titles and offices, including several Patriarchs), will be known as the Leontinids.
Middle East:
Simeonica (*OTL Laodicea/Latakia), the main Templar port in the Levant, falls to the Sungurid Turks.
1296-1297
Western Europe:
An English army invades lower Normandy to carry on the war against Eudes IV of Brittany by joining forces with the duke of Anjou, William I Coeur de Lion. Leading the Englishmen is young duke Simon of Cornwall, nephew of king Amalric III of England, who is officially engaged to William's daughter, Laetitia. The joined English-Anjou force ravages Brittany, but the Englishmen have to withdraw back home when the Norman cities and fiefdoms find the resolve and unity to attack them in their rear.
1297
Northern Europe:
After brutally torching Hamburg, Nogai Khan of Berestia is trapped with his army in the Lüneburger Heide by an allied force made up from the royal Danish army, Hansa militias and insurgent peasants, coordinated by king Valdemar III of Denmark. The Mongols (actually, mostly Kipchaks) and their Baltic, Polish and Bohemian allies are then pressed in the surrounding forests and slain in great numbers. Nogai himself falls, his head paraded around on a pike to be later mummified and conserved in the Cathedral of Roskilde (Denmark); his appointed heir, Burilgi Qaratai, flees to safety with a few thousand survivors, reaching Poland and Brasta/Berestye (*Brest-Litovsk) to be hailed as the new Khan by the remaining Mongol nobility. The resounding victory echoes throughout Christian Europe and the Mediterranean, giving immense prestige and eternal glory to the winners of the day. One of the most beatiful Churches of Christianity, the Lüneburger Chapel (actually an imposing cathedral in the Norman [*OTL Gothic] style), will be built in later decades to celerate the feat.
British Isles:
Brian III of Alba and Scotland kills his rebel brother Nechtan; the last of his siblings claiming the crown, Donald of Inverair (*OTL Ayr), takes refuge with his followers in Northumbria.
Western Europe, Southern Europe:
The count of Provence, Guilhem II the Trobadour of Balz-Arenjo (*Baux-Orange), is invited as lord of Marseille after infighting between the main local families brings down the republic.
Southern Europe:
The town of Cuneo, in recent times a recalcitrant possession of marquis Manfredo IV of Saluzzo, opens its gates to count Pietro Guglielmo II of Tenda.
Giovanni Montagna da Gradara imposes himself as lord of Rimini, founding a dynasty.
Extinction of the Norman dynasty of Judges (kings) of Torres (NW Sardinia) with the death of Alix II, the last queen. Torres is carved between Genoa, Pisa and nearby Arborea (Western imperial vassal); the town of Tathari/Sassari becomes a tiny if prosperous free Comune, also aligned with Sicily.
Byzantine Empire:
The Batiturk emir of Patras, Nuraddinos, crushes the last remaining Slavic tribes of Morea/Peloponnesus at the battle of the Arcadian Fields. Only some ports heavily defended by Venice and the Athenian lordship resist the Batiturks.
Middle East:
The Knights Hospitaller of St.John are ousted from Palestine with the fall of Acre to the Myriamites; the survivors relocate to Cyprus, where they're tasked with policing local conflicts on behalf of the Rota Consularis, the condominium holding ultimate authority over the island.
Caucasus:
Abdullah Yalik the “Hammer of the Mongols” dies in his capital at Van, promptly renamed Saray e-Yalik (whence the later name, Saralik) by his son and heir Shirvan Mehmet Dhul-Qarnayn Shah.
1297-1299
Northern Europe:
After Nogai's defeat and the ousting of Mongol power from Germany, duke Frederick I of Guelders/Gelderland claims the German crown by an act of force in Cologne, a free town since the Mongols ousted the prince-archbishops, but from Palermo Pope Francis I declares his coronation null and void, and in the end the claimant dies repressing the Zenjahrer peasant movement (now calling for the common ownership of land). In the meantime Denmark and Lower Lorraine combine a dynastic marriage to give Germany a king of their liking.
Western Europe:
Fois (*OTL Foix)-Gadarian forces bring the war to southern side of Pyrenees, but after several inconclusive battles they can't secure more than a two-year truce and a precarious foothold in upper Aragon.
Central-Eastern Europe:
Toqta, Khan of the Blue Horde, part of the Golden Horde, resumes war against the Berestian khanate, gaining the support of Michael, grand prince of Tver', and retaking control of central Russia. Tver' itself gains considerable autonomy under the Horde.
Byzantine Empire:
Basileus Belisarius VI Constantine and his trusted general Alexander Philantropene intervene against the marauding bands of Osman of Kotiaion. The Alan contingent again proves decisive: the siege of Prusa (Bithynia) is relieved and the Turk marauders smashed and slain in the thousands. Osman himself finds refuge in his capital, waging guerrilla war from there before being murdered by the agents of sultan Ula Suleiman of Kirikkale.
1297-1301
SE Asia:
A Lao invasion led by prince Panya Khamphong of Muang Sua (*Luang Prabang) and supported by the obstinate Yuan Mongols of China threatens Dai Viet but is eventually repulsed.
1298
Northern Europe, Southern Europe:
Duke Albert I of Habsburg-Alamannia attacks and kills his brother Rudolph II of Swabia, reunifying by force the family holdings.
Southern Europe:
Cremona rebels against the Pallavicino lordship and breaks “free” under the marquis of Viadana Roberto Cavalcabò, scion of a minor Obertenghi branch.
Central-Eastern Europe:
In Bohemia and its subject land the lesser Bohemian and German nobles, led by Jan Pavlìček, rebel against Ottokar/Otakar III, the “Tartar” king (son of a Mongol general and of Beatrix, the last Premyslid), but are crushed.
Once its voivod Loránd Borsa is dead, Transylvania quietly slips back to Hungarian suzerainty, though with special autonomy: the king's appointee as voivod must be accepted and recognized by the local assembly of magnates to exercise his powers.
Far East:
Wáng Zhēn, a Chinese Yuan official, invents the first practical wooden movable type printing. The Koreans already knew how to employ metal for the same end; in both case the practicality of the system is reduced by the complex Chinese ideogram writing.
1298-1300
British isles:
King Edwin Montfort of Northumbria invades Scotland in support of the claimant Donald of Inverair (*OTL Ayr). King Brian III of Alba and Scotland, deserted by several noblemen, is overrun at the battle of DunBrython (*OTL Dumbarton) but manages to find refuge among loyalist Pictish clans. After having waged successful guerrilla for two years, Brian is able to defeat and kill his usurping brother at Cormiston, ousting the Anglo-Northumbrians. Hundreds of rebel nobles, mostly Scots, take refuge beyond the border.
Western Europe:
The Harrowing of Normandy, waged in revenge by English armies led by the young and merciless Simon of Cornwall, gives the coup de grace to this formerly dominant land, which will need decades to recover from destructions even worse than those wrought by the very Mongols. Only the major urban centres manage to avoid pillage and massacre, but the Englishmen are unable to gain more than a few coastal fortresses.
1299
Northern Europe:
Erik Porpyrogenitus is the firstborn from the marriage between Erik, second son of king Valdemar III of Denmark, and Hedwige, daughter of king Philip I of Lower Lorraine (*“Belgium”). The infant is hailed as the new titular king of Germany as Henry V by a hastily convened assembly of (northern) German nobles.
Western Europe:
The War of Aquitanian Succession restarts with Gadary/Languedoc, Fois (*OTL Foix) and puppet Aquitaine surrounded by enemies: the republic of Bordèu (*OTL Bordeaux), where the Bertrades family has acquired supremacy, has turned against it, and also Provence gets involved after longstanding issues about Uzès and its duchy, historically tied to the former Burgundian kingdom but now vassal to Gadary. In the meantime the Navarrese eye Gadarian Catalonia. The anti-Gadarian coalition enjoys Papal benediction, for what it means.
Southern Europe:
The Bohemians relocate some thousands of the rebellious Sorbs of Lusatia to upper Austria, founding the city of Sorpst on the site of Chremis (OTL *Krems an der Donau), in time to become the main center of the region.
Vitale the Old becomes lord of Treviso after harsh factional struggles, establishing the San Fior as the local paramount family.
Byzantine Empire:
Venice counterattacks on sea, reconquering large part of Crete from Genoa and the Byzantines and starting a long low-intensity struggle.
Arabia:
An Ilkhanid seaborne invasion devastates Bahrain, whose Ismaili pirates had become the terror of the Persian Gulf. A colony of Zoroastrian Persians from the Caspian Sea is settled in the island.
India:
Hindustan is invaded by an Ilkhanid horde from Afghanistan, bolstered by Central Asian reinforcements led by the Chagataiid Khan Mirza Sasan Qutlugh. The invasion is narrowly beaten back by the new Hindustani ruler Sukhedei Vajra Sanjay (actually a half-blood Mongol, son of a Rajput princess of the Gehlots from Mewar), succeeded to his half-brother Duwa Khan after his death in battle and the sack of the capital, Suvarnapura (*OTL Jhang). In the following years Hindustan will suffer repeated raids and invasions from Ilkhanid forces.
SE Asia:
Temür Öljeytü, the Yuan Khan of China and claimant Great Khan, invades Burma with a powerful army, wreaking havoc and extorting tribute from the various Shan polities and the Pinya kingdom. His army then proceeds to raid Arakan, making it a tributary kingdom. Stable diplomatic relations are then established by the Yuan with the Dharma empire of eastern India.
1299-1301
North Africa, Middle East:
Historical pilgrimage by Mansa (emperor) Sakura of the Mali Empire to Jerusalem. The African ruler, follower of the Jewish faith, won't find Myriamite rule there very palatable: his arrogant and disdainful behavior, despite the riches in gold sowed along his path, will earn him a “kick in the ass” goodbye. On his return to Mali Sakura, a former slave unrelated to the line of Sundiata, is toppled and replaced by Gao, one of Sundiata's maternal nephews.
1299-1312
Southern Europe:
Acting cunningly between the rival pretenses of Hungary, Bosnia, Genoa and Venice, Pavao I Breber, the Croatian lord of Bribir/Varvaria, becomes the true master of Dalmatia, eventually managing to wrest Zara/Zadar from Venice and put his kinsmen in charge of most coastal towns. Venetian influence is significantly reduced. The Breber clan also attempts to expand its power into Bogomil Bosnia, but in a less successful way, since the local ban, Ninoslav II, proves a capable and respected leader.
1299-1320s
Northern Europe:
The *Reichswiederaufbau brings about the rebirth of a smaller kingdom of Germany after years of petty wars against noble holdings and careful diplomacy with free cities and leagues. The country lies in ruins after the war of liberation, and is still subject to sudden devastating raids from the Berestian Mongols. Furthermore, it is torn by peasant unrest and by the “redde rationem” against those who collaborated with the Eastern invaders. Vast sections of it (Bavaria, Austria, Thuringia, Meissen/Misnia...) are under Bohemian or Habsburg control, and the Habsburgs in particular will show no sign of accepting the idea of a reborn kingdom of Germany.
XIVth century
Northern Hemisphere:
The so-called Medieval warm period recedes, giving gradually way to a colder, damper climate all around the north Atlantic. This, in time, hampers the already difficult contacts between Europe and the Hesperian (*OTL American) colonies.
Central-Eastern Europe:
Yiddish (Judeo-German) becomes the language par excellence among the growing Jewish population in Berestia, favored by the khan's court and bolstered by refugees from anti-Semite Germany and the last Khazar Jews ousted from the Pontic steppes by the Golden Horde.
Vlach shepherds migrate in considerable numbers up the Carpathian range, reaching up to Moravia, forming ethnic communities to be slowly integrated with the surrounding Slavs but preserving own traditions and, partly, language.
Mersk (*OTL Galich, Kostroma Oblast, Russia) emerges as Novgorod's rival number one for the control of commerce in Northern Russia.
Middle East:
Overall decline of Waliism, the branch of Sunnism affirming the necessity of a Wali as supreme religious (but not temporal) authority in place of a Caliph. Waliism disintegrates slowly in favor of Shiism or Caliphism (its secular archrival, closer to OTL standard doctrine) in the core Islamic areas, whereas it consolidates in a changing form in a northern strip of Islamicized lands, from Lithuania to Central Asia, giving rise to what will be later dubbed as “Northern Islam”.
The Muwahiddin (*OTL Druzes) of Lebanon are converted to Myriamism, as most of the local Muslims. Myriamism, still persecuted in Syria by the Muslim Sungurids, soon penetrates strongly into northern Syria and central-eastern Anatolia, where the Yalikids prove to be tolerant rulers in matters of religion.
East Africa:
A third and last wave of Indonesian immigrants, mainly sea traders, reach *Madagascar, together with populations from the Moon islands (*OTL Comoros).
SE Asia:
Hindu influence in Indochina weakens considerably, replaced in the south by the slow infiltration of Islam and in the north by a mighty affirmation of Buddhism, thanks also to Dharma empire “missionaries”, among the local cultures.
Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
Diffusion of the nomadic culture in the Hesperian (*American) Great Plains due to the progressive introduction and domestication of horses.
Central Hesperia (*OTL America):
The Mixtecs overshadow their rivals in the Oaxaca region, the Zapotecs.
1300
Northern Europe:
Cologne joins the Hansa, confirming the power of the League and its almost absolute control of trade over the waterways, now also well inside the mainland.
Western Europe:
Champagne, Lorraine and OTL Franche-Comté, now heavily dotted with German settlements, partly Germanized and still under the “protection” of Kunya Khan's Ograinese or the iron fist of Albert I of Habsburg, begin to be known collectively with the ancient name of Neustria, used in Merovingian times to indicate France proper.
Southern Europe:
Gherardo Segarelli, founder of the Apostolic Brethren movement, bent on evangelical poverty, is burnt at the stake at Parma by the Papal inquisition. The event, and further persecutions from ecclesiastical and lay courts, will precipitate a radicalization of the movement.
Genoa ousts Pisa from Gallura, “offering” it to the Western imperial crown of Sicily and de facto consolidating its own supremacy in Sardinia. On land Pisa tries to attack Genoese vassals and allies in the eastern (Levante) Riviera in conjunction with the Malaspina mountain lords, another of the Obertenghi branches, but without success; Pisa itself is briefly besieged by Lucca, its rival neighbour, ready to ally with Genoa, who in the meantime burns and blocks Porto Pisano. Pisa, in turn, calls for help Bernardo il Vecchio of Canossa, lord of Reggio Emilia, whose troops plunder Garfagnana, Lucca's “backyard”. That's life in merry Lombardy!
Central-Eastern Europe:
The Golden Horde, helped by the handful of Venetian ships capable of breaking the Genoese-Byzantine blockade of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, attacks the Genoese possessions in the Taurida (*OTL Crimea), seizing several ports and fortresses.
Prince Jagatariu of Cumania (*OTL Moldavia) is defeated and killed in battle on the Prut by Toq-Timur, a brother of Toqta Khan of the Blue Horde who had gone west with his retinue. The Mongol lord proclaims himself khan of Cumania and voivod of Wallachia. The latter land, fallen into near anarchy in recent years, is however soon grabbed by the Bulgarians east of the Olt river, and by Hungary west of the river.
ca. 1300
Northern Europe:
Jews get massacred in great numbers in Germany, where they're associated with Mongol power, and quickly flee to the Jewish-friendly Khanate of Berestia.
Southern Europe:
The scholars at the university of Palermo christen the new lands beyond the Atlantic Ocean as Hesperia, from the ancient Greek myth of the extreme western lands. The name will stick, to be soon adopted (in Europe only, for now).
Southern Europe, Western Europe, Byzantine Empire:
An embryonal monetary system develops for international trade. Genoese coins are favored in Lombardy, in the Occitanic lands and the Iberic peninsula; Sicilian (West Imperial) “augustales” dominate in southern Italy and Christian North Africa, while Venetian “zecchini” are warmly accepted throughout the eastern Med, in rivalry with the neo-standard Byzantine hyperpyra, “the” coin for the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans). Florentine money gains instead wide circulation in France ad Germany, together with English royal livres.
Byzantine Empire, Middle East:
In Cyprus the so-called Gyptofrangoi, the descendants of the Egyptian convert-exiles, gain paramount influence in local politics and economics, acting a middlemen for the condominium of Italian and Lombard sea-trading republics and local lords ruling the island.
North Africa, Black Africa:
Agadez becomes the capital of the Ayr Sultanate, a Kharijite Muslim state led by Islamicized Tuareg in bitter rivalry with the Judeo-Christian Kel Keris Zenetes of the Ahaggar for the control of the salt and slave trade routes.
Kharijite Fezzan is made a vassal of the Caliphate of Marisia (Egypt/Nubia), not without bloodshed.
Black Africa:
Solomon Massanjaay unifies most of Senegal into the Jolof Empire, wresting also Mauretania Ultima (*OTL Mauritania) from Mornavia/Mauretania (*OTL Morocco) troubled by succession issues and weakened by Idrasian (*Kabyle) meddling. Solomon holds sway up to OTL *Guinea and the sources of the Jeliba (*OTL Niger). The new Christian (albeit in a quite unique African way) power soon enters into conflict with Mali, where mass diffusion of a local version of Judaism is ongoing thanks to the efforts of the Mansas (emperors).
Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
In the southwestern parts of northern Hesperia (*OTL America) the Diné (*OTL Navajo and Apache) people form a powerful confederation, bent on conquest, subduing their agriculturalist neighbours.
1295-1299
Northern Europe:
The Rurikid Ivan Andreasson begins to exert his never forgotten rights over Russia by attacking his cousin Birger Wolksson/Fyodor Volkov, the popular knyaz (prince) of Pskov. After the natural death of Birger/Fyodor the city falls to Ivan: the deceased ruler's heirs find refuge in Novgorod, establishing there in time the Volkov clan as a paramount influence in the local republic's affairs.
1296
Northern Europe:
Magnus III the Red of Norway dies. His brother Sverre II the Wolf usurps the throne slaying Magnus' young sons Magnus and Haakon. When Sverre himself is later murdered, the crown is bestowed by nobility and Church upon his only son, 7-year old Arne I.
British Isles, Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
A hundred-men strong English expedition to New Palestine (*OTL Massachussets, New Hampshire and Maine) ventures into the Atlantic trying a direct (non-Icelandic) route. Only a single ship with 13 men under the leadership of Piers LaVerne survives the terrible oceanic gales to reach Vinlandria (*OTL Newfoundland). They are the first officially recorded crew to complete a straight crossing of the Atlantic, though the feat had actually been accomplished several times in in the last century by unnamed Coghound vessels from the Canaries and the Atlantides (*OTL Azores). The survivors won't try the way back to Europe, though, for a long time. LaVerne will reach back England as a captain only in 1310, and by the usual Greenland-Iceland route, eventually dying in his home country.
Western Europe:
Peyre Berenger, the Fois (*OTL Foix) claimant to the Aquitanian crown, is enthroned with Gadarian benediction. In exchange, both Fois (*OTL Foix) and (much reduced) Aquitaine have to acknowledge the formal suzerainty of Gadary/Languedoc. Bordèu (*OTL Bordeaux) takes note and prepares to switch side if need arises, negotiating with the Navarrese.
Byzantine Empire:
Basileus Arsenius I Constantine dies leaving no male heirs of his own. A civil war erupts between the Jeremite and Stemmarioi factions, supporting respectively Arsenius' son-in-law, general Theodore Navilas (ironically a Batiturk by origin) and the deceased basileus' nephew by maternal side, Belisarius Leontinus, a very distant relative of the Sicilian emperors of the West and direct descendant of Conrad Vilphiotis. Thanks to the steady support of megastratopedarch Alexander Philantropene and the decisive aid given by Alan contingents, courtesy of king Velizari I of Iberia/Georgia, Belisarius is able to prevail and slay the rival at the battle of Rhodostos. His enthronement as Belisarius VI Constantine sees the confirmation of the new Byzantine style of assuming Constantine as second name for the basileus thenceon. The new dynasty, considered a legitimate successor of the Megas Branas (whose surviving branches will keep on assuming important titles and offices, including several Patriarchs), will be known as the Leontinids.
Middle East:
Simeonica (*OTL Laodicea/Latakia), the main Templar port in the Levant, falls to the Sungurid Turks.
1296-1297
Western Europe:
An English army invades lower Normandy to carry on the war against Eudes IV of Brittany by joining forces with the duke of Anjou, William I Coeur de Lion. Leading the Englishmen is young duke Simon of Cornwall, nephew of king Amalric III of England, who is officially engaged to William's daughter, Laetitia. The joined English-Anjou force ravages Brittany, but the Englishmen have to withdraw back home when the Norman cities and fiefdoms find the resolve and unity to attack them in their rear.
1297
Northern Europe:
After brutally torching Hamburg, Nogai Khan of Berestia is trapped with his army in the Lüneburger Heide by an allied force made up from the royal Danish army, Hansa militias and insurgent peasants, coordinated by king Valdemar III of Denmark. The Mongols (actually, mostly Kipchaks) and their Baltic, Polish and Bohemian allies are then pressed in the surrounding forests and slain in great numbers. Nogai himself falls, his head paraded around on a pike to be later mummified and conserved in the Cathedral of Roskilde (Denmark); his appointed heir, Burilgi Qaratai, flees to safety with a few thousand survivors, reaching Poland and Brasta/Berestye (*Brest-Litovsk) to be hailed as the new Khan by the remaining Mongol nobility. The resounding victory echoes throughout Christian Europe and the Mediterranean, giving immense prestige and eternal glory to the winners of the day. One of the most beatiful Churches of Christianity, the Lüneburger Chapel (actually an imposing cathedral in the Norman [*OTL Gothic] style), will be built in later decades to celerate the feat.
British Isles:
Brian III of Alba and Scotland kills his rebel brother Nechtan; the last of his siblings claiming the crown, Donald of Inverair (*OTL Ayr), takes refuge with his followers in Northumbria.
Western Europe, Southern Europe:
The count of Provence, Guilhem II the Trobadour of Balz-Arenjo (*Baux-Orange), is invited as lord of Marseille after infighting between the main local families brings down the republic.
Southern Europe:
The town of Cuneo, in recent times a recalcitrant possession of marquis Manfredo IV of Saluzzo, opens its gates to count Pietro Guglielmo II of Tenda.
Giovanni Montagna da Gradara imposes himself as lord of Rimini, founding a dynasty.
Extinction of the Norman dynasty of Judges (kings) of Torres (NW Sardinia) with the death of Alix II, the last queen. Torres is carved between Genoa, Pisa and nearby Arborea (Western imperial vassal); the town of Tathari/Sassari becomes a tiny if prosperous free Comune, also aligned with Sicily.
Byzantine Empire:
The Batiturk emir of Patras, Nuraddinos, crushes the last remaining Slavic tribes of Morea/Peloponnesus at the battle of the Arcadian Fields. Only some ports heavily defended by Venice and the Athenian lordship resist the Batiturks.
Middle East:
The Knights Hospitaller of St.John are ousted from Palestine with the fall of Acre to the Myriamites; the survivors relocate to Cyprus, where they're tasked with policing local conflicts on behalf of the Rota Consularis, the condominium holding ultimate authority over the island.
Caucasus:
Abdullah Yalik the “Hammer of the Mongols” dies in his capital at Van, promptly renamed Saray e-Yalik (whence the later name, Saralik) by his son and heir Shirvan Mehmet Dhul-Qarnayn Shah.
1297-1299
Northern Europe:
After Nogai's defeat and the ousting of Mongol power from Germany, duke Frederick I of Guelders/Gelderland claims the German crown by an act of force in Cologne, a free town since the Mongols ousted the prince-archbishops, but from Palermo Pope Francis I declares his coronation null and void, and in the end the claimant dies repressing the Zenjahrer peasant movement (now calling for the common ownership of land). In the meantime Denmark and Lower Lorraine combine a dynastic marriage to give Germany a king of their liking.
Western Europe:
Fois (*OTL Foix)-Gadarian forces bring the war to southern side of Pyrenees, but after several inconclusive battles they can't secure more than a two-year truce and a precarious foothold in upper Aragon.
Central-Eastern Europe:
Toqta, Khan of the Blue Horde, part of the Golden Horde, resumes war against the Berestian khanate, gaining the support of Michael, grand prince of Tver', and retaking control of central Russia. Tver' itself gains considerable autonomy under the Horde.
Byzantine Empire:
Basileus Belisarius VI Constantine and his trusted general Alexander Philantropene intervene against the marauding bands of Osman of Kotiaion. The Alan contingent again proves decisive: the siege of Prusa (Bithynia) is relieved and the Turk marauders smashed and slain in the thousands. Osman himself finds refuge in his capital, waging guerrilla war from there before being murdered by the agents of sultan Ula Suleiman of Kirikkale.
1297-1301
SE Asia:
A Lao invasion led by prince Panya Khamphong of Muang Sua (*Luang Prabang) and supported by the obstinate Yuan Mongols of China threatens Dai Viet but is eventually repulsed.
1298
Northern Europe, Southern Europe:
Duke Albert I of Habsburg-Alamannia attacks and kills his brother Rudolph II of Swabia, reunifying by force the family holdings.
Southern Europe:
Cremona rebels against the Pallavicino lordship and breaks “free” under the marquis of Viadana Roberto Cavalcabò, scion of a minor Obertenghi branch.
Central-Eastern Europe:
In Bohemia and its subject land the lesser Bohemian and German nobles, led by Jan Pavlìček, rebel against Ottokar/Otakar III, the “Tartar” king (son of a Mongol general and of Beatrix, the last Premyslid), but are crushed.
Once its voivod Loránd Borsa is dead, Transylvania quietly slips back to Hungarian suzerainty, though with special autonomy: the king's appointee as voivod must be accepted and recognized by the local assembly of magnates to exercise his powers.
Far East:
Wáng Zhēn, a Chinese Yuan official, invents the first practical wooden movable type printing. The Koreans already knew how to employ metal for the same end; in both case the practicality of the system is reduced by the complex Chinese ideogram writing.
1298-1300
British isles:
King Edwin Montfort of Northumbria invades Scotland in support of the claimant Donald of Inverair (*OTL Ayr). King Brian III of Alba and Scotland, deserted by several noblemen, is overrun at the battle of DunBrython (*OTL Dumbarton) but manages to find refuge among loyalist Pictish clans. After having waged successful guerrilla for two years, Brian is able to defeat and kill his usurping brother at Cormiston, ousting the Anglo-Northumbrians. Hundreds of rebel nobles, mostly Scots, take refuge beyond the border.
Western Europe:
The Harrowing of Normandy, waged in revenge by English armies led by the young and merciless Simon of Cornwall, gives the coup de grace to this formerly dominant land, which will need decades to recover from destructions even worse than those wrought by the very Mongols. Only the major urban centres manage to avoid pillage and massacre, but the Englishmen are unable to gain more than a few coastal fortresses.
1299
Northern Europe:
Erik Porpyrogenitus is the firstborn from the marriage between Erik, second son of king Valdemar III of Denmark, and Hedwige, daughter of king Philip I of Lower Lorraine (*“Belgium”). The infant is hailed as the new titular king of Germany as Henry V by a hastily convened assembly of (northern) German nobles.
Western Europe:
The War of Aquitanian Succession restarts with Gadary/Languedoc, Fois (*OTL Foix) and puppet Aquitaine surrounded by enemies: the republic of Bordèu (*OTL Bordeaux), where the Bertrades family has acquired supremacy, has turned against it, and also Provence gets involved after longstanding issues about Uzès and its duchy, historically tied to the former Burgundian kingdom but now vassal to Gadary. In the meantime the Navarrese eye Gadarian Catalonia. The anti-Gadarian coalition enjoys Papal benediction, for what it means.
Southern Europe:
The Bohemians relocate some thousands of the rebellious Sorbs of Lusatia to upper Austria, founding the city of Sorpst on the site of Chremis (OTL *Krems an der Donau), in time to become the main center of the region.
Vitale the Old becomes lord of Treviso after harsh factional struggles, establishing the San Fior as the local paramount family.
Byzantine Empire:
Venice counterattacks on sea, reconquering large part of Crete from Genoa and the Byzantines and starting a long low-intensity struggle.
Arabia:
An Ilkhanid seaborne invasion devastates Bahrain, whose Ismaili pirates had become the terror of the Persian Gulf. A colony of Zoroastrian Persians from the Caspian Sea is settled in the island.
India:
Hindustan is invaded by an Ilkhanid horde from Afghanistan, bolstered by Central Asian reinforcements led by the Chagataiid Khan Mirza Sasan Qutlugh. The invasion is narrowly beaten back by the new Hindustani ruler Sukhedei Vajra Sanjay (actually a half-blood Mongol, son of a Rajput princess of the Gehlots from Mewar), succeeded to his half-brother Duwa Khan after his death in battle and the sack of the capital, Suvarnapura (*OTL Jhang). In the following years Hindustan will suffer repeated raids and invasions from Ilkhanid forces.
SE Asia:
Temür Öljeytü, the Yuan Khan of China and claimant Great Khan, invades Burma with a powerful army, wreaking havoc and extorting tribute from the various Shan polities and the Pinya kingdom. His army then proceeds to raid Arakan, making it a tributary kingdom. Stable diplomatic relations are then established by the Yuan with the Dharma empire of eastern India.
1299-1301
North Africa, Middle East:
Historical pilgrimage by Mansa (emperor) Sakura of the Mali Empire to Jerusalem. The African ruler, follower of the Jewish faith, won't find Myriamite rule there very palatable: his arrogant and disdainful behavior, despite the riches in gold sowed along his path, will earn him a “kick in the ass” goodbye. On his return to Mali Sakura, a former slave unrelated to the line of Sundiata, is toppled and replaced by Gao, one of Sundiata's maternal nephews.
1299-1312
Southern Europe:
Acting cunningly between the rival pretenses of Hungary, Bosnia, Genoa and Venice, Pavao I Breber, the Croatian lord of Bribir/Varvaria, becomes the true master of Dalmatia, eventually managing to wrest Zara/Zadar from Venice and put his kinsmen in charge of most coastal towns. Venetian influence is significantly reduced. The Breber clan also attempts to expand its power into Bogomil Bosnia, but in a less successful way, since the local ban, Ninoslav II, proves a capable and respected leader.
1299-1320s
Northern Europe:
The *Reichswiederaufbau brings about the rebirth of a smaller kingdom of Germany after years of petty wars against noble holdings and careful diplomacy with free cities and leagues. The country lies in ruins after the war of liberation, and is still subject to sudden devastating raids from the Berestian Mongols. Furthermore, it is torn by peasant unrest and by the “redde rationem” against those who collaborated with the Eastern invaders. Vast sections of it (Bavaria, Austria, Thuringia, Meissen/Misnia...) are under Bohemian or Habsburg control, and the Habsburgs in particular will show no sign of accepting the idea of a reborn kingdom of Germany.
XIVth century
Northern Hemisphere:
The so-called Medieval warm period recedes, giving gradually way to a colder, damper climate all around the north Atlantic. This, in time, hampers the already difficult contacts between Europe and the Hesperian (*OTL American) colonies.
Central-Eastern Europe:
Yiddish (Judeo-German) becomes the language par excellence among the growing Jewish population in Berestia, favored by the khan's court and bolstered by refugees from anti-Semite Germany and the last Khazar Jews ousted from the Pontic steppes by the Golden Horde.
Vlach shepherds migrate in considerable numbers up the Carpathian range, reaching up to Moravia, forming ethnic communities to be slowly integrated with the surrounding Slavs but preserving own traditions and, partly, language.
Mersk (*OTL Galich, Kostroma Oblast, Russia) emerges as Novgorod's rival number one for the control of commerce in Northern Russia.
Middle East:
Overall decline of Waliism, the branch of Sunnism affirming the necessity of a Wali as supreme religious (but not temporal) authority in place of a Caliph. Waliism disintegrates slowly in favor of Shiism or Caliphism (its secular archrival, closer to OTL standard doctrine) in the core Islamic areas, whereas it consolidates in a changing form in a northern strip of Islamicized lands, from Lithuania to Central Asia, giving rise to what will be later dubbed as “Northern Islam”.
The Muwahiddin (*OTL Druzes) of Lebanon are converted to Myriamism, as most of the local Muslims. Myriamism, still persecuted in Syria by the Muslim Sungurids, soon penetrates strongly into northern Syria and central-eastern Anatolia, where the Yalikids prove to be tolerant rulers in matters of religion.
East Africa:
A third and last wave of Indonesian immigrants, mainly sea traders, reach *Madagascar, together with populations from the Moon islands (*OTL Comoros).
SE Asia:
Hindu influence in Indochina weakens considerably, replaced in the south by the slow infiltration of Islam and in the north by a mighty affirmation of Buddhism, thanks also to Dharma empire “missionaries”, among the local cultures.
Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
Diffusion of the nomadic culture in the Hesperian (*American) Great Plains due to the progressive introduction and domestication of horses.
Central Hesperia (*OTL America):
The Mixtecs overshadow their rivals in the Oaxaca region, the Zapotecs.
1300
Northern Europe:
Cologne joins the Hansa, confirming the power of the League and its almost absolute control of trade over the waterways, now also well inside the mainland.
Western Europe:
Champagne, Lorraine and OTL Franche-Comté, now heavily dotted with German settlements, partly Germanized and still under the “protection” of Kunya Khan's Ograinese or the iron fist of Albert I of Habsburg, begin to be known collectively with the ancient name of Neustria, used in Merovingian times to indicate France proper.
Southern Europe:
Gherardo Segarelli, founder of the Apostolic Brethren movement, bent on evangelical poverty, is burnt at the stake at Parma by the Papal inquisition. The event, and further persecutions from ecclesiastical and lay courts, will precipitate a radicalization of the movement.
Genoa ousts Pisa from Gallura, “offering” it to the Western imperial crown of Sicily and de facto consolidating its own supremacy in Sardinia. On land Pisa tries to attack Genoese vassals and allies in the eastern (Levante) Riviera in conjunction with the Malaspina mountain lords, another of the Obertenghi branches, but without success; Pisa itself is briefly besieged by Lucca, its rival neighbour, ready to ally with Genoa, who in the meantime burns and blocks Porto Pisano. Pisa, in turn, calls for help Bernardo il Vecchio of Canossa, lord of Reggio Emilia, whose troops plunder Garfagnana, Lucca's “backyard”. That's life in merry Lombardy!
Central-Eastern Europe:
The Golden Horde, helped by the handful of Venetian ships capable of breaking the Genoese-Byzantine blockade of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, attacks the Genoese possessions in the Taurida (*OTL Crimea), seizing several ports and fortresses.
Prince Jagatariu of Cumania (*OTL Moldavia) is defeated and killed in battle on the Prut by Toq-Timur, a brother of Toqta Khan of the Blue Horde who had gone west with his retinue. The Mongol lord proclaims himself khan of Cumania and voivod of Wallachia. The latter land, fallen into near anarchy in recent years, is however soon grabbed by the Bulgarians east of the Olt river, and by Hungary west of the river.
ca. 1300
Northern Europe:
Jews get massacred in great numbers in Germany, where they're associated with Mongol power, and quickly flee to the Jewish-friendly Khanate of Berestia.
Southern Europe:
The scholars at the university of Palermo christen the new lands beyond the Atlantic Ocean as Hesperia, from the ancient Greek myth of the extreme western lands. The name will stick, to be soon adopted (in Europe only, for now).
Southern Europe, Western Europe, Byzantine Empire:
An embryonal monetary system develops for international trade. Genoese coins are favored in Lombardy, in the Occitanic lands and the Iberic peninsula; Sicilian (West Imperial) “augustales” dominate in southern Italy and Christian North Africa, while Venetian “zecchini” are warmly accepted throughout the eastern Med, in rivalry with the neo-standard Byzantine hyperpyra, “the” coin for the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans). Florentine money gains instead wide circulation in France ad Germany, together with English royal livres.
Byzantine Empire, Middle East:
In Cyprus the so-called Gyptofrangoi, the descendants of the Egyptian convert-exiles, gain paramount influence in local politics and economics, acting a middlemen for the condominium of Italian and Lombard sea-trading republics and local lords ruling the island.
North Africa, Black Africa:
Agadez becomes the capital of the Ayr Sultanate, a Kharijite Muslim state led by Islamicized Tuareg in bitter rivalry with the Judeo-Christian Kel Keris Zenetes of the Ahaggar for the control of the salt and slave trade routes.
Kharijite Fezzan is made a vassal of the Caliphate of Marisia (Egypt/Nubia), not without bloodshed.
Black Africa:
Solomon Massanjaay unifies most of Senegal into the Jolof Empire, wresting also Mauretania Ultima (*OTL Mauritania) from Mornavia/Mauretania (*OTL Morocco) troubled by succession issues and weakened by Idrasian (*Kabyle) meddling. Solomon holds sway up to OTL *Guinea and the sources of the Jeliba (*OTL Niger). The new Christian (albeit in a quite unique African way) power soon enters into conflict with Mali, where mass diffusion of a local version of Judaism is ongoing thanks to the efforts of the Mansas (emperors).
Northern Hesperia (*OTL America):
In the southwestern parts of northern Hesperia (*OTL America) the Diné (*OTL Navajo and Apache) people form a powerful confederation, bent on conquest, subduing their agriculturalist neighbours.
Amazing work, basileus. You've still got it.
I like the revival of Neustria with the German immigration. The spectacular collapse of Mongol power in Germany is just as just as I envisioned - at least their reign in Europe was short! But the effects will be felt forever, of course.
I still remember the vague dread I felt reading about the Mongols overrunning Germany. Will the nation be dominated by the Hanseatic League in the future?
Also liked the TTL Manu Musa making a pilgrimage as a Jew. Also the diffusion of the horse into the interior of North America - remind me again who originally introduced it?
I like the revival of Neustria with the German immigration. The spectacular collapse of Mongol power in Germany is just as just as I envisioned - at least their reign in Europe was short! But the effects will be felt forever, of course.
I still remember the vague dread I felt reading about the Mongols overrunning Germany. Will the nation be dominated by the Hanseatic League in the future?
Also liked the TTL Manu Musa making a pilgrimage as a Jew. Also the diffusion of the horse into the interior of North America - remind me again who originally introduced it?
The horse? In this TL it reappeared in North Hesperia about 1200, through Icelandic traders. The first few horses brought in by the original colonists had not thrived. In OTL stray horses appeared in the Plains about 1550, escaping their Spanish masters south.
Constantinople
Banned
I know necroing is frowned upon, but I wonder... I know you're still around, any thought about returning to it? And if not, can we have spoilers?