Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

[cahn]

I'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)

Comments

Re: Pope Gregory vs Henry IV: the Byzantine version

[mildred_of_midgard]

And this is Anna explaining how Robert's rise was aided by a certain Pope and barbarian Emperor simultanously duking it out:

But note, cahn, that she doesn't refer to him as barbarian emperor, but as "King of Germany". This is like Fritz referring to MT as "Queen of Hungary": it means she doesn't recognize Henry's title of emperor. The Byzantines didn't recognize any Roman emperors other than their own, because, as selenak explained, they saw themselves as the continuation of the Roman empire. Which, in their view, had never fallen, only shrunk and moved its capital. As Anna herself explains in the very end, where she also doesn't acknowledge the papal claims to supremacy:

nay, of one who claimed to be the president of the whole world, as indeed the Latins assert and believe, but this, too, is a bit of their boasting. For when the imperial seat was transferred from Rome hither to our native Queen of Cities, and the senate, and the whole administration, there was also transferred the arch-hieratical primacy.

The refusal of the Byzantines to acknowledge the Germans as emperors was a big deal in foreign policy and definitely hampered the Crusades.

Re: Pope Gregory vs Henry IV: the Byzantine version

[selenak]

The refusal of the Byzantines to acknowledge the Germans as emperors was a big deal in foreign policy and definitely hampered the Crusades.

This is also why when Otto (I) wanted a Byzantine princess for his son, as in, an Emperor's daughter, Nikephoros Phokas was all "NO WAY, German" and John Tsimitskes (his nephew, who murdered and replaced him and then scapegoated Theophano the older, with whom he may or may not have had an affair, but whom definitely took the fall for him) a few years later was more diplomatic and did send a bride, but Theophanu the younger was his niece, not his daughter, plus hadn't been born in the purple at all, what with both Nikephoros and John being military ursurpers.