After Palma: Vikings of the Balearics
- Thread starter Velasco
- Start date
Amazing!
Will look forward to Errnge's map when he gets round to it ()
It's there as a link. The file was too big to upload here because of the base image i used
Thank you Errnge, greatly appreciated!
Thank you! Great stuff. So Sigurd with different marriages and concubines will have quite a little mess to work out
Although I imagine he'd be influenced by the cultures around him and local precedent: ie, following primogeniture in Apulia and Calabria but also providing younger sons with fiefs of their own. The central location of his domains in the Mediterranean and the distance between his domains - ie, from Valencia to Tyre - make them all vulnerable to foreign invasion and civil divisions. That is, different brothers and cousins can ally with different surrounding powers (Moslems, Byzantines, Papacy, Venice, France) to then battle it out until only one Viking King is left. Amazing!
Will look forward to Errnge's map when he gets round to it (
It's up!
Glad you enjoy.Thank you!
Sigurd's possessions in dark purple - Valencia and Murvedre with adjacent county, the Balearic islands, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, Tyre and Sidon.
Sigurd's vassals in bright purple - the Duchies of Apulia and Calabria, claimed on behalf of his wife and then son and the principality of Malta.
Sigurd's protectorates in faintest purple - the Republics of Genoa and Pisa, the Sardinian giudices and the Zirid remnant in Tunisia.
Thank you! Great stuff. So Sigurd with different marriages and concubines will have quite a little mess to work out
He'll really have to consider leaving it all to the eldest son and then just hope for the best propping the rest of the unruly lot up with the far off bits keeping them off the heir.
Its really be throwing it all in for grabs; guess Maria in the best tradition of dowager Queens will be doing her bid too on behalf of some minor son.
katchen
Banned
I hope you (and Sigurd) can reach a bit for the outre'. Knarrs can be portaged. They are about the only Medieval ship that can be feasibly portaged by building a cradle and hauling them with yoked oxen --or horses or camels --on wheels and are still seaworthy for long distances.
In 1848, the US Navy sent an expedition to Palestine to sail down the Jordan River to and across the Dead Sea in small boats and take measurements of the Dead Sea and Jordan River. The expedition was quite a success. Reading about it is how I know that it's feasible to haul fairly large boats to the Jordan and take them down the Jordan to the Dead Sea whereupon there is a source of fresh water feeding into the Dead Sea at it's southern end.
I think Sigurd could do this---especially if he could get control of Hefa, the fortress on the other side of Acre Bay from Acre. Twenty six miles to the Jordan. Down the Jordan. Across the Dead Sea. Then 120 miles by cradle cart for knarrs to Akaba and the Red Sea. And the Ayyubids are bypassed and their monopoly on seaborne trade to the East broken.It can work as long as Sigurd's vikings can resist any impulse they might have to go a-viking against Jidda and Makkah.
In 1848, the US Navy sent an expedition to Palestine to sail down the Jordan River to and across the Dead Sea in small boats and take measurements of the Dead Sea and Jordan River. The expedition was quite a success. Reading about it is how I know that it's feasible to haul fairly large boats to the Jordan and take them down the Jordan to the Dead Sea whereupon there is a source of fresh water feeding into the Dead Sea at it's southern end.
I think Sigurd could do this---especially if he could get control of Hefa, the fortress on the other side of Acre Bay from Acre. Twenty six miles to the Jordan. Down the Jordan. Across the Dead Sea. Then 120 miles by cradle cart for knarrs to Akaba and the Red Sea. And the Ayyubids are bypassed and their monopoly on seaborne trade to the East broken.It can work as long as Sigurd's vikings can resist any impulse they might have to go a-viking against Jidda and Makkah.
Wow. Great stuff. I'm thinking of doing my own Viking-based storyline, and this is giving me some ideas (not story-wise, but how to format things).
Nice string of updates! I wonder if striking down celibacy will help mend the divide of the Great Schism? Now that we have a nation that spans both halves of the Mediterranean, there would be another party interested in doing so at the least
He'll really have to consider leaving it all to the eldest son and then just hope for the best propping the rest of the unruly lot up with the far off bits keeping them off the heir.
Its really be throwing it all in for grabs; guess Maria in the best tradition of dowager Queens will be doing her bid too on behalf of some minor son.
Definitely...if only it were that easy! Unfortunately Sigurd is more likely to be an Edward III or Victoria in this TL than a Henry VIII
It's more nominal than anything - he doesn't maintain an effective presence on the island, other than farthegns making sure his men can port/trade and collect a few tolls/tributes from the local lords (pay-offs so as to not get raided).
What he has right now is perfect for a piratical organization but rather unworkable for a fully-functioning state. Even if they base themselves in southern Italy I'm not sure they'd be able to fight off so many potential enemies and rivals in every corner.
Oh wow. Viking Mecca...! Now that's an idea. Sigurd's headed north right now but we'll be seeing the Holy Land again soon. His brother Gillechrist is still there in Antioch and there's a good number of Varangians and farthegns milling around in Tyre and Sidon.
Fantastic! I'm loving what you've got so far...I guess 2013 is the Viking take-over
Nice string of updates! I wonder if striking down celibacy will help mend the divide of the Great Schism? Now that we have a nation that spans both halves of the Mediterranean, there would be another party interested in doing so at the least
Glad you like
Celibacy was hotly contested all through this period, although the consensus among the higher clergy seems to have been dead against it. I'm not sure Sigurd will do any good for the cause, or just more damage...wait and see Chapter VII: Homecoming Pt. II
King Sigurd Maurebane wintered 1125 at the court of his old friend King Henry of England, as he had done years ago when he first set sail (winter 1107). His concubine Gundrada (Gundred), King Henry's natural daughter, accompanied him. Clerical protestations fell on deaf ears: to the two Kings this unorthodox arrangement sufficed as a marriage alliance.
Sigurd was still in England when he and King Henry received word of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V’s death. Sigurd quit the country immediately and crossed the Channel together with emissaries to the King's daughter, the now Dowager Empress Matilda.
Sigurd was initially welcomed by the German lords as a potential arbitrator between the two leading candidates: the late Emperor's nephew and the non-dynastic Lothair of Supplinburg, championed by a Church and nobility eager to assert their prerogatives. There was no support for the candidacy of Sigurd's nephew Heinrek Olafsson (Henry of Genoa), the late Emperor’s grandson. He therefore pledged to marry the Empress (if the Church would permit it) and betrothed his son to the late Emperor’s daughter, hoping by these means to obtain the Imperial diadem and the Salian inheritance. It seemed as if Sigurd would successfully weather the opposition of the pro-Gregorian party lead by the Archbishop of Mainz: married to the popular dowager, his eldest son married to the Eastern Emperor’s daughter and the second married to the late Emperor’s daughter. As standard-bearer of the Church he had fought the Moor and Saracen, protecting the holy cities of Rome and Jerusalem from the heathen threat. He had already been recognized as an equal Basilios by the Eastern Emperor; their alliance was evidenced by the marriage of their two eldest. Sigurd's election raised the prospect of peace on all sides - the reconciliation of the Roman Catholic church, of East and West, and the defeat of the heathen.
The opportunity to tie up so many loose ends was ultimately ruined by Sigurd himself. Tired of the dithering German princes, he obtained the Imperial regalia from the Dowager and presented himself as already Emperor. Desperate to secure the election, he allied himself with the anti-pope Celestine II, whose legate promptly granted him an annullment allowing him to wed the dowager Empress.
Lothar of Supplinburg was accordingly elected as the new German King and Emperor-elect (September 1125). Lacking significant support and with no army of his own in an alien land, Sigurd stole away with the Imperial regalia in hand. The Dowager Empress regressed to England, where her half-sister had meanwhile birthed his bastard. At Regensburg the new Emperor-elect claimed the old Emperor’s lands as Crown property, to the exclusion of the Emperor’s nephew and daughter. Celestine accordingly issued a bull excommunicating him and absolving his subjects from obedience to him - the old Emperor's nephews did not delay in raising a revolt against him.
Sigurd found refuge at the court of Canute Lavard in Schleswig, before proceeding to the court of King Niels (Nikolas) in Denmark. Both received him warmly: Lavard was the half-brother of Kesja (his sister’s husband) and Nils was the husband of Margaret Fredkulla (Sigurd’s old step-mother).
He arrived in a Norway devoid of effective royal authority. His brother King Eysteinn had died two years before: a pretender by the name of Sigurd Slembe, claiming to be their half-brother, had set himself up as king in certain parts of the land. Maurebane showed himself amenable to Slembe’s claims and requested safe passage: the two met in Holmen, the former capital of Eysteinn. There Maurebane offered to recognize Slembe as brother and co-ruler if he would submit himself to God’s judgement, namely an ordeal by fire; when Slembe refused, Maurebane seized him and dashed his brains out with a rock. Slembe’s royally-born wife, Malmfrid of Kiev and her infant son were spared.
Sigurd’s return was hailed with great joy by every tier of society. The chiefs and people alike implored him to remain and rule over them. Having disposed of Slembe he journeyed to Saint Olaf’s shrine in Nidaros, where he deposited his most precious relic (a splinter of the Holy Cross), thus fulfilling an old vow. He brought Papal confirmation of Olaf’s sainthood and established Norway’s first archdiocese at Nidaros, thus severing the Norwegian church from jurisdiction of the archbishop of Lund. The first archbishop was an Armenian, named Reuben (Roupen). A bishop was also sent to Greenland for the first time.
With his bishops and clergymen Sigurd promulgated the Statutes of Nidaros, establishing the rights and liberties of the Norwegian church - primarily the right to tithes and judgement in their own clerical courts. Clergymen who were already married at the time of their consecration were permitted to remain so. On pain of death priests were forbidden from charging for sacred offices (burying the dead, praying for the sick, etc) as had become custom. Rape, homosexuality, adultery and fornication were all definitively prohibited; the local diocese was entitled to a share of ensuing fines. Divorce was permitted upon the payment of a mulct (considered sufficient penance) and priests were prohibited to refuse men, their frilles (concubines or common-law wives) and illegitimate children.
There remained the matter of the Kingdom’s government and royal succession. His brother Eysteinn had left no son; of his other two brothers, Olaf occupied himself trading slaves in the Mediterrenean and Gillechrist was away in Antioch. The chieftains were therefore eager that Sigurd should rule over them, or appoint one of his sons to be King over them. Sigurd however was overcome with the conviction that the kingdom ought to be ruled by the bloodline of the holy king, Saint Olaf. (Sigurd and the rest of his house descended from the Saint’s half-brother).
A Thing was therefore convoked. Two descendants of the Saint King soon presented themselves. Both were notable in their own right and capable of proving their lineage beyond doubt. The first was Hakon Paulssen, former Earl of Orkney, a childhood friend of the King but disgraced after his assassination of his co-ruler and cousin - now revered as Saint Magnus. The second was Hakon Jyde, a Jutish chieftain allied by marriage to Canute Lavard.
Paulssen and Jyde were to be presented before the people, together with the King’s two eldest - Manasses and Magnus - the sons he had sired on Maximilla of Sicily. Out of these, the King would choose two co-rulers to succeed him and Eystein as Kings of Norway (evidently the third brother Olaf merited no replacement). Princes and prelates came from the adjacent realms: Sigurd’s nephew Björn Ironside and King Nils of Denmark with their wives, King Inge of Sweden and his wife.
Unbeknownst to the King the upcoming election served as catalyst for what had been long brewing in the heart of Paulssen’s clan. Now that he had returned from his self-imposed exile (a pilgrimage to Jerusalem as penance for his cousin’s murder, followed by service in King Sigurd’s retinue) and might possibly attain the throne, there was no time to be lost. The wild Frakkok wielded more power than most women; it was her hope to do away with her male relatives and exercise power on behalf of their infant heirs. She especially detested Paulssen and his eldest son Paul, who stood in the way of her nephew (Paulssen’s younger son) Hakon. The prospect of Paulssen gaining the throne frightened her into action: she invited Rögnvald Kale Kolsson, nephew of Saint Magnus, to come and avenge his uncle. With her help he attacked Paulssen and his two sons: Paul narrowly escaped but the other two were slain. Paul and Kolsson then made peace and agreed to share the earldom. The two then seized Frakkok and her sister Helga (Paulssen’s widow) and brought them before the people, exposing them for their nepoticide and filicide.
This episode had the result of settling the disputed succession. Paulssen’s death and Paul’s potential involvement in it did little to endear the family to the popular psyche. To set a crown upon Paul’s head threatened to drag the whole kingdom into a blood feud which might not be over. Hakon Jyde was therefore chosen as Haakon III. Manasses stepped aside, allowing his young brother Magnus (IV) to take his place as co-ruler of Norway.
Sigurd sought to amass a large army: allied to the princes of the Obotrites he advanced at the head of a combined Norwegian and Dane force into Saxony, the new Emperor-elect's main power base. North of Hamburg Sigurd's force won a significant victory. The crossing into Saxony proper had barely been accomplished when Sigurd's force was smashed and soundly routed by Lothair.
The standard-bearer of the Holy Mother Church suddenly found himself army-less and imprisoned in a foreign land.
Sigurd was still in England when he and King Henry received word of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V’s death. Sigurd quit the country immediately and crossed the Channel together with emissaries to the King's daughter, the now Dowager Empress Matilda.
Sigurd was initially welcomed by the German lords as a potential arbitrator between the two leading candidates: the late Emperor's nephew and the non-dynastic Lothair of Supplinburg, championed by a Church and nobility eager to assert their prerogatives. There was no support for the candidacy of Sigurd's nephew Heinrek Olafsson (Henry of Genoa), the late Emperor’s grandson. He therefore pledged to marry the Empress (if the Church would permit it) and betrothed his son to the late Emperor’s daughter, hoping by these means to obtain the Imperial diadem and the Salian inheritance. It seemed as if Sigurd would successfully weather the opposition of the pro-Gregorian party lead by the Archbishop of Mainz: married to the popular dowager, his eldest son married to the Eastern Emperor’s daughter and the second married to the late Emperor’s daughter. As standard-bearer of the Church he had fought the Moor and Saracen, protecting the holy cities of Rome and Jerusalem from the heathen threat. He had already been recognized as an equal Basilios by the Eastern Emperor; their alliance was evidenced by the marriage of their two eldest. Sigurd's election raised the prospect of peace on all sides - the reconciliation of the Roman Catholic church, of East and West, and the defeat of the heathen.
The opportunity to tie up so many loose ends was ultimately ruined by Sigurd himself. Tired of the dithering German princes, he obtained the Imperial regalia from the Dowager and presented himself as already Emperor. Desperate to secure the election, he allied himself with the anti-pope Celestine II, whose legate promptly granted him an annullment allowing him to wed the dowager Empress.
Lothar of Supplinburg was accordingly elected as the new German King and Emperor-elect (September 1125). Lacking significant support and with no army of his own in an alien land, Sigurd stole away with the Imperial regalia in hand. The Dowager Empress regressed to England, where her half-sister had meanwhile birthed his bastard. At Regensburg the new Emperor-elect claimed the old Emperor’s lands as Crown property, to the exclusion of the Emperor’s nephew and daughter. Celestine accordingly issued a bull excommunicating him and absolving his subjects from obedience to him - the old Emperor's nephews did not delay in raising a revolt against him.
Sigurd found refuge at the court of Canute Lavard in Schleswig, before proceeding to the court of King Niels (Nikolas) in Denmark. Both received him warmly: Lavard was the half-brother of Kesja (his sister’s husband) and Nils was the husband of Margaret Fredkulla (Sigurd’s old step-mother).
He arrived in a Norway devoid of effective royal authority. His brother King Eysteinn had died two years before: a pretender by the name of Sigurd Slembe, claiming to be their half-brother, had set himself up as king in certain parts of the land. Maurebane showed himself amenable to Slembe’s claims and requested safe passage: the two met in Holmen, the former capital of Eysteinn. There Maurebane offered to recognize Slembe as brother and co-ruler if he would submit himself to God’s judgement, namely an ordeal by fire; when Slembe refused, Maurebane seized him and dashed his brains out with a rock. Slembe’s royally-born wife, Malmfrid of Kiev and her infant son were spared.
Sigurd’s return was hailed with great joy by every tier of society. The chiefs and people alike implored him to remain and rule over them. Having disposed of Slembe he journeyed to Saint Olaf’s shrine in Nidaros, where he deposited his most precious relic (a splinter of the Holy Cross), thus fulfilling an old vow. He brought Papal confirmation of Olaf’s sainthood and established Norway’s first archdiocese at Nidaros, thus severing the Norwegian church from jurisdiction of the archbishop of Lund. The first archbishop was an Armenian, named Reuben (Roupen). A bishop was also sent to Greenland for the first time.
With his bishops and clergymen Sigurd promulgated the Statutes of Nidaros, establishing the rights and liberties of the Norwegian church - primarily the right to tithes and judgement in their own clerical courts. Clergymen who were already married at the time of their consecration were permitted to remain so. On pain of death priests were forbidden from charging for sacred offices (burying the dead, praying for the sick, etc) as had become custom. Rape, homosexuality, adultery and fornication were all definitively prohibited; the local diocese was entitled to a share of ensuing fines. Divorce was permitted upon the payment of a mulct (considered sufficient penance) and priests were prohibited to refuse men, their frilles (concubines or common-law wives) and illegitimate children.
There remained the matter of the Kingdom’s government and royal succession. His brother Eysteinn had left no son; of his other two brothers, Olaf occupied himself trading slaves in the Mediterrenean and Gillechrist was away in Antioch. The chieftains were therefore eager that Sigurd should rule over them, or appoint one of his sons to be King over them. Sigurd however was overcome with the conviction that the kingdom ought to be ruled by the bloodline of the holy king, Saint Olaf. (Sigurd and the rest of his house descended from the Saint’s half-brother).
A Thing was therefore convoked. Two descendants of the Saint King soon presented themselves. Both were notable in their own right and capable of proving their lineage beyond doubt. The first was Hakon Paulssen, former Earl of Orkney, a childhood friend of the King but disgraced after his assassination of his co-ruler and cousin - now revered as Saint Magnus. The second was Hakon Jyde, a Jutish chieftain allied by marriage to Canute Lavard.
Paulssen and Jyde were to be presented before the people, together with the King’s two eldest - Manasses and Magnus - the sons he had sired on Maximilla of Sicily. Out of these, the King would choose two co-rulers to succeed him and Eystein as Kings of Norway (evidently the third brother Olaf merited no replacement). Princes and prelates came from the adjacent realms: Sigurd’s nephew Björn Ironside and King Nils of Denmark with their wives, King Inge of Sweden and his wife.
Unbeknownst to the King the upcoming election served as catalyst for what had been long brewing in the heart of Paulssen’s clan. Now that he had returned from his self-imposed exile (a pilgrimage to Jerusalem as penance for his cousin’s murder, followed by service in King Sigurd’s retinue) and might possibly attain the throne, there was no time to be lost. The wild Frakkok wielded more power than most women; it was her hope to do away with her male relatives and exercise power on behalf of their infant heirs. She especially detested Paulssen and his eldest son Paul, who stood in the way of her nephew (Paulssen’s younger son) Hakon. The prospect of Paulssen gaining the throne frightened her into action: she invited Rögnvald Kale Kolsson, nephew of Saint Magnus, to come and avenge his uncle. With her help he attacked Paulssen and his two sons: Paul narrowly escaped but the other two were slain. Paul and Kolsson then made peace and agreed to share the earldom. The two then seized Frakkok and her sister Helga (Paulssen’s widow) and brought them before the people, exposing them for their nepoticide and filicide.
This episode had the result of settling the disputed succession. Paulssen’s death and Paul’s potential involvement in it did little to endear the family to the popular psyche. To set a crown upon Paul’s head threatened to drag the whole kingdom into a blood feud which might not be over. Hakon Jyde was therefore chosen as Haakon III. Manasses stepped aside, allowing his young brother Magnus (IV) to take his place as co-ruler of Norway.
Sigurd sought to amass a large army: allied to the princes of the Obotrites he advanced at the head of a combined Norwegian and Dane force into Saxony, the new Emperor-elect's main power base. North of Hamburg Sigurd's force won a significant victory. The crossing into Saxony proper had barely been accomplished when Sigurd's force was smashed and soundly routed by Lothair.
The standard-bearer of the Holy Mother Church suddenly found himself army-less and imprisoned in a foreign land.
Poor Sigurd. I'm curious to see if his empire can survive past his lifetime, as it's really just a polity bound to his personal power than a proper state. Very interesting story.
Wait. Did I read this wrong, or did Sigurd marry one daughter while having a sister as a concubine, annulling marriage w/the queen of Sicily then establishing Norway as its own diocese via an anti-pope while simultaneously pissing off and massing its clergy? If this construction of Sigurd's doesn't implode, it'll be a miracle.
It pretty much has imploded if I read the rest correctly. Sigurd may be done for but he might be rescued by a miracle
Like the map btw. Looks like there could be a stable East-West division if his sons play their cards right.
Does the last post read too far-out? I had in mind men like Richard of Cornwall, Afonso of Castille and Ottokar of Bohemia, and later on Francis I and Henry VIII, who went after the Imperial dignity despite being clear outsiders with very little chance of 1. winning 2. making good their election.
I'm wondering whether I carry on or whether I should rewrite that post with Sigurd sailing straight to Norway.
I'm wondering whether I carry on or whether I should rewrite that post with Sigurd sailing straight to Norway.