A Question for Byzantinophiles

Faeelin

Banned
OK, question for you guys.

Essentially, Henry VI lives longer, and his army in the holy land doesn't dissolve. His army defeats the proto-abuiyids in the holy land, and retake jerusalem.

Henry himself marries the Queen of Jerusalem when his wife dies in 1198, but Frederick II is kept free. In 1200, he and Isabella (the queen) have a kid, who is named Constantine.

Henry also wanted to conquer Constantinople; and he was pretty damned serious. The Byzantines paid tribute to him.

Phillip, Henry's brother, still marries Irene, daughter of Isaac. Isaac, rumors say, promised to make the couples his heirs.

So it's 1201. The ruler of Sicily, Jerusalem, overlord of Cilicia and Cyprus, and the king of Germany, comes bearing down upon constantinople with the emperor isaac's heirs in tow.

1) Can he succeed?

2) Byzantium probably won't be feudalized, judging by henry's reign in sicily. If a stronger initial push knocks out all the remaining states but trebizond, the set up is this:

Frederick II: Emperor of Germany.

Constantine: King of Jerusalem and Sicily.

Phillip of Swabia: "king of the greeks"-vassal of Frederick II.

Assume that around 1210, constantine manages to reunite the kingdom with byzantium. How stable is that state?
 
Faeelin said:
OK, question for you guys.

Essentially, Henry VI lives longer, and his army in the holy land doesn't dissolve. His army defeats the proto-abuiyids in the holy land, and retake jerusalem.

Henry himself marries the Queen of Jerusalem when his wife dies in 1198, but Frederick II is kept free. In 1200, he and Isabella (the queen) have a kid, who is named Constantine.

Henry also wanted to conquer Constantinople; and he was pretty damned serious. The Byzantines paid tribute to him.

Phillip, Henry's brother, still marries Irene, daughter of Isaac. Isaac, rumors say, promised to make the couples his heirs.

So it's 1201. The ruler of Sicily, Jerusalem, overlord of Cilicia and Cyprus, and the king of Germany, comes bearing down upon constantinople with the emperor isaac's heirs in tow.

1) Can he succeed?

2) Byzantium probably won't be feudalized, judging by henry's reign in sicily. If a stronger initial push knocks out all the remaining states but trebizond, the set up is this:

Frederick II: Emperor of Germany.

Constantine: King of Jerusalem and Sicily.

Phillip of Swabia: "king of the greeks"-vassal of Frederick II.

Assume that around 1210, constantine manages to reunite the kingdom with byzantium. How stable is that state?

No Western power would be able to do much better than the Latin Empire. Anyway hostility from the Pope and Venice would have destroyed this Hohenstaufen Empire in the 13th century. And the Greeks would have surely resisted the Catholic domination by any means, rendering this "Byzantine" Empire a mess.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Given that there's a strong western power in sicily, pro-imperial forces in pisa (possibly genoa, although they're still angry over syracuse) and an imperial encirclement, don't you hink your'e giving venice a bit too much credit?
 
I don't think that taking over the entire Byzantine Empire would be that easy. By this point, most of the elites and commoners throughout the Byzantine world would be hostile to the idea of being ruled by anyone too closely associated with the Latin schismatics of the west. Even if this invasion force is more powerful and cohesive than the 4th Crusade in OTL, I expect resistance by self-styled Orthodox heirs to the Emperor to spring up in parts of Asia Minor, Greece, or the Balkans. The state would probably be very unstable.
 
Hmmm.

I don't think it would be possible for a Catholic to be accepted as Emperor, and I wouldn't give Henry very good chances of taking Constantinople; the sequence of events that resulted in 1204 were kind of a freak, and involved a Byzantine civil war, plus the critical involvement of Venice. Henry is likely to lose everything if he tries this.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
I don't think it would be possible for a Catholic to be accepted as Emperor, and I wouldn't give Henry very good chances of taking Constantinople; the sequence of events that resulted in 1204 were kind of a freak, and involved a Byzantine civil war, plus the critical involvement of Venice. Henry is likely to lose everything if he tries this.

The normans took thesallonica; he's got an army, the sicilian fleet, genoese help, two possible puppet emperors.

What makes him less probable if he's focusing on more of a palace coup and not conquest?
 

Faeelin

Banned
Okay, question.

Frederick II was in the process of being taken north by Phillip to be coronated as the Emperor when news of Henry's death reached Phillip.

Now, the problem is that Frederick II has the claim to sicily. Would it be viable to have frederick's father pass the claim to frederick's stepbrother, the prince of jerusalem, with the pope's consent?
 
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