(OOC: Enjoy the update, (sorry for no pics), and be sure to vote for this AAR in the Favorite CK 1/2 AAR category in round 3 of the AARland Choice Awards for 2012, as Avindian has done, over here.)
Chapter 16:
The North is Conquered
Excerpted from On This Rock: A History of the Papacy
by Snorri Akershus, ©2000 Bibilia Eccelesiatica Press.
Used with permission.
As the 1080s wore on, Pope John looked on in horror as year after year, the Caliph in Cairo, al-Mustanasir, continued his attempts to convert his new 'Sultanate of Sicily' to what John would later, in a declaration to Christendom call 'the false, demonic cult of Mahomet'. The entire ruling class of Robert d'Hauteville, [who in the meantime had been invited to the court of King Olaf of Norway and England, serving in the capacity of spymaster (although in fact, the list of spymasters of the Kings of Norway would not be published until the twentieth century), and even receiving the county of Herjalden a few months before his death at the biblical threescore-and-ten] was turned out in favor of a new group of Muslim
Jihadis who were rewarded with sheikdoms and even a few emirates in Italy. Castle Benevento would, however, remain under its baron John of Benevento, a papal vassal, in increasing fear of Muslim assault. But John looked north, to what the Holy Roman Emperors called 'the kingdom of Italy', south of the Alps, and found reassurance in crowning the new emperors, gaining their favors and hopefully, protection from attack.
But, in 1089, this shield shattered when the Caliph declared an invasion of Italy, making war on the Empire. At first, John made the aforementioned declaration, in which he stated his absolute faith in Christ who would protect the good Catholics of Northern Italy from the fury of 'the Saracen', and indeed all Christendom was buoyed up with faith when the news of the Caliph's death in battle against the Kaiser's armies. But the war continued under the energetic new Caliph Nuraddin, who had formerly been Emir of Axum. In 1091 John's faith in God and the Kaiser (in that order) seemed to be a bitter illusion when the Emperor surrendered Italy to the Caliphate of Egypt. This time there was no coronation for Nuraddin, and in most cases the Christian lords, mayors, and doges were allowed to keep their positions, provided they swore allegiance to the Caliph. Faced with the scimitar of the self-proclaimed 'Jihadi of Jihadis', they all did so. This reverse finally shattered John's metaphorical blindness to the sorry state of the Faith in Italy, and so the long-expected proclamation finally came out of St. Peter's:
Crusade.
Excerpted from Son of the Raven,
by Gudrod Einarsson. ©2012 the author.
Used with permission.
1091. Although a few months had passed since the royal New Year's celebration, Olaf still found it difficult to comprehend the entrance of a new decade. Hadn't the 1080s just begun? It wasn't as if the decade passed was uneventful, oh no. There had been a holy war that had incorporated Jamtland, formerly a county belonging to the heathen dukes of that same name, into the realm and hopefully, soon, into the Holy Church. There had been a rebellion by Godwin Haroldson, who had inherited the Duchy of Bedford from his father, but that had been crushed quickly. Then, approaching the end of the decade, Olaf had noticed Duke Teitur of Iceland, who had inherited Iceland from his father Isleifur some years previously, was consistently flip-flopping between support for himself as the next king of Norway, and support for Olaf's obvious candidate, yound Harald, Count of Oppland, his eldest son and heir who only had a few years to go before he came of age and married King Duncan of Scotland's sister Margaret, as had been arranged at Harald's birth.
Setting aside the annoyance of constantly receiving messages from Teitur concerning his candidate for the Norse succession, this flip-flopping illustrated the inherent weakness the Norse crown's succession law imposed on the Crown. If the dukes of Norway could just put themselves forward for King, what was the royal authority worth? Indeed, Olaf now conjectured that his father had a plan to end this weakness on his dynasty's part after the conquest of England, unfortunately, of course, this plan never came into action due to Harald's comatose state following his injury at the Battle of York and subsequent death. Olaf, though, in 1087 announced that beginning with his death (hopefully far in the future), there would be no council of the lords to determine the next king. Instead, from henceforth, on each king's death, the eldest member of the Yngling clan would inherit all of his lands in the Kingdom of Norway. Although this could cause the crown to alternate between various branches, for now (due to Magnus's 'death' that Olaf claimed) Harald Olafsson was the most senior Yngling after his father, and would inherit everything. Olaf hoped that Harald would be able to implement the primogeniture model, in which the eldest son (or, as in some countries the eldest daughter if there were no sons) inherited everything, as in England.
As he looked out the window of Nidaros Castle, Olaf thought of his father. He imagined Harald would see through all of Olaf's self-deception that he was worthy of his father. Surely, Harald could have conquered England without his help, Gwynedd and Deheubarth and Jamtland even more certainly so. If Harald was not incapacitated, if York fell before the arrival of Harold's army back in 1066, if the Norsemen and Englishmen had clashed somewhere else, would they still have won? Olaf considered these might-have-beens as silence continued its reign over the North Sea. Suddenly, he was woken from his contemplative state by an envoy bearing the arms of the Papacy. He said, "Great King, I bear word from the Holy Father in Rome. He calls for a great Crusade of all good Christians to cast the infidel out of Italy and thus save it from the eternal darkness of Mahomet. He also says that all who particpate will be absolved of all their sins and those who die will be great martyrs. I have come to ask for your help in this great, noble, and pious endavor. What do you say? Will you save your Christian brothers and in doing so your soul as well?"
Olaf took only a moment to answer. "Yes, indeed I shall. I will march for God, for Christ, and for salvation!"
His father would have been proud.