I wonder what is going to happen if there is internal war among the Triune kingdoms. Under which of the Triune kingdoms are the American colonies politically?
Please noooooooooooooooooooooo~!
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
Ethiopians are Oriental Orthodox, so they count as extremely heretical Christians to most Europeans.
Correct - if I understand correctly, the monophysite churches believe that Christ was of one nature which was wholly divine, while miaphysite churches believe that Christ had one nature which was both human and divine at once. Chalcedonian churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, mainline Protestant, pretty much everyone you think of when you think 'Christian') are dyophisite, holding that Christ had two separate natures, fully human and fully divine, united in one being (hypostasis).
I think that about covers it, as you can see there's a lot of arcane theological and semantic hair-splitting going on, so I might be describing heresy by accident.
Edit: then there are the Nestorians, who hold that Christ had two natures, human and divine, but also two corresponding human and divine hypostases, which is mega-ultra-heresy.
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The colonies are proprietary colonies with royal charters granted by the monarch so they aren’t really under any specific kingdom, just the monarch himself.
It wouldn’t be for at least 100+ years ITTL. Maybe once the Industrial Revolution and the ‘next 50 years’ become the same thing, I’ll feel differently since it’s just one thing as opposed to the double it is now. But…
I remember reading somewhere (in PolChat?) where a poster was describing an interesting idea for a WW2 TL they had that they really liked but said they’d never write it because they lacked the ability and desire to do the amount of technical research that would make the crowd that knows the number of bolts in an Essex-class carrier happy. And I feel the same way when I think about this TL entering the industrial age.
I can see it happening all too easily. “What is the horsepower and technical specifications and improvements of the newest steam engine?” “What is the annual production of metric tons of coal in Rhomania, Triple Monarchy, HRE, etc.?” To answer those would require technical research that would take a long time, which I would not enjoy at all, to provide an answer about which I do not care, and would do absolutely nothing to contribute to telling the story and in fact be a net negative to telling the story because the technical consumed all my time and energy.
I enjoy telling stories about people, not tools. Tools come up to some extent, but that’s because they’re necessary as plot devices. However the relative simplicity of tools means there isn’t too much call for them to steal the limelight. Nobody’s asked me about the sail rigging patterns used by Roman battle-line ships, for example. (The answer is I don’t know, don’t care, doesn’t matter, and I’m not spending any time on it.) Some aspects of this have come up (see the bit about trying lead sheathing in the last update) but that’s because while it’s of minor importance, it also only required a minor amount of time to develop.
Once the Industrial Age hits, that changes drastically and it’s all about the tools, which are far more numerous and complicated. These issues of minor importance require major amounts of time, and the game then isn’t worth the candle. Already I have some ideas for interesting stories to tell, but those aren’t happening if I’m buried in demand for technical details. It’d be like if for my sci-fi universe, I couldn’t tell the story until I’d explained the scientific and engineering basis behind ‘dark-energy ion reactors’ and ‘interstellar drives’. It’s a giant hurdle that doesn’t improve the story, because they’re just plot devices, and makes me not want to try at all.
Ethiopian heartland is majority Christian, but the vassal kingdoms have a lot of pagans and Muslims and there are minorities of both in what is directly administered by Gonder.
And this is why I don’t like to get involved very much in theology. I get enough headaches already; I don’t need help there.
I’m very sympathetic to Andronikos I Komnenos’ response when two bishops in his entourage started arguing over points of theology. “Shut up right now or I’ll have both of you thrown into the nearest river.”
Also a very timely conversation considering the topic of the next update.
The House of Iron: People of the Book
The House of Iron: People of the Book
“No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.”-Ammianus Marcellinus
“No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.”-Ammianus Marcellinus
At about the same time the Trebizond Yard scandal is breaking, more money-related issues are popping up, except these are entangled in matters of faith as well, making them potentially even more sticky.
Fighting along the Roman-Ottoman truce lines has never died down entirely, with both sides acting through Bedouin proxies, the Romans via the Owais, Haddad, and Anizzah, and the Ottomans with the Howeitat. The skirmishes go back and forth, serving mainly as a way for the two powers to irritate each other, doing negligible damage to either empire but making the hapless locals caught in the middle thoroughly miserable.
In April 1638 there is a battle at Solomon’s Pools a few kilometers southwest of Bethlehem, larger than the usual skirmishes with as many as twenty five hundred combined combatants. It is a crushing victory for the Howeitat-Ottoman forces, who inflict more than 200 casualties on their foes and take nearly as many prisoners.
The scale of the victory was made possible by timely intelligence and information about the landscape provided by the Orthodox Christian villagers of Bethlehem. At this point they just want to be able to work their fields in peace, and in that regard it is the Roman-aligned Bedouin that are the problem. Eager for plunder and not too particular about where they get it (especially since regular Roman forces aren’t in the neighborhood to keep them honest), they’d already devastated the outskirts of Bethlehem last year.
Aside from the villagers killed in the attack, the resulting harvest shortfall led to several hunger-related deaths over the winter, and the raiders also killed four monks of the nearby St. George’s Monastery. The Monastery houses the chains of St. George, a relic considered holy by both the local Christians and Muslims for its healing powers. Used to being a Christian island in a Muslim sea and wanting to safeguard their property, the residents stayed where they were, protected by the power of St. George.
Among the haul of prisoners and dead bodies on the field are thirteen regular Roman soldiers. If they were there to prevent the Bedouin from attacking Orthodox Christians on the ‘wrong side of the line’, they failed. The Owais and Haddad were on course to raid Bethlehem again when they were ambushed at the Pools. Probably they were there as military advisors or to conduct recon on Ottoman positions.
Both powers know the other is supporting the Bedouin raids, but the haul of prisoners provides inconvertible proof that the Romans are doing so, proof Ibrahim can use. If the Romans are not abiding by the terms of the truce, there is no censure for him not abiding by some of the terms either. The proof from the prisoners provides the legal cover for his following actions.
Last year, even with the proof, Ibrahim may not have decided to go forward with his deeds. Breaking the truce early, if it came with the risk of a Roman offensive, was not worth it. But Ibrahim is well aware of the events transpiring in Italy and knows that because of the debacle unfolding there, there is absolutely no chance he will face an early Roman offensive. In fact, in the best case scenario he might be able to use the situation to restore the pre-war frontier at no cost to Ibrahim.
That best-case scenario is admittedly unlikely and Ibrahim knows it. Yet it still provides him with the opening to act without facing repercussions, and even in the worst-case scenario he will still be providing the Romans with a lovely time bomb to blow up in their faces.
The Roman territory controlled by the Ottomans during the truce contains a huge swath of Christian churches and monasteries, unsurprising considering they include the Holy Land. Well-endowed with bequests from the faithful, these churches and monasteries can be quite wealthy. Many of them suffered loss during the war, but the damage was irregular and their assets are still substantial.
Starting in May, Ottoman troops begin visiting many of these churches and monasteries, ransacking them for valuables. Practically anything of value that can be moved is carted off, not just money but also fine vestments, liturgical vessels, finely decorated books, livestock, and tools. Christian establishments inside Ottoman territory were not to be molested under terms of the truce, but Ibrahim claims he is confiscating these assets as a reprisal for the illegal Bedouin raids the Romans are sponsoring.
The exact value of the losses is uncertain. The combined claims for damages by the affected institutions sent to the Roman government totals a little over 3 million hyperpyra, enough to finance 5 full-strength tagmata for a year. Not all of that wealth is readily transferable into a form useful to Ibrahim and many contemporaries, both Muslim and Christian, are certain the damages are being exaggerated in an effort to get additional compensation.
The stripping of clerical assets, while painful for the Orthodox Church, is not out of the ordinary. In Muslim lands, despite their dhimmi status, Christian establishments are frequently squeezed by Islamic rulers and Roman Emperors have done such expropriations in times of emergency. It is what follows that is truly troublesome from the Roman perspective.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the holiest place in all of Christendom, the destination of thousands of pilgrims almost every year. And its use is restricted to the Orthodox Church and those churches in communion with it. Pilgrims of all denominations can come to the Church (and donations from all are accepted), but only Orthodox and those in communion can hold services within the building. All others are barred from doing so, including the Catholics, Armenians, Copts, and even Ethiopians.
Ibrahim declares that the excluded churches must be provided access to the Holy Sepulcher to conduct services and sets up a rotation schedule for them. First up are the Armenians, who are ecstatic about the opportunity. The procession is escorted to the Sepulcher complex by Ottoman troops although the Muslim soldiery do not continue inside. The Armenians enter but find their path into the church itself blocked by the Orthodox clergy who stand in their path. Angry words are exchanged, then shoving, and before long a full-fledged brawl breaks out, the clergy using fists, walking staffs, liturgical vessels or books, whatever weapons can be improvised. The Orthodox Bishop of Tripoli is said to have most dexterously used a large manuscript copy of the Bible with a leather cover embossed with bronze as a club.
The Muslims watching this, including the soldiers, find the scene hilarious and it is a little while before the Ottoman troops move in to break up the fight. The Orthodox clergy only stand down when the Persian commander threatens to set whip-and-club-armed soldiers on them. Those of the battered Armenians in condition to do so conduct their service. Next week it is the turn of the Copts, and the Orthodox clergy again attempt to bar them from the church. However now the Ottoman troops escort the Copts to the doorstep and the Orthodox, on seeing the soldiers, stand aside without incident.
The number of injured in the fight is around twenty, but two Armenians are killed, a deacon and an elderly priest. (Despite the improvised weaponry, the Orthodox who were expecting a fight seem to have been better prepared.) Slain on the doorsteps of the Holy Sepulcher, their blood flowing near where Christ’s body was laid to rest, the Armenian Church hails the dead as martyrs for the faith.
Armenians throughout the Empire are outraged, which is problematic for Constantinople. The largest minority group, they are prominent in eastern Anatolia, a region of obvious strategic importance, and dominate Cilicia. The latter is one of the most developed regions of the Empire. Endowed with abundant labor and easy access to raw materials mined from the Taurus Mountains, Cilicia produced one-tenth of all D3 muskets made in the Empire during the war.
Ibrahim doesn’t stop there but seizes several monasteries [1] from the Orthodox Church and distributes them to the various other Christian churches. Some, such as the Nunnery of the Holy Martyr Thekla, are handed over to the Georgians. Notably, all of these were originally Georgian foundations that had eventually been absorbed by the better financially-endowed Roman church. Efforts by the Georgian Church to get them back in recent decades had been mostly unsuccessful.
Two other monasteries are handed over to the Monastery of St Alexander Nevsky, which as the name suggests is a Russian establishment. It was founded by the bishops of Pronsk who heavily patronize the institution and often retire there to spend their last days. The Bishop of Pronsk is the senior cleric and a very important figure in Great Pronsk, by far the most powerful of the Russian states with a population just a few hundred thousand smaller than the entire Roman heartland.
Three monasteries are handed over to the Ethiopians, including the Monastery of the Prophet Elijah, while the Copts receive seven, including the great monastery of Mar Saba. Over a thousand years ago, ascetics lived in the caves near the site of the monastery. One of the churches at the monastery, the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Theotokos, has a fresco with Manuel II Laskaris, the grandson of Theodoros Megas, who financed its reconstruction in the early 1300s.
The Armenians get nine, including the most famous monastery in all interior Syria, the Monastery of Saydnaya, which houses an icon of the Virgin. Said to be painted by St Luke himself, it is venerated for its healing powers, including by the Muslims. It is over a thousand years old, founded during Justinian I’s reign.
The churches happily accept these grants. Aside from the religious significance, many of the monasteries, particularly Mar Saba and Saydnaya, come with substantial property endowments attached. Saydnaya has extensive orchards and vineyards, the products of which are sold profitably in the nearby markets of Damascus. Now not all of the properties are in Ottoman-controlled territories, but many are and the gains are substantial. The Ethiopian Church’s revenues from holdings in the region increase by 180% as a result of Ibrahim’s actions. Furthermore, Ibrahim’s confiscations of moveable assets fell less heavily on these monasteries.
Ibrahim knows he cannot hold interior Syria once war resumes with the Romans, and he has no intention of trying. But he has presented the Romans with a poisoned chalice they must drink when they retake the area. Either the White Palace can do nothing and thereby enrage the Orthodox Church which will want some of its oldest, most venerable, and wealthy foundations back. Or the White Palace can take them back and thereby alienate the Armenians, the Copts, the Russians, and the Ethiopians, who will naturally resent the loss of their recent gains.
[1] The information regarding monasteries is all taken from Arab Orthodox Christians Under the Ottomans 1516-1831 by Constantin U. Panchenko. TTL Manuel II Laskaris is, IOTL, Ioannes VI Kantakuzenos.
Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
That's not a tact that Constantinople will want to go with as it would call into question their own authority over church lands in their control. Also, since the Churches are multinational then they can't quite be called traitors, especially if they don't provide material support to the Ottomans, besides taxes which will not be argued against.
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Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
Wouldn't be surprised if that is how Constantinople splits the difference. The heretic churches keep their gains and the Orthodox Church gains a lot of newly acquired mosques.
Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
That is a valid worry, though I do think the majority of the people following your history of Rhomania here would be happy to just hear the story without getting all of the technical information beyond broad numbers like demographics.
Uhm, having gone over that issue over the last oh 25 or so years, I have to say that micromanaging the technical details is the wrong way to go particularly when you are 5 to 8 centuries away from your POD. Broad technological levels? Sure these you need to define to at least approximate levels. GDP levels, population and overall industrial capacity? Again sure, or at least I was doing so when I wrote my version of Theodore II living to old age back in 2003-2004. The exact technicalities of what Greek designed tanks and aircraft are looking in TTL 1850? Or how much coal the Donets basin is shipping off to Constantinople? There lies madness and there is no practical reason to get into that. IMO at least.