middle ages

While the Battle of Tours in 732 is seen as a pivotal moment in halting the Muslim expansion into Western Europe, it actually may be overshadowed in importance by the earlier Battle of Toulouse in 721. According to historian Ian Meadows, after the swift conquest of Iberia into the Umayyad...

I know this scenario may be ASB, and I’m not an expert on Medieval European history, but hear me out. Let’s say that the Umayyad raiders win the Battle of Tours, and Charles Martel is killed. The Umayyads use this as an opportunity to expand their borders past Septimania into more of Southern...

The Khmer Empire fascinates me for several reasons. It was a highly prosperous and deeply developed empire, invented the first modern healthcare system, was larger than the Eastern Roman Empire, and remained Hindu in an era where basically all of its neighbours were Buddhist, being the only...

In Ancient times Rome rapidly unified Italy after developing the legions. It gave Rome access to a manpower pool unrivaled by any contemporary state and paved the way to the eventual Roman conquest of the entire Mediterranean world. Yet after Rome declined Italy became divided by various...

Few figures left behind a grand or even honourable legacy in that time of troubles known as the feudal anarchy, which engulfed Italy as the Carolingian Empire burst into flames unseen since the fall of the first Rome. Not long after the deposition of Charles III, the man whose idleness had...

The son of a Seljuk prince who lost a dispute for the throne, Suleiman ibn Qutalmish took advantage of the civil wars that engulfed the Byzantine Empire after the Battle of Manzikert to take over most of Anatolia during the 1070s, laying the foundations of a new state, the Sultanate of Rum...

With the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire from 632 AD onward, shah Yazdegerd III spent the rest of his reign constantly fleeing further and further east: first to Hulwan, then Isfahan, Istakhr and finally Merv, in Khorasan, where he was eventually murdered. Suppose the...

After centuries of decline and subjugation at the hands of foreign powers like the Buyids and the Seljuk Turks, the Abbasid Caliphate took advantage of the latter's decline in the 12th century to reassert its independence, forming a state in what is now Iraq. This resurgence came to an end...

Assuming say Issac II Angelos manages to decisively crush the Bulgarian revolt, or say its averted with the Asen brothers instead being granted a pronioa land grant, I can still see him getting deposed by his ambitious brother Alexios III. Alexios' misrule led to revolts and by the time for the...

The Byzantines were quite famous for using lamellar armor which was a type of armor that used sets of smaller plates fitted together atop a type of padding. What would it take for the Byzantines to adopt Western Style plate armor, or even make their own versions? How would this affect the...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprising_of_Ivaylo Ivaylo was a Bulgarian peasant who rose up against the rule of tsar Constantine Tikh, whose reign saw the loss of territory to various foreign adversaries. Ivaylo quickly gathered followers to his cause, and within a year or so of launching his...

It's somewhat common to see Chinese colonial power timelines but it's almost always during the Ming which due to the culture and society at the time, had no desire to actually turn them into colonies, they just wanted to show off China as a superior power. But the Song had a large population...

Edmund, Earl of Rutland. Born in Rouen, 1443, died near Wakefield, 1460. He was the second son of Richard, Duke of York - his older brother being Edward, Earl of March, later King Edward IV. Rutland died when he was 17 at the Battle of Wakefield, but what if he didn’t? I’ve been working on this...

Inspired by @isabella's Scenes from Other Worlds thread, this will be a repository for family trees and snippets from possible TLs. The ideas presented here may or may not be expanded into full TLs. Enjoy.

What if the Byzantines, influenced by Western Europeans during the high middle ages started building Castles to fortify important positions? How would this affect the Empire's development and territorial integrity? Could this help secure Anatolia from Turkish raiders, and possibly help them...

Introduction Oescus, Moesia Inferior 468 AD Dengizich, son of Attila. After the disastrous incursion over Roman Thrace, Dengizich, son of Attila, decided to stop the aggressions and agreed to make negotiations with the Eastern Roman magister militum Anagastes. The conversations took place at...

As the prince of France Louis the eighth invaded England in 1216 and was proclaimed king in London by quite a few barons. But was excommunicated by a papal legate and when king John died many of his supporters abandoned him in favor of the English kings son Henry. Leading to him being defeated...

Consider these two maps of the Roman Empire in 330, plus some important info on the first three Justinian emperors. We can discern the following: The Eastern Roman Empire is a mostly Greek-speaking empire since forever (read: Alexander the Great), but its northwesternmost territory is...

In the 10th century, with the fall of the Tang dynasty, a phase of huge political instability swept the nation at a time when many of its neighbours were - on the contrary - experiencing a period of cultural unity and political power; the Mongols (under Great Liao) and Korea both unified under...

What would the medieval world have looked like if the French Normans had decided to pursue their interests in mainland France instead of crossing the Channel? This could either be accomplished by weakening the French monarchy and expanding to their expense or taking the French crown for...