Vladimir lived before the Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople occurred. The Russian Primary Chronicle, the source of his choosing religions, was writeen as late as 1113 CE.
The Grand Princes of Kiev and Novgorod were not vassals of Constantinople. The Church there was merely the source...
I seriously doubt that story ever happened in real life. Vladimir's own grandmother, Saint Olga, converted to the Greek Christianity of Constantinople many years earlier. They were the most common sort of Christians in Rus territory. And it was the Byzantine Empire which had significant...
Without the Church, there were still plenty of educated upper-class Gallo-Romans, Hispano-Romans and Italians who were traditionally receiving an education for entering public office as their predecessors during the Republican era of Roman history had done.
The Church had gotten into the...
Some seventy years before Caesar's proconsulship of Gaul, the land itself from the Atlantic to the Rhine was under the hegemony of the Arverni tribal-kingdom (Vercingetorix's nation). The Roman conquests of what would later become Gallia Narbonensis resulted in the defeat of the Arverni, which...
I've certainly forgotten most of the Punic names I suggested back in 2011, but its a good thing you still have them in hand. Hope to see updates on the Barca Empire and the upcoming Puno-Ilegertae conflict.:)
There's a wikipedia article on counties of Norway. 'Fylke' is etymologically related to the English word 'folk', indicating that it's original meaning was tribal before later becoming synonomous with a land-region.
Norwegians did colonize the Orkneys, Sutherland and the Hebrides. A Scandinavian dialect called 'Norn' was reported to have been widely spoken in Orkney, Sutherland and Caithness until it died out as late as the early 1700's. And apparently, the founder of Clan Macdonald, Domhnall mac Raghnuill...
As it was explained in the post, 'fylkir' or 'fylke' referred to a tribe and it's territory, not a political or aristocratic office. In modern Norway, fylke is the word for a county.
Old Norse Terminology and Titles.
Konungr: The Old Norse meaning of, and an etymological relation to the the word king.
Jarl: An earl.
You may already know these, so here's more.
Drottin: Warlord. The commander and chief of a large army or fleet. Could often be an actual king or a...
The Maniots in southern Greece were the last of their people to openly worship the Hellenic Pantheon. Their fellow Greeks, who were Christianized, insisted on calling themselves Rhomaioi (Romans), which, aside from already being Roman citizens, was the label they used to distinguish themselves...
I wanted to give an expose of neighbouring African cultures who were contemporary with the Carthaginian Empire. Maybe they might be useful as the story goes on.
The Numidians are believed to be the ancestors of modern Algerian-based Imazighen groups such as the Shawia/Chaoui people of the Aures...
In 154 BCE, the Jewish priestly dynasty of the Oniads, who claimed descent from Biblical Tzadok, were granted permission by the Greek pharoah Ptolemy VI Philometor (now butterflied away in this TL) to build a temple to Yahweh in the city of Leontopolis in the Heliopolis Nome within the central...
The Sao culture, which arose in the Chad Basin since about 600 BCE, was found to have been urban in character. Ceramic scultures have been found among their buried goods and they even worked with bronze and iron. The Kotoko people are counted as being the descendents of the Sao people. About the...
Melqart, as a "god of colonization" among the Phoenicians, was often equated with the Greek god Herakles. Many Greek colonies in the western Mediterranean, specifically the communities of Magna Graecia, claimed Herakles as their founding patron. The poem Geryoneis by Stesichorus, told the tale...