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An Alternative History.

Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:45 am
by Salmoneus
We had a discussion a while back about alternative histories, and I proposed 'what if Henry V hadn't died so soon?'. Then I went away and worked it out (or mostly). And now I'm posting it on my blog.
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... of-europe/
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... europe-ii/
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... urope-iii/
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... europe-iv/

More to follow...

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 8:14 am
by Shm Jay
It needs a series of maps.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:53 am
by Pthagnar
more like family trees

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 7:41 am
by Salmoneus

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:05 am
by Cathbad
This is actually getting rather funny. Basque fishermen? :P

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:27 am
by Legion
Cathbad wrote:This is actually getting rather funny. Basque fishermen? :P
What. In the real world there were Basque whalers. You're aware that the Basque country does have a seashore?

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:09 am
by Cathbad
Legion wrote:
Cathbad wrote:This is actually getting rather funny. Basque fishermen? :P
What. In the real world there were Basque whalers. You're aware that the Basque country does have a seashore?
Well, yes. Only thing I didn't know is that they do claim to have come to Newfoundland before Cabot. :oops: I thought it was a joke since it was so obvious to me that they were beaten to NF by the Norse...

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:23 am
by Ollock
Cathbad wrote:
Legion wrote:
Cathbad wrote:This is actually getting rather funny. Basque fishermen? :P
What. In the real world there were Basque whalers. You're aware that the Basque country does have a seashore?
Well, yes. Only thing I didn't know is that they do claim to have come to Newfoundland before Cabot. :oops: I thought it was a joke since it was so obvious to me that they were beaten to NF by the Norse...
Yes. I've heard theories that Columbus knew exactly where he was going because he had talked to some Basque sailors. But that seems unlikely to me, not the least because judging from his writings, Columbus was not the brightest crayon in the box.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:18 am
by Salmoneus
No, Corombo was so far as we can tell both a bonehead and a loon. Also a git.

And yes, most of that was taken from real life. The Basque do claim to have known about the new world first, and it was basque explorers and sailors who actually did most of the discovering. In our world, Corombo did knock around the place for years asking every king and queen he could find if they'd finance his (lunatic!) expedition to China, until eventually somebody said yes. In my timeline there's a powerful independent Navarre, so it felt almost inevitable that they would have said yes to him first - being, after all, traditionally more interested in long-distance sailing than the Castillians were.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:52 pm
by dunomapuka
This is getting good, I want to see what happens in the New World. Question about Medieval Navarre: what was the ethnolinguistic identity of the kingdom? Was it a Romance-speaking ruling class with a mostly Basque population, or just all Basque? I'm not finding any clear answers on this.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:22 pm
by Herr Dunkel
dunomapuka wrote:This is getting good, I want to see what happens in the New World. Question about Medieval Navarre: what was the ethnolinguistic identity of the kingdom? Was it a Romance-speaking ruling class with a mostly Basque population, or just all Basque? I'm not finding any clear answers on this.
Navarra in 1356 (?) had territories in Euskadi and Normandy. The ruling class back home spoke Basque while in Normandy they were le Frenchmen employed by the Vaterland of Euskadi.
They shifted to Spanish in Euskadi about the time when they were outright eaten up.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:13 pm
by Salmoneus
Darkgamma wrote:
dunomapuka wrote:This is getting good, I want to see what happens in the New World. Question about Medieval Navarre: what was the ethnolinguistic identity of the kingdom? Was it a Romance-speaking ruling class with a mostly Basque population, or just all Basque? I'm not finding any clear answers on this.
Navarra in 1356 (?) had territories in Euskadi and Normandy. The ruling class back home spoke Basque while in Normandy they were le Frenchmen employed by the Vaterland of Euskadi.
They shifted to Spanish in Euskadi about the time when they were outright eaten up.
Note, however, that the RULING ruling class (ie the royals) had been strongly interconnected with the surrounding countries for a long time - in particular, the royal family was heavily intertwined with France. Almost every ruler of Navarre would therefore have had at least one non-Basque parent, and I strongly suspect the same would have been true of most of the families one step below the royals.

The House of Iniguez was Basque - I'm guessing the early House of Jimenez was as well, but by 1076 Navarre had been conquered by an Aragonese branch of the family. Pretty sure the House of Champagne, however, had some French blood in it - and even if it didn't at first, its paramours were Gertrude of Dagsburg, Isabelle Capet, Blanche of Artois, and Philip IV of France. The House of Capet was a joint monarchy of France-Navarre. Eventually it ended with a woman (Joan I), who married into the House of Evreux. The House of Evreux promptly remarried into the new French royal family, when Charles d'Evreux (Charles II of Navarre) married Joan de Valois. They then went through an Iberian phase (various royals of Aragon and Castile). When that line went out, the crown went to their cousins in the (French) House of Foix. Foix married into the (French) House of Albret. The d'Albrets then married into the (French) Bourbon, and in 1620 the remainder of the kingdom was merged into France.

So I'd say... while the official language of the court may have been Basque, I'd bet that in practice they mostly spoke French, and occasionally Spanish.

---

Also remember than back then, a lot of Navarre would have spoken Navarrese rather than Basque. And early on, many spoke Occitan.

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:31 pm
by Herr Dunkel
Salmoneus wrote:
Darkgamma wrote:
dunomapuka wrote:This is getting good, I want to see what happens in the New World. Question about Medieval Navarre: what was the ethnolinguistic identity of the kingdom? Was it a Romance-speaking ruling class with a mostly Basque population, or just all Basque? I'm not finding any clear answers on this.
Navarra in 1356 (?) had territories in Euskadi and Normandy. The ruling class back home spoke Basque while in Normandy they were le Frenchmen employed by the Vaterland of Euskadi.
They shifted to Spanish in Euskadi about the time when they were outright eaten up.
Note, however, that the RULING ruling class (ie the royals) had been strongly interconnected with the surrounding countries for a long time - in particular, the royal family was heavily intertwined with France. Almost every ruler of Navarre would therefore have had at least one non-Basque parent, and I strongly suspect the same would have been true of most of the families one step below the royals.

The House of Iniguez was Basque - I'm guessing the early House of Jimenez was as well, but by 1076 Navarre had been conquered by an Aragonese branch of the family. Pretty sure the House of Champagne, however, had some French blood in it - and even if it didn't at first, its paramours were Gertrude of Dagsburg, Isabelle Capet, Blanche of Artois, and Philip IV of France. The House of Capet was a joint monarchy of France-Navarre. Eventually it ended with a woman (Joan I), who married into the House of Evreux. The House of Evreux promptly remarried into the new French royal family, when Charles d'Evreux (Charles II of Navarre) married Joan de Valois. They then went through an Iberian phase (various royals of Aragon and Castile). When that line went out, the crown went to their cousins in the (French) House of Foix. Foix married into the (French) House of Albret. The d'Albrets then married into the (French) Bourbon, and in 1620 the remainder of the kingdom was merged into France.

So I'd say... while the official language of the court may have been Basque, I'd bet that in practice they mostly spoke French, and occasionally Spanish.

---

Also remember than back then, a lot of Navarre would have spoken Navarrese rather than Basque. And early on, many spoke Occitan.
My knowledge of 10-15th centuries is mostly centered on the Orthodox world and the HRR, so I wouldn't actually know the many details involved. I bow down and pass my storyteller's hat to þou

Re: An Alternative History.

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:03 pm
by Salmoneus
I should have mentioned at some point that http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... europe-vi/ was up.