The House of Umayya

Let's start with the short version of the story:

The Banu Umayya is very, very old. Their family goes back to Umayya ibn Abd-Shams, great-grandfather of Mu'awiya I, the fifth true Caliph of Islam. Under the rule of the Banu Umayya, Islam went from being the dominant religion of Arabia to being the dominant religion of the entire Western world. Constantinople, which had reconquered the entirety of the former Roman Empire, lost all but Anatolia, and their end in 1476 began eight centuries earlier under Yazid I. The march of Islam was only halted by treachery most foul - and before the dust had settled, the last survivors of the Banu Umayya fled to the western most reaches of their former empire, and built it again, better than the first time. Under their rule, al-Andalus displaced even great Damascus as the jewel of civilization: in 1000, Qurtuba was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, bar none.

It didn't last forever, of course; treachery most foul, once again, and when the Berber fitna was finally over and al-Andalus was reconsolidated, it was under the Abbadids in Seville. The Abbadids gave way to a short period of Berber interlopers, who gave way to the Abbadids, who eventually gave way to the Five Families. But it's a testimony to the Banu Umayya that the civilization they began in that backwater peninsula was never overshadowed by the rest of the Umma.

And when the Five Families had been broken, and the bitch had been beaten, the Umayyads rose from the ashes and restored themselves. And when (not for the first time) they were laid low by treachery most foul, the survivors (again, not for the first time) fled to the westernmost reaches of their former empire, and built it again, better than before.

That's the short version of the story. It's not entirely true, but it's true enough. And even if some of it is lies, and some of it can't be called either way, that doesn't make it any less impressive. Going into that part, though, does make it a bit more complex.

Umayyad Seville

When I started writing "nations," I originally focused on writing nations that are still alive as of the present day; it's only been in the last month or so that I started writing important dead states. Only tonight has it really struck me that I've been having world ADD, writing about other countries first. I said it right up front, in Andalusada's very first post:

[I]t is the story of how, by doing this, they accidentally created one of the most impressive nations the world will ever see. (Even if most of the local cretins still believe sacred monarchy is a good idea.)

This is going to be a long story. Let's take it from the top.

I'm not taking it from the top, obviously. I'm working in spirals and constellations - a bit from the beginning, a bit from the end, the dots that connected inward - because I know less about how that story goes than where it begins and where it ends. But as of when the story ends, Moorish civilization survives first and foremost in the Umayyad Caliphate in New Andalusia.

This is about what came before. This is about what the UCNA wants to claim itself as the continuation of, and what Mahdists the world around want to restore. This is about what came before there was a Moorish diaspora; the greatest moment that Moorish civilization had ever known.

Umayyad Seville 101

Every nation gets a 101 section, and traditionally that starts with the simple question: why? For most nations, this is about what made me interpret the nation this way rather than another. For dead states, though, why? asks something different: why it's important to write about this. In Umayyad Seville's case, it's because it was the pinnacle of Moorish civilization in the Old World - a civilization that's now as fallen as Constantinople, and will never be restored to quite its former glory.

• Who? The only new people in Umayyad Seville were the members of the House of Umayya (who reshuffled the pecking order of the Five Families.)
• What? The most centralized state the Moorish Empire ever managed to achieve; and it was trying to be more centralized, even up to the very end.
• Where? Most of Iberia, the northernmost fixed point being Toledo (beyond which lay ash-Shamal), extending south to the Straits of Gibraltar and crossing it southwest into the Maghrib (at the very least most of Morocco and some of Libya.) From there, stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to include varying swathes of the Caribbean, a fair chunk of the Andes, and most of what we'd call Mexico - and, from 1750 onwards, most of France-Outremer as well. All of it, of course, centered on the eternal metropolis of Seville.
• When? Umayyad Seville only lasted for about a century: 1688 (when Umayya al-Mujadid deposed the Miramoline) to, traditionally, 1786, its final year of stability under Hisham V. When exactly it ended remains hotly disputed, but it's definitely dead by the time the Yusufids secure their succession in the UCNA.

Güntherite Pomerania

Truth be told, I'm not sure what it was actually called. It was never a kingdom, I think, although maybe a swathe of it was a Grand Duchy? I dunno. What I do know, very clearly, is that it was a religious region. Just as much as there was Moorish Spain, there was Güntherite Pomerania, and this was where it started.

Güntherite Pomerania 101

Why Güntherite Pomerania? Because it's so very different from IRL. [More to come.]

• Who? Germans, Pruthenians, Poles, Sorbs, Livonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians - basically it was one big Baltic littoral melting pot, although the first three ethnicities of that list were definitely the most pronounced ones.
• What? An unstoppable military juggernaut.
• Where? For the most part, Güntherite Pomerania encompassed the Teutonic Ordensstaat. (Some of the easternmost parts were actually vassals of the Kingdom of Poland, at that point not yet part of the Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth.)
• When? 1520s-1760s. Depending on how you're counting, Güntherite Pomerania was established either shortly after or shortly before the end of the Güntherite Wars. (The region wasn't recognized as a state in its own until shortly after, but it was thoroughly converted to the Holy Church before the wars were over.) Once it was established, it lasted two centuries, before it was finally partitioned and wiped off the map during the Pomeranian Reductions.

So let's move on a bit.

Introducing Evgeny I of Russia

The first tsar of Russia I named definitely was also the last: Evgeny IV, popularly called "the Old." All I knew about him was what I'd retained after filing off the serial numbers of the last several Romanovs - and that he was, obviously, the fourth Evgeny of Russia.

It therefore follows that there had to be an Evgeny I as well. And, since I'd already established "the Two Evgenies" as a period in Russian historiography way back in May, it stood to reason that Evgeny I should be a notable tsar as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the (very WIP) introduction of the first Evgeny.

The Eugenian calendar

The problem with the Julian calendar was recognized from the very beginning, well before Andalusada's POD:

While Hipparchus and presumably Sosigenes were aware of the discrepancy, although not of its correct value, it was evidently felt to be of little importance at the time of the Julian reform. However, it accumulated significantly over time: the Julian calendar gained a day about every 134 years.

Why is this remotely relevant? Because calendrical reform affects everything. The decisive rupture between Russia and the rest of the Orthodox world starts with a calendrical reform, and the Vechist Wars were directly tied into the politics of the liturgical year. (It's still being fought over as of the present day.)

Dystopian Catholic France

Andalusada's France has had a different sets of ups and downs. It missed out on the revolutions, for one thing; as of the present day, under the House of Burgundy, it's a semi-constitutional monarchy struggling to recover from the Great War. The Hundred Years' War is called something different, and I know that it played out differently because I have some ideas for how the Black Death affects the British Isles. But you wouldn't know about that, because I haven't written about that stuff at all.

I write what I know, and at the moment this is primarily the early modern era. And since I like pithy names (mind you Hispano-Baltic Texas), and try to write about Andalusada the same way I talk about it, I'm gonna introduce early modern France by its working name. In French historiography, everything related to the period is tagged with the adjective très-chrétien; in the rest of Andalusada, early modern France is "the Most Christian Kingdom." But within this blog, it's what I've called it for at least a year: Dystopian Catholic France.

Messieurs, mesdames, it's time to stare into the abyss. Don't let it stare back into you.

Dystopian Catholic France 101

Alt-history writers have a bad rap for making history more awful. At its most ambitious we have Bruce Sterling's Draka series, and Harry Turtledove's TL-191 involving a surviving CSA, and any number of Nazi-victory timelines. One of my goals with Andalusada was to, as a general rule, make the world less awful - it's why the first thing I wrote about Great Russia's economy was two words long: "Not Stalinism."

Dystopian Catholic France makes the first question of the national 101 take on a new meaning: why? Why did I give one of the world powers over to a family that rips people's tongues out of their heads?

• Who? The House of Guise.
• What? IRL French royal absolutism, coupled with a Catholic hierarchy as independent as powerful as IRL Spain's. Coupled with a devoutly Catholic royal family that fears and hates the Farrellites for the harm they caused.
• Where? Most of what we'd call "France," but with some exceptions. Dystopian Catholic France, much like its successor, controls at the very least most of what we'd consider Belgium; the French empire-building that took place during the Hanseatic Wars lasted pretty well until the succession collapsed, so at various points it's controlled smatterings of the moribund Holy Roman Empire and enough coastline to threaten Denmark-Sweden.
• When? France makes the turn toward dystopia while the Wars of Religion are underway. It mellows out a bit, but never backs away from the institutional dystopianism until after the House of Guise is well and thoroughly displaced. So maybe ~1625 to ~1825, give or take a few years either way.

I didn't answer why? at the top, because it would've taken too long. And the truth is: I still don't have a satisfying explanation. All I have is a true one.

The rise and fall of the Ryal Kirk

IRL, the medieval Church in Scotland was corrupt. And by corrupt I mean "corrupt by the standards of medieval Catholicism." Come the 16th century Scotland swept away almost every trace of it converting to Presbyterianism, and there were compelling reasons why.

This poses a problem for me, because in Andalusada England doesn't break with Rome. And before the Great Realignment gets underway, before the Imperial Union of England-Scotland, there is Scotland-Norway - and Norway, in Andalusada as per IRL, does break with Rome and become Güntherite.

I know enough about Stuart England to know that the marriage of Reformed Scotland and Anglican England was volatile already, and they were both Protestant. A marriage of Catholic Scotland and Güntherite Norway during the *Reformation period itself is unimaginable - but the Imperial Union is foreordained. And given how recent and contingent ecumenism has been IRL, would the union of *Protestant Scotland and Catholic England really be any more plausible, or functional, than that of Catholic Scotland and Güntherite Norway? I don't think so.

Last night, I found a solution, which I'm going to derp out here. You heard it first, Engel.

The Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth

I've mentioned it casually in the past. I've derped about it before. But since I've never actually said it yet, I may as well say it now: Poland exists.

It's a simple thing to say, because we're used to Poland existing - but for a long time IRL it didn't. Andalusada changes that; Poland survived the early-modern era, and has continued its existence uninterrupted to the present day. And even more importantly than that, it survived without significantly changing from the awesomeness of its IRL early-modern form.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth. Social science doesn't get much more steampunk than this, people.

Poland-Ruthenia 101

The big question for Poland-Ruthenia is "Why?" The answer to that is simple: Rule of Cool. Every allohistorian has their own pet nations, the lost causes and might-have-beens - and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is one of mine.

So with that rationale out of the way, let me summarize Poland-Ruthenia in a nutshell:

• Who: Poles and "Ruthenians," however so defined. (The definitions are pretty vague.)
• What: The most steampunk monarchy
• When: Not exactly sure when it starts off, or even if it has claims to Lithuania; but in the form of Poland-Ruthenia it definitely lasts to the present day.
• Where: Most of IRL Poland (possibly incorporating IRL's Ducal Prussia, possibly not), less a swathe of the Pomerelian region which has been Germanic since the Teutonic Ordensstaat and broke away during the Burning Thirties. "Ruthenia" is a bit harder to define, but it includes at least the Eastern Borderlands and Galicia, and probably some other assorted bits and pieces of what we'd call Belarus, Lithuania, and the northwest Ukraine.

The Blackfriars Bible

"One small but important problem," I derped last month, "is that no recognizable brand exists in Andalusada." I retract that statement; this is a big problem. And it's not just guns that are affected: it's everything that I love - food, liquor, philosophy. Even Bibles.

Obviously there's going to be the Günther Bible, and both Oliver Farrell's Vulgate and his translation from the Opus Transtulit. But those aren't the only ones, and the simple fact is that even if Catholicism keeps Latin as its liturgical language and does its utmost to dissuade the vernacular, the vernacular is established by the time they face competition. It's not going to go away; the most that Rome can do is have a say in its relationship to the vernacular Word.

This is particularly problematic to me because, as far as I can tell, Anglicanism doesn't exist: there's no reason to imagine that the British Isles don't stay devoutly Catholic (albeit undergoing some reforms to purge what its elites consider the worst excesses of Mariolatry and the like.) I'm not sure what the successions of kings, English or Scottish, look like - all I know is that even if there is a King James of England and Scotland (and there will be an England-Scotland, mark my words), he is NOT the same King James that gave us the 1611 Authorized Version.

So today I'm going to introduce the KJV's equivalent: the Blackfriars Bible.

The catalyst of the Hanseatic Wars

When Günther published the first modern translation of the Bible, he was translating it because that was the language of the urban Pomeranian elite he needed to appeal to. He was translating it because it was his native language. He was also translating it into Low German because it was the language of his beloved hometown, Rostock.

And Rostock, it should be noted, was a Reichsfrei city. Low German was also the language of the Hansa, a medieval attempt at a megacorporation.

Ship by ship, shipping by shipping, printing by printing, the Günther Bible spread across the Hanseatic city-states. It didn't spread too far outside of them, because it didn't cross the language barrier very well, and the Saxon High German Bible existed to stop its spread.

And while the Holy Roman Empire was still recovering from the spanking it had been dealt during the Güntherite Wars, it had more pressing things to do than press the matter.

A generation or so later, however, there would be a new Holy Roman Empire, one who had never known the humiliation of defeat at Güntherite hands. Only the humiliation of his predecessor, and a need to avenge that humiliation.

The moment he was elected, the Hanseatic Wars became inevitable.

The Miramoline

The has the name Wendy, which went from being an American-only outlier (on par with inflicting your child with a variant spelling of a name) to an internationally recognized one because of some Scotsman writing some book. (The Slavic world has an equivalent in the form of Svetlana.)

Andalusada almost certainly doesn't have Wendy, and it probably doesn't have Svetlana either. But it does have a female name of its own. That name, in the original French spelling, is Miramoline. Within a century the interconsonantal /a/ had been lost, giving rise to Mirmeauline, and (in English) the same thing, with various renderings of the vowels and duplicate letters: Mermelline, Myrmeline, etc. The name caught on.

This entry is about person who made it stick. The first woman to ever sign her name as la Miramoline.

The French Wars of Religion

Timeframe: Early 1600s [when?]
Belligerents: Three major factions: the Guisards, the "Legitimists," and the Unitas Fidelium.
Outcome: The passage of the French throne to the Guisard faction.

THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION

It is a dark time for the Kingdom of France. The throne in Paris sits empty, as the armies of three pretenders endlessly battle against each other for the destiny of France. The winner of this struggle will choose the fate of France. Will that fate be Catholic, Farrellite, or Iberian?

Well, I've talked about this before. I've written about it, before (and since.) It occurs to me (after this newest edit, to get rid of the Star Wars joke) that I should probably write about it. And with that said, here's the writing.

A recurring complaint throughout history

Excerpted from Güntheritism: A Very Poor Introduction:

"The Revel Catechism was the first work widely published in the Livonian language. The Balts were among the last peoples of Europe to embrace the Christian faith, a task that the Knights of the Order had never thought to undertake themselves. This was brought to the Master's attention after he was settled in Riga; claims of the "Livonian Trinity" of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin and St. George the Dragonslayer remain hotly contentious to the present day, although it has been immortalized in Baltic profanity...

Russian Old Calendarism

One thing I hate, with a burning passion, is peripheral convergence: the idea that uninteresting parts of the world evolve the same way because you're too lazy to do the research, and think that nobody will notice. For whatever reason, this is particularly inescapable with Russia, which always evolves the same way.

It's also pretty much foreordained with Eastern Christianity too. I've seen a fair number of "How can we cause an Eastern Christian Reformation?" threads on AH.com, and I get the reason behind that: it's trying to break that convergence. Almost all of the attempts I've seen have entailed a different playout of the Raskol.

In Andalusada, alas, the Raskol is nearly 600 years after the POD. There's every reason to think that none of the players exist. There's also every reason to want something equally cool to happen, what with Rule of Cool being one of the design parameters after all.

And I have an idea.

Introducing Saint Sakura

A classic trope of yuri manga is that (Japan being blissfully ignorant of the ways of Christendom) our lesbian couple usually meets at a Catholic girls' school. This school is traditionally named after Saint Engrish, something feminine-sounding that's not actually from any Indo-European language.

Never is it a Japanese name.

I'm going to stand that on its head. Meet Saint Sakura.