I realize that this is a rather old idea and that I did it rather poorly the first time; however, it's been awhile since we had much of anything in this time period. This also serves as handy retconning.
The Story So Far. (1000-1100)
The 11th century began auspiciously for the Roman Empire. The last vestiges of the Macedonian dynasty, including the great Basil II, smashed the various small emirates on the eastern Imperial border and managed to play the Turks, the Buwayhids, and the Ghaznavids against each other fairly well; a Seljuk Empire wasn't established until the 1050s. At the same time, fairly good relations with the Western churchmen were maintained, especially after the Pope and the Emperor combined to smash the developing Norman immigrants in Roman Apulia, the last small band of which were defeated by 1060. By that time Basil's sons had finally expired and left the throne to the new Comnenus dynasty, led by the dissolute Isaac I, who promptly perished in combat against the new Sadaqid emirate in Egypt; the Phocas family seized power and managed to halt the incoming Seljuk hordes by paying off certain other tribes in the eastern regions of that Empire to revolt (including the Khwarezmians, who actually managed to establish a fairly stable state in Central Asia), while the Sadaqids were beaten off after a decade and a half of bloodshed in southern Syria. After that, the issue of the good old
filioque/
ex filio clause managed to finally initiate a formal schism between the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western Churches in the 1080s, mostly initiated by a Holy Roman Emperor's tame Pope. This led the Emperor, Leo VII Phocas, to lead an army into southern Italy to battle the Imperial/Papal forces who were trying to seize Roman Italy; after the disastrous Battle of Cannae in 1089, at which Leo was killed during a disastrous cavalry charge, the Romans were forced to retreat from Italy and Sicily, which were both absorbed by the Holy Roman Emperor. Alexius I Comnenus led a coup against the remnants of the Phocas dynasty and beat off a Seljuk attack under Malik Shah, who then was forced to turn against Anush Tigin's Khwarezmian emirate.
The coalescing state of Hungary also attempted expansion during this time; after an initial period under Venetian influence, a pro-Byzantine (and thus pro-Eastern rite) finally managed to seize power in the 1020s, but a following Holy Roman invasion in the 1050s established Western Rite in at least the western regions (with heavy amounts of Orthodoxals on the east and south sides of the Danube). Eventually, Hungary's attempted expansion into Kievan Rus Halych was cut short by further religious strife; most of the rest of the century was characterized by extreme schism-initiated conflict beginning in the 1080s with the official break and still not completed by 1100, although the Catholics were beginning to gain ascendancy. Naturally, the relatively decentralized Kievan Rus still managed to pick up territory on the slopes of the Carpathians, although they didn't dare to penetrate into the Alfold yet.
In Iberia, the collapse of the Cordova Caliphate led Norman knights into southern Spain en masse, searching for job opportunities among the weak taifas [1] and eventually carving out a strong kingdom centered around Badajoz in the southwestern corner of the peninsula. The Norman Kingdom of Iberia, much more tolerant of the Muslims than their
Reconquista rivals to the north, had by 1060 managed to secure most of the southern part of the peninsula in fief through mostly the sheer genius of William I, of the Hauteville family. The Hauteville Iberians soon began to clash sometimes with the Castilians under Fernando I the Great, who managed to unite Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre partly through dynastic ties and partly through conquest. A series of on again, off again wars between the Iberians (whose capital was soon after moved to Cordova itself) and the Castilians was only halted when the Castilians wished to play a part in the fun wars in France (see below) and the Iberians decided to fool around in Africa. In fact, the Iberians managed to establish a very strong presence in Africa by the 1080s, smashing the Almoravid Empire and establishing control over parts of Morocco. A Turkish adventurer named Qutulmish carved out his own kingdom in Ifriqiya around Tunis, which managed to secure control over parts of Sicily while the Holy Roman Emperors were busy.
As to France and the HRE...the Hauteville family managed to conquer Arelate (or Burgundy) in the 1040s; King Drogo of Arelate successfully repulsed several Imperial invasions over the course of the next two decades, and extended his holdings in France, with control over much of Aquitaine and the remainder of France south of the Massif going more or less to Hauteville members. The French monarchy was spending much of this time wallowing in decay; this was only somewhat reversed by King Philippe I, who managed to destroy the Duchy of Normandy while the Duke, one William, was in his minority. The end of the Norman threat to the north allowed the royal demesne to concentrate its activities to the south; an alliance was built with the Holy Roman Emperors against the Hautevilles, who consistently supported Pope Gregory VII against his archenemies the Saxon Emperors. These matters came to a head after Heinrich V was forced from Italy by an unholy alliance of the Hautevilles (the Iberian Kingdom and Arelate were united under Robert Guiscard, the greatest of the Norman Kings), the Pope, and...the Eastern Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. Heinrich began to plan for a counterattack, but he was preempted by his own death, and when his son Otto IV demanded to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor the Pope refused, leading to the fun War of German Succession, which began in 1092.
Unfortunately for the Papal alliance, Robert Guiscard died of old age rather early on; his son Bohemund was forced to fight against Philippe I in France, where the Royals managed to wear down the Normans; the Iberian Kingdom was prevented from assisting its brother by an alliance between Yusuf (Qutulmish's son, the emir of Ifriqiya) and the Castilians under Alfonso VI, which pressured Tancred I horribly; the Iberians in fact would only narrowly get out of this scrape by a great victory at the siege of Toledo against the Castilians and then a second, less impressive victory at Oran, but those were in 1096 and 1097...far too late for Arelate. Meanwhile, after a deadlock on the Adige River, Otto managed to besiege and capture Venice after an epic assault in 1093. Unexpected victories by the Normans in Arelate and central France - culminating in the Siege of Orleans, which was only barely relieved by the French King - forced Otto to move west to assist his ally; in 1095 he and Philippe won the Battle of Issoure and crushed Arelate. Alexius had used this opportunity to invade Styria and even move into Bavaria, raising a few rebels to Otto's rule, but supply problems and a renewed German threat to his rear in northern Italy forced him to return south, where he drew against Otto at Lucca and continued to retreat towards Roman Hydruntum. After the Pope died in 1096 and was replaced by pro-Otto Paschal II, Alexius was forced to recognize Otto as Holy Roman Emperor and lost his Italian lands. Arelate was generally split between the HRE and France, with Otto getting a slightly larger slice (which greatly embittered old Philippe); naturally, the HRE once more was hegemon of Italy.
England and the North were very active for awhile, especially after the death of Canute the Great and the collapse of his empire. Anglo-Saxons soon had control of England once more, and Harold II repulsed the grand invasion of the Norwegian King Harold Hardrada in 1066 at the Battle of York; Harold meddled in France somewhat and managed to gain control of what had once been Normandy in the wake of the destruction of William's duchy. After the defeat of York, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway degenerated into obscurity and ruin, as did Ireland, which were all fairly disunited and home to constant endemic strife.
Poland had achieved a brief period of greatness under Boleslaw the Brave, but found itself inundated by Germanic settlers of the
Ostsiedlung; an invasion by Emperor Heinrich IV completely wiped out the Poles after the Battle of Liegnitz. After Liegnitz, many Poles migrated eastward and came into contact with the Kievan Rus; Germanic settlers moved into the western regions of Poland, in a movement called the
Ostsiedlung, which continued as the period ended. The Kievan Rus themselves were initially highly disunited (and also fairly advanced), but gained some centralization following the mass Polish invasions of the 1070s, repulsing most of the invaders and forcing them north, coming into contact with Cours, Liths, and the like and creating a renewed syncretic nascent Polish homeland around Wilno [2] by 1100. While somewhat weakened, the Kievan Rus were strong enough to raid into Hungary as noted above and end the endemic conflict that had been a constant pretty much since Yaroslav the Wise.
And to the east?...A major Seljuk invasion of India managed to overwhelm the disparate Rajput princes and begin to harass the Western Chalukyas under the great ruler Vikramaditya VI. An alliance of Cholas and Chalukyas repulsed the Seljuks and forced them into a brief decline; the Chalukyas managed to seize some extra land in Rajputana, along with the Eastern Chalukya lands following the collapse of that dynasty (causing a renaissance of sorts), but most of India really remained static. The Cholas continued to work at establishing their extra-Deccan empire, although that progress was somewhat ******** by the war with the Seljuks.
So...fun...a brief sketch of the 11th century. I wonder what I could possibly do with that...
[1] = Petty emirate or kingdom under Muslim rule.
[2] = I know it's a bit early, but it's as good a name as any.
And changes in Europe to enable it were pretty much necessary; early 19th century is way too late to build up Mexico without Britain making propping it up a priority of the first order, and there are few realistic ways of achieving that without drastically altering the global balance of power.
p) and a real chance for a German-led "European Union" in the first half of the twentieth century being a real counter to the United States and Russia as world powers.
