This one raises a question as far as what could have been and what was not a possibility: What stops the bourgeoise from seeing the King as a better ally than the nobility? Their goals and interests? The King's? Just no one seeing there as a point to that?
The other thing is that no one knows if this is going to be worth the effort and expense in advance. Not to say that means they don't do anything, but it's a factor that will influence what the Romans see this plant as.
What Nivek said, pretty much. If it's just some random thing that people grow purely because the rich have the money to waste, it's rather unlikely that they're going to make extensive use of it - especially in any fashion that would lead to experiments leading to vulcanization.
Not helped by him bouncing between awkwardly Anglophilic and awkwardly Anglophobic as far as his personal behavior.
Without getting into if which one would be better for Germany past "It depends." that is a great way to ruffle feathers and a poor way to indicate any preference on strategy to -...
It probably falls within another few years barring some shocking twist (Michael VIII being killed/usurped, say). John IV is all of eleven and without any powerful figures on his side - the Laskarids were popular with the population, but that's not quite the same thing.
Apart from neither ever getting in a position to besiege Constantinople in the first place (OTL), I'm not sure the technology had been developed yet. That seems the main reason for most of the sieges not using anything comparable.
I am sure that Conrad's army would pillage everything in its path
Just not sure that it means destroying the Seljuks as a power without more commitment to this than "I want to get through Anatolia as soon as possible and waiting up for Manuel is secondary at best."
Edited to add: I do want to...
The first example of this that comes to mind is that Louis and Conrad were not interested in taking land in Anatolia. They didn't even focus on Edessa once they got through Anatolia.
I'd happily agree that if Louis and Conrad were determined to take (for example) Iconium that it's far from...
I'm not sure it was doomed, but it was definitely a gamble - not helped by the fact that once things fell apart, Manuel's response seems to have been "I did not expect this!" as opposed to this:
"In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who...
I would find that to be consistent with the behavior of people who had motives other than pure religious conviction, personally. Especially as "already rich" rarely stopped medieval nobles from wanting to be richer.
It's a lot easier to believe that (for example) Louis IX had no particular...
A lot of things that didn't actually work at making people richer have been pursued for the sake of riches, but more to the point, "genuinely religious" and "interested in personal profit" are not mutually exclusive for medieval nobility.
Another vote for that there'd probably be wars in North...
If John II could cross from the Byzantine-held parts of Anatolia to Antioch without having to take everything the Seljuks had, and without destroying the authority of the Seljuks utterly in the process, a few years earlier- why is this different for Conrad and Louis?
Makes sense.
I think at least part of it is that - and I am not sufficiently well versed in this to go past the outlines - serfdom was originally there because having the lords and gentry (as well as the state) have a reliably present work force in the first place as opposed to them running...
A question as far as this in general, without getting at the specifics of serfdom or economics: What do you think "a truly great power" Russia would look like as opposed to OTL Russia?
Because there's a difference between a Russia where the lot of the average Russian is better than OTL, and a...