Eternal Imperium

[ULC]

What would have happened if the German Emperors had managed to keep the HRE solvent? Successfully Kept the Pope in check and subdued Italy? What if Otto, Duke of Saxony, had not betrayed Barbarossa in his bid at Poland?

Would they have turned towards France?
Denmark?
Hungary?
The Rus?
Still withered and fallen apart from internal disension?

What about the real empire? What if the East Romans had healed the "schism"? Defeated the Turks at Manzikert? Fended off the Crusaders in 1205 (or paid for the trip )?

I've been contemplating this for a while, thanks to the Total War series. Just wondering...

[CountArach]

In my opinion, it was never a force that was unified enough to take on any of the countries you mentioned. Also, the religious dissension would have torn them apart from the inside. There was no way that the Calvinists/Protestants could live with the Catholics in those days.

[Furious Mental]

I think you two are talking about events separated by a few hundred years.

[CountArach]

Yes we are, but I am saying that it still would've fractioned eventually.

[Furious Mental]

Well you don't know that for sure. Just because Protestantism sprung up in Germany and the Thirty Years War occurred doesn't mean that was pre-destined. If the country had had a strong central government like France, England, or Spain it could have survived religious turmoil by killing all dissidents.

[Marshal Murat]

The Protestant Reformation had more to deal with the Pope's abuses, not with a pre-determined revelation visa-Luther.

If the HRE had remained a single entity, they would have to control the Pope. Then they probably would have captured the lucrative Baltic Sea trade. Maybe finance the Teutonic invasions of Poland, Russia, etc.

[ULC]

Well, I was more or less asking about during the medeival era (1000-1300). And what about the Eastern Roman Empire? Could they have avoided their downfall at all by healing the "schism"?

[CountArach]

Well you don't know that for sure. Just because Protestantism sprung up in Germany and the Thirty Years War occurred doesn't mean that was pre-destined. If the country had had a strong central government like France, England, or Spain it could have survived religious turmoil by killing all dissidents.

France had the Hugenots. England had its Reformation as well as burnings. Spain had to have Inquistors for a reason.

So a strong central Government does not mean that religious disunity will be averted.

[Furious Mental]

Yes but like I said while they had religious dissidence it was crushed by the government. Germany had a weak central government. If it had a strong, as Blackadder called it, Minister for Religious Genocide, it may have been able to deal with religious issues in the same way as other countries.

[The Wizard]

Well, I was more or less asking about during the medeival era (1000-1300). And what about the Eastern Roman Empire? Could they have avoided their downfall at all by healing the "schism"?

They tried to on multiple occasions, and failed miserably. For the Byzantine empire to have survived and prospered, you'd have to go back to John II's, or better yet, Alexius I's reign, at least... Manuel I's reign was probably already too late.

[ULC]

Thanks. So if the schism had been healed what then? Would support been more forth coming? Would the Carloginian Empire existed at all? Would that have meant the HRE and the ERE were mutually exclusive?

Theoretically, Let us say the Honenstaufen Dynasty had been able to put both the German princes and the Italian penninsula under heal, along with the Pope of course. Wouldn't this mean that the protestant reformation would either not exist or look entirely different/ Would the HRE really become an Empire? Again, within the 1000-1300 time frame.

[AntiochusIII]

They tried to on multiple occasions, and failed miserably. For the Byzantine empire to have survived and prospered, you'd have to go back to John II's, or better yet, Alexius I's reign, at least... Manuel I's reign was probably already too late.

I don't know, I think it's probably even better if it's prior to Manzikert. Although if it's at the start of Manuel Comnenus' reign then I think the Empire had a lot of chance. After all it was Manuel and not John whose wars alienated most of Byzantium's many neighbors.

And although I do admit I'm irrationally well-disposed towards the late Eastern Roman Empire the society that it upheld was rather...stifling.

Sure, you have advanced laws and bureaucracies, but alongside it is a, well, Byzantine level of corruption and intrigue. The philosophical and religious outlook of the Empire are shall we say it intolerant to the point of violent, and the scholarly output is way too heavily weighted towards obscure, complex, and ultimately rather meaningless theology. It can be completely absurd to read about riots and civil wars tearing the Empire apart based on the problem whether a bunch of icons are blasphemous or divine; at least the Protestants had a legitimate complaint with the Catholic Church!

On topic:

YourLordandConqueror: it is my opinion that speculation on such a scale is extremely hard to justify one way or another -- we're talking about 200-500 years of history here and a great number of factors involved, even with the most generous generalizations. Perhaps if we draw the point where the cause diverts from history (the HRE unified) and the result of that diversion (what comes of a unified HRE) closer together, speculation would be easier?

One could say for example that if Barbarossa's son lived longer and proved himself at least as competent as his father (at least put Richard's ransom to better use than wasting it conquering Sicily =_= ) that there is a good chance that in the 1200's Germany would be a relatively unified state. However the more speculation along that line continues it becomes less and less believable. Would a 1400's Germany be the same? Would the Hohenstaufen still be there? If they won't, who would replace them, and would the replacements rule over the same state? And what would a 1500's Germany -- the Age of Reformation -- look like, after 300+ years of alternate history?

And that's an extremely narrow and simplified set of questions to start with.

[I of the Storm]

And even this "simplified set", as you put it, is virtually unanswerable in my opinion. Especially for the period chosen here (staufen dynasty).
For one, the saxon nobles were an extremely unruly lot in the 12th/13th century. Come to think of it, they always were, but especially so during the Staufen era. They were rich, they were ambitious, they had been emperor before (Ottonians, Lothar v. Supplinburg), they had their own agenda, so at one point or the other they would have turned against the emperor during that period of time.

The pope is likewise hard to calculate, since we have a bright and also ambitious pope with Innocence III. Plus, you can't defeat a pope who is not weak. Attempt to do that and you have the excommunication in the mailbox, something not desirable with an unruly bunch of nobles at home (see Henry IV.).

I realize that I'm too unimaginative here. So assumed they'd have a strong position at home with all the troublemaking nobles brought to heel and a cooperative pope I'd assume that their priority no.1 would be to get a firm grip on northern italy and either literally subdue those cities or make them controllable by giving certain concessions. Expansion eastwards could probably follow, although I think it's more probable that there would have been energetic attempts to regain control of the Holy Land. If we take the Behemoth we are imagining here in control of Middle Europe and add some clever diplomacy with the Byzantines to it, it might even have been successful.

Further than that I don't dare to speculate.

[Watchman]

IMHO it would probably have been patently impossible for Early Medieval HRE to develop a strong central regime. Doubly so if it managed to take over Northern Italy. After all, it took realms with rather less geographical barriers for communications and markedly less fragmentary political landscape, such as France and England, some half a millenia to impose a working degree of central royal authority on their component parts - and at that point for example economic structures and much adminstrative praxis was something very different from what it was in the 1100s, not in the least thanks to major shifts in military paradigms.

Put short, the HRE was flat out too large and heterogenous for effective central authority given the adminstrative competences available at the time, and the problems of communications imposed by distance and geography. It did not help a bit that the Emperor was a primus inter pares to a meaningfully greater degree than most period European monarchs due to the fact he was elected into the office by the major Elector Counts; nor were the stubborn Freiburgs or wealthy, powerful and well fortified Hansa cities of the Baltic coast exactly readily accommodating to interference in their business. And the knightly Orders kind of tended to do their own thing anyway, helped by that fact their financial and adminstrative abilities were something rather beyond the norm for the times - and that various lords and kings tended to be heavily indepted to them.

Northern Italy would just have added another recalcitrant, wealthy and powerful piece - and one behind mountains, and hence even more difficult to communicate with than the forest-surrounded German parts, at that - to the already nigh-unmanageable mess of mind-boggling numbers of little fiefdoms, townships, bishoprics, baronies etc. that all had diverse sets of agreed-upon privileges they knew inside out and guarded quite jealously.

On top of the blunt fact the Emperor had his hands tied by the military and political realities of the feudal system as thoroughly as anyone else, an issue further compounded by the remaining Pagan lands to the east.

[Furious Mental]

Actually the way the development of central authority worked in England is that for 300 years after Germanic settlement there was a heptarchy with zero progress towards a centralised government, then the Danes conquered everything except Wessex, and then in a few decades the West Saxon kings reconquered the country and the country was united under a single regime. It says alot about what a series of dynamic leaders can achieve.

[Watchman]

Yeah, well, England was also a wee bit smaller geographical entity than Greater Germany... and not quite as saddled with obstacles to effective communications for that matter.

As dynamic leaders and their achievements go, look at Charlemagne. He built up a seriously major empire including most of what later became the HRE in only some decades; and we all know how well it stayed together with him gone between the pressures of local ambitions and sheer distance...

[ULC]

Okay, so obviously the Staufen period is out. What about during the Ottonian Dynasty, when the Saxon nobles were in effective control and, as far as I know, had little competition for the throne after the Battle of Lechfeld. Obviously during Otto I, but not after Otto III.

A question remians then about the "Size of the Empire" - could reforms have helped at all, military or otherwise? I know that is rather open in it's possibilities, but the problems of the HRE seemed more of an organizational/loyalty affair. Reforms targeting such things may have helped to curb this, such as making all territory "conquered" by the HRE have an elected rather then a hereditary office, but the first of such offices are directly appointed by the Emperor (just a thought that really not well worked out).

As to the Eastern Empire, what if the Schism had been healed? Would that mean that Crusades would have been different in function and objective? Would they have been controlled by the Pope or the (now Catholic) Emperor?
Also, is a Catholic ERE mutually exclusive of the HRE?

[Sarmatian]

As to the Eastern Empire, what if the Schism had been healed? Would that mean that Crusades would have been different in function and objective? Would they have been controlled by the Pope or the (now Catholic) Emperor?
Also, is a Catholic ERE mutually exclusive of the HRE?

Well, healing the Schism doesn't automatically mean that ERE becomes Catholic. It could be other way around depending on the respective power of ERE and the papacy...

ERE managed to fight on two fronts quite effectively when the state apparatus was healthy. Ostrogorsky insists that cause for the decline of the ERE was its feudalization. Cetralizes bureocracy that characterized ERE was slowly being replaced with feudalism. That meant much less money and soldiers. By the time of crusades, Byzantium was more or less on a steady course of decline.

In my opinion, Eternal Imperium as a concept is impossible. It could never work in practice in ERE, HRE or any other state in the world.

[Watchman]

I think you're sort of missing the inherently decentralising nature of feudalism, particularly potent in the lock-stock-and-barrel pattern practiced in Europe around the time. Quite simply when a major nobleman has his own private army manning a network of mutually supporting fortifications covering his domains, and this is the only workable way to organize regional defense and control in the circumstances with the end result that the monarch is rather heavily dependent on the feudal contingents furnished by the selfsame feudal aristocracy, it gets kind-a difficult for the monarch to keep the nobleman doing whatever the fig he feels like due to the very practical problems in enforcing his will by force if necessary...

Nevermind now the extra complications brought in by the nonhereditary nature of the Holy Roman Emperorship.

As already said it took the French and English kings centuries to get a firm hold on the barons; and they didn't have half as uncooperative a geography and political setup to deal with as the German Emperors.

Also, is a Catholic ERE mutually exclusive of the HRE?

Why in the world would it be ? The Balkan highlands between the two formed far too much of a geographical "natural border" between the two (as also witnessed when the old Roman Empire split in two along that selfsame line, and the way the Ottomans much later never really got past it) for either to actually do much anything concrete about the continued existence of the other anyway.

Do recall that the HRE was "Roman" very much in name only, as a legacy of Charlemagne; it was never able to even establish much of a lasting foothold south of the Alps in the first place. Besides its grandiose name it was simply a large, sprawling and quite intractable "Northern European" Medieval realm, its concerns inherently tending to be focused towards the Baltic, France and the remaining pagans to the east. Conversely the interests of the "East Roman Empire" - Byzantium for short - lay firmly in and around the eastern Mediterranean basin and the Black Sea, and particularly the fact those pesky Muslims had been gnawing at its territories for almost half a millenia already with worrying degrees of success.

[AntiochusIII]

As already said it took the French and English kings centuries to get a firm hold on the barons; and they didn't have half as uncooperative a geography and political setup to deal with as the German Emperors.

Not necessarily. France was just about as fragmented as Germany if at one point -- they were remnants of the same Frankish Empire after all. And when Hugh Capet was made King he was as weak as any German Emperor, if not much weaker; Ilse de France was an almost literal expression after all. Besides, that a major component of the so-called "Angevin Empire" at one point include half of France was quite a statement of the level of fragmentation.

Of course, it took the Capetians a good 300 years of more-or-less continuous effort to achieve the power that Philip the Fair held, and the task was not even accomplished at the end of their entire "direct" dynasty's lifetime. Still, if the Ottonians or the Hohenstaufen managed to make the throne hereditary and were blessed with a series of skilled leaders, a unified Germany wouldn't be too terribly impossible.

...if they ignored Italy. And didn't try to cross that damnable Churchman in Rome too much.