1066
Kings and Popes, Councils and Communes – Different High Middle Ages Year By Year, Starting in 1066
I have decided to move beyond my comfort zone – not just writing about revolutions, real or otherwise, or about pre-historical cultures of which we know next to nothing – and try my hand at a High Middle Ages TL with a PoD that has been done very often – an Anglo-Saxon victory at Hastings 1066. But I’ll do it in a way that hasn’t been done often, I think. I’ll try to fathom how fundamental the underlying workings of what we perceive as “typically European medieval” can be affected by a significant divergence. There will be only so much talk of who marries whom, who begets whom etc. In the first decades, I’ll work with the personnel that we know, and from then on, I’ll assume people born after the PoD (in some remote regions, only years or decades after the PoD) will not be born ITTL so I’ll just make up names when names are necessary and not give their entire pedigrees each time. I’ll assume some things are harder to affect and would stay stable in almost all iterations of history, while others may look so, too, because they were dominant in our Medieval Europe, but might in fact be rather coincidental. I’ll try to work out which is which.
To follow through with this experiment, I need to make progress relatively fast, so that I can cover not just the rest of the 11th, but also at least much of the 12th, and maybe beyond. That means, most updates will be charts of what happens, year by year. Only a handful of updates – on major conflicts, major developments, some reflections on causes and effects – will concentrate on a single topic in greater detail. In contrast to most of my other TLs, this one won’t attempt to pretend to use “in-context sources”.
As always, you, my dear readers, (I hope there will be some out there) are cordially invited to comment on anything and everything, to speculate on future developments, criticize my decisions and suggest alternatives, suggest sources of relevant information, bring others to the party etc.!
Here goes nothing…
1066: Edward the Confessor, King of England, dies in January. The Witenagemot elects Harold Godwinson as his successor. At the end of the year, King Harold II. will emerge exhausted but triumphant from not just one, but two narrow and costly battles with foreign invaders who had come to steal his crown and subdue his lands: first the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada, whom he defeated at Stamford Bridge; then the Norman Duke William the Bastard, whose Norman, Boulonnais and Flemish knights were slain at Hastings [1]. [PoD]
King Harold the Great is duly celebrated in Winchester. He appoints his nephew Hakon Sweynson as Earl of Wessex and all the other holdings which Harold had previously been earl of himself.
Duke Conan II. of Brittany attacks the poorly guarded Normandy in an attempt to recapture lands of his duchy which had been lost to the Normans in previous conflicts. [2]
[as per OTL:]
Magnus Haraldsson becomes King in Norway; his brother Olav, who escaped alive from the lost battle at Stamford Bridge, stays in Orkney for the winter.
Stenkil, King of Sweden, dies. A struggle for his succession between Eric and Eric [yes, they were both called Eric, if we can trust Adam of Bremen’s chronicle] ensues.
Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen is deposed under accusations – brought forth primarily by Cologne’s Archbishop Anno and Rudolf of Rheinfelden – of alienating imperial possessions to cronies. Revolting pagan Obodrites overthrow their baptized ruler Gottschalk (son-in-law of King Sweyn II. of Denmark) and slay priests, monks and a bishop. Gottschalk’s son Heinrich flees to Denmark. The pagan Kruto now leads the Obodritic confederacy. Under his command, Haithabu / Hedeby is destroyed.
In the Massacre of Granada, the extremely unpopular Jewish Wesir Joseph and his son Shmuel as well as about 4,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city are murdered by their neighbours.
The Norman duke / prince Richard of Capua, who had helped Alexander II. gain his papacy, turns against him with a host of knights, captures Caprano, pillages the Lazio and encamps outside Rome, where he has allies among the Roman nobility, too, who feel shut out by the new rules for papal elections enshrined by the Reformers.
In the conflict about the archbishopric of Milan between Reformist Patarenes, supported by the pope, and Archbishop Guido, supported by the Milanese nobility, Pope Alexander II. excommunicates Guido. Guido and his faction whip up a Milanese gathering of townsfolk and succeed in having the Patarene leader Ariald chased out of the city. He is assassinated later this year.
Archbishop Eberhard of Trier dies. Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, appoints his nephew Cuno of Pfullingen with the office. Trier’s elites, who had not been consulted in this matter, abduct and kill Cuno. The cathedral chapter elects Udo of Nellenburg, from among their ranks, as the next Archbishop.
Huy in the Low Countries is granted city rights by Theodwin of Liège.
Šibenik is mentioned for the first time in a chapter by the Croatian King Petar Kresimir IV.
Tain becomes the first town in Scotland to be chartered as a royal burgh by King Malcolm III.
[1] It should probably be Haestingas, and the following names should probably also be more Anglo-Saxon, what with the English / Englisc language evolving differently without a Norman conquest. But since this is not an in-context source TL and I am no expert on Anglo-Saxon and find it cumbersome to search for symbols like Æ and ð, I’ll stick with OTL names.
[2] Conan was poisoned and died IOTL after the PoD, in December 1066, allegedly at William’s orders. Because William is dead by now ITTL, I have Conan live. For this inspiration, I have the old TL Crown of the Confessor to thank.
[Except for the different outcome of Hastings and Conan’s attack on Normandy, everything is unchanged compared to OTL. Hey, it’s the Middle Ages, even butterflies can’t travel too fast here 😉 I’ve only added the rest to give some colour and background, to hint at the kind of world all of this is happening in.)
I have decided to move beyond my comfort zone – not just writing about revolutions, real or otherwise, or about pre-historical cultures of which we know next to nothing – and try my hand at a High Middle Ages TL with a PoD that has been done very often – an Anglo-Saxon victory at Hastings 1066. But I’ll do it in a way that hasn’t been done often, I think. I’ll try to fathom how fundamental the underlying workings of what we perceive as “typically European medieval” can be affected by a significant divergence. There will be only so much talk of who marries whom, who begets whom etc. In the first decades, I’ll work with the personnel that we know, and from then on, I’ll assume people born after the PoD (in some remote regions, only years or decades after the PoD) will not be born ITTL so I’ll just make up names when names are necessary and not give their entire pedigrees each time. I’ll assume some things are harder to affect and would stay stable in almost all iterations of history, while others may look so, too, because they were dominant in our Medieval Europe, but might in fact be rather coincidental. I’ll try to work out which is which.
To follow through with this experiment, I need to make progress relatively fast, so that I can cover not just the rest of the 11th, but also at least much of the 12th, and maybe beyond. That means, most updates will be charts of what happens, year by year. Only a handful of updates – on major conflicts, major developments, some reflections on causes and effects – will concentrate on a single topic in greater detail. In contrast to most of my other TLs, this one won’t attempt to pretend to use “in-context sources”.
As always, you, my dear readers, (I hope there will be some out there) are cordially invited to comment on anything and everything, to speculate on future developments, criticize my decisions and suggest alternatives, suggest sources of relevant information, bring others to the party etc.!
Here goes nothing…
1066: Edward the Confessor, King of England, dies in January. The Witenagemot elects Harold Godwinson as his successor. At the end of the year, King Harold II. will emerge exhausted but triumphant from not just one, but two narrow and costly battles with foreign invaders who had come to steal his crown and subdue his lands: first the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada, whom he defeated at Stamford Bridge; then the Norman Duke William the Bastard, whose Norman, Boulonnais and Flemish knights were slain at Hastings [1]. [PoD]
King Harold the Great is duly celebrated in Winchester. He appoints his nephew Hakon Sweynson as Earl of Wessex and all the other holdings which Harold had previously been earl of himself.
Duke Conan II. of Brittany attacks the poorly guarded Normandy in an attempt to recapture lands of his duchy which had been lost to the Normans in previous conflicts. [2]
[as per OTL:]
Magnus Haraldsson becomes King in Norway; his brother Olav, who escaped alive from the lost battle at Stamford Bridge, stays in Orkney for the winter.
Stenkil, King of Sweden, dies. A struggle for his succession between Eric and Eric [yes, they were both called Eric, if we can trust Adam of Bremen’s chronicle] ensues.
Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen is deposed under accusations – brought forth primarily by Cologne’s Archbishop Anno and Rudolf of Rheinfelden – of alienating imperial possessions to cronies. Revolting pagan Obodrites overthrow their baptized ruler Gottschalk (son-in-law of King Sweyn II. of Denmark) and slay priests, monks and a bishop. Gottschalk’s son Heinrich flees to Denmark. The pagan Kruto now leads the Obodritic confederacy. Under his command, Haithabu / Hedeby is destroyed.
In the Massacre of Granada, the extremely unpopular Jewish Wesir Joseph and his son Shmuel as well as about 4,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city are murdered by their neighbours.
The Norman duke / prince Richard of Capua, who had helped Alexander II. gain his papacy, turns against him with a host of knights, captures Caprano, pillages the Lazio and encamps outside Rome, where he has allies among the Roman nobility, too, who feel shut out by the new rules for papal elections enshrined by the Reformers.
In the conflict about the archbishopric of Milan between Reformist Patarenes, supported by the pope, and Archbishop Guido, supported by the Milanese nobility, Pope Alexander II. excommunicates Guido. Guido and his faction whip up a Milanese gathering of townsfolk and succeed in having the Patarene leader Ariald chased out of the city. He is assassinated later this year.
Archbishop Eberhard of Trier dies. Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, appoints his nephew Cuno of Pfullingen with the office. Trier’s elites, who had not been consulted in this matter, abduct and kill Cuno. The cathedral chapter elects Udo of Nellenburg, from among their ranks, as the next Archbishop.
Huy in the Low Countries is granted city rights by Theodwin of Liège.
Šibenik is mentioned for the first time in a chapter by the Croatian King Petar Kresimir IV.
Tain becomes the first town in Scotland to be chartered as a royal burgh by King Malcolm III.
[1] It should probably be Haestingas, and the following names should probably also be more Anglo-Saxon, what with the English / Englisc language evolving differently without a Norman conquest. But since this is not an in-context source TL and I am no expert on Anglo-Saxon and find it cumbersome to search for symbols like Æ and ð, I’ll stick with OTL names.
[2] Conan was poisoned and died IOTL after the PoD, in December 1066, allegedly at William’s orders. Because William is dead by now ITTL, I have Conan live. For this inspiration, I have the old TL Crown of the Confessor to thank.
[Except for the different outcome of Hastings and Conan’s attack on Normandy, everything is unchanged compared to OTL. Hey, it’s the Middle Ages, even butterflies can’t travel too fast here 😉 I’ve only added the rest to give some colour and background, to hint at the kind of world all of this is happening in.)
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