A work in progress, starting at the end of course.
Full Nation Name: The Kingdom of Angelond
Majority/Official Culture : Anglish
Territorial Core : England, Scotland, Ireland
Territorial Claim : Mostly colonial
Capital City : Cardiff
Population :
Government Type : Absolute monarchy
Government Ideology/Policies : [[OPTIONAL]] [[Militant, Imperialist, Expansionist, etc.]]
Government Focus : [[Tell me a little bit about what is your government’s focus… be it military, economy, culture, legitimacy, etc.]]
Head of State : [[highest-ranking individual in the nation according to rule of law]]
Head of Government : [[highest-ranking defacto ruler]]
Government Description :
Majority/State Religion : [[OPTIONAL]] [[It does not have to be IRL religion]]
Religious Description : [[OPTIONAL]]
Economic Ideologies : [[Capitalism, Mercantilism, Socialism, Communism, etc.]]
Major Production :
Economic Description :
Development: [Modern, Semi-Industrialized, or Primitive]
Development Description : [Explain further why your nation is in one of the above categories]
Army Description : [[Describe your nation's army in as much detail as you can]]
Army Weakness :
Naval Description : [[Describe your nation's navy in as much detail as you can]]
Naval Weakness :
Further Military Description : [[OPTIONAL]]
National Goals :
National Issues : [[what needs to be fixed in order for your nation to achieve its true potential]]
National Figures of Interest : [[OPTIONAL]] [[Are there any Mother Teresas or Moses that we need to know about?]]
National Ambition/Aspirations : [[OPTIONAL]] [[Not really a set objective, but rather the big picture that your nation is drawing towards]]
History : In 407, Constantine III assembled whatever remained of the Roman garrison in Britain. His intent was to sail across the Channel, beat back the Goths and Alans crossing the Rhine, and return to Rome at the head of a conquering army. He failed utterly. His armies spent, his capital vanished and his family killed, Constantine was eventually assassinated and thereby removed from power. Those troops leaving Britain in 407 were the last time Roman troops would set foot on British soil, leaving what remained of the Romano-British population to fend for itself. Leadership, like in many other places in Europe, fell upon the Latin Church, which provided much of the government services the Romano-British were used to. Meanwhile, these Romano-British used the gold still left to buy the loyalty of various mercenary bands for their own protection, both from Saxons and Angles and from Pictish, Scottish and Irish tribes.
At first, these mercenaries were only there for protection, successfully defending the Romano-British settlements from raids. However, as time went on, the British coffers emptied, and more and more families came over from the Mainland, Pictland and Ireland to accompany their mercenary husbands. These families settled, shifting the demographics of the islands dramatically. When the money ran out, many of these mercenary groups, veteran soldiers and armed to the teeth, simply established their own petty kingdoms, recognizing the power of the Church but not the authority of the magistrates in Londinium. These people brought with them their own interpretations of Christianity, with the Saxons importing their Arian views on the Trinity, and the Celts taking their monastic orders. Especially these monastic orders proved vital for further development of Christianity, as they formed a parallel church to the Roman church. The abbots of these monasteries were often not ordained and lacked any formal theological training, but they were often closer to the communities they served. Apart from that, while bishops appointed from Rome controlled only their cathedrals, the monasteries controlled vast amounts of arable land.
What came about during the next few centuries was a uniquely British form of Christianity, in some ways very different from the Church in Rome. While the British Christians accepted the Chalcedonic and Nicaean creeds, and thus the more orthodox views of the trinity, their calculations of Easter, their monastic orders, their views on penitence and the self-banishment for Christ, remained intact. The Church in Rome, far more busy with Gaul and with Britain, as well as their ongoing conflict with the East, had very little sway in the matter, and continually made exceptions for the Church of Britain. Nominally, of course, they kept calling themselves Latin Christians, for they followed the Creeds, and they still paid their tithes to Rome.
In 793, the first Viking raid occurred at the monastery at Lindesfarne. This shook the British Isles, and especially England. England had by now settled, the various groups of Celts, Germans and Romano-British roughly coalescing into a single people, under various temporal rulers but unified by the rulership of their monasteries. This split temporal nature meant that the Vikings had an easier time looting and pillaging. Not only that, but in return for their use as mercenary forces, these Danes were gifted their own pieces of land in the lightly-populated north of England. Now, these raiders were traders as well, and their influx actually caused economic growth throughout the islands, growth that was then taken away again by other raiders.
The raiders and traders brought with them their own customs, and as they began to settle, their customs also began to influence British culture. Their idea that the Gods favour the worthy was especially influential, and began to have an impact on the theological interpretations preserved by the monasteries, which developed a line quite different from the line of the bishops. God grants victory to the most worthy, so defeat was a way by which God could impose judgement over the temporal world. Which view was deemed unsuitable by the bishops, but because the monasteries could actually field some protection for their faithful these objections were swept under the rug. Not only that, but these monasteries actually had a better time converting Norse raiders over from their Germanic faith, simply by allowing Germanic paganism to merge into the Christian faith. As long as these Germanics accepted Christ, they could largely keep to their way of life.
This was not a one-way street, however. Two important changes occurred within the British Christian church as well. First of all, while Roman and Canonical law forbade the practise, these monasteries began to allow for trial by combat, even in cases that related to the church. The practise had always existed in Britain, brought there by early Saxon and other Germanic immigrants, but it had been looked down upon. Now, it was officially sanctioned. The practise was highly Christianised, though, to be overseen by a priest who determined the winner. Virtues like temperance and mercy were sometimes more important than actually felling your enemy. Secondly, the British church began to accept their own saints. This was a way to account for pagan elder veneration, and various heroes of the Sagas were transplanted as pseudo-saints. Of course, in Catholicism, only the Pope had the power to beatify, so instead of calling these people saints, they were called ‘Heroes of the Cross’, combining Christian saints, Pagan heroes and various individuals important to Britain which were not important enough for the Church in Rome. When a legend arose of King Arthur and his Knights, they were all accepted into this paradigm, which combined Christian theology and Pagan martial prowess.
This process, lasting around a century and a half, paved the way for the exact opposite of what the bishops had hoped for: instead of the Pagans being subsumed into their own temporal kingdoms, the Danes began to conquer large swaths of English land. While the bishops were appalled, the monasteries found out that their new Danish rulers were actually a lot more friendly to them than their pure Christian temporal rulers, since those had been in league with the bishops. So, most monasteries remained neutral, while others actively supported the conquest of England by Danes. These Christianised Danes introduced an era of religious tolerance and peace that would last until the 1090s. Again, the Church in Rome was not in a position to object, and because these Danish rulers kept sending tithes to Rome, the Church would not object. The Church, always strapped for cash, would rather have gold than a religious rebellion on their hands. Over time, this new sect of Christianity would become more orthodox, though it would always retain its most compelling attributes.
1102 saw a paradigm shift. In a century, the various petty kingdoms of the Danes had changed. Their Danish rulers had begun to be subsumed in English culture, in the end becoming indistinguishable from their subjects in manners of speech and faith. However, they had never lost their martial prowess, and instead had introduced these concepts to their subjects. Anglo-Danish mercenaries were much sought after on the continent, fighting on various sides of various wars, bringing back with them loot of officially-sanctioned conquests. The days of pure raiding were over, but when sanctioned by war, all bets were off. Besides being mercenaries, the Anglo-Danes were also intrepid explorers and merchants, traveling the continent in search of commodities. Their ships, developed from Danish design but built from English oak, proved masterful for trade down rivers and past the various shores.
1102, however, saw the return of Harald-Lucas, Duke of Wales. Three Anglo-Danish kings had set sail for the Holy Land, being the Duke of York and the Duke of Middlesex. The Duke of Middlesex, an aged warrior, died on-route of disease, and the Duke of York died in battle against the Saracens. The Duke of Wales not only returned victorious, but he brought back the spoils and troops of his dead colleagues. Thankful for his service (and eager to get an ally on his side) the Pope crowned Harald-Lucas ‘King of Angelond’. As a way of bringing back Angelond into the fold, the Pope also granted Harald-Lucas the title of ‘temporal legate’, granting him the power to appoint bishops. In practise, the Anglo-Danes had been appointing their own bishops for 200 years, but this way it was sanctified by the Church. Upon returning to Wales, Harald-Lucas appointed the abbots of monasteries bishops, shifting spiritual power forever to these groups.
The holy army of Harald-Lucas, bearing before it the Christian cross, landed in Cornwall in 1103. From there, the veteran army, ranks filled with levies as well as mercenaries, started a conquest of the whole of Angelond. First the southern coast was secured, then London, then north up the coast his army marched, conquering city after city, and putting his enemies to the sword. By 1121, his armies had successfully unified Angelond, although Ireland and Scotland remained independent. Harald-Lucas built his administration from the ground up, appointing new dukes, jarls and barons wherever he saw fit to appoint them. He also declared a moment of ‘Time Immemorial, this being the 11th of March 1121. This was necessary to bring an end to all ancient laws and traditional bonds that complicated even the most simple legal disputes.
Instead, monasteries became centres of administrative authority. Abbots came to judge all legal disputes, often in reference to some story about Heroes of the Cross. These stories were collected in large volumes, completed under Harald-Lucas’ successor, and when the Codex Iustinianus, rediscovered in Italy, finally came to the Isles, these officially-sanctioned Stories of the Heroes became essential guides to understanding the rules of ancient Roman law. The monasteries became centres of legal and theological science, under the protection of the King and the Church, and some of these monasteries would later transform into universities.
This would maintain the status quo right until the 14th century. This era would be both incredibly peaceful and incredibly bloody, depending on your frame of reference. This era saw the least amount of infighting between nobles, whom the land divisions of Harald-Lucas had rendered quite powerless. No large wars were fought. However, because of this, a lot of war-hungry men set sail abroad, fighting instead in the wars of foreign emperors and kings. Meanwhile, while the nobles did not settle disputes in war, they did settle it in legal duel, a system that became pervasive. In the past, these duels had been quite dangerous, and were fought over large land disputes. However, the Middle Ages saw the rise of a special class of soldiers, namely Knights Champions, who made it their profession to fight duels for a modest fee. With the threat to life diminished, the nobles began legal duels not only over land, but also over dowry, marriage, matters of parentage. Husbands and wives had people fight it out over their divorces and over parental control of their children, and even the peasants got in on the action. It was not uncommon for a cattle market to end in the death of at least three people. Some monasteries began to question whether it was right for Christian men to kill, because the Commandments had expressly forbidden it.
Then, the Black Plague arrived. Now, the Black Plague was already hard enough as a disease, but for Britain, it was a theological nightmare. A country that had its religious foundations in the idea that victory and defeat were caused directly by divine intervention could not but be rocked by a plague, seen as a direct punishment from God himself. What followed as a complete collapse of centralised governance. The term ‘God-smitten’ came to the fore: the concept of a person being so heinous that God saw fit to ruin their lives. And everyone and their mother was called God-smitten, and the kings of Angelond lost all moral high ground. Instead of the religious unity spread by the monasteries, this was a time where radical ideas about Christianity were preached, most worthy of excommunication.
History is built on coincidence sometimes. It was no different here. Just as the plague was about to fizzle out, Augustin Lucasson, the exiled brother of the king, returned from banishment to Rome. Rome had largely been spared destruction by the plague, and there Augustin had spent his years being trained in matters of theology and science. When he returned to Angelond, everywhere he went the plague disappeared as by a miracle. Of course, the fact that he brought cart-loads of soap with him, and that he had learnt to quarantine the sick, helped a lot. However, as a stroke of genius, he made it look as if he personally was responsible, that he had somehow been chosen by God. Within weeks, the king would find himself assassinated on a latrine, and Augustin I Lucasson found his way to the now-vacant throne.
The reforms of Augustin were many. After the death of so many, he instituted major land reforms. Many wealthy peasants had gained some form of land ownership during the plague, but using the power of the Knights Champion he managed to have most of those contracts overturned. Instead, he gave large swaths of land to nobles, and whatever was left he donated to the monasteries. Under his guidance, the structure of law was changed, giving more primacy to Roman law than to local custom.
The 16th century saw rapid changes in Europe. The invention of the printing press gave credence to a great many ideas, not just those produced in the monasteries. For the first time, cities were setting up their own secular universities, which often clashed with the monastic universities. From abroad, various ideas came into Angelond, translated into the Anglish language and copied en-masse. Ideas of Luther and Calvin, but also more orthodox ideas from Rome and the Empire. The 16th century would be marked by religious schisms the violence of which would be worse than anything seen before. The plasticity of the British Christian faith had been replaced by a rigidity that matched any of the other sects. Where even Paganism could have been adopted in the early stages, now, even modestly different Christian sects were out of the question. The king was ordained by God, his victory a proof of divine intervention, and any act against the king was an affront to God. What followed was extreme persecution, and a special relationship with what would later become France: British Lutherans and Calvinists would flee to France, and French Catholics would flee to either the Empire or to Britain. This added a fear of espionage, and what followed was a time of unequalled repression.
During the Forty Years War, Britain made its decision. It chose to ally itself with the Pope in Rome. In the Treaty of Oxford, a Papal delegation finally accepted the differences between the Mother Church and the British Church as a matter of cultural difference (dicey as a matter of theology, but okay). The Pope would appoint bishops again, but those would be chosen from the abbots after discussion with the offices of the king. This would start a centuries-long feud with France that would eventually come to determine the entire British culture, political system and faith. In this time, the Lutheran kingdom of Scotland was finally subdued after centuries of conflict, and troops were sent across the Channel to fight in France, but after the victory at Pavia those were quickly withdrawn.
#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)
